ICMC Member Builds Bridges Across Oceania

On 19 September 2024, Jason Siwat, Director of the Migrants and Refugees Desk at ICMC member, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, sat down with ICMC to share the story of the newly established Migrants and Refugee Oceania Network.

Migration challenges in Oceania are as vast and diverse as the region itself, spanning climate-induced displacement, labor mobility, and long-term refugee settlement. To address these issues, the Migrants and Refugees Oceania Network was recently established under the auspices of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania (FCBCO). In this interview, Jason Siwat, Director of the Migrants and Refugees Desk at ICMC member, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands (CBCPNGSI), discusses the origins, purpose, and priorities of this new network. From fostering regional collaboration to amplifying Oceania’s voice on global migration platforms, Siwat outlines the network’s vision for a more connected and empowered region for the future.

Could you tell us a bit about how the Migrant and Refugee Oceania Network came into being?

The idea came from my attendance at the December 2022 meeting of the ICMC Governing Committee. Although I attended on behalf of the entire Oceania region, my report focused mainly on Papua New Guinea, together with New Zealand and Australia. As such, I felt it wasn’t really a representative report of all the recent issues and challenges in the wider region.  

From both Governing Committee discussions and more informal exchanges with members, I saw that in regions such as Africa and North America, the various national Catholic Bishops’ Conferences are collaborating much more with each other than in Oceania. A strong network like theirs did not exist in our region.

This gave me the idea of establishing an entity that would be more representative of the Oceania region, so we could all contribute, jointly raise our concerns, and present a more complete picture at a larger forum, such as the ICMC Governing Committee.

After giving it some thought, I proposed the creation of this new network in May 2023. Almost instantly, Father Khalid Marogi, Director of the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office at the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC), got back to me indicating that it was a positive idea.

Given the strong interest expressed by other Bishops’ Conferences in the region, I designed a concept note and shared it with them. From there, the Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Episcopal Conferences came on board.

What were the needs on the ground that led to the decision to create the new network?

The most important need is communication between the Conferences of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Solomon Islands, and of the Pacific that are part of FCBCO. Oceania is a vast ocean area, with small countries spread far apart from each other. Communication and logistics are a daily challenge, even within the same Conference. For instance, the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific has 15 different countries.

These distances between us, the challenges for regular communication, and the limited resources we all have together make it really difficult for us to meet and exchange ideas as regularly as we would like. This, in turn, limits our opportunities for direct exchange and collaboration to address the pertinent migration issues that continue to face us.

The idea is for the new network to act as a vehicle that enables us to bring together our ideas, and improve communication between the four Conferences and dioceses. Additionally, it will allow us to discuss migration issues at a regional rather than solely national level. Regional discussion is particularly important for the issue of climate displacement, which affects all the countries in the region, and for which solutions should be developed at the regional level.

Finally, compared to other regions of the world, issues in Oceania tend to receive less attention because of how isolated we are, and international and non-governmental organizations’ activities are concentrated in other areas. To get the attention of global actors and the wider international community, it is important to act as a regional voice.

What is the importance of the recognition from Bishop Anthony Randazzo and the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conference of Oceania (FCBCO)?

His recognition is really important because it legitimizes our status as a Church network. The network is not really a standalone, additional entity, but rather complements the FCBCO and the activities of the four Conferences. So, before any further action, it was important for the new network to be officially recognized. The network will be the vehicle that implements priorities agreed by the bishops, so recognition means that whatever the network does in the future will have the backing of the four Conferences.

This blessing also means that the network will be able to work with all the dioceses in the region, no matter how small they are. This inclusiveness and representativeness are important for the network and will ensure that we do not exclude smaller dioceses from our decision-making, promotion, and advocacy. We also intend to involve Catholic-inspired organizations and, in the future, congregations.

What do you see as ICMC’s role in the new network?

Beyond sharing of expertise and capacity building, we also look to ICMC in terms of supporting networking and helping us to connect with similar networks in other parts of the world. We believe ICMC is a pathway to connect members around the world who may be working on similar problems, and with whom we can meet and exchange ideas.

It would be more relevant and appropriate for us to bring these issues and challenges to ICMC, to then speak on our behalf at international fora, such as those convened in the framework of the Global Compact for Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees  where ICMC is a key member.

ICMC has already made a significant impact in the region. The first project for the Desk for Migrants and Refugees at the CBCPNGSI, just concluded, focused on supporting West Papuan refugees living in PNG in informal camps, in Port Moresby. This support had three main components: water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH), emergency and cash assistance, and short skills training interventions to support small enterprises. This project reached more than 200 families, directly and indirectly, and provided critical, life-saving support to one of the most forgotten and marginalized groups of people in our society.

What are the priorities of the new network moving forward?

The first priority is connection: the network will act as a vehicle for connecting us, making it easier to identify our common challenges. It will also act as a mouthpiece for the region at international fora and discussions and help us look for potential sources of support. Through improved communication, pooling of our resources, and bringing resources from the international community into the region, we can support each other and the work of the smaller dioceses that sometimes lack capacity.

Beyond that, we have four thematic areas on which we will focus our work. The first is climate-induced displacement. For most countries in the region, climate displacement is the main cause for people to leave their countries or localities. This is one of the most important issues in the region.

The second area is the seasonal workers in the Pacific. The most significant movement of migrant workers in the region is to Australia. Under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, low-skilled workers are employed in rural areas where there are labor shortages. New Zealand also has a similar arrangement called Strengthening Pacific Labour Mobility Programme. The network is going to look into the problems they face and support these workers.

The third area is West Papuan refugees. This group has very low visibility, even inside the region. These refugees have not received the adequate attention needed from the governments and international agencies. Therefore, the network wants to highlight the challenges they face and support them. And the fourth area are general priorities for migrants and refugees in the region that might arise in the future.

What is the profile of the migrants and refugees in the region?

Australia and New Zealand receive a large number of refugees from countries such as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran, and, in the wake of the conflict there, Ukraine. Smaller groups of people from Sudan, Somalia, and Pakistan also come spontaneously to PNG.

In Pacific Islands Countries, the concept of refugees is not widely discussed. People do not talk so much about refugees. It’s not really an issue for them, because they do not have many people going there to seek asylum. For them, the priorities are climate displacement, and their own people moving to work in Australia.

In the PNG context, refugees are from West Papua, some of whom have been living in PNG for more than 30 years. The big wave came in 1961 and 1984, but smaller waves of sporadic movements still arrive to this day. In most cases, they settle along the border, which is remote, with no proper monitoring and no visibility of the conditions in which they live.

The refugees that came as far as the capital or other major centers have managed to self-integrate however they could. Even though the government accepts them as refugees and allows them to live amongst us, they do not provide anything concrete in terms of supporting them to integrate and live a proper and dignified life in PNG. They are left to survive in whichever way they can, and most live on the peripheries of cities in informal camps that they have set up themselves. They face a lot of challenges, particularly unemployment and poverty. For us, West Papuan refugees are one of the biggest priority groups for our work to focus on.

Do you believe that Pope Francis’ visit on September 2024 will bring more awareness to the issues in the region?

Even though Pope Francis did not speak directly about migrants and refugees during his visit to Papua New Guinea, his visit to Vanimo, the border province between PNG and West Papua, nevertheless brought some attention to the issue of West Papuan refugees.

The Pope’s message on peaceful coexistence transcends and captures all groups of marginalized peoples, including refugees. On that basis, his visit was also an opportunity for us to highlight some of the challenges faced by refugees and migrants in the region, and the challenges for our work.