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Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees (Re: Mohamed Omer)
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Australia shuts door to Africa
By Ben Packham and Peter Jean October 03, 2007 01:00am THE Howard Government yesterday slammed the door shut on refugees from Africa.
Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said that no more Africans would be allowed into Australia under the humanitarian refugee program until at least July next year. And he said there were no guarantees any Africans would be accepted in the next intake. Announcing a move critics slammed as simplistic and inhumane, Mr Andrews said the program's quota for Africans had already been filled.
"We won't be considering any new applications until June or July next year," he said.
Australia has already accepted, or is processing, about 3900 Africans this year - 30 per cent of the total humanitarian refugee intake.
This quota was cut from 50 per cent in 2005-06 and 70 per cent in 2004-05, due to what Mr Andrews said were concerns about Africans' ability to integrate.
"Whether we leave it at 30 per cent or take it up or down will depend very much on whether we are having success in terms of their integration into the broader community, and what other humanitarian refugee needs there are around the world," he said.
Africans are being replaced in the program by Iraqi refugees from camps in Syria and Jordan and Burmese awaiting resettlement in camps in Thailand.
Mr Andrews said Africans, particularly Sudanese, had experienced serious problems settling in Australia.
"They tend to have more problems and challenges associated with them. Their level of education, for example, is a lot lower than for any other group of refugees," he said.
"They've been in war-torn conflict for a decade, many of them. Many are young and many have been in refugee camps for decades.
"It doesn't make much sense to me to acknowledge you have a problem but not actually slow down the rate of intake until you've dealt with it," he said.
But senior federal Labor MP Alan Griffin attacked the Government's move as "a simplistic approach".
"I think the real issue here is what's being done in terms of support services, and I think this Government's been pretty ordinary when it comes to providing support services."
"The nature of refugees is that there are almost always going to be issues," he said.
And Ethnic Communities chairman Phong Nguyen said it was wrong for the Government to turn its back on millions waiting in African refugee camps.
"It is simply inhumane for the Australian Government to close the door on these people based on perceptions that some African refugees are not integrating into the Australian community," he said.
Mr Nguyen compared the prejudice faced by Sudanese refugees to that faced by Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s. "I feel for them because I was one of the Vietnamese refugees coming here more than 30 years ago," he said.
The move follows a series of incidents involving refugees from war-torn Sudan.
Liep Gony, a 19-year-old Sudanese refugee, last week died after being beaten near Noble Park railway station.
In August the Federal Government announced that all new refugees will have to sit an "integration test".
The new gateway test - which was developed with African refugees in mind - will assess their ability to adapt to the Australian way of life.
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العنوان |
الكاتب |
Date |
Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-20-07, 05:42 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-20-07, 05:56 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-20-07, 06:19 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-20-07, 06:44 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | JOK BIONG | 11-20-07, 07:09 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-20-07, 07:25 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-20-07, 08:11 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-20-07, 10:02 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-21-07, 05:46 AM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | الفاتح ميرغني | 11-21-07, 06:08 AM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-21-07, 06:00 AM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-21-07, 10:14 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-22-07, 04:56 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | يوسف الولى | 11-22-07, 05:01 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-22-07, 08:05 PM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 11-26-07, 02:13 AM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 12-01-07, 03:50 AM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 12-16-07, 00:05 AM |
Re: Australia: Integration difficulties associated with Sudanese Refugees | Mohamed Omer | 12-16-07, 00:22 AM |
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