Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe
Debate between Hilary Benn and Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Hilary Benn
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who has great experience in these matters and is a true humanitarian. We need to put as much effort as possible into putting pressure on those who hold in their hands the future of this conflict and its resolution.
I want to reflect on what else this crisis and the wider points it raises tell us. It shows us that the Dublin agreement, which says that people entering Europe should seek asylum in the first country in which they arrive, and the Schengen agreement, which allows free movement but does not apply to the United Kingdom, are both creaking at the seams. It is unsustainable—this was the argument I made to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) when he intervened earlier—for some countries, just because of their geographical position, to bear the full weight of responsibility for refugees when they clearly cannot cope.
It shows us that the idea that leaving the European Union would somehow make the problem go away is absolute nonsense. A refugee fleeing with her family and her children is not suddenly going to stop at Calais and say, “Ah! Britain’s not in the European Union any more. I’m not going to take another step forward.”
It reminds us that we live in an increasingly interdependent world: what happens in one country will affect all of us who live in another country, even if we happen to be far away. In the 21st century we cannot, as human beings, shut the doors and close the curtains and wish that the rest of the world would go away.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Nicola Blackwood
A fleeing refugee will stop in the first place they feel safe, and the problem is that many refugees do not feel safe in the camps we are providing. We need to address the insecurity for women and girls in many of the camps. This is a short, medium and long-term problem that we are not yet solving.
Hilary Benn
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Reflecting on my experience of visiting refugee camps in Darfur, that was absolutely the issue. Women were going out to collect firewood and were being attacked or raped. We must provide security. I know that the Government have done a lot of work on that issue in recent times and, again, I applaud them for that. It is more complicated than people thinking, “We are in a place where those who were killing us and who led us to flee are no longer to be found.” Insecurity is about how people feel in their minds about whether they, their family and their children are safe.
We are in this together and the way forward has to be through co-operation with our neighbours, including the rest of the European Union. We are confronted with the painful truth that the world has to be much more effective in dealing with conflicts like this before they turn into brutal and bloody civil wars. The responsibility to protect was meant to be about that, but let us be honest: in Syria, no responsibility has been taken and nobody has been protected.
We have to recognise that as well as refugees—I come to the point made by the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway)—many, many other people are seeking to move across the globe to find a better life, in part because of conflict. They are coming not just from Syria, but from Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and other countries where there is poverty and a lack of economic opportunity. We talk about economic migration, but that is the story of human history.