Participate in the Forum on Refugees
The rhetoric of many governments, particularly in Western countries, gives the impression that today there is an unstoppable rising tide of refugees and asylum-seekers, most of whom are economic migrants in disguise, and who pose a threat to their host communities. Yet the facts do not bear this out; and the real situation of refugees and displaced people today is much more complex and involves millions of marginalised people surviving without basic human rights protections. In this article I will look at some of the key issues concerning refugees and displaced people today, and will ask some of the questions which need to be discussed.
Despite governments’ rhetoric, the number of asylum-seekers and refugees is in fact falling. This fall in numbers can partly be explained by some voluntary repatriations that have taken place recently, eg. to Angola. But the main explanation for this fall in numbers has been the barriers set up by governments with increasingly restrictive asylum policies, which result in many refugees not even attempting to seek refugee status and instead living in hiding as irregular migrants.
So the numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers is decreasing, but the number of irregular/ undocumented migrants is increasing. Refugees have a legal status and, at least in theory, some legal protections. Undocumented migrants have no such status or protection and – due to their lack of documents - are forced to suffer exploitative working conditions and frequent abuses and violations of rights.
Increased migration controls are impeding the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers. For example, many governments are intercepting migrants’ boats at sea to prevent them entering territorial waters or reaching shore, without even checking whether the people on board the boats are fleeing persecution. During the political crisis in Haiti in 2004, the US refused to allow boats arriving with fleeing Haitians to reach US shores. And yet few protests are heard. What has happened to the fundamental right to seek asylum – a right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Governments are blocking legal migration channels. With visa requirements imposed on people from the countries from which people are most likely to claim asylum and with many governments imposing carrier sanctions on transport companies that accept passengers without documents, what options are left to someone desperate to flee their country other than illegal migration? So desperate people end up paying smugglers to help them to reach another country, risking their lives in dangerous journeys.
If they do survive the journey (and many don’t) and if they are not intercepted en route, the welcome they receive may well be a cell in a detention centre, given the increasing tendency of governments to criminalise immigration violations and to resort to detention both at the time of entry and during deportation proceedings – using detention as part of a deterrence policy towards irregular migration movements.
Another trend of governments has been to seek ways of avoiding their responsibilities towards asylum-seekers, by processing their cases “off-shore”. This began with the US processing Haitian asylum-seekers in Guantánamo Bay, continued with Australia paying Nauru and Papua New Guinea to process its asylum-seekers, and now leads to European governments, like the UK, Germany and Italy coming up with proposals for transit camps for processing asylum seekers’ cases in Ukraine and Libya. Yet governments cannot “subcontract” their human rights responsibilities to other countries. How can this appear to be anything other than richer countries shifting their responsibilities for refugees onto poorer countries? At the same time, what can be done to discourage people from risking their lives with smugglers, whilst protecting the right to claim asylum?
There has been an increase in hostility towards refugees and asylum-seekers, particularly since the terrorist attacks in the US of 9/11/01, with refugees often depicted as a security threat. (Even though none of the 9/11 terrorists were refugees.) And this is not only the trend in Western/developed countries. In traditionally generous refugee-hosting countries in Africa and Asia where great hospitality has been shown to refugees in the past, governments are increasingly closing their doors to refugees and adopting restrictive and xenophobic refugee policies. But the majority of refugees are still hosted in developing countries. At the end of 2003 UNHCR figures show that 30% of refugees were hosted in Africa, 30% in Central Asia, South West Asia and the Middle East, 25% in Europe, 8% in Asia and the Pacific and 6% in the Americas.
Many refugees are living in situations which were intended as temporary responses to an immediate crisis. They increasingly find themselves living in inhumane conditions as donor fatigue sets in and funding for these protracted refugee situations reduces. More than 7 million refugees have been lingering in refugee camps for more than 10 years without any prospect of a durable solution. Many of them are kept in detention-like conditions, without freedom of movement outside their refugee camps. This results in pressure on refugees to agree to premature “voluntary” repatriations that are rarely sustainable. How can a repatriation be called voluntary if the choice of the refugees is to stay in the refugee camp and starve due to reduced food rations, or to return home? But how can donor governments be persuaded to continue to provide adequate funds for protracted situations that can appear to have no end in sight? While these questions are debated, refugees are forced to live in life-threateningly inhumane conditions, with their only alternative a “voluntary” return to possibly life-threateningly dangerous conditions in their country of origin. What alternatives are being sought for refugees, for example, of local integration into host communities? Or of resettlement to another country?
In contrast to the fall in numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers, the numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) are rising dramatically. Situations like the human rights crisis unfolding in the Darfur region of Sudan demonstrate the abuses that people can suffer when they are internally displaced, without international protection, suffering even worse protection problems than many refugees. What can be done to protect people whose governments do not protect them or who actually target them? Some would argue that the only way to provide protection for such unprotected IDPs is to intervene militarily – yet the risks of undertaking such types of interventions can be seen only too clearly in post-invasion Iraq. Such “solutions” can create more problems and displacement than the situations they were intended to resolve. Yet the international community cannot close its eyes and ignore the suffering of IDPs like the people of Darfur, just because they have not managed to cross an international border.
So, in 2005 we can see that the situation of refugees and displaced people is more complex than governments often portray it to be. Yet there are some very basic questions that need to be asked:
- Why do so many governments of “developed” countries encourage hostility towards migrants when their demographic situation is such that their economies need migrants to sustain them?
- Why have governments not set up more managed migration systems that would allow people to migrate legally and in safety and dignity?
- How can there be any expectation that the numbers of displaced people will drop when the root causes of displacement have not been resolved?
Whilst extreme poverty and human rights abuses and wars exist, displacement will exist. What is being done to tackle those root causes?
What is being done in your country to promote the humane and dignified reception and treatment of refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants?
What initiatives have been successful in bringing about changes in policy and practice in your country or context? What are the obstacles? How does the concrete attitude in your country with regards to refugees, displaced persons and immigrants impact your ministry?
How do you practice reciprocity and collaboration with other groups involved in work on behalf of refugees, displaced persons, asylum seekers and migrants?
What have you received from your ministry to immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees?
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