"Push" Factors

There's a lot of deliberate confusion between "push" and "pull" factors behind a refugee's attempts to come to Australia. We in RAC believe there is no such thing as "pull". It's all "push." Below are the first details of a push factor.

There are over a million Iraqis in Syria who may soon be looking for new countries. UNHCR has called on the 26 resettlement countries (of which Australia is one) to increase their quota of refugees to accomodate some of this caseload.

No doubt what will happen is a zero response and then these people faced with no official offer of a future will realise they have to make their own future.

And so the boats with Iraqis will begin again. And Sharman Stone and the coalition will scream "Pull factor" because of Labor policy, but the evidence is there for intelligent people to see. The Iraqis will not arrive in boats because of something they read in Hansard but rather because they cannot go home, the Syrians no longer want them, they may have family in Australia. And most of all they want a decent life and future for their children.

UNHCR Struggling With Iraqi Refugees
Published on October 29, 2009
by EU News Network
EUNewsNet.com and OfficialWire
DAMASCUS, SYRIA

Strict visa requirements, low incomes and a risky return home are forcing Iraqi refugee living in Syria to look abroad for a new home, UN officials say.

Damascus reports as many as 1.1 million Iraqis crossing into the country since 2007. More are expected in the wake of the 19 Aug and 25 Oct attacks in Baghdad, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said.

Andrej Mahecic, spokesman for UNHCR, told a delegation in Geneva earlier this month that the United Nations recommended the resettlement of more than 80,000 Iraqi refugees to other countries.

Few Iraqis, meanwhile, have taken advantage of a UN repatriation program, though UN officials point to a growing number of refugees returning home.

"Resettlement is only offered to a small percentage of refugees — less than 10 percent of the overall number (of those who apply for resettlement) are submitted, and from this 10 percent a much smaller number actually get to go," said Farah Dakhlallah, a UNHCR spokesperson in Damascus.

UN officials have called on potential host countries meanwhile to expedite their assistance for the settlement of Iraqi refugees, the UN's humanitarian news agency reports.

"The UNHCR continues to encourage countries to take vulnerable Iraqis and we think potential host countries could enlarge their quotas," said Dakhlallah. "There is a need and resettlement is a major issue for us."