Refugees - The Worldwide Phenomena

Refugees – The Worldwide Phenomena 

 Stes de Necker

With the emphasis currently focussed on the crises situations in Jordan, Somalia, Chad etc. one tends te forget that the refugee crises is not only limited to these countries, but that it is in fact a worldwide crises.

Under international law, a refugee is a person who, being outside his country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

The 1951 Refugee Convention defines refugees as people who have left their place of habitual residence, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

Originally confined to refugees from war-torn Europe, the Refugee Convention was extended by a 1967 Protocol. Now refugees from any country are entitled to protection in one of the 147 countries which have signed the Convention. People who are awaiting confirmation of their refugee status are termed "asylum seekers".

However, assessing claims for asylum has become more problematic. Social and economic globalisation often blurs the distinction between forced and voluntary migration. The most telling current example is the situation in South Africa which may be host to almost one million undocumented Zimbabweans. It is very difficult for the authorities to differentiate between those Zimbabweans who fled in fear of political thuggery and those simply desperate for jobs.

Refugee status is greatly valued for the rights that it bestows under international law. A refugee is entitled to reside, at least temporarily, in the host country and is protected by the principle of non-refoulement. This prohibits the deportation of refugees to places where their lives or freedoms could be in danger.

 Host states are also obliged to offer civil and economic rights, in particular the right to work. Refugees enjoy access to social services and protection of national laws, whereas migrant workers have no recourse to international law to enforce their rights.

The nature of the movement of refugees is that they tend to cross borders at short notice, with few possessions and in distress. In such circumstances the ideals of international law prove impractical so that immediate protection often takes the form of refugee camps.

About 30% of global refugees are accommodated in camps. Conceived as short-term emergency solutions, many refugee camps quickly become overwhelmed with numbers, prone to disease and violence, with no options available for relocating the occupants. The largest camp in the world is the Dadaab camp in north-eastern Kenya which accommodated over 460,000 refugees at the end of 2011, mostly from Somalia.

Almost three quarters of all non-Palestinian refugees – 7.2 million people - have been trapped in temporary arrangements for over five years. Quite apart from the costs, the limited opportunities for refugees to work and inadequate education for their children create difficult psychological environments.

There are three broad options for permanent solutions to the refugee problem. The first is local integration. This grants refugees a permanent right to stay in the host country. 

The second option is resettlement in third-party countries. There is a global quota scheme, in which participating countries agree to take a certain number of refugees each year. However, few countries apart from the US offer meaningful quotas and only 99,000 refugees were resettled in 2010, a fraction of the demand.

The third option - currently the most popular with support agencies and with the refugees themselves - is voluntary repatriation to the country of origin. About nine million refugees have been repatriated in the last ten years, making this the most successful of the durable solutions. However, the rate of these returns has now slowed considerably with only 197,000 in 2010, the lowest figure for 20 years. The main constraint is the protracted nature of conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo.

The withdrawal of US troops from Iraq does not yet equate with a secure environment. This is especially relevant to Iraqi refugees in Syria, trapped with the additional quandary of political turmoil in their host country.

The protracted plight of millions of refugees has raised questions about the resilience of the 60-year old Refugee Convention. Furthermore, the modern world increasingly provokes displacement scenarios that expose its limitations. Schedule 1 gives a comprehensive statistical overview of the worldwide occurrence of the refugee problem. Both the influx totals as well as the effusion (outflux) totals by country are indicated.

The cost of accommodating refugees will obviously differ for each country, but calculated at a nominal cost of $20 per refugee, per day, the total annual cost of hosting the world’s refugees currently amount to a staggering $77 bil. per year.

In recent years a new refugee phenomena has appeared, and that is the predicament of the “environmental” or “climate change” refugee. In a Security Council debate during 2011, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “environmental refugees are reshaping the human geography of the planet.” He was referring not only to the impact of extreme weather events but also to slow onset disasters such as salinisation and desertification of fertile land.

 In 2008, a Greenpeace report contemplates a mass migration of 125 million people from coastal and low-lying regions of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. More cautious estimates suggest a global cross-border total of 200-250 million by 2050.

No provision in international law exists to respond to environmental migration. Climate-related displacement will furthermore be irreversible, thereby ruling out the most popular solution of repatriation adopted for conventional refugees. The threat of climate change will inevitably require a new international convention for displaced persons whose circumstances are not captured by the existing definitions.

 Source: One World – Inside the global divide. 4 March 2013. UNHCR News

Taking into consideration the limited success that could be achieved by applying conventional methods to curb the refugee problem worldwide, the only other option remaining may be to hold the countries of origin financially responsible for the cost of their citizens who live as refugees in other countries.

This strategy can be pursued by transferring the cost of the financial benefits and social services, to which asylum seekers and refugees are entitled, to their country of origin. Jordan is a case in point for how different groups of refugees can have strong political and economic implications, both domestically and regionally.

Jordan is a relative recent creation, having been established in 1921 within borders drawn by European colonial powers. It soon became the first host of Palestinian refugees who arrived in several waves since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, forming a very large and integral part of Jordan’s population.

Because of the unresolved issue of Palestinian statehood, this migration has constantly posed a challenge to the Jordanian regime. At the same time, it has been an asset to the country's economic development. In particular, it has allowed Jordan to receive large amounts of development assistance from the international community to help resettle and integrate the refugees. Remittances, together with foreign aid, have contributed to developing sectors of the Jordanian economy by providing start-up money for Jordanian businesses and for large state-sponsored projects.

The Jordanian government has always welcomed resettlement projects undertaken by international organizations or US development agencies within the broader framework of development which have generally boosted the whole Jordanian economy. The problem however is, that the countries of origen of the refugees have contributed very little, if anything, to this development funding.

 Jordan has the highest ratio of refugees to indigenous population of any country. (14:1). Of the current almost 500,000 refugees in Jordan, almost 80% are Palestinians. Jordan can not afford to absorb new migrants into their country without endangering its social balance.

 Source:  Géraldine Chatelard Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo), Amman.

According to the latest statistics publiched by UNHCR, the current total worldwide refugee population  amounts to an estimated 10mill.people. As I have mentioned before, at a nominal cost of $20 per day per person, these refugees are costing the world a staggering $76 bill. per annum. South Africa for example, are currently hosting approximately 58,000 refugees, eminating mainly from Zimbabwe.At the same nominal cost of $20 per person per day, these relative few refugees are costing the South African taxpayers no less than $423 mill. per year. (R3,8 bill.) 

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