Australian Immigration Daily News

The Aid Industry and Humanitarian Organisations need to be mindful that the rest of the world does drift into "misery overload". There probably is an unprecedented number of catastrophes impacting populations that result in forced or necessary movements. This then results in increased "humanitarian need"  etc around the globe. In the past few years somme of the better know hotspots are: Syria, Ebola, Eritrea, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Vanuatu, Nepal and the list goes on.

Human Trafficking IS part of the problem as this also encourages ambit migration which then adds to the problems of forced migration. Human Trafficking feeds off ease of entry into desirable destinations. Human Trafficking is now the third biggest money spinning industry in the world.

Humanitarian agencies frequently talk about "compassion" as a general idea without providing any real ideas as to how the limited resources associated with "compassion" may be best used. In my opinion, AID associated with humanitarian catastrophe is best apportioned quite specifically at immediate need e.g. in camps, for NGOs to better alleviate immediate suffering as best as possible. This is probably as good as it gets. The host countries of Pakistan, Jordan, Chad etc DO receive assistance with such. It becomes a global issue to pressure nation states that create unnecessary movements of people to act in such a way that their populations don't deed to leave. This is MUCH easier said than done. To intervene or to not intervene seems to backfire irrespective of whatever the decision. Fragile balances may exist in areas of teetering dysfunction. 

Eritrea, an interesting cased study now now supplies 1/5 the number persons trying to cross Mediterranean. This is an extraordinary figure given its population of approx. 6.3million persons. 

The country has fallen into ruin and paranoia in the past 20 years since its independence in 1993. At that time Eritrea was the darling of the NGO set until the late 90's. Similarly could be said about South Sudan now. There is always inevitable debate about intervention but whether to intervene or not invariably unleashes a storm of further drama.

What's not in question, though, is that something must be done to curb the often deadly trafficking of migrants across the Mediterranean.

Nearly 2,000 migrants attempting to cross the sea from North Africa to Europe have recently lost their lives. Continuing to rescue persons on boats will of course fuel the trade in human trafficking as in "don't worry, the Europeans/ Australians will pick you up". 

Open borders are, in a sense, a form of false compassion, even the EU is beginning to see this. Australia has been castigated at length for its purported 'inhumane' policies of disallowing onshore refugee applications, however, the EU has looked to Australia for guidance on this issue. The European Commission have forged a new migration policy to encourage European countries to share responsibility for the overwhelming influx of migrants. 

There is simply not enough compassion to go around.

By Michael Jeremy, RMA - Trainer for Legal Training Australia CPD