Asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia: Problems and potentials

Asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia increasingly experience protracted waiting times for permanent settlement in other countries. They have few, if any, legal rights, coupled with extremely limited financial resources and no access to government provided services. In response to the prospect of living for many years in this difficult and liminal space, a small community of refugees in the West Java town of Cisarua has built relationships, skills and confidence among themselves and with host Indonesians to respond to identified needs. This paper outlines the main political and policy frameworks affecting the lives of refugees in Indonesia and then draws on research interviews and participant observation to illustrate the resilience and agency utilised by the community to mitigate uncertain futures. The major focus is on education for asylum seeker/refugee children.  

Ending Rape in War: How Far Have We Come?

The rape of women has for centuries been an endemic feature of war, yet perpetrators largely go unpunished. Women were sanctioned as the spoils of war in biblical times and more recently it has been claimed that it is more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in modern conflict. Nevertheless, until the establishment of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia – there was very little concern regarding the need to address the rape of women in conflict.This paper briefly maps historical attitudes towards rape in war, outlines some analyses and explanations of why rape in war occurs and finally turns more substantively to recent efforts by the international community to prosecute rape as a war crime and a crime against humanity. We argue, that while commendable in some ways, contemporary approaches to rape in war risk reinforcing aspects of women’s status which contribute to the targeting of women for rape and continue to displace women from the centre to the margins in debates and practices surrounding rape in both war and peace time.  We conclude by arguing that criminal prosecutions alone are insufficient and that, if we are to end the rape of women and girls in war (and peace) we need a radical restructuring of gender relations across every sphere of social and political life

'Marriage of convenience' or a 'match made in heaven': lawyers and social workers working with asylum seekers

Asylum seekers face many hurdles during the process of refugee status determination, particularly if they have experienced some form of trauma. By preparing cases as a team, lawyers and social workers can reduce the stress for asylum seekers while at the same time improve the quality of information made available to decision makers within the refugee determination process. This article presents a model which utilises the knowledge and skills that lawyers and social workers are able to bring to working with asylum seekers and assists asylum seekers to present a comprehensive case with a focus both on supporting their credibility and maximizing their ability to actively engage in the process

Making Justice Work for Women: Summary of Democratic Republic of Congo Country Report

This report provides a summary of the Democratic Republic of Congo country report in the series, "Making Transitional Justice Work for Women: Rights, Resilience and Responses to Violence Against Women in Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda and Kenya". It outlines the full report's investigation of the efficacy of transitional justice efforts for women in conflict and post-conflict contexts in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; in doing so, it identifies women's priorities for justice, their experiences when seeking justice, obstacles in justice processes, and recommendations for more effective policy responses.Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad

Making Justice Work for Women: Democratic Republic of Congo Country Report

This report is one of three country reports in the series, "Making Transitional Justice Work for Women: Rights, Resilience and Responses to Violence Against Women in Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda and Kenya". It investigates the efficacy of transitional justice efforts for women in conflict and post-conflict contexts in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; in doing so, it identifies women's priorities for justice, their experiences when seeking justice, obstacles encountered in justice processes, and recommendations for more effective policy responses.Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad

Bodies 'locked up': intersections of disability and race in Australian immigration

Between 2005 and 2006 it came to be known that over 200 people had been wrongfully detained in Australian immigration detention centres, of whom 13 were people with a disability. A review of the subsequent Commonwealth Ombudsman Reports into the wrongful detentions exposed an organizational culture in which othered voices were discredited and disregarded, an over-willingness to detain a person and a lack of proper oversight of these powers. This paper explores these reports and argues that proper investigation needs to go beyond organizational culture and to look also at historical, social, political and cultural forces shaping Australia's use of immigration detention. The authors propose that the intersection of disability and race leaves people vulnerable to human rights violations primarily because this is also the intersection of both racial and rational prejudices of the dominant hegemony. © 2009 Taylor & Francis

Regulation 5.35: Coerced treatment of detained asylum seekers on hunger strike: Legal, ethical and human rights implications

In September 1992 three Cambodian asylum seekers launched a hunger strike refusing all food and taking only small quantities of water. They were detained in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) in Sydney, Australia. All three were hospitalized for dehydration and after two weeks on the hunger strike were ‘thought to be in grave danger of death’.2 The then Australian Minister for Immigration sought orders in the Supreme Court of New South Wales to permit the administration of lifesaving medical treatment to two of the women without their consent. The court issued an interim order permitting the government ‘to feed or to administer nourishment to the defendants against their will in order to prevent their death or serious bodily damage and for that purpose to use such force as is reasonably necessary.’3 Prior to the full hearing of the case the Australian government passed a law giving the Secretary of the Department of Immigration power to authorize medical treatment to be given to a person in immigration detention without their consent. This law is contained in regulation 5.35 of the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth). The regulation authorizes the use of ‘reasonable force’ to administer medical treatment including the reasonable use of restraint and sedatives. This power has been used in respect of detained asylum seekers on hunger strike, most notably for rehydration and naso-gastric feeding

Collateral Damage: The impact of Australian asylum seeker policy on Christmas Islanders (2001-2011)

Since the Tampa incident in 2001, Christmas Island has been a central site where Australia’s border protection and asylum seeker policies are visible This article takes four key events over a ten year period to track the impact on Christmas Islanders and on the Islanders’ changing attitudes towards asylum seekers, detention and federal government policies. The views of Christmas Islanders are not often heard in public discourse about detention on the island. This article seeks to provide a platform for a snapshot of views and to call for a greater role for Islanders in decisions that profoundly affect their lives

Human rights and community work. Complementary theories and practices

Much effort has been placed on developing international understandings of human rights without the corresponding attention to responsibilities. The authors argue that a community development framework may be useful in re-conceiving human rights in a more holistic way, and that social workers and community development workers are well placed to be 'grass roots human rights workers