Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/142338
currentaffair flow of refugees from the two nations. But it's difficult not to see a link between "military intervention", as Castles calls it, and treating the cause rather than the symptoms of refugee displacement. Alongside the Department of Foreign Affairs and AusAID, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has built schools, health centres and bridges in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province. "Enhanced facilities and access to them [are] designed to stabilise and support communities, which aims to improve the quality of life for the community," an ADF spokesperson told OUTthere. "This effect is not ... to stem the movement of people from these countries. Reconstruction efforts in the Middle East are, rather, elements of the counterinsurgency mission in those countries." A large number of the millions of refugees in the world have no real prospect of resettlement in a country such as Australia – or the United States, which has taken the most asylum claims for the past seven years. They can spend 10, 20, 30 years – indeed, their whole lives – in camps, with no prospect of going anywhere. About 100,000 a year are approved for resettlement and the queue is about seven million long. "And that's why people with resources often want to come quicker," Castles says. Any illegal asylum seeker who makes it to Australia alive must prove 'persecution' on the grounds laid down in the United Nations refugees' convention – those 30 grounds typically relating to their race, ethnicity or political beliefs. But how do you prove you've been tortured? A lot of claims are knocked back or take years to test. A country has the right to protect its borders – and as Australia is "girt by sea", it's difficult to bypass official channels of entry. Clearly, those who risk their lives to make it here on boats are desperate. Would it do any harm to let them in? Professor Graeme Hugo of the Australian Population and Migration Research Centre at the University of Adelaide attempted to answer that question in his 2011 report, A Significant Contribution: The Economic, Social and Civic Contributions of First and Second Generation Humanitarian Entrants. It's a hard slog for anyone entering our seemingly friendly society to get a fresh start. Learning the language is the first big obstacle – which might explain why first-generation humanitarian entrants experience greater unemployment than average. In general, the first generation of an asylum-seeking family is prepared to suffer hardship, trusting that the benefits will flow to their children. And in general, they do. "For many groups, the second generation performs better than the Australian-born," Hugo says, defining second-generation as born in Australia to refugee parents or schooled in Australia. Parents in most refugee groups set out with higher expectations for their children than the Australian average. "... the first generation of an asylum-seeking family is prepared to suffer hardship, trusting that the benefits will flow to their children."