Advocates want support to be extended to all refugees under resettlement strategy

Monday, 14 November 2022

Asylum Seekers Support Trust chairperson Bernard Sama says people arriving as asylum seekers or refugees are already in a vulnerable position, and having to navigate a system with little support is “in a way, retraumatising”.

Many refugees in New Zealand are falling through the cracks, say refugee advocates who are pushing for the Government to be inclusive of all new arrivals.

The Government is reviewing the New Zealand Refugee Resettlement Strategy and the Migrant Strategy before presenting recommendations to the Cabinet in 2023.

In 2021, refugee advocates formed the Refugee Alliance, demanding the Government review the strategy approved in 2012.

The group advocated for all refugees in Aotearoa to be covered by the strategy and on November 8 submitted an open letter to Immigration Minister Michael Wood.

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Life at Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre during Covid-19. (First published in July 2020)

As it currently stands, only quota refugees – those who have been selected offshore and resettled in Aotearoa under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) system – are covered by the strategy.

Other people arriving in the motu face more barriers to accessing support. This includes asylum seekers who apply for refugee status from within Aotearoa and, once accepted, become convention refugees.

In the letter, the group said quota refugees received help with resettlement to connect with healthcare, education, accommodation and employment, while refugees arriving under the family reunification and convention categories, for example, were excluded.

“These groups are often invisible; they fall through the cracks,” it said. “Their access to those same support services is severely limited and, in the case of convention refugees, they are denied even the most basic of needs, such as food grants and shelter, as their applications are processed.”

Currently 1500 quota refugees are accepted into the country each year while, on average, there are 394 claims for asylum-seeker status, with about 178 successful.

So far this year, 872 people have arrived under the UNHCR system, said Fiona Whiteridge, the general manager of refugee and migrant services at Immigration New Zealand.

Belong Aotearoa chief executive Rochana Sheward says the Government’s review of the NZ Refugee Resettlement Strategy is a good opportunity to make the strategy more equitable.

Refugees and asylum seekers were able to access public healthcare, mental health support and education, she said.

But despite what was said on paper, former refugee Bernard Sama, who chairs the Asylum Seekers Support Trust and is a PhD student at the University of Auckland, had personal experience of support barriers.

Sama arrived in Aotearoa in 2006 as an asylum seeker, fleeing political persecution in Cameroon as an Anglophone rights activist.

He spent time living with a Congolese refugee community in Hamilton while he was turned away from housing support.

“Finally I just had to figure out, that is what the system is … I could feel the distinction between myself and quota refugees. The best thing was to find other ways to survive,” he said.

Although he was eventually able to begin his studies in 2012 and find private accommodation, he had, through his work at the Asylum Seekers Support Trust, witnessed others struggle.

People arriving as asylum seekers or refugees were already in a vulnerable position, he said, and having to navigate a system with little support was “in a way, retraumatising”.

He had watched people’s mental and physical health deteriorate. Some resorted to begging on the streets.

In 2012, the Cabinet agreed that proposals to include other refugee categories should be referred to the Cabinet once work was under way.

“That hasn’t happened for over 10 years. And now the strategy is up for review, we think it is a good time to do that,” Sama said.

Sama and Professor Jay Marlowe of the University of Auckland were co-writers of a report called Safe Start and Fair Future, which called for all refugees to be treated equally.

Marlowe said there was no difference between the two groups, other than how they arrived in the country.

As part of the review, Immigration NZ said it was considering other refugee categories such as convention refugees.

Belong Aotearoa chief executive Rochana Sheward said the Refugee Alliance wanted to make sure the strategy was more equitable and to ensure members’ voices as a collective were heard.