Orphanage in Zambia

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Introduction

Unit One

Unit Two

Unit Three

Unit Four

Appendix

Glossary

Forced Migrants: Persons who leave their place of habitual residence involuntarily, due to persecution, economic hardship, war or civil conflict, or natural or manmade disaster. Among the kinds of forced migrants are asylum seekers and victims of human trafficking, convention refugees, economic migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons.

Convention Refugee: (definition was updated in 1967) a person who is outside the country of their nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his or her race, religion, nationality membership of a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

Refugees as defined by Catholic Social Teaching: In addition to convention refugees, Catholic teaching suggests that de facto refugees (who are victims of armed conflicts, misguided economic policy or natural disasters), and internally displaced persons (who are uprooted from their homes without having crossed an international frontier) should also be recognized as refugees and accorded international protection.

Asylum Seekers: People who have moved across an international border in search of the protection guaranteed to Convention refugees, but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined.

Forced Economic Migrants: Persons who seek to live and work in a country other than their country of origin due to a lack of economic opportunity there or better opportunities in another country. Those who become migrants due to necessity due to significant economic hardship are called forced economic migrants. When such hardships are imposed selectively by a government as a form or persecution forced economic migrants may also be convention refugees.

IDPs: Internally displaced persons are "persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border." (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Introduction, para. 2)

Accompaniment means we stand in solidarity with refugees says Fr. Kenneth J. Gavin, S.J., the Regional Director of Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. Without accompaniment, all of our service efforts, all of our advocacy efforts, fall flat.

Fr. Gavin relates the story of the stranger who appeared to two disciples of Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Like the stranger, JRS tries to challenge those whom we accompany, to understand where there may be hope and solace.

"We try to open the Scripture of their life, the Word of God that lives within them," says Fr. Gavin.


Fr. Peter Balleis, S.J., the International Director of Jesuit Refugee Service notes that JRS has a triple mission to serve, accompany and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people.

Inspired by the plight of Vietnamese and Cambodian boat people in 1979 and 1980, Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. founded JRS to help those who have been forgotten.

While discussing the three aspects of the JRS mission, Fr. Balleis notes that accompaniment is the unique aspect of JRS, the "hinge" that binds our mission.


"The refugees I have met remind me again and again ... of how deeply we're called to be the presence of God," says Fr. Kenneth J. Gavin, S.J., the Regional Director of Jesuit Refugee Service/USA.


Fr. Elías Lopez-Perez, S.J., Assistant International Director of Jesuit Refugee Service, describes the people who work for JRS as a passionate, committed group who "want to change things in the world" and heal wounds of violence.

In short, he says, people who work for JRS still believe in miracles.

Fr. Lopez-Perez also discusses the central role of accompaniment in the JRS mission.

He notes that the Gospels encourage us to welcome the stranger, and this is the good news to counter the racism and xenophobia at work in the world.

Appendices

 

Appendix I

From Sudan to the U.S.: the saga of one “Lost Boy”

Daniel Mabut Garang was born in Sudan, of Dinka tribe, in the town of Bor and was the eldest child in his family. His father was a farmer and storeowner. Daniel writes, "Like many people in the Dinka tribe, when I was younger we depended on dairy cattle for our living. We Dinkas also cultivated crops. I lived a happy life in the countryside with my father, mother, grandfather and uncles, but when war broke out, our lives changed completely.

"In the early 1980s, the Arabs began bombing our countryside from their planes and killing people. They attacked us all the time. They also raided our cattle and burnt down our store when we ran away for safety. Life became very difficult for us."

When he was six years old, the Arabs attacked, killing his father, mother and two uncles. After this tragedy, he fled into the forest, where he joined other children, who came to be known as the "Lost Boys." They didn't know where to go to escape the marauders. Hunger and thirst dominated their existence as they subsisted on wild berries. Many of the Lost Boys were eaten by lions and other wild animals. Yet many survived thanks to the grace of God.

After a month in the forest, Daniel reached a place called Panyidu on the Ethiopia border, where UNHCR provided food, shelter, medical treatment and education. Without the help of UNHCR many would have died of hunger.

He remained in Ethiopia for four years, but when war erupted there, he and other Lost Boys fled to Sudan. At the river Gilo, gunmen fired on them using automatic weapons before they reached the Sudanese border. To escape they dove into the river where most of them died since they were unable to swim.

Daniel crossed the river by holding a long rope that was tied from tree to tree. Those children who died that time are too many to be counted. For days, they walked, eating grass like animals, back to Sudan.

Eventually, after being chased by Ethiopian, he reached Kenya. During this journey, the Red Cross dropped food and water into the forest. Without this help, everyone would have died of hunger.

After he reached Kakuma, Kenya, UNHCR provided shelter, food, clothes and education. Daniel lived there for eight years under the care of UNHCR until he was taken to the US and settled in Houston, Texas.

(This account appears on a website maintained by the American Red Cross.)

 

 

Appendix II

Aceh, Indonesia: young lives in conflict

(Aceh was at the epicenter of the tsunami that struck the region on December26, 2004.)

Thirteen-year-old Sri has fond memories of her home village in North Aceh in Indonesia. Though she has lived in a camp for the internally displaced in the neighboring region of North Sumatra for three years, such a long time for someone so young, she still misses her old friends. "I had many friends back home, and very nice teachers," she remembers.

"I was very sad the day we were forced to leave because of the conflict. The whole village was chaotic. The schools closed, and my teachers fled in fear of their lives. Our neighbors and friends, who stayed behind, cried and told us that they would help protect us, but my parents were too afraid. We left our belongings behind, and traveled to North Sumatra," Sri quietly recounts.

Map of Indonesia

Formal education is often unavailable for refugee children, especially for those who have already passed through primary level. If local schools do exist they are often too expensive for destitute refugee families to afford. Sri is one of the lucky ones. She is in the second year of a local junior secondary school near the refugee camp in Sei Lepan, about three hours from Medan. A humanitarian organization has been able to provide her with a scholarship, as her family could not afford the school fees. “I love to study because it will make me smart!” Sri says with great hope. In the camp, education is still only available for elementary schoolchildren, and only a few young people have the opportunity to take their studies further.


"We will never return to Aceh,", Sri says suddenly, anticipating the question on the lips of the JRS worker, unspoken for fear of upsetting her. "I know that more people are fleeing from Aceh now that the problems there are getting worse," she says. "I heard that on the radio."

Despite being only 13, she works hard to understand what is happening to her by piecing together the fragments of information that she picks up. Knowing this, it seems apparent that giving the youth the possibility to go to school is vital for peace-building efforts in the future.

 

Appendix III

A Young Woman’s Story

a young Burmese widow with two children

On March 20, 2002 five soldiers came to my house in Burma looking for my husband. Without any explanation, they handcuffed him while others searched the house. I shouted to my husband but was told not to make any noise. A soldier pushed me down and hit me with the butt of his gun. Then he handcuffed me and put me in the car. I was taken to a military camp. I did not see my husband alive again.

At the camp, I was taken to a small, dark room where soldiers began interrogating me about my husband's alleged involvement with a rebel group. When I could not give them information, they beat, slapped, punched, and kicked me. Eventually I lost consciousness. I was released only when I signed an agreement not to leave the area without permission and not to accept guests into my home.

When I returned home, soldiers came to inform me that my husband was in the hospital. When I got there, he was already dead. They told me he had died from sickness but his face was completely black. Afterwards soldiers came nightly to my house to terrorize my family, threatening me with imprisonment if they found any visitors in my home. I could not continue to live in fear so I fled to some relatives who advised me to go to Malaysia.

In Malaysia I eventually got a job in a restaurant. Late hours required that I take a taxi home. One night I realized that the driver was not taking me home. He stopped at an area where two other people stood under a grove of trees. They grabbed me, kicked and slapped me and then raped me. Since that time I have often been threatened with arrest for being in Malaysia illegally and forced to pay bribes.

 

Appendix IV

Fears of Mutilation and Death

the story of Rodi A.

What about women fleeing domestic violence? Should they be accorded refugee status?

Rodi was 16 when she married Francisco in Guatemala. Her husband brutally beat her and vowed to kill her. "Francisco raped and sodomized Rodi, broke windows and mirrors with her head, dislocated her jaw, and tried to abort her child by kicking her violently in the spine. Besides using his hands and his feet against her, he also resorted to weapons —pistol-whipping her and terrorizing her with his machete."

Rodi’s repeated attempts to obtain protection failed. The police and the courts refused to intervene because it was a "domestic matter" and because her husband was a former army soldier. Rodi fled to the United States, where her case has been unresolved for the past ten years. Under the Clinton administration she was granted asylum, and the government "issued proposed regulations clarifying that victims of domestic violence and other gender-related persecution are eligible for asylum. However, these proposed regulations never became final." Bush Administration Attorney General John Ashcroft considered deporting Ms. Alverado back to Guatemala, but Justice Department attorneys prevailed and the case still awaits decision. (Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, Beyond Sovereignty, Thomson-Wadsworth, p. 190)

Women seek asylum for different reasons than do men. According to Dr. Maryann Cusimano-Love, the international definition of "refugee" has been interpreted primarily in the context of male asylum-seekers, to the prejudice of women refugees. Many times women are victims of gender-specific crimes, such as genital mutilation, forced abortions, "honor killings" and governmentally-protected spousal abuse. All of these crimes are likely to occur in societies that espouse male domination of the family unit at the expense of equality between the sexes.

For example, the Taliban in Afghanistan force women to be completely subservient to their husbands. "Honor killings" of women who have been deemed to have offended their families have been reported not only in Afghanistan, but also Ecuador, Egypt, India, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey and the U.K.

For reasons such as these, women have fled their homelands seeking refugee status in a new country, sometimes with little success. Sometimes pursued by family members and murdered in their new locations.

 

Appendix V

The Catholic View

Catholic teaching broadens the definition of who should be considered a refugee. It maintains that people who are victims of armed conflicts, misguided economic policies or natural disasters, as well as "internally displaced persons," uprooted from their homes without having crossed an international frontier, should also be recognized as refugees and offered international protection.

This principle is well supported and documented in Refugees: A Challenge to Solidarity, published in 1992 by the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People and the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum.”

In widening the net of people who should be deemed refugees and challenging the arguments in favor of limiting the granting of asylum, the document also makes the case for including "economic migrants" under the refugee umbrella.

"Those who flee economic conditions that threaten their lives and physical safety must be treated differently from those who emigrate simply to improve their position," the document states. Economic reasons can be, and often are, sufficient reason to justify granting asylum status.

Criticism of United Nations Position

A major criticism of the UN definition is that it is based on the circumstances existing in Europe immediately after World War II and during the Cold War, and does not address the massive changes which have since occurred in other parts of the world.
Alternative regional definitions have been developed to recognize these differing circumstances, and the World Council of Churches (WCC) has adopted elements of these, along with the UN definition.

Facts and Figures

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the intergovernmental organization with responsibility for protecting refugees throughout the world.

The United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951 (sometimes called the Geneva Convention) defines a refugee as someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to return."

Since UNHCR was created to protect the rights of refugees, it is important to understand that they are distinct from IDPs and asylum seekers. The latter group may achieve refugee status after being admitted to a country as asylum seekers, but since IDPs have not left the boundaries of their homelands, they cannot be accorded that status even if civil unrest or fear of death caused them to move. In many instances asylum seekers have been detained by countries to which they fled in fear while their cases are adjudicated. Once their case is judged they may be awarded refugee status or returned to their home countries.

Although refugees are defined and protected by law, their legal rights and the obligation of states toward them are limited.  The definition of refugee and international law and practice is evolving toward obligating states to recognizing a wider range of refugees and people in refugee like situations and to provide a broader, more humanitarian response to their needs. In order to understand this situation it is important to have understanding of the differences and similarities among the various groups who are driven from their homes: 

During 2006, some 670,000 claims for asylum or refugee status were submitted in 149 countries. According to the UNHCR, the top five countries where people sought asylum last year were France, the U.S., Thailand, Kenya, the United Kingdom, and Germany.


Estimated Number of Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Others of Concern to UNHCR - end 2006

Asia

8,863,300

Africa

5,169,200

Europe

3,705,100

Latin America & Caribbean

2,513,000

Northern America

716,800

Oceania

82,500

TOTAL

21,049,900

Source: UNHCR Statistical Online Population Database, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees  www.unhcr.org/statistics/populationdatabase

 

Appendix VI

The New Colossus

(by Emma Lazarus)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

 

Now contrast Lazarus’ poem with this commentary on the Immigration Reform Act of 2007 by CNN's Lou Dobbs, from May of 2007:

"What many once regarded as the world's great deliberative body looks more like a clamorous bazaar in which senators feverishly hawk duplicity and deceit as bright jewels of public policy. Comprehensive immigration reform is just such a bauble and buyer beware.

"Most beguiling among those merchants of mendacity is none other than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who has been peddling his wares at the Senate bazaar for more than four decades. Kennedy's counterfeit immigration views reach all the way back to his championship of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

"In signing that legislation into law, President Lyndon Johnson promised it would not be revolutionary or affect the lives of millions, even as it overturned 60 years of U.S. immigration policy of national origin quotas and led to the creation of explosive chain migration.

"Twenty-one years later, President Ronald Reagan signed into law amnesty for more than three million illegal aliens who had entered the country. President Reagan then promised the new employer sanctions would "remove the incentive for illegal immigration by eliminating the job opportunities," and that the law's amnesty provision would allow millions who were hiding in the shadows to 'step into the sunlight.'

"And now, another 21 years later, we hear the same language as the pro-amnesty and open borders advocates demand that American citizens ignore history, reason and the national interest. They are again marketing the same false assurances about border enforcement and insist there will be no social or economic cost to the taxpayer or the nation. More than four decades of disruptive and destructive immigration policy initiatives should be a sufficient history lesson for all Americans.

"The essential truth is clear: We cannot reform immigration law until we control immigration, and we cannot control immigration until we control our borders and our ports. This president and the congressional Democratic leadership refuse to recognize that reality and will not honor that truth.

"President Bush and Sen. Kennedy pass for political stars in our tortured times, and that is sad enough. But if we follow the course they've set, true tragedy awaits us. And the fault will be ours."

Questions

  1. What landmark is being described here?
  2. When was this poem written, and what were the circumstances in the U.S. at that time?
  3. Do you think Lazarus would agree with Lou Dobbs’ views? Why, or why not?
After analyzing Dobbs’ commentary, how do you think he would respond to the statements from Plato and Aung San Suu Kyi and to the sentiments of Emma Lazarus?

 

 

Appendix VII

My Life Journey as a Refugee

by Abdul Sheikh

As a Somali refugee, Abdul Sheikh is able to reflect on a childhood full of tragedy and life-threatening experiences.  Having found asylum within the United States, Abdul feels it is important to share his life experiences with others:

I was born in 1984 in Somalia, a land of great beauty and promise that attracted tourists from around the world, who came to enjoy the friendly people and peaceful country.  Now, however, Somalia is overwhelmed by famine, war, and violence; leaving no person unaffected. 

When I was seven years old, my father and mother divorced.  As a result, my three siblings and I lived with my father, while two of my other siblings lived with my mother.  I have not seen them in more than 10 years, and have no knowledge as to their whereabouts or if they are still alive.  My father, a religious leader in Mogadishu, the capital, was shot and killed during the civil war (1992), due to his association with a specific tribe. My father was a great man who loved his children – I miss him dearly. 

After his death, I lived with my father's immediate family for a few years, then moved with some of my friends to Ague, a small rural town outside Mogadishu. Here, my friends and I lived a "dark life," a term in Somalia usually associated with a life of a nomad. Due to the tribal warfare that had overtaken the country at the time, I was afraid that a rival tribe would try to kill me, like my father. Therefore, it was essential that I keep on the move, constantly running away from people that I thought would do me harm. 

Everyday I prayed that my life would change for the better, and one day soon it did. My friends and I fled across the Somalia/Kenya border in the town of Mandera, Kenya. Thanks to the generosity of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, we were provided with food and assistance in Mandera for two and a half years. Several months later, we moved to the Eastleigh section of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.  Shortly after our arrival in Nairobi, the friends that I was traveling with were reunited with their family in the United States, while I on the other hand, had become desperate and homeless, scavenging for food to survive. 

Fortunately, while I was in Mandera, I was befriended by a gentle old man from Kenya who helped me significantly. People called him “Mzee,” though I do not know his formal name I will always remember his generosity. He provided me with food, shelter, clothing, and hope. He enrolled me in a school that was operated by a Canadian and American church, and always encouraged me to study hard. He pushed me to get an education and not to waste time doing things that would distract me from my studies. I studied English at the school until November of 2000. Shortly thereafter, the refugee coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, along with two other U.S. citizens, helped me move to the United States in December of 2000. 

Because I was an unaccompanied minor and had no immediate family members, I was granted asylum by the United States government. I will never forget their compassion and help. Living in the United States is very different than Somalia. I currently live in Virginia, and enjoy the everyday freedom, free public education, abundance of food, religious toleration, and security that the United States provides.

I recently graduated from high school and have begun to pursue a degree in international studies and political science. With my education, I intend to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than me.  Although I will never forget the hardships I once faced as a refugee, I also feel that it is essential that I return to Somalia, my homeland.

Ultimately, I believe that it is important to reach out and provide support to others who have had similar life experiences and to share my story so that Americans, will become aware of the persecution and injustices that I and other refugees have experienced.
(This reflection appears originally on the USA for UNHCR website.)

 

Appendix VIII

What is Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS)?

Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is an international humanitarian organization with a mission is to accompany, serve and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people. JRS provides assistance to refugees in refugee camps and in cities, to people displaced within their own country, to asylum seekers in cities and to migrants held in detention centers.

Like each of the nine geographic regions of JRS, the mission of Jesuit Refugee Service/USA (JRS/USA) is to care for the most vulnerable of refugees, in particular those whose plight has been forgotten by the rest of the world.

The main areas of work are in the field of Education, Advocacy, Emergency Assistance, Health and Nutrition, Income Generating Activities and Social Services. In total, more than 376,000 individuals are direct beneficiaries of JRS projects. Millions more are indirect beneficiaries of JRS advocacy efforts.

Map of where JRS works around the world

A map of where JRS works throughout the world.

The following photos depict the situation in two refugee camps in Chad, where thousands of Darfuri refugees reside. Look at the photos, and try to imagine what life is like for the refugees. What basic necessities are needed in this camp and camps like it?

refugee camps

Refugee Camp, Chad

29 Years of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS)

Look at the following photos of JRS projects and activities and discuss what type of service or support each photo is depicting. Then look at the captions and match them with the appropriate photo.

JRS Photos

Captions:

  1. Education
  2. Pastoral Care
  3. Vocational Training
  4. Psycho-social counseling
  5. Advocacy
  6. Humanitarian Assistance

 

Appendix IX

Sri Lanka – Victims of Natural Disaster and Civil Strife

December 2007

While the 2004 tsunami drew the eyes of the world to Sri Lanka as well as other nations bordering the Indian Ocean, three years later other events have claimed our attention. The tragedy of Sri Lanka, however, transcends the tsunami, causing JRS presence as part of its mission to serve, accompany and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people. Sri Lanka abounds with forcibly displaced people, primarily because of civil conflict which began decades after Britain surrendered its colonial mandate for Ceylon as it was known in 1948.

The visit to this tiny island nation, located off the southeast coast of India in December 2007, nearly three years after the tsunami devastated much of its eastern and northern coasts, indicated that financial support from JRS/USA helped to rebuild homes and lives of the victims.

Sri Lanka political mapMost of the people served by JRS in Sri Lanka are Tamils, although the dominant Sinhalese group also receives JRS services. Since the British departed in 1948, the Sinhalese majority has run the government and enacted laws, which the Tamils have felt to be discriminatory. Such feelings by the Tamil minority have led to bloodshed as they formed several paramilitary groups to defend themselves, most notably the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Thousands of people, mostly Tamils but Muslims as well, have been driven from their homes during the conflict. Many fled to avoid having children conscripted into the LTTE and similar rebel groups. JRS stepped into this situation in 1994, although a Jesuit presence existed far longer than that time. JRS worked with these displaced people and thus was on hand when the tsunami struck in 2004. Yet, JRS has also paid a price for its involvement. In September 2007 a diocesan priest, who served as a district coordinator for JRS in northern Sri Lanka, was killed by a remotely-detonated Claymore mine.

JRS has helped to construct more than 300 homes in various parts of the island, acting alone or in conjunction with Catholic Relief Services, both along the northwest coast and on the east coast where Fr. Gavin inaugurated and blessed a new housing development funded with JRS/USA support.

We also interviewed people who have been displaced due to the conflict. Several of those with whom we spoke had been displaced as many as seven or eight times within a five-year period. One man, presently working for JRS, saw his uncle and two brothers murdered before his eyes when he was thirteen years old, prompting him to join a rebel group in retaliation. Another man related that he and his family fled their home because the Tigers approached their town, forcing young boys to become child soldiers. In order to protect their sons, they fled their home and took up residence in a small village in Mannar District. While they await a JRS house (three rooms plus a kitchen area and toilet facility) they are living in a ramshackle hut with their children and grandchildren.

Certainly their children and all of the children in Sri Lanka concern JRS. In its mission to accompany and serve the victims of civil unrest, JRS believes, as do the parents of these children, that education plays the greatest role in freeing them from a life of second class citizenship. The English Academy, which educates adolescents in Mannar, serves as a case in point. During his comments at the dedication of the Academy, Fr. PS Amalraj, S.J., Regional Director of JRS South Asia, emphasized the importance of speaking and understanding English for their future careers.

JRS-sponsored education, however, occurs at every level, except college.   Nearly 380 pre-school and elementary education programs exist throughout the country. In the eastern districts as well as Mannar we visited several of these facilities. Yet, vocational training may be the most important service that JRS offers, particularly to young women who frequently must fend for themselves. They are trained, therefore, as tailors, bakers and cooks, marketable skills in Sri Lanka. JRS has also provided start-up funds for income generating activities, like raising poultry for the market place.

The struggle for a better life remains a great challenge for displaced people in Sri Lanka. When this article was written, the ceasefire had ended bringing immediate tragedy. A Tamil parliament member was assassinated in Colombo, the capital, which has seen increasing violence in the last six months. On the following day the Tamils bombed a military bus killing four soldiers. Since then a government minister was assassinated and bombings have claimed the lives of hundreds of people riding public buses, including a group of schoolchildren. There is no end in sight. Meanwhile, organizations, like JRS, continue to work to ease the lives of thousands of displaced people in a country that was once primarily known for tea production.

Since this article was written in early 2008, much has changed in Sri Lanka. Government forces (Sinhalese majority) overcame the resistance of the “Tamil Tigers,” or LTTE, finally defeating them in June 2009. In the interim tens of thousands of people were killed, and more than 300,000 have been left homeless and internally displaced in the country. Learn more here: http://jrsusa.org/blog/tag/sri-lanka/

 

 

 

Appendix X

Limitations on International Obligations to Refugees

by Mitzi Schroeder, Director of Policy for JRS/USA

The obligations of states toward refugees are generally set out in the 1951 Convention and Protocol. Other forms of "complementary protection" are provided by other sources of international law, such as the human rights treaty and the more recent treaty protecting torture victims. Most of this treaty law is binding only on those nations who have acceded to the various instruments. However, it is argued that certain provisions, such as the obligation of "non-refoulement" have gained such wide acceptance as to have become customary international law, applying to all nations.

  1. Refugee law limits the obligations of states by making the refugee definition so narrow that it applies only to people who are victims of persecution or who have a "well founded fear" of persecution. This means that people who are simply displaced by situations, even life threatening ones that cause them to flee involuntarily are not refugees and states have no obligation under refugee law to protect them. It furthermore was long held that in order to be considered persecution, the harm suffered or feared must have been inflicted by the state, rather than by other forces.
  2. The grounds for the persecution suffered must be one or more of the five named in the refugee definition: race, nationality, membership in a social group, political opinion or religion. This "nexus" between persecution and the reason behind it is an important limiting factor.
  3.  The person must be outside his/her country of origin and be unable or unwilling to return.

In all of these ways, the refugee definition, as has been noted by legal scholars, serves not only to protect a narrow class of individuals but to limit the liabilities of states. The underlying assumption is that an individual's  state of nationality or habitual residence bears the primary obligation to protect him; only when the individual can demonstrate that the state has failed in this responsibility do other states assume a limited obligation.

Limitations on Valid Claims

While nations may be obligated not to expel a refugee:

  1. They are not obligated to give the refugee permanent residence, or a path to citizenship.
  2. They are not obligated to give the children of refugees born on their soil nationality. They can under some circumstances argue that the conditions that caused a person to become a refugee no longer exist, justifying the withdrawal of refuge. 
  3. They may arbitrarily interpret the refugee definition in a narrow way, justifying the denial of asylum to those who would be protected under a more generous interpretation.
  4. They may ignore many "rights" that are granted to refugees under the refugee convention, such as the right to work and practice professions. Refugees are therefore relegated to a lower rung of society as tolerated rather than welcomed guests. 

Trends Affecting Persecuted People

  1. Persecution by non-state actors:  In the past decade or so the international community has become more aware of and willing to recognize persecution by entities other than the state as grounds for refugee status, in situations where the state itself s unwilling or unable to provide protection. For example, people who have suffered persecution by terrorist groups, by warlords or clan groups in failed states, and who have suffered serous harm from groups participating in ethnic cleansing can be considered refugees if the state did not or could not come to their aid. Many Bosnian, Iraqi Colombian and Somali refugees would fall in this category.
  2. Membership in a social group: is being defined more broadly. For example, it has been argued that women in traditional societies who are subject to abuse because they are women constitute a "social group" meeting the refugee definition, if they cannot successfully appeal to their government for protection. Likewise, homosexuals have been recognized as a persecuted social group.
  3. Internally Displaced Persons are increasingly becoming the subject of refugee-like rights based interventions. The responsibility of UNHCR and other UN bodies to seek to assist IDPs has been recognized. New inter–agency efforts to protect IDPs, such as the "Cluster Approach" have been put in place. European governments speak increasingly of the "duty to protect" in arguing for international intervention on behalf of IDPs. This is partially legitimate humanitarian concern, and partially motivated by the desire to prevent IDPs from becoming refugees and seeking asylum in the developed world.
  4. Mixed Migrant Flows:  It is increasingly recognized that irregular migrant flows contain people who are both convention refugees as well as economic migrants, and indeed, people who are both at the same time. On the one hand, this has led to efforts to identify and offer asylum to convention refugees within these flows, and on the other to meet the human needs of what the UN High Commissioner has called "Externally Displaced Persons" who, while not entitled to the rights of refugees nonetheless require humanitarian assistance.

 

JRS/USA