Taiwan’s treatment of asylum seekers and refugees lags behind global standards.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/09/20
By: Liberty Victoria’s Rights Advocacy Project
Credit: Reuters / TPG
Australia has a new solution to its asylum seeker regime: a secret deal with the Taiwanese government for critically ill asylum seekers held on Nauru to be transferred to Taiwan for medical treatment, where that treatment is inadequate or unavailable on Nauru. The arrangement raises serious questions about the protection for refugees and asylum seekers in Taiwan.
Taiwan has struggled to implement a human rights framework for the protection of refugees and asylum seekers. Unlike the majority of countries worldwide, Taiwan does not have a domestic protection framework for refugees and asylum seekers. A national refugee law bill has been before the Legislative Yuan since 2005. There has been no progress since the government round table with civil society actors in April 2017. There have also been no other steps to implement the 1951 Refugee Convention and its related 1967 Protocol.
Sydney, Australia, against the treatment of asylum-seekers at Australia-run detention centres located at Nauru and Manus Island, Nov. 18, 2017. [FULL STORY]
