Refugees and Human Rights

Kate Osamor Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. This afternoon, we have had a broad, well informed debate on the global refugee crisis, which continues to grow and which can at times seem intractable. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) spoke with his customary passion and authority on this issue, as Chair of the International Development Committee. When he said that prevention is always best, I believe he spoke for all parts of the House. Likewise, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), who has campaigned tirelessly for the rights of Palestinians, again made a powerful case for renewing our resolve and taking ambitious action.

As an illustration of the cross-party concerns on these issues, we heard forceful and eloquent contributions from the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who told us that the rights of the Rohingya must be at the forefront of future negotiations; the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who mentioned the importance of supporting disabled refugees; and the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), who gave a first-hand account of refugee camps. My hon. Friends the Members for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) and the hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) and for Solihull (Julian Knight) spoke about the desperate need for a human rights approach when helping refugees. They and the many others who have spoken in the debate are united in desiring an end to the death, suffering and sexual violence, an end to the lost generation of refugees unable to leave the camps.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) spoke eloquently about the terrible impacts of crisis and conflict in Myanmar, Yemen and other countries in the middle east. I want to turn briefly to the situation in Africa. Conflict has displaced millions of people in South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and other countries across the continent. One million refugees are now in Uganda in one of the most progressive arrangements anywhere on the planet, but last year at a pledging conference, international donors could provide only a quarter of the funds needed to sustain it. In Libya, hundreds of thousands of refugees from across Africa live in detention camps, in brothels or on the streets, facing the believable risk of being sold at the market into slavery—this in the 21st century.

The crises we have talked about today are still only the ones on the tips of our tongues. CARE International recently released its report, “Suffering in Silence”, and profiled the 10 most under-reported crises around the world: North Korea, Eritrea, Burundi, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Vietnam, the Lake Chad basin, the Central African Republic and Peru. We must not forget them.

Who can forget the picture of the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi? If we fixate on the suffering, that can be overwhelming. We in the House have a responsibility not simply to promise charity and express outrage at the crisis of the moment, but to redouble our efforts and resolve the long-term situation. Our humanitarian work cannot and must not depend on the ebb and flow of pity and shock. That is why today we need international action and respect for international laws and norms more than ever before. Let us remember that we already have the universal declaration of human rights—70 years old this year—the 1951 refugee convention and the sustainable development goals.

Then along came the President of the United States. In a matter of months, he has withdrawn the American people from the Paris climate agreement, which is the only thing standing between us and massive climate displacement; tried to turn the USA inwards with his Islamophobic travel ban; and cut, just recently, $65 million from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency—the lifeline for millions of Palestinian refugees and workers.

The world’s long-term plan for managing migration and forced displacement sustainably and fairly is due to be crafted and signed up to later this year at the UN, through global compacts on migration and refugees. That is the only and best plan we have, but in December Donald Trump pulled the USA out of that as well. It is absolutely shameful.

If it was not already clear what the supposed leader of the free world thinks about refugees and migrants, Donald Trump then uttered his worst words of all about African and central American countries. I am loth to repeat them in the House, but I must as they have to be quoted directly and refuted: “shithole countries”. That is racist, and it sows fear, not hope.

The Britain that I believe in stands shoulder to shoulder with those countries and not against them, so let me say something about the UK’s role. A Government who consistently stand with Donald Trump, a Government who refuse to stand up against him, a Government who invite him on a state visit, a Government who on every occasion make the expedient choice and not the right one will be called out by Labour Members.

Our party believes in hope, not fear. We take pride in the UK’s pledge to spend 0.7% of its national income on aid to help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable and to save millions of lives each year. Labour is committed to a foreign policy that has human rights at its heart, in defence, diplomacy and development, reinforcing rather than weakening that fragile international order.

I call on the Government to do more. I call on them to plug the funding gaps that are hindering refugee responses, to localise humanitarian funding—as we said we would do in 2016 at the world humanitarian summit—to double the UK’s efforts to negotiate and agree ambitious global compacts for migration and refugees and to put the needs of the world’s poorest before short-term national interest when it comes to spending our aid budget.

The truth is that these multiple crises are preventable. Their symptoms are solvable. The motion makes a simple case, which we hope can command the support of the whole House. Let the message go out from the House that the UK will put refugees at the heart of its foreign policy and uphold human rights around the world.