Cutting down on number of quota refugees may increase human trafficking

While many countries take more refugees, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development wants Finland to take fewer

Astrid Thors

Paavo Väyrynen

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If refugees who are persevering in the most miserable conditions cannot come to Finland on the official route as quota refugees based on a contract between Finland and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), they will try to get here by fair means or foul - even if it means that they fall into the hands of people smugglers.
      This is a summary of an answer relating to Finland’s refugee quotas given to Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen (Centre Party) by Minister of Migration and European Affairs Astrid Thors (Swedish People’s Party) and Divisional Director Arja Kekkonen from the Migration Department of the Ministry of the Interior.
     
The Minister for Foreign Trade and Development proposed on Tuesday that Finland’s annual numerical quota for taking refugees should be reduced from the current 750, and that Finland might instead support the UN Refugee Agency in other ways.
      The debate was sparked at the weekend, when Wille Rydman, the President of the National Coalition Party’s youth organisation, said that Finland should abandon its annual quota for taking refugees.
     
"The resettling of refugees is the most essential contribution that the UNHCR hopes Finland to make. Because quota refugees come here under the protection of the United Nations and other countries, it is bound to prevent human trafficking”, Kekkonen snaps.
      In Minister Thors’s opinion, it is important to retain the annual quota in order to give all refugees a signal of options other than a desperate trip with people smugglers.
      ”The resettling of refugees also puts a check on their leaving for Europe as asylum seekers, a phenomenon that the European Union does not wish to see”, Kekkonen notes.
     
Reducing the number of quota refugees would clash with the prevailing trends elsewhere.
      ”The list of countries willing to resettle refugees is growing so much that it is hard to follow. One such country is Japan which joined the list last year. At the same time the EU approved of a quota refugee resettling programme”, Kekkonen points out.
      Currently, Finnish officials are considering the countries from which quota refugees will be taken this year.
     As far as is known, the ministerial working group on immigration policy is to transfer the matter to Minister Thors by the end of March for a final decision.
     
Paavo Väyrynen is against taking refugees from Congo; he says that Congolese refugees have had especially great difficulties to integrate into Finnish society.
     Over the past three years, a total of some 450 quota refugees from Congo have been taken by Finland.
     Thors and Kekkonen are surprised at Väyrynen’s assertion that the Congolese have integrated poorly, as so far, not a single study has been made on the matter.
      Recently, Kekkonen made a trip to Oslo with a group of Nordic civil servants, attending a meeting on the issue of Congolese refugees.
     
Kekkonen reports that for example Denmark has been receiving refugees from Congo for several years, and there have been no integration problems.
      “When we spoke about the allegations made in Finland, the Danish had their eyes wide open”, Kekkonen noted.
      Typically, such Congolese refugees are women and children who come from refugee camps in Rwanda.
      ”They are people who have been repeatedly raped and who have experienced violence many times on their way. They have no possibilities to return to their home country”, Kekkonen argues.
     
In addition to Congolese refugees, this year’s quota is expected to include refugees from Iraq, Myanmar (former Burma), and after a few years’ break, even some people from Afghanistan.
     
In everyday speech, people often confuse asylum seekers with refugees. Refugees are people who have been granted a refugee status by the UN Refugee Agency. The 750 quota refugees annually taken in by Finland have such a background.
      Asylum seekers are granted a refugee status only if one of the receiving countries decides that they need protection and grants them asylum.
     
According to statistics gathered by the Ministry of the Interior and the World Bank in 2009, a total of 25 countries across the world have accepted an annual numerical quota for refugees.
      Sweden tops the list of EU countries with a total of 1,900 people. Great Britain comes in second with 1,000 quota refugees, and Finland is third with its annual quota of 750. Other European countries outside the EU are Norway with 1,200 quota refugees and Iceland with an annual quota of 30 people.
      The USA tops the list of countries outside Europe with a total of 78,000 refugees per annum, while Australia comes second with 13,500 refugees. Canada’s quota is 12,000.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  President of National Coalition Party Youth Arm criticises Finnish immigration policy (23.2.2010)

Links:
  The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)

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