As noted below, the absence of a domestic legal protection for people of concern in urban settings and the Rohingya, together with the increasing numbers of urban asylum seekers means an extremely difficult overall protection environment. Refoulement, arrests and detention increased, while access to bail also increased. Access to legal representation (mainly AAT and BPSOS) increased with 877 asylum seekers being provided various level of legal assistance. UNHCR has also begun testing for the presence of legal advisors in RSD interviews. Counselling and community outreach increased (1,116 counselling sessions, in addition to presence at the Immigration Detention Centre in Bangkok during the weekdays), and there were seven sensitization session with the various local police, military, and immigration units. Protection staff also attended at least four large church group sessions with many PoCs and their supporters, in order to sensitize them to the overall situation. This demonstrates the efficacy of the community based protection model. The RSD backlog and resettlement pull factor, and associated constraints and protection risks, however clearly demonstrate the need to change the protection model from an individual RSD/RST based model to a community based protection model, with the RSD/RST reserved for the most serious/vulnerable cases. To this end UNHCR increased its advocacy with the RTG in terms of movement to a domestic legal/policy framework, limiting arrest/detention (“deterrence model”), RTG joining UNHCR in registration and, eventually moving to some form of joint screening/assessment model. It is noted that this is in fact in the national security interest of Thailand as currently the “non-system”/deterrence model leads to an underground system, whereas UNHCR advocates a tolerance/reporting policy towards Rohingya and urban people of concern which appears to be gaining traction. This may, in 2016, be supported and reinforced by additional RSD capacity to address the backlog, as well as progress in relation to voluntary repatriation along the border and continued successful collaboration with RTG with respect to statelessness, both being of interest to RTG.
