Knocking on closed doors: Refugees in ASEAN

Shaffira D. Gayatri and Alldo Fellix Januardy

Sticking together: A Somalian refugee and her children walk in front of the West Jakarta Immigration Detention House. (JP/ Rifky Dewandaru)

“A strong commitment to regional peace and security” was at the core of the Sydney Declaration, issued at the first-ever ASEAN-Australia Special Summit (March 16 to 18), which Australia hosted for the first time as a dialogue partner. The summit, which focused on economic cooperation and cybersecurity, signals Australia’s intention to establish stronger ties with ASEAN countries.

On the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine state, Myanmar, Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull stated,

“Our goal is to support the peaceful and speedy resolution of the humanitarian [...] disaster that has resulted from the conflict.”

Unfortunately, forced displacement remains a largely unaddressed issue in the region.

The situation of refugees and asylum seekers in ASEAN is greatly affected by the asylum policies of Western countries, particularly Australia. According to the European Commission, over 174,000 asylum seekers and refugees currently live in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

All three countries are not signatories to the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees. The countries that are parties to the convention (Cambodia, the Philippines, and Timor Leste) hold considerably fewer and, in the case of Timor Leste, zero persons of concern.

Indonesia itself has seen an increase in the number of refugees and asylum seekers in the last few years. According to the Overseas Development Institute, Australia’s domestic refugee policy directly contributes to the rising number of refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia.

Australia had also announced it would resettle no refugee registered in Indonesia after July 2014 and reduced the quota to 450 refugees in 2015-2016.

Australia’s efforts to prevent refugees and asylum seekers from reaching its shores go beyond intercepting those traveling by boat. A study by the Australia Refugee Council’s Asher Hirsch finds that Australia’s extraterritorial non-entrée policies include cooperating with neighboring countries and international organizations such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to “deter, detain, and deport” potential asylum seekers before they reach Australia’s borders. Through the IOM, Australia indirectly funds the development of immigration detention centers and other detention facilities in Indonesia.

Despite a presidential regulation signed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2016 acknowledging and stipulating humanitarian treatment for refugees, the implementation is inconsistent. Arbitrary detention of refugees occurs often, including of those who hold refugee identity cards from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

More than 4,000 asylum seekers and refugees, including children, are detained in these detention centers — some voluntarily, others by force.

Indonesia appears unprepared to handle a long-term refugee crisis within its territory and in Southeast Asia, and its legal framework reflects its perspective that it is merely a temporary transit country for refugees. However, with the current policy directions of major recipient countries such as the United States and Australia, which have effectively shut their borders to refugees from the region, resettlement is increasingly unlikely.

The UNHCR has begun informing refugees in Indonesia that they should start learning the language, volunteering or seeking education in local schools as the waiting time could take 10 to 15 years, or more. In 2016, UNHCR data showed that only less than one percent of refugees in the world were resettled.

Meanwhile, Indonesia is poorly equipped to fulfill their basic human rights. The lack of resources at the local level in responding to the presidential decree also leads to poor conditions of shelters and immigration detention centers. While it mandates that every refugee must be placed in a proper shelter with access to food, clothing, clean water and health care provided by the government, this has not been adequately implemented. A refugee in Balikpapan’s detention center in East Kalimantan stated the situation in the center was dire, with no right to leave and insufficient provisions of drinking water and bread.

Further, officials often have an insufficient understanding of international laws on refugee protection. Many immigration officers still consider refugees as “illegal migrants”. An immigration official was quoted as stating that if no country accepted stranded refugees, they would be deported to their home countries — a violation of the non-refoulement principle.

Immigration technical regulations relating to refugees still stipulate that refugees should be first placed in detention before being transferred to a shelter. In Jakarta, the situation is worsening with dozens of refugees stranded and sleeping on the streets in front of West Jakarta’s Kalideres detention center, pleading with authorities over shelter, as they have not been able to afford buying food.

Yet, detention centers and shelters are overloaded, causing refugees to be detained indefinitely. Such complicated situations have led refugees to organize a mass protest in immigration centers in Makassar, South Sulawesi and Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, in the last two months, in protest of the Indonesian government’s and international community’s failure to ensure their basic rights and secure their resettlement process.

So far their protests have been fruitless. A UNHCR official told refugees to stop their protests, otherwise it would affect their resettlement procedure. The situation is so devastating that a refugee in Medan’s detention center committed suicide early this month, and other suicide attempts are rising in the community.

Now is an essential time for Indonesia to consider other scenarios in handling the refugee crisis, from temporary approaches to more durable solutions. It is time to change our perspective from charity-based solutions into more pragmatic ones by realizing that there are benefits that refugees can bring to ASEAN countries.

ASEAN should improve its legal framework to provide refugees with more access to basic rights, especially the right to education and work so that they can live their life normally under uncertain situations relating to resettlement. ASEAN governments should realize that refugees may live in their countries for a lengthy period of time and thus should not treat them as a burden, but rather as potential human capital that could bring positive contributions to society, if provided the chance.

Indonesia as ASEAN’s largest country could lead the transformation of refugee protection in the region. Having ratified a number of major international human rights covenants, Indonesia should prove to the world that it universally upholds the basic rights of every human being, including refugees seeking protection in the country.

Indonesia has been very vocal on pressing issues in the Muslim world, such as human rights violations in Palestine and persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, yet a large number of Muslim refugees in Indonesia still live in terrible conditions.

Stronger negotiations by ASEAN countries with Australia must provide durable solutions, such as lifting the ban on refugees from Indonesia and increasing Australia’s refugee intake. Otherwise, ASEAN will only bear the burden themselves and Australia will keep forcing refugees in Southeast Asia to live in limbo.

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Shaffira D. Gayatri is an individual member of Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APPRN) and a development professional & former researcher specializing in conflict transformation, gender equality and social inclusion, refugee empowerment, and community development. Mr. Alldo Fellix Januardy is an independent public interest lawyer at the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) in Jakarta.

This article was originally published on The Jakarta Post on March 29, 2018. Read the original article here.