Book chapter
Forsaking our Moral Compass: The Tragedy of Australia’s Offshore Detention Policy
Migrations: A global welfare challenge. Policies, practices and contemporary vulnerabilities, pp.91-124
Corporacion Universitaria Americana
2017
Abstract
In recent years, successive Australian governments have seemingly forsaken their moral compass in regard to management of, and duty of care to, refugees and asylum seekers arriving by sea. Australia has increasingly become subject to stern criticism by the international community over policies judged to be in breach of international laws and conventions, inhumane in nature, and most disturbingly overtly abusive of those seeking protection. This chapter explores the context, practice and outcomes of offshore detention and processing under the Australian government's 2001 Pacific Solution, including the current governments border protection policy of offshore resettlement. It examines the presence of structural violence as a policy strategy, along with the concepts of moral obligation and an ethics of care in the context of their contribution to building sustainable and peaceful solutions. Evidence of the gendered nature of the detention centers reveals the levels of male emasculation and infantilization, sexual abuse, assaults, intimidation and other forms of violence against men, women and children. It explores the problem of despair amongst detainees from a philosophical and practical perspective. Attention is then focused on examples of structural, direct and social violence in the Manus Island and Nauru detention centers. Finally, it concludes that successive Australian governments have been morally bereft and ethically unsound in their implementation of offshore detention as a response to the forced migration crisis of the early twenty-first century
Details
- Title
- Forsaking our Moral Compass: The Tragedy of Australia’s Offshore Detention Policy
- Authors
- Cathryn Morriss (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Arts, Business and Law
- Contributors
- F Pattaro Amaral (Editor)S A Samiento (Editor)I Bartholi (Editor)R Di Rosa (Editor)
- Publication details
- Migrations: A global welfare challenge. Policies, practices and contemporary vulnerabilities, pp.91-124
- Publisher
- Corporacion Universitaria Americana
- Date published
- 2017
- ISBN
- 9789585981225
- Organisation Unit
- School of Social Sciences - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Law and Society
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450998902621
- Output Type
- Book chapter
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