AT WHAT COST?

At What Cost? – The Human, Economic and Strategic Cost of Australia’s Asylum Seeker Policies and the Alternatives
Hussein’s story reveals why Australia’s policy shift was unlikely to ever ‘drain the pool’. He probably would have
come anyway. He feels he had no other reasonable choice.
The UNHCR’s Indonesia Factsheet of February 2016 sheds some light on the challenges that are faced by those
who enter Indonesia looking for durable protection options.
• The average waiting period from first registering [with the UNHCR] to obtaining a first instance interview of 8
to 20 months depending on the priority and complexity of the case. This waiting period does not include the
additional months or years that they must wait before they receive their refugee status determination.
• In 2015 a total of 610 refugees were resettled to countries offering resettlement…while 1,494 others were
submitted for consideration by States. In addition: Some 343 people (all but a few being asylum-seekers)
returned to their countries of origin in 2015.
If one were to use these figures to generously estimate that 1000 refugees would access resettlement or voluntarily
return to their home countries each year, it would take almost six years to effectively ‘drain the pool’ of 6,269
refugees formally recognised by UNHCR Indonesia, and that is assuming that no more refugees arrive during those
six years. 183
The Indonesia Factsheet reveals that asylum seekers and refugees face numerous risks and challenges in Indonesia,
many of which flow from the fact that Indonesian law does not extend any special legal status to asylum seekers
and refugees, with the result that they are legally classified as ‘illegal immigrants’:
• Immigration detention: As of February 2016 ‘some 4,273 persons of concern are currently detained,
including women and children. The Government continues to use detention to deter onward movement
by intercepting and arresting mixed groups attempting to enter or leave the country illegally, including
persons under UNHCR’s mandate.’ Related to this concern, a media report notes ‘Indonesia’s directorgeneral
of immigration, Ronny Sompie, told The Jakarta Post that Indonesia’s 13 immigration detention
centres were overcrowded as the number of ‘illegal migrants’ had increased more than fivefold over the
past seven years.’ 184
• Desperation leading to self-reporting to detention: ‘In addition to those who are detained for illegal entry
or exit, over the past year UNHCR has been challenged by the increasing number of asylum-seekers and
refugees who have self-reported to immigration authorities to be detained because of their inability to
financially support themselves.’ Related to this, reports have emerged that a tragically bizarre economy
has been created in which asylum seekers, desperate to secure basic shelter and food, are in some cases
paying bribes to guards in order to secure a place in immigration detention. 185
• No work rights: Refugee and asylum seekers do not have the right to work in Indonesia. Financial
assistance is limited and not available to all. UNHCR, for example, does not provide any financial
assistance to asylum seekers. 186
• Limited Educational Opportunities: ‘Refugee children have access to primary and secondary education in
Indonesian public schools.’ Other reports suggest that the official position is not realised in practice and
the theoretical entitlement to education does not extend to asylum seeking children. 187 Of additional
concern the Indonesia Factsheet notes ‘[i]n 2015 only 51 school-age refugee children are enrolled in
public schools.’
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