If you were faced with this choice, you would get on a boat too....

Many politicians and so called experts have weighed into the debate about what drives people to leave their homes and risk their lives on a boat.

But the voices of the affected communities have not been heard. RISE is an organisation set up by survivors of war, border crossings and immigration detention - we speak from experience. We know the realities of fleeing, the perils of staying, and the agonising decisions made in order to save lives now, and provide options for families in treacherous places.

The Australian Federal Government has immediately suspended visa applications by asylum seekers from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Not only is this regrettable and ill-informed decision a major compromise of due process, it drastically undermines the human rights of asylum seekers.

The immigration minister, Chris Evans, justified the policy shift by referring to the United Nations' warning that people smuggling is "totally out of control" in Indonesia. We fail to see, however, how making refugees wait in limbo will stop people smuggling and deter asylum seekers from fleeing death and persecution in their respective countries.

Instead, such political measures (the federal election is coming up) will further add to the pain and suffering experienced by asylum seekers in detention. The Australian government, along with the international community, is largely silent on their plight. Things are already as bad as they can be for Sri Lankans and Afghanis.

Tamils are still being incarcerated in internment camps while Afghanis are fleeing from an escalating conflict. Men of military age are particularly at risk of being rounded up and detained, killed or tortured in these war torn countries increasing the vulnerability of the women and children in their families.

Even the UN has pulled out some of its staff from parts of Afghanistan, due to safety and security concerns. If only the government would ask us, those who have been forced to make these decisions to save our lives and those of our families, we could help them understand how to make the system work.

Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan is shifting into Pakistan, into the very areas that the Hazara ethnic minorities have fled to: Quetta, Pakistan. This gives the lie to all the talkback chatter about 'safe countries' that refugees pass through.

Pakistan is not safe for Afghanis, Indonesia and Malaysia are not safe for anyone. Refugees can be rounded up and deported back to their countries of origin because these countries have not signed Refugee Conventions. The effect of the Australian crack down has not been to stop the boats coming.

They are simply banked up in Indonesia. The threat of jail time for people smugglers in Australia means asylum seekers are being dumped on islands around the archipalego. Being stranded in Indonesia or Malaysia means no permission to work, no access to education for their children, no opportunity to integrate and constant harassment from authorities.

Those who say that they would tolerate 10 years of such status, watching their children grow up without education, living in limbo, not able to work, living as foreigners in dangerous areas, are either liars or heartless. If you were faced with this choice, you would get on a boat too.

What the Australian government seems to want is to claim its status as global humanitarian, but in practice pushing people back to places where these rights are not recognized, in order that some other country will pick them up later, broken, destitute, psychologically destroyed.

Just over two centuries ago, people from Great Britain arrived on these shores without the authorisation of the original people of this land. Yet some of the descendants of this first fleet play a significant role in mainstream Australia questioning the arrival of people who according to the laws of this land have a legitimate right to seek asylum.

These hostilities lie in sharp contrast to the generous welcome extended by the Elders from the local indigenous communities in Melbourne, on the 1st of May, 2010 and the issuing of first nation passports to the Merak Tamil Asylum seekers. Tabloid television complains about refugees on welfare.

The media cannot complain about ‘welfare bludging refugees’ when refugees are refused the right to work and provide dignity for their families. Policies like mandatory detention and temporary protection visas have created thousands of severely ill refugees.

Also, the wider refugee community often has suffered from torture and trauma which has also resulted in mental health problems. There are only a few services to cope with these people and there is often not the required support (eg translation services, multi-lingual delegations, culturally appropriate mental health assistance) to do so effectively.

The government needs to begin by trying to avoid the creation of mental health issues in this population by dealing with the root problem: detention centres, long-term detention and uncertainty in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.

The brutality, violence and sadness many refugees witnessed in detention centres or in hiding waiting for the UNHCR to process them has exacerbated their own personal trauma that they have to live with from the country they come from.

Forcing people to wait in uncertainty, at constant risk of harassment by the authorities of countries that do not recognize refugee status makes this process worse. Many a heroic tale of war survival come from refugees telling stories of duping border guards, smuggling themselves or others out of ghettoes, lying to officials.

Running for your life means sometimes lying to officialdom, certainly until you can work out whom to trust. For all the lawyer talk, the refugee conventions basically recognizes the hardships that are apparent in stories of the Jews and others forced to flee Europe for their lives – that sometimes to get out alive, you have to lie and break laws, and cross borders without permission. You would do it if it was your family. In previous years, Australia has worked with governments in the region to process and settle large numbers of Vietnamese fleeing war – we can and should do this again.

We cannot just bribe Indonesia and use it as a human rubbish dump. If the Australian government claims it can lead the world in climate change policies, why not lead the world in the humanitarian processing of refugees: also a global problem that will not just go away. We condemn the Australian government's decision to reopen the Curtin detention centre.

Many of us have experienced first-hand what it is like to be detained there. Curtin made people's lives worse and the isolated surroundings intimidated people into volunteering to go back to the countries where their lives were jeopardised in the first place. The Australian government needs to establish a truly global solution.

This solution needs to involve refugee communities here in Australia, willing and able to help, but waiting to be asked, as well as refugee communities overseas. If there was a properly established system, one that was able to process people without leaving them stranded potentially for decades, people would not spend their money on people smugglers, or get on leaky boats.

For more information about RISE, visit www.rise.org