On air at 1100GMT: Is Australia's migrant swop the way to tackle people smuggling?
| 10:31 UK time, Friday, 13 May 2011
Ìý
Australia has announced a groundbreaking deal to Malaysia will accept 800 asylum seekers who entered Australia illegally by sea, in return, Australia will resettle 4,000 registered refugees living in Malaysia. Australia says it is an operation to try and tackle people smuggling.
Explaining the move Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said,
"The truth is, if you spend your money, you get on a boat, you risk your life - you don't get to stay. You go to Malaysia and you go to the back of the queue . . . We will take people from the front of the queue, people who are already in Malaysia and already processed as refugees."
Critics say it
In the past 16 months, some 150 boats carrying 7,426 IMAs mostly from Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan have reached Australia. Few would qualify as genuine refugees.
questions why Malaysia should do Australia's dirty work.
"Australia is therefore seeking to interdict illegals before they arrive in Australian waters and detain them in offshore detention centres well beyond the reach of Australian law. The objective is to literally let them rot in such centres as a warning to other would-be asylum seekers. Some might argue that this is the moral equivalent of extraordinary rendition."
This article says it a
We'll be discussing whether this is the way to tackle people trafficking, rewarding people who go through the correct channels. Or is this treating human beings little more than commodities?
