The displaced: looking for home away from home

Abstract

In a single year, 2016–17, the global number of forcibly displaced people rose by 2·9 million, to 68·5 million individuals. On June 19, 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2017, an annual report of the figures and trends in the populations that it tracks. Comprising these estimates are over 24 million refugees, 40 million internally displaced people (dislocated in one's country), 3·1 million asylum seekers, nearly 700 000 returnees to countries of origin, and at least 3·9 million stateless people. The report details the harrowing plight of displaced people, emphasising the geopolitical causes and identifying the surges in coerced movement in response to violence, conflict, and persecution. Two-thirds of the world's current refugees now come from only five countries—Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, and Somalia. 7 years into its devastating civil war, Syria contributes nearly a third of the overall number of refugees, a proportion that increased by a further 14% in 2017. Turkey hosts the majority of those displaced (3·4 million), but more than half a million have relocated to Europe, mainly Germany and Sweden. Fleeing the Taliban and local Islamic State attacks, nearly 1·4 million Afghan refugees reside in neighbouring Pakistan. A 5% increase in Afghan refugees (1·4 million) is attributable to births and their successful petition of asylum in Germany. The numbers elsewhere tell a grimmer part of the story. Refugees from South Sudan grew by a million people in 2017, the largest increase reported. In the same timespan, refugees from Myanmar also doubled to 1·2 million people, most of whom are Rohingya and over half of whom are children. Although not all epicentres of displacement are unexpected, given the protracted conflicts, new emergencies and situational factors, such as high proportions of children, shift public attention and can add acute strain on the capacities and resources allocated by host countries. For those trying to escape unrest, dire conditions and consequences are inescapable—violence, hunger, exposure to disease, and lack of support and health care. Displaced children, especially those who are separated from family or unaccompanied during transit, are even more vulnerable to trafficking, loss of schooling, and trauma. International, humanitarian, and country-level responses may help or worsen the situation. UN member states have been encouraged to share the responsibility for hosting and supporting the world's displaced populations. A range of “durable” solutions have been proposed by UNHCR, including integration, voluntary return to one's country of origin, and third-country resettlement (transfer to another country that has agreed to accept migrants). Despite these proposals, commitments to provide support and safe haven are resoundingly uneven, with low-income countries sheltering the majority of refugees while countries such as the UK have seen progressive declines in asylum applications, lengthening wait times, and thousands of decisions backlogged. Another of the 37 resettlement countries, the USA is now exacerbating the problem of displacement. The USA received the largest number of new asylum applications since 2012, rising 27% in 2016 to 331 700 people, nearly half originating from countries in the north of Central America, including El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The political climate in America, however, has become alarmingly less favourable for those seeking refuge. Anti-immigration actions enacted by the Trump administration have dramatically reduced the number of refugees that America accepts annually (by tens of thousands). Most recently, a “zero tolerance” policy that detained and separated more than 2000 children from their parents for attempting to cross the border through Mexico without authorisation was introduced and then suspended after public outcry, but without a plan in place to reunite these families—an unconscionable omission putting children in jeopardy. It is an appalling coincidence that on the same day as the release of the UNHCR report, the Trump administration announced the withdrawal of the USA from the UN Human Rights Council. America has made a lamentable strategic retreat from the promotion of human rights at a time when the administration has opened itself to rebuke for its treatment of those who travel to its borders in pursuit of help or a better life, especially the youngest and most vulnerable. In the poem Home, the British Somali poet Warsan Shire urges, “You have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat/unless the water is safer than the land.” Perhaps the most durable solution for displacement, one that the current US administration appears to have forsaken, is compassion.