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JRS Publications This section provides access to a variety of publications from Jesuit Refugee Service and Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. You can find annual reports; The Refugee Voice, our quarterly report on issues affecting refugees and forcibly displaced people; books by and about JRS; and Recommended Reading, a selection of interesting books and articles recommended by JRS/USA staff. |
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Striving for a brighter future in Colombia (Washington, D.C.) February 20, 2013 — Colombian refugees and internally displaced people are the frequently forgotten victims of a 50-year-long conflict between paramilitaries, guerillas, and the Colombian military and security forces. Jesuit Refugee Service supports a negotiated resolution of the armed conflict in Colombia and advocates for policies that will lead to a just and sustainable peace. JRS programs in Colombia include strengthening human rights protections, psychosocial accompaniment, and community building. JRS pays special attention to the needs of children and young people, as they are frequently targeted by armed groups and forcibly recruited into the conflict. Read the full story here, or download the attached PDF. Download Now |
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Here I was Born: Stateless Dominicans Seek Recognition (Washington, D.C.) March 8, 2012 — People of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic face threats to their human rights and well-being stemming from Dominican government policies that seek to deny or strip citizenship from the children or grandchildren of Haitian migrants. Download Now |
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Refugees in Urban Environments (Washington, D.C.) July 11, 2011 — In this issue of The Refugee Voice we speak with refugees in Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa, and in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to learn how very different circumstances have led JRS to take different approaches to meeting their needs. Download Now |
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Colombian Refugees in Panama and Ecuador (PDF) (Washington, D.C) March 25, 2011 — The plight of Colombian refugees and displaced persons is the most persistent humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere; it may also be one of the most ignored in the world. In just the last two decades, the nearly 50-year-long armed conflict among guerillas, paramilitaries and the Colombian armed forces has resulted in the targeted persecution and internal and cross-border displacement of more than five million Colombians. Download Now |
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The Spirit of JRS: Accompaniment (December 2010) (Washington, D.C.) November 14, 2010 — It is now 30 years since the founding of Jesuit Refugee Service. In that time, countless JRS staff and volunteers from all over the world have responded to the call of Fr. Pedro Arrupe to reach out with hearts and hands to help people displaced by war, persecution, man-made and natural disasters and unbearable poverty. Many of those who responded to these needs were refugees themselves, or local people directly confronted each day by the plight of the displaced. Others, however, felt the call from afar, often traveling halfway around the world to touch the lives of people they otherwise would never have known. What motivated their gifts of service? What would the act of accompaniment come to mean to them? In commemoration of our anniversary year, we spoke with Americans who have worked with JRS over the years to ask them about their experience and how refugees have changed their lives. Download Now |
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Peace through Education in Southern Sudan (August 2010) (Washington, D.C.) August 1, 2010 — Since the signing of a peace treaty, some 320,000 refugees and 50,000 internally displaced persons have returned home to Southern Sudan. Re-establishing their communities has been no easy task. There is little modern infrastructure in the country, as development was stalled by more than twenty years of war. Returning refugees have had to relearn the skills of subsistence farming, growing cassava, maize and beans in the rich red soil, often competing for land and water with those people who stayed behind during the conflict. Gradually, peace has made possible the beginnings of improvement in education, health, and sanitation, although much remains to be done. Download Now |
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Haiti Chérie - Dear Haiti - Ayiti Cheri (May 2010) (Port au Prince) May 1, 2010 — Because JRS has worked in Haiti since 1999, we were able to begin providing emergency aid to victims within hours of the earthquake. This effort was soon supplemented by an outpouring of aid from our highly organized JRS office in the Dominican Republic, which quickly ferried food, water and medical supplies across the border for distribution to survivors. Thousands of other Jesuit friends, associates and institutions also instantly responded to this crisis. The outpouring of generosity from young schoolchildren, college students, parishioners, as well as Jesuit provinces and communities, was overwhelming. Download Now |
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Urban Refugees: Hidden in Plain Sight (March 2010) From the beginning, Jesuit Refugee Service has made it a priority to work with “forgotten” refugees – those living in the shadows – whose plight is overlooked by others. It may seem strange that many of these marginalized refugees live not in remote border camps but right under our eyes in city settings. Barely tolerated, often homeless or living in shantytowns of cardboard and tin, these urban refugees live a truly hand to mouth existence. Despite neglect and intolerance, the number of urban refugees is only increasing. A new UN policy affirming the rights of refugees to live where they choose, and the obligation of states to protect them now offers new hope. In this issue of The Refugee Voice,we explore the plight of urban refugees and how JRS is trying to help. Download Now |
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Alleviating Pain on the Border (August 2009) (Nogales, Arizona) August 1, 2009 — Some of the most forgotten and the most vulnerable people in the United States are those migrants held in federal immigration detention centers pending deportation. The vulnerability of these people does not end with deportation, however; many of the migrants we encounter at the newly inaugurated Kino Border Initiative (KBI) in Nogales, Mexico, find themselves stranded in the border town far away from their homes and families, with few options or resources to plan for a future life in Mexico or Central America. To help these forgotten people, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA and five partner organizations officially launched the Kino Border Initiative in the twin cities of Nogales, Sonora, Mexico and Nogales, Arizona, U.S.A., in January. Download Now |
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Education: A Crying Need (May 2009) Although education is often not seen as an emergency activity, the re-establishment of schooling for children is frequently among the most immediate concerns of communities who have suffered displacement. The universal drive of refugees to ensure the education of their children even in the most desperate of circumstances is a monument to the human spirit. In our effort to respond to the needs of newly displaced people, it is not uncommon for JRS staff to arrive at remote refugee encampments to find makeshift blackboards erected under trees and children copying letters with sticks in the sand. For refugee parents and children, education represents both a return to normalcy and an expression of hope in the future. Download Now |
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Addressing the Needs of Refugees with Disabilities (January 2009) (Washington, D.C. January 1, 2009 — When a mental or physical illness affects a person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, it becomes a disability. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, poverty is often the cause of disability, and disability in turn can result in poverty. Refugees are particularly at risk of incurring a disability both because, like Paul, they are often the survivors of or witnesses to acts of violence during the course of their displacement, and also because they lose their homes and possessions, becoming impoverished as a result of their flight. The harsh conditions refugees face while in exile often exacerbate existing disabilities or cause new ones to develop. These same conditions can make identifying and assisting those with disabilities a challenge. Download Now |
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Colombian Refugees Seek Recognition and Renewed Dignity in Ecuador (September 2008) (Washington, D.C.) September 1, 2008 — Ecuador is home to the largest refugee population in Latin America, nearly all of them Colombian nationals seeking safety from persecution. Colombian refugees are the frequently forgotten victims of a 40-year-long conflict between paramilitaries, guerillas, and the Colombian military and security forces. Download Now |
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Old Hopes and New Dreams: Bhutanese Refugees Ponder the Challenge of Resettlement (May 2008) In a dramatic reversal of fortune, Bhutanese refugees who have been exiled in camps in eastern Nepal for seventeen years have been offered the chance of a new life through resettlement. These refugees were expelled from Bhutan in 1992 in a move intended to rid Bhutan of an ethnic minority whom the government viewed as a threat to national unity. Download Now |
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No Refuge: Haitian Refugee Women in the Dominican Republic (February 2008) Haiti shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican
Republic. Although both countries struggle economically, the disparity
in wealth and development between the Dominican Republic and its
environmentally devastated, impoverished and politically unstable
neighbor has spurred thousands of Haitian migrants and asylum seekers
across the Dominican border. Download Now |
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The Human Cost of U.S. Immigration Detention (November 2007) Each year, more than a quarter million people are held in U.S. immigration detention. The vast majority of these people are incarcerated for administrative convenience. They are not serving criminal sentences, nor facing criminal charges. Some are refugees, who have entered our country in exercise of their legal right to seek asylum. Despite this, detainees are confined behind bars or barbed wire, separated from their families, deprived of basic freedoms and subjected to demeaning treatment. The growing use of detention is expensive, inhumane, and unnecessary. Reforms are needed to reduce the use of detention, to improve conditions for those detained and to mitigate the serious effects of detention on American families. Download Now |
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Voices of Colombia's Displaced (June 2007) Hundreds of thousands of Colombian men, women, and children have disappeared or been murdered during Colombia's long history of civil strife. The deaths of citizens are both calculated and the result of uninvolved campesinos being caught in the cross-fire between careless and ruthless armed groups. Download Now |
