Refugees must be placed in areas isolated from the community. They should be monitored closelyJakarta (ANTARA) - Dinna Wisnu, a teacher and observer of international relations from Bina Nusantara University, opined that refugees can be placed on empty reclamation islands in North Jakarta to prevent new social problems from cropping up.
"Refugees must be placed in areas isolated from the community. They should be monitored closely," Wisnu remarked in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Wisnu, a doctor of international relations, views that merging foreign refugees into the mainstream of Jakartan society will trigger horizontal friction and give rise to new social problems.
Moreover, Wisnu noted that the refugee problem is an international issue, and until the root cause of the problem is not resolved, refugees will continue to trickle in.
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Currently, countries that are signatories to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees decided to place a limit on the number of refugees received. The policy became the main reason behind the influx of refugees in transit countries, including Indonesia.
Nevertheless, no nation can intervene in the policy of limiting the number of refugees.
"Indonesia is stuck in this problem. Other transit countries, such as Malaysia, also face a similar problem," the former Indonesian representative for the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) pointed out.
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Wisnu lauded Indonesia's efforts at the multilateral level to encourage cooperation and dialog with Australia, Europe, and the United States, but the economic situation in destination countries made it difficult to increase the absorption of refugees.
Head of the DKI Jakarta Social Service Irmansyah earlier noted that a former building of the West Jakarta military command (Kodim) in Kalideres had accommodated 1,100 refugees.
Irmansyah pointed to an increase in the number of refugees arriving at the shelter.
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Translator: Azis Kurmala
Editor: Sri Haryati
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