“Asylum seekers arriving in many countries throughout the world are being detained in what are often conditions of extreme hardship.

They have not committed any crime and experience a strong sense of injustice. After escaping poverty and persecution, all that many refugees know of their country of asylum is the inside of a detention centre,” said the 2007 UN refugee agency (UNHCR) Nansen Award winner, Katrine Camilleri.

Dr Camilleri, who works for the Jesuit Refugee Service, called on governments at the 58th annual gathering of the UN agency governing committee to seek real and humane alternatives to detention for asylum seekers and refugees worldwide, and to take concrete steps to counter the xenophobia faced by refugees.

Dr Camilleri was due to receive the Nansen Award from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres yesterday evening. She was selected for this year’s award by the Nansen Committee in recognition of her dedication to the refugee cause and her outstanding contribution towards the protection and assistance of refugees and displaced persons. “There are many different options available. Instead of detention, governments could look at placing asylum seekers in open centres, implement regular reporting requirements and supervised release programmes. The use of detention should be avoided as far as possible and services in the centres need desperately to be improved. Most of all, children and other extremely vulnerable groups should never be detained,” Dr Camilleri said.

The Nansen Refugee Award, created in 1954, is named after Fridtjof Nansen, the celebrated Norwegian explorer and the world’s first international refugee official.

Previous recipients include Eleanor Roosevelt and Médecins sans Frontières.