wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Detention of asylum seekers & migrants: Churches speak out

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 05/10/2005

WCC NETWORK ON UPROOTED PEOPLES SPEAKS OUT ON DETENTION OF ASYLUM SEEKERS
AND MIGRANTS

Deep concern about "the increasing use of detention to restrict and deter
cross-border movement by asylum seekers and other migrants" prompted the
World Council of Churches' (WCC) Global Ecumenical Network on Uprooted
Peoples (GEN) to circulate a statement on this issue at a meeting in
Geneva this week of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees'
(UNHCR) Executive Committee.

"Churches are concerned that the global trend towards criminalizing
refugees, asylum seekers and migrants through tightened borders and
increased detention results in decreased security for uprooted people and
heightened vulnerability to exploitation, by smugglers and human traffickers along their journeys and by unscrupulous employers in the host country,"
the GEN statement says.

According to the network, "Such a response does nothing to address the
root causes of forced migration, which include regional conflicts, climate
change and sea level rise, and loss of livelihood due to corporate
globalization and free trade agreements that disadvantage countries of the
South."

Furthermore, the use of arbitrary detention to punish "asylum seekers
along with other migrants who make clandestine border crossing but present
no real threat to public safety" gravely undermines the freedom to seek
asylum the statement says.

Among the many alarming aspects of arbitrary detention, the GEN statement
mentions repressive crackdowns against migrants. abuse and mistreatment of
detainees, forcible removal of immigration detainees with little or no
consideration of their needs upon arrival in the country of return, and
use of offshore detention and processing centres that seriously threatens
refugee protection.

The statement gives many examples of abuses and infringements of rights
drawn from the global network's members' knowledge of what is happening in
their own countries.

Affirming the important role played by churches in serving the needs and
rights of migrants and asylum seekers, it calls on governments to
"facilitate the work of the churches with the uprooted* [and] grant access
to detention centres by church and civil society groups so that they might
more effectively offer assistance to a highly vulnerable population".

"Faced with this situation," the statement concludes, "the WCC GEN
participants reaffirm our belief in the God-given dignity of all human
beings, our commitment to advocating for the rights of uprooted people,
and our dream of a world of compassion and hospitality."

The full text of the WCC-GEN statement is available on the WCC website at:
http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/regional/uprooted/gen-unhcr.html

The Global Ecumenical Network (GEN) brings together regional and national
ecumenical networks on uprooted people in Africa, Asia, Australia, North
America, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and the
Pacific. Representatives of Roman Catholic organizations, some Christian
world communions, and church-related agencies also participate. The GEN
meets every year to review the global situation and future trends
affecting uprooted people, to share information, and to determine church
responses to the needs of uprooted people.

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org

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The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 347, in
more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.