Jesuit Refugee Service | USA | JRS/USA Staff Recommendations for Reading

Mission to East Africa: Vulnerable Refugee Populations and the Need for Solutions

Each year the office of Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) visits a different region of the world to review the issues related to refugees in that area and the status of assistance that governments and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) are providing to them. As a result of their assessment of the situation, the team formulates recommendations to governments and NGOs on ways to improve the provision of assistance to the refugees in that region.

The USCCB decided to focus on East Africa in 2011 because of the serious new refugee crises that are developing in that region. These crises are being driven by natural disasters, political repression, human rights violations, and internal conflicts. They come on top of chronic problems, such as continued political repression in Eritrea, which are generating a steady flow of refugees. The net result of these various factors is that a humanitarian emergency is developing in the Horn of Africa that is more severe than anywhere else in the world.

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Alternatives to Detention

http://idcoalition.org/cap/

On a daily basis women, children and men are detained for immigration purposes around the world. Immigration detention is extremely expensive, can harm the health and wellbeing of those detained and has been found to not be effective at deterring irregular migrants. Global research spanning two years, conducted by La Trobe University and the International Detention Coalition, found cheaper alternatives that work effectively in the interests of government, communities and the individual. Discover the Handbook and CAP, the Community Assessment and Placement model.

Haiti Photo Exhibit

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More than one year after the devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010, conditions in Haiti remain dire. Today there are approximately 800,000 displaced Haitians and the lack of food, clean water, and other necessities is an ongoing crisis throughout the country. The cholera epidemic has claimed the lives of more than 4,672 Haitians and hospitalized 252,640 others. This photo and story exhibition is a commemorative piece that captures the ongoing plight of Haitians, their spirit of perseverance, and how grassroots and other civil society leaders are striving to create a more equitable Haiti. The images and stories comprised in this exhibition are from member organizations of the Haiti Advocacy Working Group and their Haitian grassroots partners.

The Haiti Advocacy Working Group was formed shortly after the devastating January 12, 2010 earth- quake to coordinate advocacy efforts for effective and just disaster relief, reconstruction and long- term U.S. development policy toward Haiti. Composed of more than 30 diverse groups representing a wide cross-section of the NGO community, the HAWG has focused on the following priority areas:

• Promoting Haitian civil society inclusion and leadership in relief and reconstruction

• Prioritizing rural and agricultural development needs

• Encouraging local procurement and decentralization of aid

• Supporting fair immigration policy for Haitians

• Raising awareness on gender and women’s issues

• Ensuring support through U.S. and multilateral aid commitments and full debt relief

• Promoting safe, sanitary and adequate shelter

This PDF is a catalog of the March 28—30, 2011 HAWG Photo Exhibit in the Rayburn House Office Building Foyer in Washington, D.C.

A pattern of abuses against migrants in transit in Mexico

http://www.wola.org/images/stories/Mexico/dangerousjourney.pdf

The Washington Office on Latin America promotes human rights, democracy and social and economic justice in Latin America and the Caribbean. WOLA facilitates dialogue between governmental and non-governmental actors, monitors the impact of policies and programs of governments and international organizations, and promotes alternatives through reporting, education, training and advocacy. Founded in 1974 by a coalition of civic and religious leaders, WOLA works closely with civil society organizations and government officials throughout the Americas. WOLA has released a report about abuses faced by migrants in Mexico.

The August 2010 massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas, Mexico was not an isolated event but rather an alarming example of the daily abuses suffered by migrants in transit in the country, concludes a report published today by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (Center Prodh).

The report, "A Dangerous Journey Through Mexico: Human Rights Violations Against Migrants in Transit," documents how migrants, primarily Central Americans, are often beaten, extorted, sexually abused, and/or kidnapped by criminal groups while they travel through Mexico on their way to the United States. It discusses the failure of the Mexican government to protect migrants in transit and the direct participation or acquiescence of Mexican authorities in several cases of abuse. Drawing from work of migrants’ rights organizations, the report includes testimonies of three migrants who were kidnapped by criminal groups in Mexico.

"The plight of migrants in transit in Mexico has been overlooked by the Mexican government for far too long," says Maureen Meyer, WOLA Senior Associate for Mexico and Central America and primary author of the report. "It should not have taken the massacre of 72 migrants to prompt the Mexican government to start paying more attention to the issue."

Migrant shelters, migrants' rights organizations and human rights organizations have documented in recent years the rise in the kidnapping of migrants in transit in Mexico and the increased participation of organized criminal groups in this illicit activity. In a 2009 report covering the six month period from September 2008 to February 2009, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) stated that 9,758 migrants were victims of kidnapping in Mexico and that organized criminal gangs were responsible for 9,194 of these kidnappings.

The testimonies highlighted in the report illustrate a disturbing pattern of abuses. As told by Nancy, a Salvadoran migrant, "Two of the women with me were released because they were able to pay the ransom so they turned themselves in to the migration agents in Reynosa. They told the agents everything that had happened and then the agents themselves sold the women back to the Zetas. They came to the house and then they were killed and their bodies were placed as an offering on the altar of the Santa Muerte (Saint Death)." (Testimony gathered in 2009 by the organizations Frontera con Justicia and Humanidad Sin Fronteras)

"The failure to punish authorities and others involved in kidnappings and attacks against migrants has created a climate that perpetuates more abuses,” states Luis Arriaga, the Director of the Center Prodh. "The Mexican government’s own reporting states that only two people have been sentenced for a crime against migrants in the past two years; this number pales in comparison to the magnitude of the abuses taking place."

As abuses against migrants have increased, so too have attacks against migrant shelters by individuals believed to be linked to migrant trafficking or kidnapping rings operating in the areas near the shelters who often hang around outside the shelters looking for their next victims. On December 7, 2010, following a series of others attacks this year, the Belén Migrants shelter (Belén, Posada del Migrante) in Saltillo, Coahuila, was broken into and a computer containing important information about the work of the shelter was stolen. “The government has failed to implement protection measures for individuals and organizations working to provide humanitarian assistance and defend the rights of migrants. This only puts them at greater risk for more attacks,” affirms Arriaga.

The Mexican government is currently in talks with Felipe González, the Special Rapporteur for the rights of migrant workers of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to facilitate the visit that the rapporteur requested Mexico in order to better understand the situation in the country.

While migrants make the conscious decision to migrate to other countries without the proper documents, “no human being should be subject to the abuses that have occurred against migrants in Mexico and elsewhere, regardless of their legal status,” states Meyer.

Breaking the Silence: In Search of Colombia's Disappeared

http://lawg.org/storage/documents/Colombia/BreakingTheSilence.pdf

Colombia has one of the highest levels of forced disappearances in the world. Mention the word “disappearance” in the Latin American context and most people think only about Chile, where 3,000 people were killed or disappeared, or Argentina, where some 30,000 people were disappeared in the "dirty war." Yet new information is emerging that is unveiling the tragic dimensions of Colombia’s missing.

Little attention has been paid to disappearances in Colombia. This may be simply because the death toll from assassinations, massacres, criminal murders, and battlefield casualties— where there are bodies—is so high that disappearances have remained out of focus. The government’s ability to project an image of success has also served to make disappearances, along with other human rights abuses, less visible. That the conflict is still raging makes it hard to bring attention to a crime where the proof is by definition invisible.

Download the PDF from the Latin America Working Group Education Fund to learn more.