Elaine Pearson

The Australian government should press Cambodian authorities to implement key reforms to improve treatment of refugees in Cambodia before transferring any refugees from Nauru. 

In new Human Rights Watch interviews, asylum seekers and refugees living in Cambodia described hardships as a result of the Cambodian government’s failure to process regular nationality documents and due to poor economic conditions in the country. These include: difficulties in obtaining employment, denial of access to education, substandard access to health services, extortion and corruption by local authorities, and discrimination by officials and the public. Refugees said fear of mistreatment by the authorities kept them from speaking out or joining organizations to bring complaints.

In September 2014, Australia and Cambodia signed a Memorandum of Understanding whereby refugees will be voluntarily transferred from Nauru to Cambodia. The Australian government will fund temporary accommodation and resettlement services for the refugees for at least one year, and then on a case-by-case basis, and health insurance will be provided for five years. The Australian government also committed to provide an additional A$40 million (US$35 million) over four years in development assistance for other projects in Cambodia as part of the bilateral refugee resettlement agreement. 

“The Australian government shouldn’t make the refugees in Nauru suffer further by dumping them in a place unable to adequately resettle or reintegrate them,” said Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “Cambodia should fix its faulty refugee protection and support services frameworks before accepting any refugees from Nauru, and the Australian government should insist on that.”

In November, Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 refugees and asylum seekers currently living in Cambodia, and consulted with refugee and migrant support organizations, human rights groups, and United Nations agencies. Most of these refugees and asylum seekers requested Human Rights Watch to withhold their names and nationalities for fear of retribution.

Cambodia took over issuing refugee status determinations from UNHCR in 2009, and currently hosts 63 refugees. Under Cambodia’s Sub-Decree No. 224 of 2009 on Procedures for Recognition as a Refugee or Providing Asylum Rights to Foreigners in the Kingdom of Cambodia, the government should issue residency cards and ensure refugees have the same legal rights as legal immigrants.

“Human Rights Watch has discovered that five years on, not a single refugee has ever received a Cambodian residence card, let alone citizenship,” Pearson said.

Citizenship in Cambodia requires prior possession of a residence card in order to go through the naturalization process. Instead, refugees are issued a prakas, or proclamation, by the Ministry of Interior that confirms their right to stay in Cambodia, but cannot be used for the many official purposes that require presentation of an ID card or travel document.

Refugees have not received international travel documents and generally lack other basic personal documentation, such as family books, which officially specify the membership of families with local authorities, and are necessary to live a normal life in Cambodia.

“This piece of paper [prakas] is absolutely useless,” a refugee told Human Rights Watch. “To get a job, a driver’s license, open a bank account, buy a motorbike, or even receive a wire transfer, you need to show a passport, not this piece of paper.”

Cambodia’s agreement with Australia also states that refugees will be issued with the prakas as well as refugee resident cards and ID cards in accordance with Sub-Decree No. 224. But so far, current refugees in Cambodian have been denied those documents. The agreement further obliges Cambodia to provide international travel documents, but based on the experience of implementing its own sub-decree, this seems unlikely, Human Rights Watch said.

“After five years Cambodia can’t even follow its own law on refugees, so Australia is, at best, naive to believe this deal will be any different,” Pearson said. “The Australian government only has to look at Cambodia’s poor human rights record to be wary of its commitments to protect refugees.”

Elaine Pearson is the Australian Director of Human Rights Watch. 

“It’s not about whether they are poor, it’s about whether they can be safe,” Australia’s Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said in defence of Australia’s plan to resettle refugees currently housed on Nauru to Cambodia. It appears Cambodia and Australia are in the final stages of signing such an agreement.

But is Cambodia a safe place for refugees?

Not if you’re from China. In 2009, under pressure from China, Cambodia forcibly deported 20 ethnic Uighurs back to China. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had already issued “persons of concern” letters to the Uighurs—most had fled China for Cambodia after July 2009 protests in Urumqi that the Chinese authorities brutally supressed. We know some of those returned to China have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Not if you’re from Vietnam. Human Rights Watch has long reported on the forced return of Khmer Krom activist monks straight into the hands of Vietnamese security services. Cambodian authorities have used the threat of forced return to Vietnam to stamp out any activist activities, preventing monks from forming, joining or meeting with local Khmer Krom groups, distributing bulletins, or participating in protests.

Cambodia is not particularly safe if you’re Cambodian. Freedom of expression, assembly and association are under regular attack, while corruption is rampant. Let’s hope no resettled refugee end up in Cambodia’s courts, where matters are decided by bribes and political influence, not law and facts. Decades of authoritarian rule under Prime Minister Hun Sen have empowered Cambodian security forces to commit abuses such as killings, torture, and arbitrary detention with impunity. Those especially vulnerable include government critics, activists, journalists, and those living on the margins.

Human Rights Watch has documented the arbitrary arrest, detention and mistreatment of “undesirables” housed in squalid detention centres run by the Ministry of Social Welfare, where beatings and rapes by guards continue with impunity. Where will the refugees Australia sends away be housed, and which Cambodian ministry will be responsible for their care and integration? What freedoms will these asylum seekers have to live where they please and get education or find jobs?  How long before the authorities might consider them “undesirables” as well?

These are among a long list of questions that the Australian government has avoided, stonewalling on the specifics of what the agreement will entail.

Another key question is what has the Australian government offered Cambodia in return for agreeing to resettle refugees? Cambodian officials deny being offered money, though it is hard to believe there will be no economic benefit to Cambodia.

When Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Immigration Minister Scott Morrison made recent visits to Cambodia, they failed to speak publicly about the serious human rights concerns there. Hun Sen, in power for 28 years, has not of late had to worry that Australia would be a regional critic of his series of flawed elections and a coup and a long history of human rights abuses.

Australia sold out human rights in Sri Lanka, appeasing the Rajapaksa regime and protecting it from international criticism rather than trying to protect Sri Lankans from abuses by their government. Ostensibly, this was in order to “stop the boats” of Sri Lankans coming to Australia, and ensure Sri Lanka’s cooperation in sending Sri Lankans back home.

Australia should not make the same shameful mistake with Cambodia. Hun Sen may have maintained a grip on power for decades, but opposition is growing. Australia should not discount the voice of the opposition which has strongly condemned using Cambodia for Australia’s refugees.

Cambodia is one of the few Asian countries that is a party to the Refugee Convention. Yet it has long made a mockery of its refugee commitments.  Australia should help Cambodia become a rights-respecting, safe and stable place — but the best way is by holding the government to account for its abuses while providing capacity-building assistance.

Australia needs to stop setting a bad model for the region by shirking its obligations. What incentive is there for countries in the region to ratify the Refugee Convention, when they see Australia and Cambodia render signatures meaningless through their actions? Australia’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea and Nauru for months on end with no long-term prospects has been bad enough. When detainees are considering “voluntary returns” to war-torn Syria, then we know how limited their options are.

Australia needs to end the suffering and indecision on Manus and Nauru, but not by sending people to Cambodia. Rather, it should do what’s fair and right by abiding by the long-standing principle that refugees are deserving of a durable solution. Australia should take the responsibility to examine asylum seekers’ claims, return those found not to be in need of protection, and integrate refugees who cannot return to their home countries.

Australia, not Cambodia, has the capacity to restore their rights and enable them to become productive and self-sustaining contributors to their host country.

Elaine Pearson is Australia Director at Human Rights Watch.