From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
UNHCR sees some improvements in detention practices in the Caribbean, but more needed
Aug 9, 2013 - 12:23:20 AM
Washington - The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has a global mandate to
ensure the protection and fair treatment of persons fleeing persecution,
conflict and other forms of violence. In the Caribbean region, UNHCR
works with individual states and promotes regional cooperation to achieve this
end.
At the end of 2012, UNHCR recorded over 2,500 persons
intercepted in the Caribbean region over the course of the year. Many Caribbean
states use detention to control these migration flows within their territories.
Overcrowding, poor sanitation and inadequate procedural safeguards currently
characterize immigration detention centers throughout the Caribbean
region.
Recent reports in the media have drawn attention to
conditions in the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, a facility that the
Government of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas uses primarily to hold Cuban and
Haitian refugees and asylum-seekers.
For years, UNHCR has engaged The Bahamas in dialogue to
increase protection for refugees and asylum-seekers through improvements to due
process, access to asylum and conditions at this facility.
While further fundamental changes are needed to make
practices and conditions consistent with basic international standards, UNHCR
is encouraged by recent steps taken by the Government, which include proposing
new regulations to address conditions, approving a budget for detention
facility infrastructure upgrades, using more humane and cost effective
alternatives to detention for refugees, and taking preliminary measures to
establish a fair asylum process.
UNHCR calls upon the Government of The Bahamas to
institutionalize this asylum process into law, making it accessible to persons of
all nationalities and to fully implement the reforms proposed to improve
detention conditions.
Similar facilities are used throughout the region as the
default response to managing migration flows. UNHCR calls upon all
governments in the Caribbean to ensure refugee and asylum-seekers are treated
humanely and fairly in a manner consistent with international obligations.
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