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Welcome to our final eNews for 2017 - with a few final updates and some important reports released - just squeezing it in before the holiday season is upon us! MYAN wishes you all a safe and enjoyable festive season and we look forward to more exciting work in 2018!
Youth in the Global Compact on Refugees
Nadine Liddy with GYAC delegates at the High Commissioner's Dialogue
Nadine Liddy, MYAN's National Coordinator, recently travelled to Geneva to participate in UNHCR's High Commissioner's Dialogue on Protection Challenges and to work with UNHCR's youth team and Global Youth Advisory Council (GYAC). MYAN prepared an advocacy brief on Youth Rights in the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), which was endorsed by the GYAC and presented to the High Commissioner, Filippo Grandi, along with the GYAC's paper, at the launch of the GYAC, prior to the HCD. The launch of the GYAC is an important and exciting development coming out of the 2016 Global Refugee Youth Consultations (GRYC). MYAN was thrilled to work with the GYAC and share our advocacy work on ensuring that the rights, needs and capabilities of young refugees are recognised and responded to in the GCR. Read MYAN's paper here and the GYAC paper here. Watch GYAC's video with their recommendations for the GCR.
Nadine Liddy with UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi and Arash Bordbar, Australia's delegate to the GYAC.
Migrant Settlement Outcomes Inquiry Report
MYAN welcomes the release of the Report of the Inquiry into Migrant Settlement Outcomes by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, which has been the result of a long consultative process with submissions from various expert organisations in the field of settlement and public hearings.
MYAN welcomes the Committee’s focus on education, language education, employment, sports and recreational activities, and mentoring programs, as well as its recommendation for continuance of the Youth Transition Support Pilot.
MYAN however is deeply disappointed that the Committee had an exclusive focus on crime and visa cancellations under the “Migrant Youth” section of the report, and is gravely concerned about the recommendation to introduce mandatory visa cancellations for offenders aged between 16 and 18 years.
MYAN believes in the importance of the discourse from government on social cohesion and that the national conversations should focus on the contributions of migrant and refugees to the Australian society. Read MYAN's detailed response to the Inquiry Report here.
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Report
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has released a report outlining its concluding observations and recommendations to strengthen protection of human rights in Australia. MYAN Australia contributed to the Shadow Report prepared by a team of NGOs, which can be found here.
Building a New Life in Australia Longitudinal Study Report
Building a New Life in Australia (BNLA): the Longitudinal Study of Humanitarian Migrants looks into how humanitarian migrants settle into life in Australia and is the first long-term study of its kind. It is a long term project that follows the settlement of 1,509 humanitarian migrant families (2,399 individuals in total) who arrived in Australia or had their permanent visas granted in the six months between May and December 2013. The study follows participants as they settle into life in Australia and aims to increase the knowledge around the factors that support successful settlement and those that hinder it. MYAN has worked with the BNLA team to identify findings for the youth cohort and looks forward to further work in this area in 2018.
The BNLA report analyses data from the first three waves of the study and is designed to provide a quick and easy reference for policy makers, service providers and researchers needing evidence to inform their work. It provides a detailed description of migration experiences, settlement experiences and socio-economic characteristics of a large group of humanitarian migrants. It also examines the association between variations in these characteristics and experiences with the settlement outcomes of respondents. The value of BNLA as a longitudinal study is that it allows researchers, service providers and policy makers to look at outcomes over time.
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