Abstract
This special issue of Advances in Social Work focuses on current challenges and best practices with migrants and refugees, in an increasingly difficult global context. Over the past decade, forced migration and displacement reached record numbers, while complex geopolitical, economic, and environmental factors contributed to escalating current challenges. International human rights and migration laws provide a framework too narrow and too limited for these recent developments. Political pressure and a growing identity crisis add to the xenophobia and climate of fear, in which security has in some cases become the primary rationale underpinning rapidly changing migration policies. Social work as a profession – in education and practice – has an important (if largely unfulfilled) role to play in advancing the human rights of migrants and refugees. In this commentary, we outline the macro contexts that shape social work practice with migrants and refugees, highlighting the great potential for social work to do much more to advance the rights and interests of those fleeing conflict, economic or natural disasters, or other upheavals.
Highlights
Over the past 10 years, the public discourse on migration in general and forced migration in particular was shaped by the ongoing armed conflict in Syria, the postwar volatile situation in Afghanistan and Iraq; famine, increased poverty and armed conflicts in several regions in Africa (e.g., South Sudan, Eritrea, and Yemen); civil unrest, drug wars, and violence in Central and South America; and large magnitude natural disasters throughout the world
These events led to a sharp increase in forced migration, with 68.5 million people being counted as forced migrants at the end of 2017 (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2017)
In 2015, these large movements created what was framed in the political discourse as a “migration crisis” with over 1 million people aiming to find refuge within the European Union (EU)
Summary
Over the past 10 years, the public discourse on migration in general and forced migration in particular was shaped by the ongoing armed conflict in Syria, the postwar volatile situation in Afghanistan and Iraq; famine, increased poverty and armed conflicts in several regions in Africa (e.g., South Sudan, Eritrea, and Yemen); civil unrest, drug wars, and violence in Central and South America; and large magnitude natural disasters throughout the world. The closed borders and restrictive policies prevalent throughout Europe, Australia and the United States, has motivated other countries to provide an alternative response and work on sustainable solutions for migrants and refugees.
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