Accommodating Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Indonesia: from Immigration Detention to Containment in “Alternatives to Detention”
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Volume 33 Refuge Number 2 Accommodating Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Indonesia: From Immigration Detention to Containment in “Alternatives to Detention” Antje Missbach Abstract mouvements secondaires des demandeurs d’asile et des Considered the last ‘stepping stone’ before Australia, Indo- réfugiés en Asie du Sud-Est. Tandis que les études sur la nesia plays an important role in immobilising secondary migration se sont beaucoup focalisées sur la la détention movements of asylum seekers and refugees in Southeast des immigrants et les conditions de vie déplorables dans les Asia. While migration scholarship has dedicated substantial les centres de détention des immigrants (CDI), cet article attention to immigration detention and the deplorable liv- explore des alternatives à la détention (AD) à deux endroits ing conditions inside immigration detention centres (IDCs), d’Indonésie : la ville de Makassar et la province d’Aceh. À this article explores “alternatives to detention” (ATD) in two des fins plus générales de contribution critique sur les CDI, Indonesian localities: the city of Makassar and the province il étudie la liberté individuelle, la mobilité, les mécanismes of Aceh. Seeking to contribute to a critical examination of de soins et les dispositions d’aides, la protection des droits, ATD more generally, this article examines individual free- l’autodétermination, et les questions de sécurité personnelle. dom, mobility, mechanisms of care and aid provision, pro- Il illustre enfin les limites persistantes et le manque de droits tection of rights, self-determination, and matters of personal auxquels font toujours face, en Indonésie, les demandeurs safety. The article illustrates the remaining limitations and d’asile et les réfugiés à l’extérieur des CDI. Du fait qu’on les the lack of rights that asylum seekers and refugees in Indo- empêche de s’intégrer aux sociétés hôtes locales et que leur nesia continue to face outside of IDCs. A durable solution, mobilité sociale et économique est extrêmement limitée, on in the form of integration, is not available to asylum seekers ne leur offre pas de solution durable sous la forme d’une and refugees, as they are prevented from integrating into the intégration. En dépit d’une certaine mobilité physique dans local host societies, and their social and economic mobil- le cadre des AD, les demandeurs d’asile et les réfugiés restent ity remains widely restricted. Yet at the same time, despite confinés à l’intérieur de l’Indonésie du fait qu’on les décour- more physical mobility in ATD, asylum seekers and refugees age également d’aller de l’avant. remain contained within Indonesia as their onward move- ment remains deterred as well. Introduction In June 2013, Human Rights Watch published a damn- Résumé ing report entitled Barely Surviving: Detention, Abuse, and Neglect of Migrant Children in Indonesia, which highlighted Considérée comme le dernier tremplin vers l’Australie, the situation of hundreds of incarcerated minor asylum l’Indonésie joue un rôle important pour bloquer les seekers and refugees in immigration detention centres 32 Volume 33 Refuge Number 2 (IDCs); it also provided insights into the more general situ- ATD also need further review before wide-scale adoption; ation of almost 13,000 adult asylum seekers and refugees in however, the little critical research into ATD that has been Indonesia at the time.1 Primary responsibility for the lack of conducted thus far has been confined to countries of the protection, maltreatment, and abuse in detention was attrib- Global North.10 uted to the Indonesian government,2 but Human Rights Three years after the launch of the “Beyond Detention” Watch attributed secondary responsibility to the Australian strategy, the article explores living conditions in Indonesian government, which had long provided substantial funding ATD in order to document what the gradual shift from IDCs to the Indonesian immigration detention system in order to to ATD has brought for those affected by it. While recent deter the irregular onward movement of those immobilized migration scholarship has produced a large critical body of people to Australia.3 Exactly one year later, the Office of the literature on detention,11 with considerable attention also United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) dedicated to Indonesian IDCs,12 this article questions their introduced a new global strategy, “Beyond Detention 2014– “alternative” dimension based on my encounters with a 2019,” to help governments cease detaining asylum seekers specific empirical reality in the field. This shift of attention and refugees. The three main goals agreed under this strat- from IDCs to ATDis significant in light of the shifting ratio egy are “(1) to end the detention of children; (2) to ensure of detained and undetained asylum seekers and refugees in that alternatives to detention (ATD) are available in law and Indonesia.13 implemented in practice; and (3) to improve conditions The main argument put forward here is that ATD in Indo- of detention, where detention is necessary and unavoid- nesia can be conceptualized as another form of containment, able, to meet international standards.”4 To assist Indonesia albeit with greater mobility. From this perspective, ATD mask implement the strategy, a National Action Plan was drawn a larger problem, one that might even be more complex than up with relevant Indonesian ministries, the UNHCR office the release from IDCs, which is the lack of local integration in Jakarta and its local implementing partners, the Interna- for the asylum seekers and refugees currently in Indonesia. tional Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Indonesian Local integration constitutes a durable solution, next to Human Rights Commission (KOMNAS HAM).5 resettlement or voluntary repatriation. In analyzing my find- In light of growing recognition of detention’s harm to ings I have opted to apply the concept of carceral mobility, detainees as well as its high financial costs, governments which I borrow from Moran, Piacentini, and Pallot.14 Moran, around the world are exploring more cost-effective and Piacentini, and Pallot provide a useful starting point through humane options for accommodating immobilized asylum challenging the widespread assumption of “mobility as an seekers and refugees.6 ATD rose to greater international atten- expression of power,” and that “mobility is connected with tion with the launch of UNHCR’s “Beyond Detention” strategy autonomy … and, ultimately, ‘freedom.’”15 Their study on in 2015. An outcome of intense lobbying by NGOs, such as the contemporary prisoner transport in the Russian Federation International Detention Coalition (a global network of more highlights in particular the punitive control and the carceral than 300 NGOs) and Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network practices inherent in (coerced) mobility of prisoners. (APPRN), the strategy picks up the call for accommodating Seeking to further explore carceral aspects of mobility, I asylum seekers in residential housing, open transit facilities, pay attention to asylum seekers’ and refugees’ limited attain- and shelters in local communities while their immigration ment of legal rights as well as their insufficient economic statuses are being processed.7 Indonesian NGOs are involved and social integration that, if it was granted, would allow in these NGO networks, but they were not the driving forces for a standard of living similar to that of the local popula- behind the campaigns. tion and wider social and cultural acceptance. I demonstrate There is no single legal definition of what determines ATD. that despite greater physical mobility, asylum seekers and While some scholars understand ATD to be a range of policies refugees in ATD lack the freedom to live a self-determined and practices employed by sovereign states to better manage life because there is an absence of crucial rights that could immigration falling short of incarceration,8 Sampson et al. otherwise enhance their economic and social mobility. On have suggested a number of minimum standards, including the basis of my analysis, the carceral mobility is character- respect for fundamental rights, meeting basic needs, legal ized by an absence of rights insofar as those residing in status and documentation, legal advice and interpretation, ATD are prohibited from taking up work and have difficulty fair and timely case resolution, and regular review of place- accessing education, therefore fostering dependency on aid ment decisions, which must be met in order qualify as ATD.9 and services. Despite high levels of control and surveillance, This article presents ATD as the physical and spatial lodging in the form of curfews, limited visiting rights, restricted of asylum seekers and refugees outside prison-like IDCs. radius of mobility, and regular police checks, I found a lack Although seen as improvements over closed institutions, of physical safety for the ATD residents, as they fear attacks 33 Volume 33 Refuge Number 2 and encroachments by locals. ATD sustain zones of contain- example” by the Indonesian government and therefore gives ment with semi-permeable boundaries that on the one hand an impression of ATD at their best, the other is an ad hoc provide little safety to asylum seekers and refugees, but on example, so provides a useful comparison of how contin- the other hand prevent meaningful integration. gency affects ATD. Both sites depict difficulties relevant to In writing this article I pursue four goals. First, the empiri- other ATD. Only two cases can be examined (largely because cal insights into temporary accommodation outside IDCs help of word limitations) to provide a more detailed sense of produce a more holistic picture of the day-to-day reality faced material conditions and everyday routines in those sites. The by asylum seekers and refugees stuck in Indonesia.16 Second, I broader claims about ATD, however, draw on the wider eth- contribute to the overall debate on ATD beyond the Indonesian nographic research within and amongst residents of the full context, particularly in regard to individual freedom, mobility, suite of ATD operating in Indonesia.