The Rwanda Asylum Plan (RAP from here) was a plan announced by then-prime minister of the United Kingdom (UK), Boris Johnson on April 14th, 2022. The plan was to send illegal immigrants and asylum seekers in the UK to Rwanda, a landlocked country in Africa by an agreement. The agreement was accepted by both governments of the UK and Rwanda, whereby the UK government agreed to send up to 3000 pounds per refugee in a 240-million-pound project, to the Rwandan government. (BBC, 2022). The reason the UK government signed the agreement is that their asylum system has become too expensive for them to handle. (BBC, 2022). Rwanda’s co-argument stated that they need more labor power for their development. (BBC, 2024). However, The RAP was problematic on several counts, which made it a controversial issue in the international community. In this blog, I shall bring up the feminist and post-colonial lenses to highlight some of these issues.
First, the RAP violates international law on refugees and asylum, codified in the Geneva Convention, to which both the UK and Rwanda are signatories. (States Parties, Including Reservations and Declarations, to the 1951 Refugee Convention, n.d.). It has violated chapter 4 and chapter 5 of the convention which grant refugees access to welfare and employment. (Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951).
Secondly, the UK has since, 2021 issued a point-based immigration system, which has meant more stringent measures to counter migrants and asylum seekers. (Policy Primer, n.d.). The major argument from the UK government is that they cannot house too many people on their small island. Here is the first instance where I shall be using a postcolonial lens. As mentioned by Krishna (2001), the current state of international affairs seems to prioritize the West against the rest. We see how as Mongia (2003), claims, the entire concept of a passport can be racist. Essentially a passport is nothing but a document that brands people on multiple grounds, such as religion, ethnicity, etc. Using these grounds, a country can decide to allow or deny a person from entering said country. The UK’s conservative government from Boris Johnson to the current one under Rishi Sunak, has always implicitly focused on a very protectionist approach. Their government wants ‘their’ island to be free from non-white, barbaric and unproductive peoples. This is why immigrants and asylum seekers are targeted.
The lens of post-colonialism shows how the effects of colonialism, still last today, and have created the political, economic, social and cultural hierarchies that exist in the present. Colonialism has been a common problem in most countries of the global south. The term global south itself stems from the north-south divide that has come about from the effects of colonialism. In no situation should governments push away asylum seekers as the RAP does, but the UK wants only its white citizens to benefit. This idea has been created due to the racial hierarchies of colonialism. The (politically) Western governments do not care about the rest, so long as their interests are put at the forefront.
Security of whom is a question that has been often asked. The Western notion of state security has often been criticized by postcolonial and feminist scholars. Feminism sees that security, war and peace in the international arena are itself gendered. As Shepherd (2009) argues, accounts of everyday violence do not concern mainstream international relations. The feminist lens is especially important in the scenario of the RAP because the majority of the refugees targeted under the plan are women. (Office for National Statistics, n.d.) They are suffering under the hierarchies created by the white man. The civil wars and violence in their home countries are also exacerbated by the patriarchal norms. (Shepherd, 2009).
Most of the immigrants do not belong to Rwanda and fled to the UK due to conflicts and ‘small wars’ (Barkawi, 2009), in their home nations. (Office for National Statistics, n.d.). Thus, transposing the postcolonial and feminist lenses onto the RAP gives us some insights. The cultural genocide in 1994 in Rwanda facilitated the succession of the current regime under Paul Kagame. (“Rwanda Genocide,” 2014). This genocide was targeted at a particular ethnicity in Rwanda. Thus, governments can tend to often alienate certain sections of people. This means that if the Rwandan government does not like a particular group, among these asylum seekers, those asylum seekers are at further risk. Additionally, while this is not an official claim; the international hierarchies that exist could mean that Rwanda may have been forced to accept these terms due to the high influx of cheap labor and money. It would not want to fall further into economic weakness and debt than it already is, due to colonial effects.
Regardless of whether the country had a genocide or not, the UK’s court and many citizens’ have criticized the plan because Rwanda is not a safe country. (Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill - Joint Committee on Human Rights, n.d.). In 2023, the Supreme Court of the UK ruled unfavorably on Rwanda’s safety on the issue. The UK government had themselves before the start of the plan criticized the safety standards of Rwanda in 2018. (BBC, 2022). Using, the postcolonial lens, one can say that this argument inherently shows a colonial bias. Rwanda’s safety is objectively debatable, but this narrative shows a racial connotation of the “white man’s burden”. This is about how the white man is ‘rational’ and the brown man is ‘barbaric’.(Stephen, n.d.). Combining this with a feminist lens, it also has connotations of the white man saving the brown women from the barbaric brown man, as most of these refugees are again women. Sending refugees to Rwanda could also possess connotations of the white man protecting the non-whites in the lands he controls using neo-colonial tactics.
Today, the plan has only accelerated under current prime minister Rishi Sunak. It is now essential to study policies such as the RAP using postcolonial and feminist lenses. Only when we use these lenses do we get a complete image of individual security and everyday violence, beyond the conceptual blind spots of the security of the west conceived state.
Bibliography
Barkawi, T. (2009). ‘Small Wars’ and Big Consequences: From Korea to Iraq. Globalizations, 6(1), 127–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747730802692724
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. (n.d.). OHCHR. Retrieved March 16, 2024, from https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-relating-status-refugees
Experiences of displaced young people living in England: Sample information—Office for National Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2024, from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/experiencesofdisplacedyoungpeoplelivinginenglandsampleinformation
Explore the WHITE MANS BURDEN - 19th Century Insights. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2024, from https://19thcentury.us/the-19th-century-term-white-mans-burden-reflects-the-idea-that/
Krishna, S. (2001). Race, Amnesia, and the Education of International Relations. Alternatives, 26(4), 401–424. https://doi.org/10.1177/030437540102600403
Mongia, R. V. (2003). Race, Nationality, Mobility: A History of the Passport. In Race, Nationality, Mobility: A History of the Passport (pp. 196–214). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822384397-014
Policy Primer: The UK’s 2021 points-based immigration system. (n.d.). Migration Observatory. Retrieved March 16, 2024, from https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/primers/policy-primer-the-uks-2021-points-based-immigration-system/
Rwanda genocide: 100 days of slaughter. (2014, April 7). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506
Rwandan president Paul Kagame suggests UK could get money back. (2024, January 17). https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-68007463
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill—Joint Committee on Human Rights. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2024, from https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt5804/jtselect/jtrights/435/summary.html
Shepherd, L. J. (2009). Gender, Violence and Global Politics: Contemporary Debates in Feminist Security Studies. Political Studies Review, 7(2), 208–219. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9299.2009.00180.x
States parties, including reservations and declarations, to the 1951 Refugee Convention. (n.d.). UNHCR France. Retrieved March 16, 2024, from https://www.unhcr.org/fr-fr/en/media/states-parties-including-reservations-and-declarations-1951-refugee-convention
What is the UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda? (2022, June 13). https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-61782866
Hey Anuraag, based on your argument, taking into account the implications of neo-colonial strategies in addressing immigration challenges, how can the RAP's implementation be ethically justified given its violations of international refugee laws and its maintenance of postcolonial hierarchies, particularly concerning the safety and security of vulnerable groups like women?