Australia is a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention which defines who is a refugee, the rights of the refugees and the responsibilities of the nations which grant asylum. Therefore the Australian government is obliged to protect the refugees that enter their territory, according to the terms of the Refugee Convention. However, there has been an arising problem with how the Australians treat the refugees seeking asylum. Reports indicate that the Australians illegally resettle and detain refugees, including children, in bad living conditions in Papua New Guinea, against their rights defined in the Refugee Convention.
Brief History.
The Australians are convinced that they are "drowning" with refugees, having the amount of asylum seekers amounted to as high as 10 percent of the Australian immigration. The number of refugees entering Australia was at a peak of almost 13,000 back in 2001 and it was still as high as 11,505 asylum seekers in 2013. Therefore they have established the PNG solution, a regional resettlement arrangement between Australia and Papua New Guinea in which any person which arrives by boat without visa will never be allowed to settle in Australia, but instead if they are found to be legitimate refugees, they will be resettled in Papua New Guinea. The policy was announced on 19 July 2013 by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Papua New Guinean Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.
The policy is conducted against the terms of the Refugee Convention in which Australia is a signatory as it is the responsibility of the Australian government to provide asylum in Australian territory itself. Moreover, Papua New Guinea is an underdeveloped country with one of the highest crime rates in the world. Up to 85 percent of its 7 million population survive by subsistence agriculture. And it is reported that the cities are largely filled by slums swept by tribal violence. Resettling refugees at such a place with bad living conditions would be against the rights of the refugees and the responsibilities of the nation providing the asylum.
