The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a tendency to claim that resettlement has been a life-saving solution for the “most vulnerable refugees”, which includes victims of violence and torture, women and children at risk, and refugees with medical needs.

For refugees transiting in Indonesia, resettlement — the relocation of refugees from a country of asylum (usually a neigboring country to which refugees have fled) to a country of permanent settlement — is the preferred option. The two other options the UNHCR traditionally offers to address the refugee issue, voluntary repatriation and local integration, are limited and unrealistic.

I have personally met several Indonesian refugees with no specific vulnerabilities who used to be in the care of my agency, and who are now resettled in Australia with the assistance of the UNHCR office in Jakarta, and I could not help but wonder: Why resettle them and not others?

How are the lucky few chosen out of thousands of refugees with similar conditions, who also suffer from hardships and despair as a result of their protracted asylum here? It seems to me that the refugees eligible for resettlement are randomly selected by UNHCR Indonesia and thus, the fairness and reliability of this selection process must be challenged.

It is increasingly evident that vulnerability is no longer a key factor in selecting refugees for resettlement. In fact, by the UNHCR’s own account, most refugee cases submitted for resettlement fall under the “normal” priority for submissions, in that “there are no immediate medical, social, or security concerns which would merit expedited processing”.

The UNHCR Global Resettlement Statistical Report gives me useful insight into the agency’s submission categories. Of the 81,337 refugees referred for resettlement in 2018, only 2.2 percent fell under the “emergency” category and 15.3 percent under “urgent”. The majority of submissions, or 82.5 percent, fell in the “normal” category. Access to resettlement is not necessarily given to the most vulnerable refugees.

As Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol and has no national refugee legislation or procedures, it relies on local UNHCR staff to provide protection and assistance to refugees and asylum seekers, particularly in three core tasks: refugee status determination, resettlement referrals and repatriation. This complete reliance on the UNHCR means the government knows very little about the processes involved.

But chances are that refugees transiting in Indonesia are often viewed under the UNHCR’s “benefit of the doubt” policy, because it is impossible for all refugees to prove every aspect of their cases due to an absence of evidence. Especially in humanitarian circumstances such as persecution and human rights violations, one is probably left with a subjective appraisal of the honesty of the persons asking for help, and eventually chooses to trust their account.

This is unsurprising because as a humanitarian agency, the UNHCR is likely to help refugees no matter what. It is therefore fair to assume the subjectivity of the refugee selection process for resettlement.

Even though most refugees think that they deserve resettlement, they have been warned by UNHCR Indonesia that resettlement is not a right, because states simply have no obligation to admit refugees. Thirty-one countries participated in the 2014 UNHCR resettlement program, while the figure dropped to 27 countries in 2018.

On consulting the Resettlement Data Portal (rsq.unhcr.org), I found that countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom and Germany accepted refugees transiting through Indonesia over the past decade. Today, most refugees transiting in Indonesia are resettled in Australia and other, traditional receiving countries like the United States, Canada and New Zealand. These other receiving countries generally feel reluctant to take in refugees through Indonesia as they consider them to be Australia’s responsibility. A state’s decision to accept refugees generally depends on their goodwill.

Refugees cannot individually request resettlement. They must be referred by the UNHCR office in the transit country to be considered for resettlement in potential receiving countries, because the agency has information on the refugee’s background that receiving countries can use in deciding which refugees to accept.

However, the majority of UNHCR resettlement submissions do not necessarily belong to the vulnerable categories.

According to the UNHCR’s resettlement report, the largest proportion of submissions in 2018, or 28 percent, fell under the Legal and/or Protection Needs category. This was followed by Survivors of Violence and/or Torture (27 percent) and Lack of Foreseeable Alternative Durable Solutions (20 percent). The more sensitive submission categories, such as medical needs, women and girls at risk, and at-risk children and adolescents, constituted only the small proportion of the submissions at respectively 4, 13 and 8 percent.

Again, while the UNHCR frequently emphasizes that the “urgent need” for resettlement is intended for the most vulnerable refugees, those who are resettled do not necessarily belong to the most vulnerable categories. This is just like how most submissions are lower than “urgent” priority.

Refugees should not be selected for resettlement randomly. Priority must be given to refugees with severe vulnerabilities and need for protection, including victims of violence and torture, women and children at risk, and refugees with medical needs. Perhaps I have missed something in the UNHCR’s opaque system, but how did the “lucky few” I met who were resettled in Australia fit any of the UNHCR’s “urgent need” categories? How were they more vulnerable than the other refugees? Or were they?

According to UNHCR Indonesia’s projected resettlement needs, roughly 2,000 refugees will be referred to receiving countries this year. If the resettlement selection process is truly based on extreme vulnerabilities, the UN Refugee Agency should make clear why a particular refugee family or individual is referred to a receiving country, and not another.

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Employee at the Immigration Directorate General, Law and Human Rights Ministry; managed refugees and asylum seekers in 2014 to 2017; earned Master of Public Administration (Management) from Flinders University, Adelaide, under the Australia Awards scholarship program.

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