Deter or dispose? A critique of the relocation of asylum applicants to Rwanda and its public health implications

Chaloner, Jonathan; Baggaley, Rebecca F.; Ryan, Bernard; Nellums, Laura B; Pareek, Manish

doi:10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100442

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…We have reviewed1 the purpose of the detention centres,2 the conditions on the centres,3 the difficulty of providing helpful services to detainees,4 the suppression of witnessing or advocacy and5 the moral jeopardy of mental health provider dual loyalty. We have examined accounts that clinicians are being used to achieve policy objectives, rather than clinical aims.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent example is that the UK has proposed an offshore strategy, planning to send some illegal migrants to Rwanda to claim asylum there 2. This ‘is not just the administrative process that is being outsourced, but all responsibility for providing protection to those seeking sanctuary’,3 and the plan is unlikely to comply with conventions that prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment 4. Leaders in the UK, acknowledge that there are meagre medical and legal resources to support refugee care and processing in Rwanda.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Leaders in the UK, acknowledge that there are meagre medical and legal resources to support refugee care and processing in Rwanda. The cabinet oversight agency, the Home Office, acknowledges ‘Rwanda’s lack of capacity to receive more asylum seekers or assess claims in a fair or timely way, with evidence of significant delays in decisions, discrimination, barriers to employment and risk of exploitation’ 4. This paper will refer to this type of migrant detention as ‘deterrence’ offshore detention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dirty work: well-intentioned mental health workers cannot ameliorate harms in offshore detention

2022

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Professional providers of mental health services are motivated to help people, including, or especially, vulnerable people. We analyse the ethical implications of mental health providers accepting employment at detention centres that operate out of the normal regulatory structure of the modern state. Specifically, we examine tensions and moral harms experienced by providers at the Australian immigration detention centre on the island of Nauru. Australia has adopted indefinite offshore detention for asylum-seekers arriving by boat as part of a deterrence strategy that relies on making detainment conditions harsh. This has known deleterious mental health effects. As a token to fiduciary care obligations, Australia employs mental health professionals to work on Nauru. These providers are often motivated to make a positive difference for detainees’ lives. We examine the overall impact of the providers’ work with detainees and the implications of their presence. The strongest evidence supports that the small mitigation of harms offered by these providers does not outweigh the harms of supporting a system designed to perpetuate human suffering. For mental health professionals considering working in offshore detention, we offer specific topics to scrutinise and weigh prior to employment. Because optimising detainee’s mental health is beyond the capacity of individual providers, we call for the organisations standardising and supporting mental health professionals to oppose employment of their associates in offshore detention. Lessons from this case study are generalisable to other jurisdictions to help inform organisations that licence and support mental health providers and individual providers considering work in similar settings.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dirty work: well-intentioned mental health workers cannot ameliorate harms in offshore detention

2022

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“…In Rwanda, expertise shortages, limited evidence-based treatment, and infrastructural inadequacies endure (Kalisa et al, 2019; Rugema et al, 2015). Additionally, questions of sociocultural adaptation and long-term care entitlements for asylum seekers remain undetermined; these are absent from the UK’s proposals, as are prospective safeguarding measures for protected characteristics (Chaloner et al, 2022).…”

Section: Mental Health and The United Kingdom’s Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

The United Kingdom’s Rwanda asylum policy and the European Court of Human Rights’ Interim Measure: Challenges for mental health and the importance of social psychiatry

Smith

Buadze

Liebrenz

2023

Int J Soc Psychiatry

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Deter or dispose? A critique of the relocation of asylum applicants to Rwanda and its public health implications

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Dirty work: well-intentioned mental health workers cannot ameliorate harms in offshore detention

Dirty work: well-intentioned mental health workers cannot ameliorate harms in offshore detention

The United Kingdom’s Rwanda asylum policy and the European Court of Human Rights’ Interim Measure: Challenges for mental health and the importance of social psychiatry

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