Maritime arrivals in Australia

In the Indian Ocean area, Australia is a strong point of attraction for people fleeing conflicts and persecutions and trying to reach safer areas, where they can apply for refugee status. In the last decades, this has been among the reasons for different waves of irregular maritime arrivals to head towards Australian shores. Since the 1970s, these were people leaving Vietnam, south of China, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, but more recently and in larger numbers, also people fleeing war in countries further away, such as Iran, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

Indonesia has a special role in these journeys as a transit point, where migrants enter in contact with smugglers and intermediaries that help them sail towards Australia.

Over the years, the Australian government has elaborated various strategies to reduce the impact of irregular maritime arrivals while granting humanitarian protection to people it establishes should receive it.

With the Pacific Solution, it is decided to excise some areas of its territory to build detention centres, where migrants can make offshore applications for international protection.

Last but not least, since 2014, successful applicants in Nauru are relocated to Cambodia instead of entering Australia.

Today, asylum seekers can avoid detention, if they are granted bridging visas that allow them to temporarily reside in Australia under specific conditions– that they respect a code of behaviour and that they do not present health, identity, security, or behavioural issues that represent a risk to local population.

If on one hand with these measures the Australian government has heavily reduced the number of people detained in its offshore centres, on the other, it is granting humanitarian protection to a smaller quota of people every year.

In 2014, for example, only about 13,000 people have received humanitarian visas, with almost half of them being refugees resettled in Australia by the UNHCR.