Asylum seekers face untold privations in travelling to Australia to escape persecution. Our country responds by sending as many as it can back to the horrors they desperately tried to escape. They have no rights, according to the Government.
Investigations have shown that some refugees who were returned to their country of origin were not only brutalised and tortured on their return but several were killed. All evidence from international human rights organisations points to deadly consequences for the forcible return of asylum seekers to their homelands. Australia is cruelly failing asylum seekers who seek our protection.
The deliberately punitive nature of immigration detention is well known. Yet, last year ABC TV reported that some asylum seekers prefer detention to returning home. They literally fear for their lives if they return to their homelands — which are often failed states, in which there is no stable rule of law. Every attempt to track the progress of returned asylum seekers shows that we are placing them in tremendous danger.
This is very apparent when we examine what is known of the fate of asylum seekers forced to return home. A detailed investigation by the Edmund Rice Centre followed 40 individuals who were deported from Australia. It found that '35 out of the 40 people interviewed were living in dangerous circumstances immediately on arrival'.
And yet Australia continues to forcibly return asylum seekers. We have signed a 'Memorandum of Understanding' with Afghanistan and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, permitting the involuntary repatriation of unsuccessful Afghan asylum-seekers. The arrangement even includes provision for sending back several unaccompanied minors who had become separated from their families.
This deal has already had fatal consequences for several returned asylum seekers. Many other returnees have suffered threats and attacks, and today live in well-founded fear of the very persecution they sought to escape.
Among Afghan asylum seekers, Hazaras face the greatest danger. Comprising at times up to half of Afghans coming irregularly to Australia, Hazara asylum seekers are persecuted due to their ethnicity and their adherence to the Shi'a sect. Unfortunately for them, they are instantly identifiable due to their distinctive Asiatic appearance. Other young Afghan returnees are forced to join the armed conflict.
Indeed, professionals on the spot suggest that the psychosocial impact of returning to a conflict-affected environment is just as damaging as the actual conflict. Afghan returnees can be 'petrified' just walking through the centre of their town.
Similarly, Congolese asylum