Archive Article: Africn Refugees. 8 Feb 02
January 3, 2009

We are hearing a great deal about refugees from Afghanistan. We should not forget that there is also a refugee crisis in Africa.

A few days ago, I was at the Sydney Community Consultation at which The Hon Philip Ruddock MP, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, discussed the Migration and Humanitarian Programmes for the year 2002-2003.

I was very interested to see the way in which the number of Africans resettled in Australia has continued to increase. Three years ago the figure was 1,550 and this year it will be 2,030.

There are about 12 million refugees in the world. Less than one per cent will ever actually be resettled in developed countries such as Australia. This is about 100,000 people worldwide. The other 99 per cent will eventually return home (which is what most refugees want to do – when it is safe to do so), or they will be integrated locally into the adjoining country into which they have fled, or they will just spend the rest of their lives in refugee camps.

A handful of developed countries – with Canada, US and Australia as the “big three” – do resettlement.

This is for people with the greatest need. Australia resettles a total of about 8,000 people per year.

This is different from, say, the work of the UK and Germany, who deal with the people who arrive on their shore and so a decision is made on whether they should stay. Australia and a few other countries actually have staff based overseas to select refugees to come and live in Australia.

Returning to Australia’s record on the resettlement of African refugees, there are three points to note. First, the number of African refugees resettled in Australia is about a quarter of the total number of people resettled and the trend is for this percentage to increase.

Second, the trend is welcome news because Africa is a neglected continent. For example, the Australian media have very few journalists based there permanently. Other news stories get far more coverage. The Balkans, for instance, dominated the news coverage in the 1990s and yet more people were killed each month in the civil war in Mozambique than were killed in Sarajevo each year. But, of course, they were white people being killed in the Balkans – and white journalists have a greater interest in European affairs.

Africa is also being neglected in terms of Australia’s foreign aid. Australia is the only developed country with dryland farming and so it could have some good advice for African agricultural projects. But the Department of Foreign Affairs prefer to concentrate on the South Pacific and Asia.

Finally, Wesley Mission over the years has been particularly concerned with Sierra Leone. This is a country with vast potential wealth from diamonds but the wealth has been squandered in a civil war. The warlords terrorize the people by cutting off hands or arms. The Mission has urged the Government to take in more people from this country. Other ethnic groups from outside Africa have been well organized and know how to lobby the Government. Wesley Mission has taken up the cause of the people from Sierra Leone because they do not have such an extensive lobbying system in Australia.

Therefore, the Government’s action in the resettlement of African refugees is a step in the right direction.

BROADCAST ON FRIDAY 8TH FEBRUARY 2002 ON RADIO 2GB’S “BRIAN WILSHIRE PROGRAMME” AT 9 PM, AND ON 10TH FEBRUARY 2002 ON “SUNDAY NIGHT LIVE” AT 10.30 PM