Bill Frelick – Regional Crises, Refugees and Human Rights

20 Nov Bill Frelick – Regional Crises, Refugees and Human Rights

Was a really interesting talk tonight at the Wheeler Centre. The speaker was Bill Frelick, who is the director of the Refugees Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. He has also worked at Amnesty International the US Commission for Refugees.

He spoke of six barriers to refugees in 2018. It was saddening and eye opening to hear about what the so called ‘industrialised West’ including the USA, Europe and Australia do to shirk their responsibilities in terms of providing safety for people fleeing persecution.

To put this in perspective, there is a difference between providing safety from persecution and the political issue of resettlement. Also, we are not talking about significantly large numbers of people trying to enter the US or Australia. It is nothing of the scale of refugees who have entered places like Lebanon or Bangladesh. One of the FIRST things we could do is provide adequate financial support to the countries who are willing to take refugees.