Refugee Conference 2011

With a Federal election looming, Associate Professor Jane McAdam from the Faculty of Law's International Refugee and Migration Law Project dispels some common misconceptions about asylum seekers.

TO VIEW A LONGER VERSION OF THIS INTERVIEW CLICK ON THE LINK AT THE RIGHT OF THIS PAGE.

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Senator Kate Lundy, Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, addresses the 2011 Refugee Conference at UNSW.

Refugees escape from persecution, conflict, death threats and torture. The majority of refugee women and girls survive rape and sexual abuse in transit and in camps. Boys and girls are taken as child soldiers. Refugee camps are dangerous and services are inadequate to fulfil basic needs. Despite this, refugees fight to maintain their dignity, their families, their communities and their culture. They do this in the face of often insurmountable problems. Refugees bring an enormous and diverse range of skills and capacities to camps and on resettlement, but the structure of service provision often ‘de capacitates’ rather than recognise this. The rhetoric of self sustainability is empty when refugees are denied the right to work, and the most fundamental civil rights.

Little of the refugee experience is known in the developed world. The discourse of “border protection” silences their voices. Instead of compassion, and the recognition of their rights they are treated as pariahs, as illegal immigrants. We will examine the implication of this for countries such as Australia. We will suggest how this can be reversed so that refugee rights and dignity can be upheld and host countries can benefit from the skills and capacities which refugees bring with them. We will discuss how the work of the UNSW Centre for Refugee research is contributing to this change.

Climate induced migration is not just happening to low-lying islands. The catastrophic drought means thousands of Bolivians are simply walking away from their homes and land for cities already suffering from water shortages.

Opening of the 2011 UNSW Refugee Conference - "Looking to the Future, Learning from the Past".

Host: Dr Eileen Pittaway, Centre for Refugee Research, UNSW
Welcome to Country: Dennis Golding, Nura Gili, UNSW
Welcome to UNSW: Professor James Donald,
Dean Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Welcome to UNHCR Commemorations: Richard Towle, Regional Representative UNHCR Regional Office for Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific
Welcome to the Refugee Conference 2011: John Gibson, President of the Board,
Refugee Council of Australia

Professor Jane McAdam, Faculty of Law, UNSW will be in conversation with Dr Jeff Crisp, Head, Policy Development and Evaluation Services UNHCR Geneva who will discuss International Refugee Protection: Reflections on the role of UNHCR in the context of the 60th Anniversary of the Refugee Convention.

From the 2011 Refugee Conference at UNSW.

Personal Stories from Six Decades of Refugee Protection

Six refugees who arrived in Australia over the six decades since the ratification of the Refugee Convention tell stories of their journeys to safety in Australia, bringing personal perspectives on refugee movements from Eastern Europe, Latin America, South-East and South-West Asia and Africa. 

This event was organised by the Refugee Council of Australia in memory of Kenneth Deakin Rivett (1923-2004), a founding member of the Refugee Council and the Australian Refugee Foundation, a committed advocate for immigration reform and an Associate Professor in economics at the UNSW.

Dr Melika Yassin Sheikh-Eldin, AMES, addresses the 2011 Refugee Conference at UNSW

Closing address of the 2011 UNSW Refugee Conference - "Looking to the Future, Learning from the Past".

Speakers:

•    Cheery Zahua
•    Paul Power, CEO Refugee Council of Australia
•    Dr Jeff Crisp, Head, Policy Development and Evaluation Services UNHCR

Session 2 of the 2011 Refugee Conference at UNSW

Civil society/refugee responses to camp situations in Thailand.

Civil society engagement with urban refugees in Malaysia.

A refugee perspective on the difficulty of not having refugee status, gaining protection and accessing UNHCR.

Speakers: Sally Thompson and Renuka Balasubraminiam

Four refugees of very different backgrounds - from Burma, Iraq, Sudan and Liberia -- tell of what brought them to Australia and the lives they now lead. Filmed as part of the international 2011 Refugee Conference hosted by UNSW.

With a Federal election looming, Associate Professor Jane McAdam from the Faculty of Law's International Refugee and Migration Law Project dispels some common misconceptions about asylum seekers.

As the science of climate change becomes increasingly well understood, the ramifications of projected increases in temperature, changes to rainfall patterns, rises in sea-level and increase in extreme weather events require attention from policy-makers worldwide. This is particularly apparent in relation to migration, refugees and international security, with climate change acting as a threat multiplier to exacerbate existing tensions and instability.

The Institute of Environmental Studies, in conjunction with the Climate Change Research Centre, the Faculty of Law and the Refugee Council of Australia held a public forum at UNSW on these very issues featuring Professor Andy Pitman, Dr Jane McAdam and Anna Samson.

Visit http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au/ for more details.