Outsourcing Refugees Increases Corruption – Global Bar Magazine

Bad policy

The number of refugees and forcibly displaced persons is boomingThis situation is due to climate change-related disasters, political repression, socio-economic insecurity and group persecution. All these factors are closely linked. rise of anti-immigrant sentiment.

As a result, refugee relocation remains a central concern for policy makers tackling so-called problematic immigration in Europe. 15 countries of the European Union (EU) demand that migration and asylum processes be outsourced.

It is no surprise that the Rwanda plan has achieved so many results. traction with right-wing politicians in Europe since the excluded populations are often migrants from Africa and the Middle East.

In our view, the relocation of asylum seekers is a cruel, ineffective and overall bad migration policy.

Understanding the risks

Human rights abuses: The principle of relocation is to deny asylum seekers a RIGHT The phenomenon of offshoring encourages the adoption of restrictive and inhumane migration policies and treats asylum seekers as commodities. This subjects them to additional hardships during transport, detention and unsafe return to their country of origin or outright refusal of entry. With offshoring, there is virtually no protection against human rights violations. This has been demonstrated in the case of the EU Agreement with LibyaSince 2017, the EU has spent €59 million ($64 million) to equip and train the Libyan coastguard to stop arrivals in Europe. This has led to physical and sexual violence, forced labour and extortion.

Strengthening authoritarian regimes: Western efforts to relocate migrants seeking refugee status by exchanging them for money and goods by default strengthen authoritarian or declining democratic regimes. The West provides these regimes with financial flows that line the pockets of corrupt governments and private companies that help manage migration by force. March 2024The EU has struck a relocation deal with Mauritania in northwest Africa. The deal has raised alarm among politicians and activists, including Human Rights Watch. Under the terms of the deal, the EU would pay Mauritania 210 million euros ($227.5 million) to curb the flow of migrants to Europe through the country. However, Human Rights Watch warns that the funds would strengthen the rule of Mauritanian President Mohamed Oul Ghazouani, who leads an autocratic government that still tolerates some practices forms of slaveryThis agreement with Mauritania also threatens to destabilize the country's domestic politics on the basis of racism.

Afro-Mauritanians have recently been confronted societal violence Mauritanians feel that the EU is installing illegal criminals in their country, creating an even more dangerous situation for resettled asylum seekers.

Offshoring is costly and doomed to failure: As well as being dangerous, refugee relocation deals are hugely expensive. The UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda would have cost taxpayers dearly 1.8 million ($2.3 million) per person deported to Kigali. The Australian taxpayer paid 485 million Australian dollars ($320 million) to process just 22 asylum claims in Nauru in 2023. These strategies are not only cruel, they are also financially inefficient. Relocation agreements are supposed to solve migration crises. However, they consistently fail to prevent asylum seekers from entering Western territories. Relocation appeases the far right, but is actually a terrible use of government resources.

After that ?

The world is witnessing a new Western model of refugee governance. Rich countries are paying poor countries to manage their refugee crises, while at best ignoring serious human rights violations and at worst intentionally contributing to them to deter future asylum seekers.

Despite the dangers and fiscal irresponsibility, the future of refugee governance increasingly focuses on the delocalization and externalization of borders. New European Pact on Migration and AsylumIts objective is to finance countries in the South to resolve the problem of migration within the framework of sustainable development.

More than 50 non-profit organisations have warned that the pact would be a disaster for migrants’ rights, as asylum seekers could face human rights violations, detention, unfair legal systems and poor shelter. The warning comes as the EU shifts its reception policy towards safer reception. outsourced detentionfences, borders and deportations to dangerous third countries under the guise of humanitarianism.

This new outsourcing industry must be stopped. Asylum seekers are people in distress, not commodities to be bought and sold around the world through new trade deals between nations.

Ali Bhagat, Assistant professor, Simon Fraser University
Genevieve LeBaron, Professor, School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University

This article is republished from The conversation under Creative Commons license. Read more original article.

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