Grappling with boat people

Saturday, 1 June 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Over 1,200 Sri Lankans who attempted to illegally migrate to Australia have been returned home, showing the effect of decisive actions. The once almost-daily reports of boats being seized off the coast have dried up, but 52 were caught on Thursday, showing that the need to effectively deal with economically-challenged people remains.

Another 28 Sri Lankan irregular maritime arrivals have been returned to Colombo after attempting to illegally migrate to Australia bringing the total of those returned to over 1,200, a statement from the Embassy said on Friday. Their return takes the number of Sri Lankans sent home to 1,206 – 994 of them involuntarily – since August last year after they either failed to engage Australia’s protection obligations, or voluntarily withdrew from the asylum seeker process after arriving unlawfully in Australia by boat.

Meantime, transfers of asylum seekers to regional processing facilities in Nauru and Papua New Guinea continue. The facilities were established following the Australian Government’s policy announcements on 13 August 2012. In the latest transfer to Nauru, two Sri Lankans joined a group of 30 men on 22 January who will remain there while their claims are processed. Australia and Sri Lanka remain committed to stopping illegal migration, which saw a spike last year with around 2,500 people being arrested.

Canadian officials have also expressed concerns over illegal migrants, urging the Government to improve domestic conditions, including human rights, good governance, and economic opportunities to keep people home. It is therefore clear that the Government as well as all other stakeholders need to combine and find an effective and multifaceted method to help people not be fooled into skipping the country for wrongful reasons.

The fact that Sri Lanka needs to tighten its human smuggling and asylum seeker legislations is an obvious point. Unscrupulous people who dupe others into parting with their savings on false promises of a plentiful life need to be punished severely. Yet, at the same time, there must be economic opportunities made available to them so that their reasons for leaving are no longer valid.

Awareness of the danger could be one aspect that needs to be driven home, but the ordeal they will face if they reach their destination must be made known to them as well. Perhaps the most important point is that they must be provided with security and the assurance that law and order will protect them, thus allowing them to be productive citizens in their own country.

Given that public officials are also among the numbers detained, the time has come to accept that the asylum seekers issue has a deep economic facet that cannot be explained away by international conspiracies or human smugglers connected to the LTTE, a point that was acknowledged by officials from Australia and Canada, who pointed out that economic reasons were behind most migrations.

Giving economic returns to the majority of people is the biggest challenge and ultimately the best solution to this exodus.