A New Zealand Green Party MP says resettling gay asylum seekers in a country where homosexuality is illegal is “taking them out of the frying pan and putting them into the fire”. Denise Roche says Manus Island is "hell on earth" Denise Roche says there is huge concern about the situation at the Australian processing centre on Manus Island, where a new report has found gay men are being shunned, sexually abused and assaulted. The Human Rights Watch and Human Rights Law Centre research says gay men were having “frequent nightmares, were extremely depressed, and isolated themselves, often not leaving their rooms.” Some are also refusing to move on to a transit centre, because they fear being resettled in Papua New Guinea, where gay sex remains illegal. One gay man stated, “If I wanted to live like this I would have stayed in Iran and gone to prison, been released, and then sent to prison again.” The Green Party says our Government should be challenging Australia to stop the offshore detention at a place Denise Roche describes as “hell on Earth”. The party has also called for clarification over whether any so called “boat people” who arrived in New Zealand would be sent to places like Manus Island, something Prime Minister John Key agreed upon with Australia in 2013. “We have not heard back from the PM, other than to say that National will not be increasing the quota,” Roche tells GayNZ.com Daily News. “This really shows the lack of compassion the Government has for people who are in a very vulnerable situation. National introduced laws that allow people to be imprisoned in off shore detention centres, centres which have been widely condemned by NGOs and the UN. It is appalling that we have these laws, in a country that supposedly protects and respects human rights.” Roche says when it comes to gay men in particular, there is huge concern about resettling them in a country where homosexuality is illegal. “It is taking them out of the frying pan and putting them into the fire. It is in contravention to the Refugee Convention and our Government should be speaking out against such practices in our own backyard.” The MP is urging Key to adopt her Bill which would increase our refugee quota to 1,000. “While that is only an increase of 250 people, it would make a world of difference to those people. New Zealand has always been a country that has been proud of its compassion, but it is unfortunate the National Government isn’t living up to that.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 21st July 2015 - 9:19am