UNESCO Chair Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts (RILA)

The UNESCO Chair condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the Asylum Partnership Arrangement between the UK Government and the Government of Rwanda to deport people seeking asylum who arrive by boat to the UK, for processing in Rwanda.

This decision is against the spirit and letter of the Refugee Convention and the legal opinion of UNHCR UK has already expressed grave concerns about the U.K’s obligations as a state as a signatory of the 1951 Convention.

Australia has already used offshore processing and detention of refugees in ways which mitigate against any form of dignified life and restorative integration with communities through its use of Manus and Nauru islands for detention. Behrouz Boochani’s multi award winning book, No Friend But The Mountains [1], documents the spatial and temporal confinement of human beings in such centres as the UK has now chosen to replicate.

Israel has used secret deals with Rwanda, documented here in moves which were extremely costly economically, and eventually collapsed.

The U.K’s Nationality and Borders Bill seeks to bring in a range of measures which are potentially in breach of international law. Off-shoring is one element and this announcement today detracts from efforts to amend and reverse the progress of this Bill, which will have catastrophic effects on the Rights and life of those seeking asylum.

“This deal threatens the values and principles upon which the simple acts of welcome, hospitality, and solidarity are founded. It is a manifestation of systemic racism and entrenched coloniality that the UK asylum system and its hostile environment architecture are built on. This should not only be condemned but deserted.” 

Hyab Yohannes, Research Associate, UNESCO RILA Chair.

As researchers with long and lived experience of the asylum system in the UK and world wide, all the evidence shows that deterrents do not work and that this will be fundamentally damaging to all involved – from security guards, deporting staff, airlines to those whose rights are violated in this way.

It should be clear that inadmissibility and deportation are not solutions and this deal between the governments of the UK and Rwanda must be condemned. We strongly urge politicians, researchers, and professionals to reject the deal and the Nationality and Borders  Bill.

[1] Boochani, B., 2018. No friend but the mountains: Writing from Manus prison. Picador Australia.

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First published: 14 April 2022