Kiota.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. The United Kingdom is vowing to restore order and control through controversial sweeping reform on the country's asylum system. The new interpretations of human rights laws will make the UK less attractive for asylum seekers and make it easier to deport them. The tougher rules on refugee statuses means that people would need to reapply and it would take twenty years for
permanent settlement. Immigration has become one of the UK's most contentious subjects. This year, we saw thousands march in vicious anti immigration rallies and protests across the country. So at a time when on one hand we're seeing prolonged devastation in places like Ukraine, Mianma, Gaza, Sudan, we're also seeing
growing animosity towards those seeking asylum from those wars. Today on the Front Page, human rights lawyer and activists Res Ghadi is with us to discuss the growing worldwide negative sentiment towards those seeking asylum. So, first off, rees, what was your first reaction when you saw the latest announcement from the UK's Shamana Mahmud.
For me, as someone who was born as a refugee, I think the right to seek asylum is a matter of survival, and so when I see politicians and news articles like this one, it's really concerning because it feels like the issue that should be a matter of human rights and protection is manipulated and used in in these
kind of politicized ways. I mean, especially when we're talking about systems that are supposed to be protecting and upholding human rights, then using this kind of way to deter and to talk about illegal migration and all these kinds of narratives that I just I think are not accurate. It's really frustrating, and especially for those of us working on the ground with people on a daily basis, it.
Is incredibly frustrating actually, and because of the analysis that I've read in the last couple of days is that they're facing increasing pressure from the far right factions of
the UK government. This is a labor party that's actually brought these this is Salem Seeker system reforms in and it is political because they are taking that because the popularity of Nigel Faraga's party and they've decided to go ahead with this reform, the biggest reform in decades, and some of the things I mean, if we look through what it will actually mean for asylum seekers and refugees, having to get your status renewed, only being able to
become a permanent resident after twenty years, and that's if your original country is deemed still deemed unsafe. What would you say to someone who is looking at these reforms and thinking, oh, New Zealand should do the same.
Yeah. Absolutely.
As you've mentioned, some of these reforms that they're proposing are really inconsistent with the protections that both the UK and New Zealand's have signed up to. They're inconsistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, They're inconsistent with the Refugee Convention, both of these that clearly set out the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution, which set
out clear definitions of who illegally are considered refugees. These instruments are designed to protect people and from the time that they were ratified up until today, they are still relevant and so putting forward these kind of reforms that are inconsistent with the law I think is hugely concerning and what I would say, is this idea of like a war on illegal migration or the asylum system being abused is something that we're hearing in different parts of
the world, mainly coming from from the rights but it has in some way in some countries been able to trigger fair from people that don't necessarily understand the systems or the processes. And unfortunately that's where we're most at risk, when people don't understand and then fall for these kind of lines about we need we need to control the asylum system or illegal migration has gone out of control. What we need to do is kind of fight back
with the data and the evidence. In particular, in a place like New Zealand's, there isn't this concern of overwhelming numbers of people arriving on our shores.
I mean, we're an.
Island like the UK, but our geographic location is a is a really important factor and not a lot of
people can physically access New Zealand. And then also the laws and the administrative processes that are required to arrive in New Zealand shores in the first place are much more cumbersome, and so the risk of illegal migration in New Zealand is really really almost non existent, and if it does exist, it is such an inconsiderable number, and it is a number that our authorities and system can process and handle.
And it's actually.
Inconsistent with what a lot of the research and studies say around the number of people arriving in New Zealand to seek asylum in the first place. So the kind of rhetoric that we're seeing in other parts of the world don't apply to New Zealand. But also on top of that, I think the way New Zealand has considered refugee and asylum claims is also at a much much smaller scale than the UK and the US and other European countries also grapple.
With the Interior Minister Shabana Machmunt outlined what the Labor government calls the most sweeping reforms in decades, which include tougher rules on refugee status and new interpretations of human rights laws aimed at accelerating deportations. There has been growing public concern over immigration and a surge in support for the populist Reform UK Party, which is putting pressure on
the government to take a tougher stance. Ministers say the changes will restore control while critics, including some in the Labor Party, warn that they risk deepening divisions and weakening human rights protections. Let's take a listen to some of what the Interior Minister and Shabanah Mackmud said earlier in the British Parliament.
What I have said already on these matters is that we have a proper problem, that it is our moral duty to fix. Our asylum system is broken. The breaking of that asylum system is causing huge division across our whole country. It is a moral mission for me to resolve that division across our country. I know that the reforms I will be setting out later on today can fix this system and in doing so can unite what is today a divided country.
Yeah, I saw that in the UK Britain's report, widespread satisfaction with the government the cost of living. Obviously, many people believe their local areas are housing more asylum seekers than is quote unquote fair. What do you think it will take for a kind of Does there need to be a shift of consciousness here? Will we ever be rid of the term us versus them?
I think there are a number of difference I guess factors that are relevant in this regard to it, because I think it's the same in the US and the UK. There are populations of people that do have these really strong beliefs about the numbers of refugees, or what's fair and what's not fair, or what's being done that aren't
really consistent with the data and evidence. Again, but what we've seen, especially in the US, and I would argue probably similar trends in the UK based on the large number of people that we saw show up to protest the UK Rwanda deal, is that the majority of people actually do not think that there is a massive problem with migration or asylum seekers to the extent that the media or perhaps the politicians make it out to be.
We saw, for example, in the US and studies done around the number of people that actually think that the US refugee settlement program was a good thing more than fifty percent. I think the statistics were in the late sixty something to seventy percent of people thought that it was a good program. And similarly, the number of people that have consistently shown up in.
The UK.
Do outnumber the people who I think think very negatively about asylum.
Seekers and refugees.
I think the issue here is also the conflation. So we have a lot of people that perhaps if you frame the question in a way around protection and fleeing persecution and war and you know mass atrocities, are very you know, humane in their response and sympathetic, empathetic. It's that there is this con you know, conflation of migrants
and refugees. People believe that refugees who who can show a genuine fear of persecution from their countries, and then people who may not have the best circumstances or you know, opportunities but are not at risk of harm or persecution or you know, torture or death as the extreme cases may be for refugees in their own countries. And these are the migrants. And so there is a different approach for people's reactions based on.
Who those groups of people are.
But like I mentioned, there is a confusion and not all people understand the difference categories. And I think this in turn then also I think impacts the policies and the responses governments take. There are many governments who now believe that's migration or.
Movements of people is out.
Of control, and that's something we should think about, you know, very carefully. It's true that there are a number of you know, a lot, a lot of people that move for opportunities who are not refugees, but also that the migration system and the opportunities, the visa systems, the pathways for legal migration has not necessarily kept pace with the trends.
You know, we live in a very different world just when some of these agreements and documents were created, and maybe movement for opportunities and for work wasn't as you know, as major, but movement of people has always happened. People have always moved for you know, for opportunities, for new lives, for better lives, for all sorts of different reasons. Is one of the oldest facts of human history. So it's
something that countries need to grapple with. But it's not a matter of stopping, you know, asylum systems or reforming asylum systems to address migration, which is something you know, quite different and requires different responses.
And I see all of this talk about asylum seekers, and I mean, obviously we live in a time where there are multiple wars happening in the world. We've got South Sudan, mianmar Gaza, and of course Ukraine just to name a few do you think it's I mean, it seems hypocritical when when there is such an influx of hatred towards those seeking asylum and then at the same time cuts to worldwide humanitarian aid on huge scales from some of the world's largest powers.
Absolutely.
I was in Geneva recently at a un eh CR events and they're the High Commissioner for Refugees was talking about the Dyer need for funding because they were ending this year with a one point three billion shortfall compared to last year, a thirty percent workforce reduction, one hundred
and eighty five officers consolidated or closed. And so what we see is in the last two years, global humanitarian funding has collapsed more than fifty three percent, and alone just from the US's commitments from fourteen billion plus to somewhere around three billion. So it's a major drop in the global humanitarian funding and what's needed to respond to these crises in a lot of these countries actually prioritizing
funding into defense and deterrence policies. Unfortunately, the problem there is what we've seen over many years is that stopping people from accessing safety or accessing borders to seek asylum does not stop people from moving. It just means that they end up in more dangerous routes or taking more dangerous risks to try to seek safety. It doesn't stop people from trying. It just means that more people die
in this attempt. So the deterrence policies unfortunately don't have the effect that maybe these states policies intend them to have, and actually just really really dire.
Consequences such as we saw recently there.
We're hangar drowning at sea, you know, the number of people that are killed in the process, or in the Darian jungle in Latin America, Central America.
Accessing these paths.
People don't stop taking these risks to get their families to safety. But unfortunately it does mean that more people die. And so what I would say then is, on the one hand, we know that global humanitarian funding has reached you know, probably the lowest point at least in my recent memory and perhaps for those even working in the
field longer than I have. And then on the other hand hand, we're reaching unprecedented numbers of people who are seeking safety from persecution from these wars that you've mentioned. Saddan Mia mah Gazda and there are countless others that are not covered by the media in as much detail, but they're definitely impacting millions of people.
People's responses on the grounds, aren't.
I think for the most part positive when it comes to certain certain movements of people or the suffering of certain groups of people. But I think again it comes
down to exposure. There are just you know, some atrocities that don't get the same kind of media attention to people aren't to where what's happening in those regions or what kind of atrocities people are subjected to, and so there is like a mismatch I think the reality and what people are aware of and then on and I think the other end is.
There can be this kind of.
You know, people are also facing still very high cost of living challenges of affordability, housing crises in their own parts of the world and their own backyards, and so there can be this kind of us against them mentality that again I think it's not helpful because really it's not an either or or.
Mutually exclusive considerations.
But actually, when we're trying to make systems more ethical, more just more fair for all, it's about all of these because I think they all have impacts on another. If we've got good policies in our own countries, but then also our foreign policies are positive and focused on development and supporting and global responsibility sharing, then we're going to have bitter outcomes across the globe.
They're not mutually exclusive.
What happens in one country, whether on the other side of the world, still impacts us, whether we're in New Zealand, whether we're in the UK, whether we're in the US.
We just have to, I.
Think, be a bit more conscious of how interconnected our world really is.
I want to start before we go on to this speech from Shibonna my mood and how significant it is, Let's look at what came before, because ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Tell us about the Danish system, and this is a system that was counter to Scandinavian neighbors. It was seen as deeply tough, some suggested critics that it was racist. Now appears to be amongst some, at least the Golden Boy, the Golden Way forward for migration.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
So.
Denmark has had for some time now a sort of temporary by default approach to refugee protection it.
Also does a number of other things. It has departure.
Centers to encourage voluntary return or failed asylum seekers.
It has really.
Strict rules on which refugees can bring in family members. They have to be self sufficient twenty four years old. And it's also had some very symbolic laws, including most famously the jewelry Law, which was brought to in twenty sixteen, which means please can confiscate asylum seekers cash or valuables to help pay for their stay in the country.
You experienced actually living in a refugee camp when you were younger. Tell me about that and how that's shaped who you were today and what you're in your work.
Obviously, yes, so exactly as you mentioned, people would not be putting their families at such great risk if the reality of staying home were not more dangerous. And I can speak to this from personal experience. My family fled at the time of the Kurdish genocide and then faced more humans violations and risks to their lives when there were refugees in Iran as Kurdish minorities. And then so we're forced to flee again, and then this time crossing
the border into Pakistan. A really unpredictable, uncertain journey, not knowing what could come next, but just knowing that remaining where they were was far more dangerous than attempting to find safety elsewhere. And so my family arrived in Pakistan and sought asylum, and they were granted asylum quite quickly because of the strong evidence in their case as Kurdish minorities who were subject to persecution by not just one regime but multiple regimes in the region.
But unfortunately what was challenging.
Was the process, so from being recognized as genuine refugees with a risk of persecution to then the process of actually finding a durable solution or a safety in a pathway to somewhere safe. And so my family ended up being in Pakistan for ten years, not knowing during that entire decade whether they would be there a day longer or a year longer, for ten years longer, just unpredictable waiting.
And so you have these people living in limbo, not knowing whether they should settle down and build you know, routes and start kind of living as if they were going to be there forever, or living temporarily thinking that they will be resettled very shortly afterwards. So what you get is the people that kind of in between, not fully settled but not fully ready to leave either and creating these kind of challenges for me. I was born
in Pakistan when my family had already arrived there. So my brother and sister older than me, were already with
my parents when they arrived in Pakistan. I was born in Pakistan, and so you know, lived and experienced life as a refugee, not knowing anything different, and so the kind of circumstances that I was raised in, not having access to school until you know, a lot of protests and people in our community were fighting for the right for their children to go to school, not having proper access to food, water, shelter, clean water on a regular basis, the kind of really just limited access to what a
lot of Kiwis would think is normal or you know, something that they would expect to have, not having access to those things.
And then on top of that, the daily protests that.
Our family and communities would go to because they just wanted some sort of clarity on their process and what was happening and how long would they be waiting, just
some sort of certainty. And then in addition, to that people dying from hunger strikes because they were just finding that it was just too unbearable for them to sit and wait, and then taking on these hunger strikes to just urge the when and countries to respond to the dire circumstances, Seeing children die from preventable diseases just because we didn't have the healthcare that we needed, and all sorts of really, you know, things that children just should
should not find is what their daily life looks like. I thought those things were normal until I came to New Zealand and saw a completely different world. And it was only then that I realized the life that we'd been living as refugees was not normal and that it was extremely difficult compared to the life that many others
lived around the world. And so that really shaped my journey from a very young age, because I had knowledge of the denial of rights and basic human needs, the unpredictability of life, and also on top of that, you know, coming from a Kurdish background, to the genocide and human rights violations that my family had directly suffered from not having these kind of rights to exist and to just be who we are already shaped a lot of my thinking, and so I wanted to take advantage of these opportunities
that I had in New Zealand, a place where I grew up, where we had it. You know, when I first arrived in New Zealand, we had a female Prime Minister who was talking about about things that I had never heard before, about the kind of rights that people had, and about the kind of you know, the access that I had at school and the teachers and the attention that gave people.
So I was mind blown.
I was like just thinking about what life I had and what I had now, and how could I not take advantage of it?
Beautiful, Thank you so much for joining us, Rez.
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to talk to here.
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage a Herald dot co dot Nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane Yee and Richard Martin, who is also our editor.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.