There are many details yet to emerge on the UK government’s new migration deal with Rwanda, but the aim is clear: send asylum seekers away to deter them from arriving on our shores.
A policy of “offshoring” asylum seekers is a first for the UK, but it has been done – though examples are limited – in other parts of the world.
Australia started placing asylum seekers in detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island in 2001. The policy ran until 2007, and restarted in 2014. It has seen thousands placed in detention camps, at a cost of around $12bn in the eight years to 2021.
Up to three-quarters of asylum seekers being held in Australia’s offshore camps were ultimately determined to be refugees, but the government denied them any prospect of resettlement in the country.
The harsh physical conditions in the centres have been well documented, with detainees suffering from poor mental health due to prolonged detention and uncertainty about their future prospects, inadequate and unhygienic living conditions, and a poor standard of healthcare.
At least 10 people have taken their lives while being held in Australia’s offshore processing centres.
No evidence has been found for the effectiveness of the Australian model of offshore asylum processing in the reduction of migration flows, according to a report by the Open Society European Policy Institute.
Announcing its new “migration and economic development” deal, the government described Rwanda as “one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa which is recognised globally for its record on welcoming and integrating migrants”.
But a similar migration deal between Rwanda and Israel between 2014 and 2017 is said to have resulted in nearly all of the 4,000 people estimated to have been sent there leaving the country almost immediately.
Many attempted to return to Europe via people-smuggling routes, where trafficking and human rights abuses are rife, notably along the journey through Libya.
In a less direct example, the EU has also been accused of using a form of offshoring by outsourcing its efforts to curb migration to the Libyan coastguard, which the bloc has funded to carry out “pushbacks” in the Mediterranean and bring migrants back to Libya.
Migrants have subsequently been detained in centres and have fallen victim to ruthless trafficking gangs, who have subjected them to torture in a bid to extort money from their relatives back in their home countries.
Denmark signed a migration deal with Rwanda last year, as well as passing an act allowing the country to relocate asylum seekers to outside the EU while their cases are being processed, though no migrants are believed to have been sent from Denmark to Rwanda yet.
The African Union strongly condemned the move, accusing Denmark of “burden shifting” and highlighting that Africa already “shoulders the burden” of many of the world’s refugees.
With no offshore policy across the world known to have been a success, and many human rights abuses having resulted from such policies, the UK’s plan comes with considerable risks.
