Submission by Human Rights Watch on the Migration Amendment (Evacuation to Safety) Bill 2023

Human Rights Watch supports the Migration Amendment (Evacuation to Safety) Bill 2023 as a step towards ending the ongoing human rights violations in Australia’s offshore processing policy.

The bill compels the government to offer all persons subject to offshore processing who are still in Papua New Guinea (PNG) or Nauru transfer to Australia within one month of its commencement.[1] Those transferred to Australia will receive medical and psychiatric treatment, and be placed in so-called “community detention” until they are provided with a third country settlement solution with a state party to the United Nations 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees or the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.[2] Community detention refers to residence determinations made by the Minister under section 197AB of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), and is a form of detention whereby people live in specified places determined by the government and must comply with reporting or other conditions, such as “curfews, travel restrictions, regular reporting, or even electronic monitoring”.[3]

Since July 2013, the Australian government has transferred more than 3,000 migrants and asylum seekers successively sent to Nauru and to PNG’s Manus Island for offshore processing. Of that number, the Australian government has transferred 3,127 migrants and asylum seekers successively to Nauru and PNG’s Manus Island for offshore processing since  July 19, 2013. Some returned to their home countries, others were brought to Australia for medical treatment, and some of those determined to be refugees were resettled to third countries including the United States under the 2016 US resettlement agreement.[4] A 2022 resettlement agreement with New Zealand provides that New Zealand will resettle up to 150 refugees per year for three years from Australia’s existing regional processing cohort, and as at August 2022, 15 people were engaged in resettlement in New Zealand.[5]

According to the Refugee Council of Australia, about 172 people including 58 asylum seekers and 114 refugees remain in PNG and Nauru, where they have been since being transferred in 2013 or 2014. [6] This bill would provide these people a humane pathway after years of living in limbo and without freedom of movement under Australia’s offshore processing regime.

Experience of severe abuse, inhumane treatment, and neglect

Australia’s offshore processing policy has caused immeasurable suffering for thousands of asylum seekers.[7] Since 2013, 12 people have died, including from murder, medical neglect, and suicide.[8] Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called for the Australian government to end its harsh and unlawful policy of offshore processing and indefinite and arbitrary immigration detention of refugees and asylum seekers.[9]

By sending refugees and asylum seekers to PNG and Nauru to face several years of offshore processing and sustained uncertainty about their future, many have experienced a serious degradation of their physical and mental health.

Asylum seekers and refugees offshore in PNG and Nauru have spent years living in substandard conditions, suffering severe abuse and medical neglect.[10] A Human Rights Watch investigation on Nauru in 2016 revealed inadequate medical care for refugees and asylum seekers, showing that medical equipment was rudimentary, specialist medical attention wass not regularly available, and dental services were largely limited to tooth extraction.[11] Refugees and asylum seekers described being transferred to medical facilities outside Nauru for care not available there, without their family members in most cases.

Exile to remote locations and uncertainty about their fate has dire consequences for the mental well-being of refugees and asylum seekers in PNG and Nauru.[12] Refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru and in PNG do not receive adequate support or mental health treatment. [13] The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) observed “a high level of tension and further deterioration in the mental health of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island”.[14]

In 2016, Human Rights Watch interviewed asylum seekers on Nauru and nearly everyone interviewed described high levels of anxiety, trouble sleeping, mood swings, and feelings of listlessness and despondency that began when they were forcibly transferred to the island.[15] A 2016 leaked report from UNHCR found that post-traumatic stress disorder and depression “have reached epidemic proportions” among those held in both locations, and “anticipate[d] that mental illness, distress and suicide will continue to escalate in the immediate and foreseeable future”.[16]

By 2018, six people held on Nauru had committed suicide and many more had attempted?.[17] Currently, 66 people remain on Nauru and 106 in PNG, where they are awaiting to be transferred to a third country.

On the eighth anniversary of the offshore policy, UNHCR stated that “this externalization of Australia’s asylum obligations has undermined the rights of those seeking safety and protection and significantly harmed their physical and mental health”.[18]

Excessive costs

Offshore processing is not only inhumane, but extremely costly. Recently the Australian government paid a US private prison company A$422 million (US$292 million) until September 2025 to hold refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru at a cost of A$6.4 million (US$4.4) per person.[19] The costs associated with persons living in Australia in so-called “community detention” are a small fraction of that amount, close to A$55,000 (US$38,000) a year.[20]

Alternatives to Offshore Processing

Between March 2019 and January 31, 2022, the Australian government transferred 552 asylum seekers and refugees to Australia from Nauru and PNG for medical treatment due to the inadequate medical facilities in both places.[21] While a positive step to move them out of offshore processing, Australian authorities detained 58 of these asylum seekers and refugees in violation of their right to freedom of movement.[22] During Australia’s appearance before the UN Human Rights Council for its Universal Periodic Review on 20 January 2021, more than 40 UN member countries questioned Australia’s use of offshore processing and prolonged detention of refugees and asylum seekers, making it clear that the government has not followed through on some of its key pledges.[23]

The proposed bill has provision for ensuring asylum seekers still subject to offshore processing are transferred to Australia and remain in communities until a durable third-country solution is provided. Under international immigration law, migrants should only be detained for the shortest time necessary, and children should not be placed in immigration detention at all.[24]

Community-based alternatives to immigration detention have been successfully used in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Poland, where refugees and non-citizens’ are provided with casework support in the community while their cases are progressing.[25] Alternatives have proven not only more humane than detention, but effective in achieving immigration enforcement goals at a lower cost. [26]

Human Rights Watch strongly supports the passage of the Migration Amendment (Evacuation to Safety) Bill 2023, to address the human rights violations to asylum seekers and refugees by keeping them indefinitely in limbo in offshore processing countries.

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