VI. Few Options for the Future

I am nothing now….  All I do is worry about my family and my future. Three years like this now.[261]

—Ahmad Z., who traveled alone from Afghanistan to Indonesia when he was 17 years old.

For refugees and asylum seekers, including children, there are few viable options for building a life in Indonesia. Their only hope is for UNHCR to resettle them, a protracted and often unsuccessful process. Faced by years in limbo in Indonesia, asylum seekers, recognized refugees, and other migrants choose the more dangerous but more immediate route of taking boats illegally to Australia.

Resettlement Process

There is an Afghan proverb, “being killed is better than having to wait.” Our waiting here is like a traffic light that is always red. We have no idea when it will turn green.[262]

—Daoud T., a refugee waiting for resettlement.

People who successfully make it through UNHCR’s process and gain refugee status still lack protection in Indonesia, at risk of rearrest and unable to work (see above); to the best of Human Rights Watch’s knowledge, however, they are generally protected from refoulement, meaning that the Indonesian government does not try to send them home. Left in limbo in Indonesia, resettlement in another country, through UNHCR, is the best option for these people.  Yet only a few refugees are actually resettled, and the wait can be long.

In the three-year period from 2010 to 2012, 826 people were resettled from Indonesia to a third country (in 2010, 176 refugees were resettled; in 2011, 403 were resettled, and in 2012, 247 were resettled).[263] 86 percent of these people went to Australia, with the remainder to New Zealand, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and the US.[264]

Given that just 826 people were resettled from Indonesia in a three year period, and given that as of February 2013, there were 1,938 refugees recognized by UNHCR in Indonesia,[265] it is clear that many face a long wait. As with refugee status determination itself, there are several steps to the resettlement process, with no guaranteed outcome. There are currently 754 refugees in Indonesia whose applications for resettlement have been submitted to a third country, and another 247 whose applications have been accepted (by Australia and New Zealand) and who are awaiting departure.[266] In 2012, Australia increased, to its credit, the numbers of resettlement places available, but this does not answer the need in Indonesia.

Kiriti T., a Sri Lankan refugee who arrived in Indonesia in 2010, has been staying in a temporary shelter in Medan, waiting for resettlement, with her husband, two daughters and a son for a year and a half:

We bought birds for our children. We needed to change their mindset, to make them smile. The kids are depressed. We can see it in them. We are trying to give them a decent life. But they see the terrible situation and this is what they know about the world. They are always asking: “When will we go?”[267]

Unaccompanied migrant children are among those stuck in this limbo. Labaan A., who was 17 years old when he traveled alone from Somalia to Indonesia, told us,

I don’t have any money so I don’t have any way to help [my mother in Somalia]. This month I asked UNHCR to send me back to Somalia because I’d rather die with my mother. I told them, “If you won’t send me to another country, send me home.” I do nothing all day. No classes, no job, it’s like my life is on embargo.[268]

Compelled to Risk Boat Journeys to Australia

There was an 18-year-old here [in this residential facility in Medan], but he left recently to get on a boat because he had been waiting for two years.[269]

—Sher K., an Afghan refugee.

We’re not satisfied here. We don’t know when we’ll be resettled. UNHCR says they can’t promise we will go to a third country. So people go [take the boats] to Australia.[270]

—Khalid A., an Afghan refugee.

Many migrants, including families and unaccompanied children, find themselves compelled to take boat journeys to Australia, seeing that risky journey as the only way to break the limbo of life in Indonesia. A staffer at an NGO that works with refugees and asylum seekers explained the motivation he had seen many times when his clients decided to risk these boats: “If you are not given a timeline with reasonable dates, why would you wait? You grew up in uncertainty, you fled uncertainty, why would you want to stay and live in more uncertainty?”[271]

These boats, typically arranged by smugglers, often lack sufficient food, fuel, and water, and are unseaworthy; there are frequent fatalities.[272] Despite the frequent drownings from these unregulated crossings, many migrants choose to make the trip. Sher K. observed, “Many of the men have wives and kids [at home] they think about, they can’t wait here. If they get there, good. If not, at least the suffering ends.”[273]

Unaccompanied migrant children are among those who choose to risk the boat journeys. They reported that they felt they had few options. None of the unaccompanied migrant children with whom we spoke attended school in Indonesia, and children with refugee status, like adults, do not have permission to work. Indonesia has no alternative immigration statuses available for these children.

Ali H., a 16-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, was considering taking a boat: “Next I’m asking and enquiring to [UNHCR to] process my case. But it is difficult, a lot of expenses and a lot of time, and you don’t know if you’ll get a positive or a reject. So I might take the boat. I will borrow money from someone in Quetta, from family there.”[274] Arif B., a recognized refugee and unaccompanied minor, who at the age of 15 narrowly escaped drowning on a smuggler’s boat to Australia, was trying again: “I’ve made many attempts to go.… I keep trying because the cases are very slow here.”[275]

Barat Ali Batoor, a refugee and Afghan photographer of Hazara ethnicity, explained that the limbo created by the refugee processing in Indonesia was difficult: “After eight or nine months you are called for an interview, and then there’s more time to wait for the result. It’s taking years, and people’s families are back home, needing money. At least on the boats, you know your fate in 36 hours, in 24 hours.” Barat knew the risks he and his fellow refugees faced: “People sell everything to come here, and they will have nothing if [the boat goes down].”[276]