New report says vast proportion of refugees experience cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment at all stages of their journey
Policies of deterrence aimed at refugees, migrants and asylum seekers are exacerbating the suffering of vulnerable and often exhausted and traumatised people, REDRESS said in a report released last week.
The report - Mass Refugee Influxes, Refoulement and the Prohibition Against Torture - says a vast proportion of refugees and other migrants experience cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, at times amounting to torture, at all stages of their journey.
While the vast majority of refugees seek refuge in neighbouring countries, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, a significant and growing number of others have embarked on dangerous and complex journeys to reach Europe, North America and Australia.
Yet, REDRESS says, a "combination of abdication of responsibility and a positive attempt to make reception conditions difficult so as to discourage further movements of people accounts for and exacerbates much of the harm suffered."
The report continues: "Even though the main challenge facing those in protection is the absence of channels for safe and legal access to protection, receiving States have addressed the crisis by increasing border surveillance and reinforcing migration controls, rather than by providing a comprehensive humanitarian response. For the most part, receiving states have responded to the increase in the number of asylum applicants, and migrants more broadly, not with compassion and respect for individuals' dignity and humanity, but by pursuing technocratic policies of deterrence.
"The measures taken include visa restrictions and carrier sanctions; pushing back people trying to enter the territory by land or by sea by building perimeter fences and shutting border crossings; financing third states to detain individuals in transit countries and to patrol their borders so that they cannot continue their journeys. All these measures are aimed at preventing refugees and other migrants from reaching their destination: controlling or managing migration flows (managing numbers) or maintaining internal security (managing safety and security threats), instead of focusing on the rights of individuals and corresponding obligations of states under national and international law."
REDRESS says the current United Nations General Assembly summit, which started on Monday, presents a crucial opportunity to address one of the world's worst humanitarian crises and to confront a "virtually broken system of refugee protection".
The report "calls on Summit Leaders, states and relevant international and regional organisations, to be bold and to be brave and to demonstrate the collective leadership and humanity that is clearly required to address this crisis. The status quo is not working. Policies, laws and practices must be revised at all levels to strengthen all individuals' rights not to be tortured."
Chapter 4 of the report includes a section on the determination of refugee claims and says that "policies of deterrence tend to infect claims determination procedures."
The report states: "Restrictive claims processing procedures are often aimed at expediting status determination and removal. 'Fast track' procedures can reduce procedural fairness for applicants and increase prospects for detention despite vulnerability, which in turn increases the likelihood of torture and ill-treatment, and will make worse the trauma and suffering of those who have escaped intense violence. Truncated procedures also limit the possibility for the asylum seeker to put forward their own narrative of why they have a genuine fear of persecution and to present the relevant evidence to substantiate their claims … [U]nclear legislative frameworks, arbitrary decision-making, as well as limited access to the necessary information and legal assistance to pursue their claims are at the heart of procedures that frequently result in the rejection of applications."
The report comes as BBC News reported today that construction work has begun on a UK-funded wall near the so-called Jungle migrant camp in Calais.
The wall is the latest attempt to deter the now 10,000 refugees, asylum seekers and migrants living in the Jungle from attempting to make the journey across the Channel to Britain.
TIME magazine notes that the French government also intends to demolish the entire camp soon and disburse the refugees to small centres across France, but aid groups in Calais warn the strategy is doomed.
One aid worker told TIME: "People will come back, and the police will need to chase them day after day … People won't stay in government centres. They are determined to go to the U.K."
In its report, REDRESS argues that "[i]t cannot be OK to leave the most vulnerable victims of unimaginable atrocities in urban 'jungles' in Calais … It cannot be OK for children to grow up in deplorable conditions in camps, without opportunities for a future. It is time to reset the moral compass."