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AB - Abstract The resettlement of refugees from a place of danger to a safe country brings an assumption of security, peace and access to human rights. It should herald the beginning of a fulfilling life in a new homeland. Australia has a resettlement programme of about 13,000 people per year. Many of these people settle extremely well and successfully establish themselves and their families in the Australian community. However, research over the past decade into settlement experience has highlighted the fact that not all newly arrived refugees have a positive settlement experience, and many put the blame for the problems they experience on ‘human rights’. Funding was obtained from the Australian Research Council by the authors to explore what exactly the concept of ‘human rights’ meant to diverse refugee communities. The research identified that the rights that were causing the majority of concern were women’s rights and children’s rights. They became the focus of all problems experienced in settlement, and named as the reason for the loss of dreams of a new and happy life. At the base was confusion and lack of understanding about the meaning of human rights and their links to Australian domestic law. This lack of knowledge was often shared by both refugees and the community members and settlement service providers who were endeavouring to assist them to settle successfully. The research identified that the problem was complex and intersectional. It was obvious that a sophisticated analysis was needed to explore the issue and to identify solutions. Klug’s suggested analytical framework of human rights as part law, part philosophy, and part political movement was found to be extremely appropriate, facilitating the application of three very different lenses. It was used as a tool to unpack the different interpretations of rights, and to identify potential solutions. Introduction Just imagine twenty years in suffering, then you reach here and face some of these issues … ‘rights’ destroy our families—our women leave and our children rebel against us. (Refugee man from South Sudan, Melbourne) This article addresses an issue which is fraught with difficulties—that of how refugees from very diverse communities recently resettled to Australia are struggling to come to terms with some aspects of human rights, in particular women’s and children’s rights. This creates confusion and distress within refugee families and communities and can compound the difficulties they face in rebuilding their lives. The major challenge is how to address this in policy and practice while fully respecting diverse refugee cultures and without falling back onto racist stereotypes or fuelling xenophobic community perceptions. The ‘elephant in the room’ is that no amount of discussion and academic analysis of human rights negates the fact that human rights are reflected in the laws of Australia, which must be obeyed by all Australian residents. The acceptance of the principles enshrined in human rights laws is largely taken for granted in liberal democracies such as Australia, as something that always was part of our social and cultural framework. In fact, our adoption of the human rights discourse has occurred gradually over decades, often with resistance from parts of the community, as ongoing legislative changes such as marriage equality illustrate. This gradual process of adoption of human rights principles is not widely appreciated in the Australian community. Resettled refugees often find themselves transported directly from refugee camps in countries governed by unstable or repressive political systems, to a house or apartment in a developed country, overnight. They are immediately expected to obey the laws of that country, many of which are grounded in human rights law. The difficult truth is that they do not have time to consider and adapt to a massive change in culture including gender roles and lifestyle. Sadly, there is a tendency, including among refugee service providers, to blame the patriarchal societies that many refugees have come from for their lack of compliance with Australian norms and laws relating to family life. It is seldom acknowledged that the gradual process of change which was the experience of the Australian community is denied to them (Doney et al. 2016). This article examines this complex issue and discusses ways in which newly arrived refugee communities and those working with them can approach the process of understanding and accepting new and different concepts of rights and their implementation in Australian law and social norms. This is essential to assist successful settlement and to reduce the trauma and distress this issue is currently causing for resettling communities in Australia. Most people in the developed world regard human rights as a global good, and assume that rights are both understood and enjoyed by people who live in developed countries. The settlement of refugees from situations of danger and persecution to Australia brings an expectation that rights previously denied to them will be restored, and that as permanent residents of Australia they will be able to access and enjoy their rights equally with other citizens. As Carver notes, ‘at first glance, the relationship between human rights and refugee protection is self-evident. Those that we call refugees are usually in flight from places where their human rights are at serious risk. In their country of asylum, they seek protection for these rights’ (Carver 2017: 216). The majority of services provided to assist their integration are predicated on a human rights framework and based on an assumed understanding of the meaning of rights and their relevance to settlement in Australia (DHHS 2015). However, research undertaken by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Centre for Refugee Research (CRR) has identified that the issue of rights in settlement is far more complex, with confusion and misunderstandings about human rights often impacting negatively on the settlement process. In some cases, it is contributing to family conflict and breakdown and can compound the level of risk experienced during settlement (Doney et al. 2016; Doney et al. 2015a). While refugees appreciate the protection of many of their rights in Australia, such as peace, freedom of movement and religion, and access to education and health services, some newly arrived refugees are also confused, angry and deeply disappointed by what they identify as ‘human rights’ (Doney et al. 2015a). They are frustrated that they are unable to obtain some of the rights that most Australians take for granted, such as appropriate housing and the opportunity to work to earn income sufficient to maintain their families. They also live with discrimination, experiencing both overt and covert forms of racism. Their experience of unequal access to these public rights undermines the fundamental assertion that human rights are universal and apply equally to everyone. At the same time, the so-called ‘private rights’ relating to family life are often viewed with hostility, suspicion and misunderstanding (ibid.). These private rights, which are seen to favour women and children, cause concern and conflict in refugee communities. They are perceived as opposing the traditional cultures of refugee communities and undermining the position of men, and have been blamed as the cause of family conflict and breakdown in settlement: If [women] know their rights, then they can go and if there is domestic violence then she knows where to go, and separation happens, so [the men] don’t want to lose this power and it is one of the things I have seen a lot of. Refugees when they arrive they don’t want women to know about their rights, a lot aren’t educated, and they are worried they might use women’s rights in other ways and destroy family. (Refugee man/community leader from Burma, Geelong) Seeking to transcend this entrenched and unhelpful polarity of views, the project aimed to develop a better understanding of this significant barrier to successful settlement. It identified how misunderstandings and miscommunication about human rights by service providers and refugee community leaders contribute to confusion and resentment within refugee communities towards Australian laws. A more sophisticated understanding of human rights and their interaction with Australian social norms, customs and institutions is needed in order to find constructive ways to communicate about and understand rights in settlement. This article provides an in-depth analysis of the key themes which emerged from the research findings, and also draws on the authors’ many years of collaboration, research and advocacy with Australian refugee communities. Its aim is to explore how we can conceptualize human rights and approach their implementation in a way that encompasses and affirms the experiences of refugee communities settling in Australia. A detailed presentation of the broader findings of the research project, as well as the extensive literature review which was undertaken to inform it, will be published in separate articles. Research methodology The three-year long project was funded by the Australian Research Council and was conducted with settlement service providers in three states of Australia: Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. AMES Australia, Diversitat, New South Wales Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS), The Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma (QPASST), and Townsville Multicultural Support Group (TMSG) were all formal project partners. The CRR had previously conducted research with each of these organizations on various aspects of refugee settlement in Australia, mainly with refugees from long term refugee situations who originally came from various African countries, Burma (Myanmar), Bhutan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Most had suffered human rights abuses both in their countries of origin and in their countries of first asylum. Confusion and anger about human rights, in particular women’s and children’s rights, had been an unexpected outcome of these research projects. For this reason, it was decided that this major project should be undertaken to inform settlement policy in Australia and to assist in better and more timely settlement outcomes for refugee communities. Focus groups, interviews, staff and community leader training were organized by partner agencies in each site for each of the three years of the project, and round tables of service providers, refugees and academics were held each year to develop the project materials. This article presents the model which was developed to analyse the data and subsequently to develop the materials which are an important part of the project outcomes. Full reports of the findings and a comprehensive bibliography which informed the human rights analysis can be found on the UNSW website.1 The methodology was based on a participatory action research model named ‘reciprocal research’ and developed by the authors as part of their work with refugees. This model is designed to ensure that participants are actively involved in the research process, and gain value from it. It uses a framework which incorporates human rights based principles into all aspects of the research process and analysis (Hugman et al. 2011). The research involved a series of workshops and interviews with service providers and members of refugee communities. The workshops and interviews involved 321 refugees from over 26 different countries as detailed below. Care was taken to ensure that the participants represented both young and older refugees and came from diverse cultural backgrounds. In total, 40 young women and 43 young men aged between 16 and 24, and 115 women and 100 men from 25 years upwards took part in consultations and interviews. The largest groups of participants came from Afghanistan (n=47), Burma (n=29),2 Congo (n=28) and Somalia (n=28). The other significant groups represented came from Iraq (n=23),3 Syria (n=20), Bhutan (n=13), Liberia (n=13), Rwanda (n=9) and Sudan (n=8). Almost half had been in Australia for less than three years and the remainder less than ten, with a small number having been here for between 10 and 24 years. In some communities, including the Syrian and Bhutanese communities, almost all participants had been in Australia for less than two years. However, in other communities, most particularly the Afghan community, the length of settlement ranged from six months to 24 years. This was intentional to the methodology as the research partners were requested to recruit a mix of recently arrived and long settled refugees. In addition, a total of 132 service providers, the majority of them bilingual workers, participated in workshops or individual interviews with approximately 30 per cent being from refugee backgrounds. Strict confidentiality agreements, over and above the university ethics agreement, were negotiated at the beginning of each workshop, and all participants signed a group agreement. All workshops included interpreters and generally involved between one and three different ethnic groups. In appreciation of their time, all participants were provided with a certificate of participation and with refreshments and travel expenses. A set of service response models and training materials to address the concerns and needs identified by the refugees and service providers was developed and trialled with refugee communities. Following amendment, training was provided to key stakeholders, including refugee community leaders. Emerging themes from the research: ‘part law, part philosophy, part political movement’ Human rights are best understood as part law, part philosophy and part political movement. The values that drive the idea of human rights owe almost as much to poetry and music as they do to legal principles. They owe nearly as much to the spirituality of all the great religions and to the eternal quest for righteousness as they do to revolution and the demand for freedom from state tyranny. (Klug 2000: 18) As key themes began to emerge from the research, it became evident that refugees resettling in Australia were facing difficulties with three different aspects of human rights, which were causing separate but compounding challenges and confusion during the settlement process. These three aspects are a misunderstanding of the links between human rights and domestic law, perceived clashes of culture, and the impacts of the sociopolitical context, which each provide barriers to the enjoyment of human rights by refugees. In the course of reviewing the relevant literature, it became apparent that these three aspects were best captured by Francesca Klug’s characterization of human rights as ‘part law, part philosophy and part political movement’ (2000: 18). While international academic scholarship has produced many insights into how human rights are perceived and incorporated into cultural frameworks (see for example Clapham 2007; Dembour 2010; Fiske 2006; Merry 2009; Pantazidou 2013; Preis 1996), Klug’s conceptualization stands out both in its simplicity and for its articulation of the depth of the human rights paradigm. It provides a workable framework within which to analyse the research findings and to guide the development of training materials and recommendations, which must address all three of the emerging themes to be effective. Human rights are most often understood as a legal framework, encompassing on the one hand international human rights law and on the other the domestic laws of states which enact them. In contrast, Klug’s statement emphasizes that rights need to be seen as more than just law; a more complete understanding of rights requires that we also understand them in their philosophical and political context. In recent writing Klug reaffirms the importance of all three aspects of human rights: [I]f human rights are not viewed within their political context their meaning becomes opaque. Whilst they must of course be capable of legal expression, they are not in themselves law: they are a means of evaluating the legitimacy of laws and policies. Nor are human rights a substitute for other ideologies or perspectives: they are an ‘ethical guide’ for interpreting and exercising them. (Klug 2015: 130) In our research, Klug’s concept was used as a theoretical model to explore and analyse the factors influencing refugees’ perceptions and experiences of human rights. The lenses of ‘law’, ‘philosophy’ and ‘politics’ allowed the complexity of refugee interaction with the human rights paradigm to be teased apart and its different dimensions to be identified more clearly. In the sections below focusing on Klug’s three aspects of human rights, we begin with a discussion of how each can be understood as an inherent characteristic of human rights before briefly summarizing our research findings related to that aspect. In doing so we have developed a picture of Klug’s conceptualization of human rights in an applied context, shifting the emphasis from the ontology of human rights to a particular social group’s experience of and interaction with human rights. This application of theory to practice has resulted in some shifts in emphasis and expansion of the categories mentioned by Klug. Specifically, our research findings have led us to focus on cultural values and issues of cultural identity in the ‘Part philosophy’ section of this article, and on the impact of politics and politicization in the ‘Part political movement’ section. As noted in the methodology, while participants came from over 26 different countries and had arrived at different times, the themes reported below were consistent across all groups. Although refugees who had been longer settled shared the same concerns as new arrivals, they often reflected more deeply on the causes of the problems, the impact on their communities and some of the solutions. Follow-up work, including the provision of training to refugee support workers and community leaders, further confirmed that the findings are common to all communities. Finally, while each of Klug’s three aspects of human rights are discussed separately below, it must be recognized that in reality these conceptual categories are intersectional and overlapping, lacking the clear boundaries between categories that such a theoretical framework cannot help but suggest (Slim 2002:8). The research indicates that in practice each interacts with the other, making it impossible to totally separate the analysis of each aspect, or to attribute outcomes solely to one particular aspect. 1. Part law From human rights to domestic law—the Australian context Human rights have the obvious status, if less well-understood function, of international law. The human rights framework is more than a philosophical value system; it was developed by the United Nations (UN) as a legal framework to operationalize and universalize its philosophical underpinnings. Human rights as a legal framework also functions to control the politics of rights, including the subversion and violation of human rights principles, and to ensure the incorporation of human rights into the domestic legislation of all member states. In Australia, the federal government has ratified and incorporated most provisions of international human rights law into its domestic legislation. International human rights are incorporated in our national and state laws and policies as legal entitlements (such as the right to vote or to social security), as legal constraints (such as the prohibition of violence and drugs, regulations for driving) and as legal protections (such as child protection, workplace regulations and anti-discrimination laws). These manifestations of ‘human rights-as-law’ in Australia are legislated, implemented, supported and enforced by a range of numerous government and non-government agencies including, police, child protection agencies, anti-discrimination boards, ombudsmen, courts and fair work agencies. The legislative process is complex, and laws are often contested, and liable to change in response to changing social standards and ideologies. Nonetheless, in this project it was taken as a given that Australian laws protecting human rights, including those of women and children, will not change dramatically or be removed in the foreseeable future. Emerging research themes—a lack of understanding of Australian laws and human rights We believe that there isn’t any good understanding of the human rights in our community and most of the people they don’t have enough information or enough knowledge of the women’s rights. (Refugee man from Afghanistan, Geelong) The research confirmed findings from previous research4 that a lack of understanding of Australian laws and the legal system is a major obstacle to successful settlement. Additionally, the research indicated that many service providers and refugee community leaders do not understand the human rights framework, including its legal, philosophical and political contexts. This results in the perpetuation of misinformation and misinterpretations of human rights within refugee communities (Doney et al. 2015a). A male refugee from Syria noted that: My society gets the rules from the religion and traditional society … that’s why when we speak to people about human rights, it’s like illusion—we didn’t know exactly what it means. That’s why people are mixed … that’s why we have confusion about these ideas until now in our culture. (Refugee man from Syria, Wollongong) Participants, in particular those from several African communities, Afghanistan, Syria, Burma and Iraq, reported that the system of governance, law making, policing and enforcement of the law in Australia is very different from that in the countries from which they have come, and from the camps in which many had lived for protracted periods. Most had fled from countries with fragile or corrupt governments, where the notions of equality and equal rights were not embedded in the current political, social and legal structures. Participants from each of the countries represented in the research reported experiencing abuses and denials of their human rights before coming to Australia, in many cases including violence and persecution from supposed agents of the law. For those whose only experience of law is religious law, there is often a limited understanding of secular legal systems. Some community leaders were reported as teaching that religious law is of a higher order than secular law and should be obeyed over secular law when the two conflict. This misuse also happens by men. Men misuse the religious. Men says that this religion says hit your wife, doesn’t matter. (Refugee woman, Sydney)5 These experiences set the scene for misunderstanding and conflict with Australian laws during settlement. While Australia does have programmes designed to inform resettled refugees about human rights and Australian law, research participants reported that these were not effective and at times contribute to the problem. Refugee participants remembered learning about driving rules, tenancy law and public transport fares. They reported that they had received strong messages through orientation programmes that, in Australia, women and children have equal rights, but they did not connect these to the law. Many heard or interpreted this to mean that women and children have more rights than men. It contributed to a strong belief across diverse ethnic groups that there is actually a ‘hierarchy’ of rights in Australia: This is becoming very common within communities, that they are even making fun of it. They are saying … ‘Don’t you know with this [Australian] government? First, it’s my kids, second, it’s my wife, third it’s my dog—then myself … Things have changed my friend!’ … It is said in a satirical way, but … it’s not really [a joke]. (Refugee man/service provider from Rwanda, Brisbane) This statement highlights one of the aspects of Australian law that the participants struggled the most to understand and accept: the perceived inversion of rights accorded to men, women and children compared to the patriarchal cultures from which they often come. Laws protecting women’s rights, such as anti-discrimination and domestic violence laws, are often seen as stripping men of their traditional cultural roles, and contributing to family breakdown. Laws that protect women who choose to leave an abusive relationship, or prosecute a man for domestic violence, are often resented and blamed on ‘women’s rights’. Similarly, child protection laws were perceived to grant children more rights than their parents, stripping them of parental power to use traditional child rearing practices. This was exacerbated by a lack of cultural understanding by many service providers and authorities and an element of underlying racism which led to a high incidence of the removal of children from their families (Losoncz 2016). When children are removed from their parents by authorities because of reported abuse or severe punishment, ‘children’s rights’ were often blamed: Australian government needs to realize about other countries, when is discipline and when is abuse. The children are being taken away because in my opinion they are being disciplined but government think they are being abused. (Refugee young woman from Burma, Melbourne) Another area of particular confusion was the link between rights and responsibilities. Human rights confer legal responsibilities, and this is a complex issue. The major legal responsibility of governments is to do everything within their power and resources to ensure that all citizens and residents in their country have the best possible access to their rights. The major responsibility of the individual is not to undertake actions which violate the rights of others (AHRC 2014). There was a lot of misunderstanding of the notion of rights and responsibilities from both refugees and service providers. Confirming evidence from previous research, it was reported that it was often used as a form of threat, with a heavy emphasis on refugees having personal responsibilities which when fulfilled granted them access to rights. Reported examples of this are service providers who told people that it was their responsibility to learn to speak English quickly, despite well documented problems with programmes offering English language tuition. They were informed that it was their responsibility to get a job, instead of relying on government benefits, despite high unemployment in the general population, and problems having overseas qualifications recognized (Doney and Pittaway 2010). This highlights a major fault in the assumption by policymakers that refugee community leaders and service providers, who are the main vectors of information in the early stages of settlement, have a workable knowledge of human rights and its link to domestic law. The research identified that many service providers and community leaders have an incomplete or inaccurate understanding of these important issues. Almost no participants, including service providers, had received any formal education about human rights, but had learned about them, or the values they saw as underpinning them, through informal channels, including through family, religious and cultural influences (Merry 2009). Most felt that you do not need formal knowledge of rights to understand what they are, and tended to conceptualize human rights as values that determine how people interact with and treat each other, without necessarily being formally identified as ‘human rights’ or associated with a legal framework. This resulted in the misrepresentation of human rights as simply a secular value system (Doney et al. 2015a: 5). Overall, participants felt that the education for new arrivals about rights, laws and rules in Australia is not systematic and does not adequately support people’s learning about and adaptation to changes in rights and family relationships in Australia. There was also concern that the information provided was given too soon after arrival, when people are overwhelmed with new learning, and is not adequately reinforced during later stages of settlement when it might become more meaningful to their lives (Doney et al. 2015a: 6). In addition, many participants reported a reliance on community leaders and other community members for information about rights and laws, because communities either did not trust or could not access appropriate services to help them understand and navigate these issues. This exacerbated the problem, because community leaders were often unable to provide accurate information themselves. Additionally, a number of participants and service providers reported that in a minority of cases community leaders deliberately misrepresented information about human rights in order to maintain their own interpretations of traditional culture in the settlement context. Conversely, there were also reports of community and religious leaders demonstrating positive leadership on human rights issues including sexual and gender based violence. 2. Part philosophy Human rights as an ethical framework While human rights law provides a foundation for the global implementation of rights, Klug’s approach proposes rights as more than a list of legal principles, but also an ethical framework based on internationally agreed values (De Varennes 2006; Klug 2000). At the core of human rights are the principles of human dignity, universal equality and justice. Human rights protect all people from discrimination regardless of race, religion, colour, sex, political opinion, social origin, birth or other status, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Human rights as philosophy confer a moral authority that is lacking when they are understood primarily in legal terms. In discussing the post-World War II context in which the UDHR was developed, Klug notes that it ‘was not developed primarily as an intellectual idea, but was crafted out of the catastrophic events the drafters themselves had all just lived through or witnessed. This … shaped their thinking and vision of a better world’ (2015: 136). The principles the drafters enshrined in the human rights framework were philosophical ideals shared amongst the traditions and cultures of the world. De Varennes notes that: throughout time and space many [Western and non-Western] societies … acknowledged the importance of concepts such as human dignity, individual freedom and equality, all of which are the building blocks of what has emerged in the second half of the 20th Century as international human rights law. (2006: 75) For Klug, the question of how to uphold and protect human rights is therefore not fundamentally a legal but a philosophical question about ‘who we are and what kind of society we want to live in’ (2015: 131). She argues that ‘[n]o law can save human rights. They can only ultimately be protected by political struggle and a passionate belief in our common humanity’ (ibid.). Emerging research themes—a perceived contradiction between refugees’ cultural/religious values and human rights law We cannot practise our real culture … [because it] does not fit the rule of law here. But the law and [Australian] policy is set up only for the Western philosophy and thinking, it doesn’t involve the aspect of our culture, our philosophy. (Refugee man from Zimbabwe)6 A major focus for the participants was their perception of a clash between their cultural and religious values and those underpinning human rights, which again was not new, and has been documented in the previous work of the authors, and in many other countries (James 2010; Hebbani et al. 2010). Both refugees and members of the wider Australian public frequently express, and thus reinforce, the view that many traditional cultural beliefs and values held by refugee communities fundamentally contradict human rights such as women’s rights and children’s rights (James 2010). The findings illustrate how these entrenched assumptions place refugee communities in conflict with Australian norms and laws, and provide important new insights into how these assumptions become entrenched and how they may best be challenged. In particular, the findings reinforced our understanding of how changes in gender roles and power relations take place in many refugee families and communities during settlement. Many women reported how much they valued the rights they enjoyed in Australia to participate in a range of activities outside the home. However, men reported having less opportunity to provide for their families in ways that previously lent them status and authority, while others shared concerns about some women abusing their rights and destroying their families. [As] men, we have been in that higher position … we have been beneficiaries at the expense of women and children and we fail to recognize that, truly. And when we come here, because of the already existing system, we feel like we are being snatched, our rights, instead of we are being ah, equalized, or it’s a kind of equity. (Refugee man from Ethiopia, Brisbane) Both men and women from all communities reported that children gained power through adapting more quickly than their parents to the new environment. Both youth and adults reported that ‘children’s rights’ diminish parental authority and that children are less respectful and less obedient to parents and elders, leading to destructive intergenerational conflict. They also suggested that, generally, there is little to assist families to adapt to these changes, and often no services or support available until there is a family crisis. In Congo, our culture if we have children, if they did wrong things you needed to “beat” (smack) them or deal with them to punish to understand … but when we got here it is big problem, but these children never listen any more. When they went to school they talk with those children if those parents try to smack you, you need to call 000, so when the children do that it is a big problem. When children understand their rights, it is confusing for our culture because we never talk to the children any more. (Refugee woman from Congo, Geelong) An important new insight from this project was a clearer understanding of how these challenges were analysed by the refugees themselves. In discussing these cultural differences, a significant number of participants, mainly but not exclusively men, presented a somewhat utopian picture of their pre-arrival community life. They described families living in relative harmony, with individuals accepting their gendered and social roles and the imposition of authority (including physical discipline) by family and other community members. However, other participants reported that this was an idealized cultural model rather than a reflection of the lived reality in countries of origin and displacement settings. They acknowledged that their traditional cultures frequently entailed violations of human rights which included profound inequality, wide acceptance of family violence, and harmful community shaming when an individual defied accepted norms. Other refugees discussed the fact that prolonged time spent living in refugee camps, sometimes spanning whole generations, erodes traditional cultural practice. Participants expressed resentment that the Australian legal system and settlement services undermine and disallow their cultural practices. They saw no opportunity of negotiating the space between cultures, and the perceived high level of government intervention in family life in Australia was contrasted to their cultural values and pre-arrival experiences. The result is a hostility to and fear of Australian laws and the institutions and agencies that uphold them. The marginalization, humiliation and perceived legal vilification reported by participants was exacerbated by their experience of negative assumptions and judgments made about their cultural background compared to ‘the Australian culture’ and ‘Australian rights’. Participants reported that they are made to feel ashamed because their values and cultural practice differ from the Australian mainstream, which exacerbates the challenges that they already face in negotiating the space between their traditional and adopted cultures in settlement. This experience is not unique to this cohort of refugees and was discussed as a major cause of their feelings of marginalization (Ochala and Mungai 2016; Khawaja and Milner 2012). 3. Part political movement The political nature of human rights Identifying human rights as ‘part political movement’ recognizes that the protection of human rights by domestic and international institutions is a direct result of people around the world standing up and for their rights. Human rights law itself is constantly evolving as a result of civil society actively engaging with UN mechanisms to lobby for change (Flynn 2014). Political action by communities and civil society groups is responsible for the recognition and protection of the human rights of vulnerable groups such as women, children, people with disabilities and people with diverse sexualities. The concept of human rights as part political movement can also be clearly seen in relation to refugees. The Refugee Convention (Convention relating to the Status of Refugees) is designed to provide protection to people who are denied rights in their country of origin. The settlement regime, and its accompanying infrastructure, has come about through political movements and advocacy to ensure that refugees have access to human rights in third countries. Refugees, NGOs, human rights activists and academics around the world have fought to gain these rights (Colic-Peisker and Tilbury 2003; Eby et al. 2011). The ‘shadow side’ of recognizing human rights as part political movement is understanding that implementing them is an inherently political act, shaped by political contexts, ideological forces and the pursuit of power. Presenting as it does a philosophical and political challenge to state sovereignty, rights discourse is often used by those in power to best suit their own political interests (De Varennes 2006; Glendon 2001). The interpretation of human rights by UN member states is also highly political. For example, resettlement is a UNHCR durable solution aimed to uphold the right to state protection for those refugees for whom there is no possibility of return to their country of origin. Nonetheless, some governments of resettlement countries have recently stated that they will not accept Muslim refugees for resettlement, preferring Christian refugees who are ‘easier to settle’ (Pittaway 2007). This disregard for the vulnerability and rights of Muslim refugees is contrary to the principles inherent in the Refugee Convention. It is purely politically motivated. Emerging themes—the meaning of human rights in settlement is shaped by politics To paraphrase Klug, the research findings highlighted the way that the meaning of human rights is shaped by politics (2015: 130). It is important to acknowledge the pre-arrival experience of refugees coming to Australia. For many refugees, their experience of human rights has been of a ‘toothless tiger’, and they have first-hand experience of the politicization of rights during their refugee journey (Casimiro et al. 2007). They are granted permanent residence to Australia and with it the assumption of their enjoyment of human rights equal to other residents of their new country. There is little recognition of the politicization of refugee rights in our political discourse and the barriers this creates for refugees to access the same rights enjoyed by other Australians. The focus of Australian human rights institutions, including the Australian Human Rights Commission, tends to be on asylum seeker rights, with little attention to the rights of resettled refugees (Carver 2017). While few of the participants actually articulated the word ‘politics’ as they recounted their experiences in Australia, this political context emerged as a key factor influencing settlement. Participants reported that initially, settlement is a time for rebuilding family and community life and healing traumas. Newly arrived communities are too busy trying to establish their lives here and lack the familiarity with Australian systems needed to take part in political action. Nonetheless their experience is greatly affected by the sociopolitical environment in which they settle, and this in turn shapes both their understanding and experience of human rights. As was demonstrated by a number of service provider participants who are former refugees, once settled many do take up the fight to gain access to rights for refugees both in their communities overseas and here in Australia (Haggis and Schech 2010): I say to my clients, I am here to help you get your rights … and you can join us in our women’s organization to talk to the politicians and to the UN. We can do it, we can speak for ourselves. (Refugee woman/service provider from Afghanistan, Sydney) Sociopolitical factors, political discourse and the resulting resettlement policies and settlement service provision were all reported to greatly impact on refugees’ experience of human rights. Most frequently mentioned were the quality of settlement services, the availability of housing and employment, and the degree of inclusion or exclusion experienced by settling communities. Participants also described the frustration of being trapped in poverty, with a lack of access to appropriate English classes and employment opportunities: They didn’t recognize my university education document, and plus they misunderstand me all the time … And even they don’t give me the simplest job as child here. So this way, I feel isolated, I feel discriminated, and I feel anger, angry. (Refugee woman from Afghanistan, Sydney) There is ample evidence to demonstrate that high quality service provision and inclusive refugee policies are needed to enable successful settlement (Fiske 2006; Matthews 2008; Sherrell 2017). The research findings also illustrate how the practical difficulties and discrimination refugees face in settlement compound the challenge of adapting to Australian rights and laws. Some participants reported their opinions that a hierarchy of rights existed in Australia, for Australian-born first, and then for lighter skinned, educated refugees, and those from a Christian background, with the most marginalized at the bottom, often those from African countries or a Muslim background. Lack of political will to address racism was identified in several of the consultations. This exacerbates refugees’ distrust of authorities, the legal infrastructure and the concept of universal human rights. They hate us because we are Muslims—politicians even say this on the radio! (Refugee man from Iraq, Brisbane) In addition, as noted in the Philosophy section above, loss of status sometimes fuels political fighting within communities. Resentment was expressed by many refugee and service provider participants about the recognition by politicians and other authority figures of sometimes self-appointed leaders (often those most fluent in English) to the exclusion of a more representative community voice. Women participants were particularly angry when men spoke on their behalf, and their issues were not addressed. These exclusions were also seen as a denial of their rights. Discussion The research clearly demonstrates that some Australian cultural practice is seen as unacceptable to refugees from different ethnic and religious groups, leading to a rejection of human rights and Australian law. While the legal fraternity and policymakers regard human rights as a legal concept to be implemented and enforced, many refugees understand them primarily as an optional secular value system—and in some cases, as a hostile and oppressive one. Although many newly arrived refugees do not immediately embrace women’s and children’s rights, the reality is that they are enshrined in Australian domestic law, and they are not going to change. As noted above, obeying the law is not a choice. This poses a major challenge for some refugee communities and must be addressed openly and honestly, to enable refugees to settle more quickly and successfully. The project makes evident that changes are needed to the way that refugee communities are educated about and supported to interact with human rights and Australian laws. It also underscores the fact that this must occur in a supportive sociopolitical context. However, unless we proceed with a more nuanced concept of human rights, further attempts to communicate with refugee communities are likely to entrench the misunderstandings and polarity of views. A way of conceptualizing human rights that acknowledges and addresses the philosophical and cultural issues raised by participants is thus explored in some depth here, to inform a framework for future action. Similar to Pantazidou’s actor-oriented approach to human rights education for refugees, which aims to move beyond the usual legalistic focus, such an approach will ‘look deeply at the way rights are experienced and lived in everyday lives and to interrogate how “rights identities” are constructed through contextual realities’ (Pantazidou 2013: 269). The perception that the cultural beliefs and values of refugee communities conflict with human rights principles is partly due to the reification of idealized cultural models during settlement. Because our sense of self, identity and worth is strongly rooted in our cultural beliefs and practices, it is natural that refugee communities cling to these when confronted by cultural difference, especially when that difference is associated with experiences of exclusion and discrimination and when they are stripped of other aspects of identity such as their jobs, homes and citizenship. Across diverse communities, men in particular find the new cultural context challenging to their sense of identity (Fisher 2013; Rees and Pease 2007; Pittaway and Rees 2006). Refugees experience this loss of identity both during displacement and in settlement, and this helps to explain their idealization of traditional culture once in Australia. The findings indicate that idealized cultural models are strongly reinforced by many community leaders because they help to provide a cohesive identity in an environment where refugee communities are fractured and marginalized and it is difficult to develop new positive identities. ‘Culture’ in this context is assumed to be static and unchangeable, determining human behaviour but itself immutable (Preis 1996). It is associated with a vehement opposition to cultural change and the downplaying or ignoring of historical cultural shifts (Addo 2010: 608). Thus if, during settlement, a cultural practice or belief is perceived to conflict with human rights principles or an Australian law, a philosophical impasse is created that can have devastating practical and legal consequences for refugee families in settlement. This philosophical impasse, between ‘traditional’ cultural values on the one hand, and human rights principles enshrined in Australian norms and laws on the other, is exacerbated by prejudices held by the wider Australian community, which mirror refugees’ own views about the incompatibility of their cultural practices and Australian values and laws underpinned by human rights. This leads to the ‘shaming and blaming’ by the wider community which the research participants describe as happening whenever they are seen to be engaged in traditional cultural practice (Doney et al. 2015b: 14). Instead of ‘shaming and blaming’, the research suggests that a more constructive approach may be to gently challenge the notion of traditional culture as static and introduce the possibility of conscious cultural change in response to the settlement context. There is nothing radical in this idea. Culture is indeed fluid, changing over time in response to external social, political and environmental circumstances. All cultures throughout history share this trait of dynamism and fluidity (Glassie 1995). The key difference here however is the emphasis on the fluidity of all cultures, inviting and empowering refugee communities to undertake a process of conscious cultural change in response to their new circumstances. This contrasts strongly to the ethnocentric notion of a superior, homogenous ‘Australian culture’ into which all refugee communities must assimilate, which underpins the current ‘shaming and blaming’ discourse. One way that the universality of cultural change can be communicated and the ‘shaming and blaming’ avoided is through discussion of how Australian beliefs and values have themselves changed over time in response to social movements and international human rights (Fiske 2006). It can be helpful for newly arrived communities to understand that Australian values and laws that are often presented as unquestionable and unchanging have in fact evolved unevenly through recent decades. For example, women won the right to vote in Australia in 1902, but their right to equal pay for equal work was only legally recognized in 1969, and their right to paid parental leave to care for a newborn baby was only legislated in 2010 (AWAVA 2017). The Family Law Act 1975 provided a legal definition of domestic violence and introduced ‘no fault divorce’ which allowed women to escape abusive marriages more easily, but at the state level amendments to domestic violence legislation to ensure that women are adequately protected from abusive partners and ex-partners are ongoing. What these dates show us is that Australian culture has its own chequered history of engagement with human rights principles. Compared to refugee cultures, Australia is not a superior repository of human rights principles, but an example of a country where a well functioning judicial system and democratic governance have facilitated a quickening pace of change in cultural beliefs and values. Many of the problems in coming to terms with women’s and children’s rights experienced by our current intakes of refugees have been experienced by previous intakes of both migrants and refugees. While first generation migrants and refugees have seldom challenged patriarchal family structures, second and subsequent generations have been able to accommodate greater freedoms for women and children while incorporating them into a cultural structure which, like that in their countries of origin, is constantly evolving (Phinney et al. 2000). Established migrant and refugee communities have found ways to reconcile ethnic and Australian cultural influences, identifying, for example, as ‘Vietnamese Australians’ or ‘Lebanese Australians’ (Doney et al. 2015a). It is inevitable that newly arrived refugee communities also undergo this process of cultural change, and it is natural that people will initially be fearful about what is being lost to the dominant culture. What is often overlooked, however, is that newly arrived individuals and communities also take part in active adoption of new cultural traits in the settlement environment (Phinney 2000). During the research, a simple exercise with groups of male refugees demonstrated this well. The men were upset and angry about the damage they perceived had been done to their cultures and families by women’s rights in Australia. Using four quadrants of a piece of paper, they were asked to write down what life was or is like for their grandmothers, mothers, wives, and daughters or nieces. The changes in expectations for women across just a few generations were then discussed as a group. Almost all the participants wanted their daughters and nieces to have a good education and good jobs, ideals that had often been unobtainable for many of their grandmothers and mothers. Thus, while they continued to reject some women’s rights protected by Australian law, they were already integrating others into their cultural practice. Another perspective from which to challenge the perceived impasse between refugee cultural beliefs and values on the one hand and human rights principles on the other is to provide refugees with a better understanding of the historical and philosophical roots of human rights. Owing to the powerful ‘cultural relativist’ backlash against human rights, the notion that human rights are a neocolonialist imposition of European Enlightenment ideals on the rest of the world has shaped human rights discourse in recent decades (De Varennes 2006). As the findings suggest, this can lead communities to conclude that human rights are culturally foreign and irrelevant, even oppressive. Many theorists have argued that such an assumption is based on an oversimplification and misunderstanding of the complex history and philosophical foundations of the human rights framework—see for example De Varennes (2006), Glendon (2001), Klug (2015), and Ramcharan (2016). While it is true that many of those involved with drafting the UDHR were educated in the ‘Western tradition’, and that the notion of ‘rights’ owes much to Western philosophical thought, the coalescing of philosophical ideals from many divergent cultural backgrounds at the time of its development is often overlooked. So too is the involvement and influence of many actors and states from the non-Western world in the creation of the human rights framework (De Varennes 2006; Glendon 2001; Klug 2015; Ramcharan 2016). There is thus much in the rich story of the development of the human rights framework that people from refugee backgrounds can appreciate, from its shared vision for humanity to its valuing of human dignity and equality over state sovereignty and its long history of people standing up against oppression. Understanding the historical roots of human rights principles may help refugees to move beyond the philosophical impasse and ideological and cultural pressure they experience during settlement. It can provide the option for embracing rights and welcoming cultural change as a creative and constructive response to the perceived threat to refugee cultures posed by Australian laws and values. Nonetheless, it is essential to recognize that the philosophical and cultural conflicts that refugee communities grapple with in settlement challenge the very core of their identities. Both men and women are often struggling with the loss and reconstruction of identity, whilst also experiencing the effects of trauma and attempting to heal both individually and as a community. This makes the process of engaging in cultural change particularly challenging, and as the findings demonstrate, a lack of understanding by the wider Australian community only exacerbates this. While the research indicates that discussion may be opened in the ways we have suggested, changing cultural beliefs and values is nonetheless a slow and difficult process. Even armed with a better understanding of human rights and Australian law, some individuals and communities may not be convinced to shift their ideas. It is unrealistic to expect this. However, even for those who do not want to let go of values that conflict with Australian rights and laws, a better understanding of human rights and their link to the law can help them to navigate the legal system and social norms. At the very least they may be able to appreciate that rights-based Australian laws function to protect their own cultural beliefs and values, and their freedom to practise traditional customs so long as they do not violate Australian laws. However, the findings also make clear that unless the broader sociopolitical context is supportive and inclusive of settling refugees, better human rights education is unlikely to realize its full potential in promoting understanding and respect for Australian laws and rights among refugee communities. Highly politicized policies and public discourse pertaining to refugees make politics a crucial factor in shaping how people are able to realize (or not) their human rights in settlement (Fiske 2006; Rees and Pease 2007). In the current political climate, a lack of employment options, inadequate settlement services, hostility to refugees and asylum seekers, and the rise of racism and in particular Islamophobia adversely impact newly arrived refugee communities and deny them access to some human rights (Fiske 2006; Hebbani 2014). This further marginalizes people, compounds men’s loss of self-worth and hardens patriarchal attitudes to women’s and children’s rights within refugee communities. Australian policies towards asylum seekers also contribute to a political climate which undermines the importance of the human rights paradigm and the integrity of the government as an upholder of human rights (Fiske 2006). Policies such as mandatory detention, offshore processing, and returning asylum seeker boats to their countries of departure contravene international human rights law and contribute to a public discourse of suspicion and exclusion of refugees (Human Rights Law Centre 2015; O’Doherty and Lecouteur 2007). This political context exacerbates refugees’ resentment and misinterpretation of Australian laws. Experiencing the denial of rights that are available to other members of the Australian community undermines the value of the human rights framework in the eyes of refugee communities, and the integrity of Australian authorities insisting on its importance. Unless there is a shift in the political discourse and unless the structural issues creating barriers to refugees’ full inclusion and participation in society are addressed, many will struggle to achieve access to human rights, or to accept women’s and children’s rights as part of their changing cultural practice. The notion of human rights as ‘part law, part philosophy, part political movement’ adapted for this project enables a rich analysis of refugee experiences of and interactions with the human rights paradigm both prior to and during settlement. It is obvious that to assist refugees to integrate into the Australian community, we have to address each of the three aspects of human rights in settlement. The research makes clear that the provision of better human rights and legal education is critical to ensure that refugees understand the Australian legal system and the rights on which it is based. However, education must also be reinforced by effective service provision and acceptance into Australian society. Poor service provision impacts on refugees’ enjoyment of their rights in settlement, and the racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia which is currently rife in Australia denies their right to respect and has detrimental consequences for refugees struggling to move from the margins into the mainstream of Australian life. Until we address these structural issues, the meaning of rights will remain unclear for many refugee communities. Fundamental to achieving these outcomes, however, is a nuanced understanding of human rights that challenges the popular belief that refugee cultural values are in conflict with human rights principles. Refugees must be invited into conversations about human rights and Australian laws in a way that allows them to understand their meaning, function and relevance to their lives. The provision of better information will not automatically change knowledge, attitudes or behaviour. Only information that can be readily understood and incorporated into one’s world view will do so, and refugee communities must be given opportunities to incorporate respect for human rights and Australian laws into their evolving cultural practice in Australia. Footnotes 1 The Meaning of Rights in Refugee Settlement at https://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/research/forced-migration-research-network/projects. 2 This involved a mix of Karen, Karenni and Chin refugees from Burma. 3 This group included Assyrian and Mandean refugees. 4 See footnote 1. 5 Nationality is not specified to avoid stigmatizing one particular community. 6 To protect the identity of any easily identifiable participant the location is not specified. Acknowledgements With special thanks to research assistants Charlotte Bell, Rochelle Baughan and Marcela Garrett. Funding This research was funded by the Australian Research Council, No. LP130100191. References Addo M. K. 2010 . 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TI - Freedom from Persecution or Continued Abuse? An Analysis of the Meaning of Rights in Refugee Communities
JF - Journal of Human Rights Practice
DO - 10.1093/jhuman/huy015
DA - 2018-07-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/freedom-from-persecution-or-continued-abuse-an-analysis-of-the-meaning-3VSGCICxW0
SP - 248
EP - 267
VL - 10
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -