Immigration is good for you
For Canada, accepting nearly 250,000 new immigrants every year for the past 10 years has greatly enhanced the richness of the cultural fabric of our country.
In July last year, I spent a long weekend at Malá Fatra National Park and on a very hot day, chose a trail that descended to Šútovský vodopád. The way back was a steep climb. On the way, I met Jozef from Terchová who works as an industrial plumber in Germany. We agreed on the bad choice of hiking route in 35 degree weather. He told me how hard it is to live away from his family. And we disagreed on immigration and Slovakia’s response to the migrant crisis in Europe: “I work in Germany to earn a decent salary,” he said, “and now we have to pay for the refugees flooding into Europe.”
Jozef ran through arguments I have heard a hundred times already: Slovak salaries are below average, pensions are miniscule, migrants seek economic advantages.
“Slovaks did not create the problem so why should Slovaks solve the problem?” he asked.
I know this is a sensitive and difficult issue in Slovakia. Joining the EU meant closer alignment with Western Europe, better salaries, investment, and infrastructure. When Slovaks voted for EU membership, no one mentioned providing housing and food for migrants.
http://spectator.sme.sk/c/20073454/immigration-is-good-for-you.html
AI: Female refugees face sexual harassment on journey through Europe
New research conducted by Amnesty International (AI) reveals that women and girl refugees face violence, assault, exploitation and sexual harassment at every stage of their journey, including on European soil.
The AI research, which included interviews with 40 female refugees in northern Europe last month who traveled from Turkey to Greece before journeying across the Balkans, reveals the suffering that women and girl refugees experience while traveling to Europe. “All the women described feeling threatened and unsafe during the journey. Many reported that in almost all of the countries they passed through they experienced physical abuse and financial exploitation, being groped or pressured to have sex by smugglers, security staff or other refugees,” the research published on the organization's website states.
“After living through the horrors of the war in Iraq and Syria these women have risked everything to find safety for themselves and their children. But from the moment they begin this journey they are again exposed to violence and exploitation, with little support or protection,” said Tirana Hassan, AI's Crisis Response director.
The research report states that women and girls traveling alone or only with their children “felt particularly under threat in transit areas and camps in Hungary, Croatia and Greece, where they were forced to sleep alongside hundreds of refugee men. In some instances women left the designated areas to sleep in the open on the beach because they felt safer there.”
Australia's refugee policies: a global inspiration for all the wrong reasons
ustralia first introduced onshore detention facilities in 1991 at Villawood in Sydney and Port Hedland in Western Australia. Mandatory detention came in 1992. Bob Hawke’s government announced it was because “Australia could be on the threshold of a major wave of unauthorised boat arrivals from south-east Asia, which will severely test both our resolve and our capacity to ensure that immigration in this country is conducted within a planned and controlled framework”.
More than 20 years later, the rhetoric has only worsened against the most vulnerable arriving from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka. Policies that years ago seemed unimaginable, such as imprisoning refugees on remote Pacific islands, are the norm and blessed with bipartisan support.
The sad reality is Australia’s refugee policies are envied and copied around the world, especially in Europe, now struggling to cope with a huge influx of refugees from the Middle East and Africa. Walls and fences are being built across the continent in futile attempts to keep out the unwanted. A privatised securityapparatus is working to complement the real agenda. Australia is an island but it has long implemented remote detention camps with high fences and isolation for its inhabitants.
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