Botswana says it has rejected a proposal to accept asylum-seekers from the United Kingdom, an arrangement similar to the one Rwanda has agreed to.
The UK’s House of Lords on Monday passed a bill that will see migrants deported to Rwanda in a move condemned by human rights activists and the United Nations.
In Botswana this week, an umbrella of civil society organizations urged the government to reject proposals from the U.K. to send thousands of migrants to the African nation.
Botswana’s minister for foreign affairs, Lemogang Kwape, told VOA that U.K. officials had reached out, but authorities in Gaborone would not commit to “hosting people not knowing what the end game would be.”
Kutlwano Relontle, is the program manager for the Botswana coalition, the Universal Periodic Review NGO Working Group.
Relontle said the groups called on the government of Botswana "and other countries to distance themselves from this controversial U.K. program, which appears to be aimed at protecting only some of those who are fleeing their countries on the basis of fear of persecution, and not others."
"We noted that in the case of the conflict in Ukraine, those seeking asylum were fast-tracked into the system, and citizens even encouraged to host them in their homes,” Relontle said.
Relontle said the group also wants the U.K. government to respect international conventions on the treatment of asylum-seekers.
Officials in the U.K. said they want to put an end to asylum-seekers arriving in small boats, mostly from Asia and Africa.
Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy in the U.K., said under the Rwanda arrangement, some deserving asylum-seekers will be turned away.
“There is a general view that the small boats crisis needs to be resolved, [as] that it is very dangerous and unacceptable for people to be arriving in such numbers across the channel, but that does not mean that the majority of the population want to send people, particularly people who would have a claim to refugee status, to Rwanda.”
Portes says it is not surprising that countries such as Botswana are turning down the controversial policy after it came under heavy criticism from the United Nations and activists.
“Frankly it will be highly unlikely for any other country to participate in this, both from a reputational and practical point of view," Portes said. "I think frankly even the Rwandans, despite being offered really quite remarkably large sums of money by the U.K. government, are regretting or at the very least, having second thoughts about whether this policy is sensible.”
The policy was first initiated two years ago, but the U.K. Supreme Court ruled it unlawful, which halted deportation.
Following Monday’s passage of the bill, the U.K. is expected to start deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda by mid-July.
