LifeJacket London: Raising Awareness for Refugees

2,500 Lifejackets brought the sea to Parliament Square on September 19 to raise awareness for the plight of refugees just as the UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants began.

A sea of life jackets hid the familiar green of Parliament Square as I stepped out of Westminster Station on Monday morning. I knew what I was going to see; in fact, I was headed to see it. Yet it stopped me in my tracks, forced from me a sharp intake of breath. The people who wore these lifejackets fled for their lives, and for their families. Too many died seeking safe refuge.

It could so easily have been me. But I am here, safe and removed from the horrors these people have fled. So removed that it feels unreal, even as I wipe dirt off of a refugee’s life preserver. I shift my feet nervously, looking around at the other people who have stopped. Some staring blankly, some sad, others making a face and walking away. I like the angry women, the ones who yell at the youths disrespecting the life jackets that were worn by real people, that real people died in. Many didn’t survive the trip. Does anyone else feel guilty?

These dirty lifejackets often only offer the illusion of safety. Many of them are fakes, in fact contributing to mass drownings when the non-buoyant material the jackets are made of fill with water and drag their wearers down. The production of cheap, fake lifejackets to sell to incoming refugees has become a booming business in Turkey alongside smuggling. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/refugee-crisis-turkish-police-find-factory-making-fake-lifejackets-izmir

The shocking aspect of the lifejackets — which are supposed to save lives — are not actually doing their jobs. Instead, lifejackets are yet another form of income for smugglers who sell fakes for a profit. Smugglers are the only ones profiting from the inaction on the part of governments to provide safe, legal routes for people to escape the danger of death and enslavement in the countries they flee.

The life jackets symbolised only a fraction of the estimated 6,940 individuals who drowned or went missing while trying to reach Europe between January 2015 and August 2016 (UN Refugee Agency).

Parliament Square became a graveyard.

Migrant Voice provided #legalroutes and other signs meant to raise awareness of crucial issues involved in the event.

The UN estimates that 11 people die every day making the crossing to Europe.

The UN Summit on Migrants and Refugees

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May argued at the UN Summit in New York for a better distinction between economic migrants and “genuine” refugees.

“This is not a political issue. This is a humanitarian issue.” — Nazek Ramadan, Migrant Voice Director

Theresa May’s 3 Points:

1. Refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.
2. Establish a clearer distinction between economic migrants and refugees.
3. All countries have the right to control the movement of people across their borders.

The Problem:

1. Claiming asylum in the first safe country means putting the vast majority of the pressure to absorb refugees onto one or two countries of the EU, those at the geographical edge. Moreover, 86% of refugees are already taken in by developing countries, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Already struggling financially, these countries lack social services and employment opportunities that refugees need to rebuild their lives after catastrophe.

“The refugee crisis in not going to go away. Shifting the burden to those countries less able to bear it merely deepens the instability we are facing.” — Dr. Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury

2. Put simply, there is a clear-cut, existing legal definition of a refugee versus an economic migrant. Refugees have no choice to flee their country for fear of persecution or personal danger.

“UNHCR’s latest figures show that some 1,000,573 people had reached Europe across the Mediterranean, mainly to Greece and Italy, in 2015. The landmark figure, which was reached late on December 29, also indicated that 84 per cent of those arriving in Europe came from the world’s top 10 refugee producing countries, strengthening UNHCR’s belief that most of the people arriving in Europe were fleeing war and persecution.”

Each case needs to be assessed on its own merit. This is the responsibility of the state to accomplish efficiently.

3. If migrants must claim asylum in the first country they enter, then those countries do not have the right to control the movement of people across their borders. Therefore, May’s points 1 and 3 conflict with one another.

Moreover, in the case of refugees, it is not an issue of controlling the number of visas one offers. As signatories of the 1951 Refugee convention, we have a commitment to provide sanctuary to refugees who are coming into this country as a means of survival.

Petros Tesfagheris speaking to the press.

A Perspective: Petros Tesfagheris

Petros, a refugee from Eritrea, works as an activist for the Eritrean Community in the UK. In Eritrea, the dictatorship has enforced an indefinite period of service for youth at the age of 18. This indefinite service can mean working in hard, physical labour for the entirety of one’s life: it is a life of slavery. Because of this, he says, “The youth are fleeing. They are fleeing a life of persecution.”

He explained to me the importance of the demonstration on the lifejackets in getting people involved, and in raising awareness for refugees in the heart of London. Most of all, he says, refugees “need to take their rightful place in the global community.” Migrants need to find their voice.

To learn more about the issues presented in this article, please visit http://www.migrantvoice.org