Plight Of Refugees Research Articles

The Continuous Precarious Situation of the Refugees and Migrant Workers in Malaysia Post-COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic positioned the global population in a conundrum state and the most vulnerable were the refugees and migrant workers. It is a common narrative for governments and the people to treat them indifferently because of their illegal status thus creating a xenophobic environment against them. A similar situation occurred for these vulnerable groups in Malaysia during managing and mitigating the spread of COVID-19 resulting in the Malaysian government neglecting the fundamental human rights to protect the refugees and migrant workers from discrimination, abuse, and exploitation. By international standards, Malaysia is far from defending the rights of vulnerable groups, particularly the plight of refugees and migrant workers. Therefore, this paper aims to highlight and discuss the qualm conditions of these refugees and migrant workers during COVID-19 and the continuous precarious situation against them. Data was gathered from primary and secondary sources such as official statements, mainstream media and reports from local and international organisations. Findings show that the precarious situation remains the same for these vulnerable people, hence the Malaysian government should seriously work out comprehensive policies to alleviate the abysmal condition against them.

Berlin i Niemcy w dwóch adaptacjach filmowych powieści Alfreda Döblina Berlin Alexanderplatz

The subject of this paper is the image of Berlin and Germany that emerges from two film adaptations of the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz. The first one, a 1980 TV series by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, closely follows the letter and spirit of the original 1929 novel; we see a faithful recreation of the material world and the mindset of German society in the final years of the Weimar Republic. In the second one, a 2021 cinema production by Burhan Qurbani, the plot is modernised. The main context of the film is the plight of refugees and economic migrants in contemporary Germany and the problems portrayed are linked to issues of race and post-colonialism.

ABKHAZIA IN MODERN GEORGIAN WRITING

The article analyzes samples of modern Georgian writing from traumatic and post-traumatic literature. In particular, it is about the war in Abkhazia and the plight of refugees according to Guram Odisharia's novel «Return to Sokhumi»; also on the «merits» of the communist regime concerning the inspiration for the war. Nodar Dumbadze's story «Helados» and Jemal Topuridze's essay «Dioskuria is a city submerged in the sea» are clear confirmations of this. Nugzar Shataidze's work «Travel to Africa» is from the so-called post-war period. Regarding the war in the time of peace; How the people who survived the war have to live in a difficult situation, and how the children and women fleeing the enemy's bullets die in their homeland as refugees due to unbearable conditions.

Where is the child? Refugee narratives in contemporary European popular culture

Abstract Subjected to what has been called a ‘global mobility regime’, refugees will often find that their destination countries have a limited number of pre-cut identities ready for them and allow them little leeway beyond these. In this paper, we will discuss representations of refugees in European popular culture following the so-called 2015 Syrian refugee crisis. We will analyse the narratives in these representations, and how these negotiate both what refugees are and should be, as well as what Europe, and more specifically the EU, is and should be. Through pathos, humour and shock, these works – two pop songs, a concert film, a comic and a cartoon – do not only convey narratives about the plight of refugees, but also work through how Europe experienced the 2015 crisis, and the ensuing, often conflicting, attitudes towards irregular migration that were expressed in European public discourse. We will discuss how this experience can be conceptualised as a ‘boundary experience’ that creates a before and after, as well as the possibility of new forms of identity – a possibility that may be ultimately rejected. As they take up the topic of irregular migration, we find producers of popular culture looking for words, sounds and images to express and address these attitudes, and to remember – or forget – the 2015 refugee crisis.

We've explored … rights and refugees

A project on rights – prompted by children showing nurturing skills in the setting – ended in them becoming fully engaged with the plight of refugees. By Annette Rawstrone

Analysis of the Russia-Ukraine War’s Consequences on Sustainable Livelihoods of Refugees in Africa

The Russia-Ukraine War will leave behind unprecedented scars among the primary conflicting parties and the international community. One of such scars is already being felt – a surge of refugee influx into neighbouring countries with mounting humanitarian needs. As the world continue recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war will make the recovery process more complicated. While geopolitical relations are threatened, the global economy is also affected – prices of commodities have gone high. The livelihood is endangered and many other services such as education and healthcare have been heavily impacted. Many countries are realigning their financial policies to meet economic uncertainties. Support for the most vulnerable that includes refugees is likely to be threatened. Amidist these challenges, refugees, particularly those in low-income countries, Africa inclusive, are left in peril. With that in mind, this paper aimed at analysing the relational consequence of the Russia-Ukraine war on sustainable livelihoods of refugees in Africa. Secondary qualitative data was obtained through the exploration of relevant literature, reports, articles, and news. While imploring “social solidary theory” of Émile Durkhein (1858-1917) and the African Solidarity perspective of “ubuntu”, the paper argues for a “re-envisioned collaboration” among African states in the context of global crises vis-à-vis the plight of refugees in Africa.

The Skin of Our Teeth, Everyman Theatre, Baltimore, Maryland

<i>The Skin of Our Teeth</i>, Everyman Theatre, Baltimore, Maryland

Editorial

In the current issue, which we pass on to you for reading and reflection, we continue the topical themes of the threats that we have come to experience. Thanks to researchers who undertake research related to pandemics, the plight of refugees, or climate change, we have an opportunity to be better prepared to face their consequences, including in the area of mental health care for both individuals and entire populations. Ronald M. Hernández and colleagues from Lima University and Tumbes University in Perú have just done a retrospective analysis of the number of studies that have included the Latin American population. They found that there was a lack of research on the prevalence of anxiety symptoms and disorders in this population in a number of Central and South American countries. Colleagues on the other side of the globe, from Jordan, found by assessing the personality traits of counselors supporting refugees that the big five personality factors explained (48.3%) as a statistically significant predictor of counselor's psychological hardiness. As one might guess, neuroticism was among these traits at the lowest level.

Foreword to Oscar Serlin's The Soldier's Dilemma

Oscar Serlin's The Soldier's Dilemma is a fictional adaptation of Aeschylus's Eumenides. His play re-imagines the themes of divided loyalties to kin and family, themes that are central to the Oresteia trilogy and the choice Orestes makes, when he kills his mother, Clytemnestra, to avenge his father, Agamemnon. In this new play, the trilogy's ancient settings, Argos, Delphi, and Athens are adapted both in terms of time and place. Orestes's matricide and his trial inspire this modern retelling of the aftermath of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in March 1968 through the fictional court-martial trial of Private Francis Orestes, a soldier who kills two of his fellow soldiers, after they perpetrate atrocities against the non-combatant population of one of the hamlets in that area, fictionally renamed as designation “Agamemnon.” In adapting the cycle of kin-killing and bloodguilt of the royal family of Argos, Oscar Serlin revisits the events of the massacre at My Lai and returns to the question of the perpetrators’ accountability. Like his ancient namesake, the modern Orestes takes justice in his own hands and makes the difficult choice to avenge the lives of the innocent Vietnamese victims. In The Soldier's Dilemma, Francis Orestes kills Lieutenant Clyde Anderson and Private William Nestor (their names are a play on “Clytemnestra,” the name of Orestes's mother in the Oresteia), when his superiors fail to seek any redress for these crimes. The play confronts the unmendable rift between a group of three friends who were fellow soldiers and explores the warping of bonds of loyalty, brotherhood, and friendship in the context of that war.The setting of the play is the prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where Private Francis Orestes is held before he is tried on two charges of first-degree murder. The trial of Francis Orestes in The Soldier's Dilemma does not aim at representing the procedures, typical of court martial trials. It is modeled instead upon Orestes's trial in the ancient play with one significant difference: unlike Orestes in Eumenides, the American Orestes is found guilty of his crimes. The play's free adaptation of the ancient trial also re-imagines the historical events surrounding Second Lieutenant William Calley's trial who was convicted for the killings of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968. William Calley was sentenced to life in prison; he served for three years and was subsequently released. The Soldier's Dilemma returns to the My Lai tragedy fifty years later, creating space for exploring one of the darkest chapters of that war as an American tragedy.Oscar Serlin was a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Fall 2019, when he took my course on “The Aftermath of War in Ancient Greek Drama.” The course focused on the experiences of the ancients with wartime suffering and trauma as a framework for exploring the aftermath of war today. It covered topics such as veterans’ PTSD, the plight of refugees and migrants, and violence against women in war. Oscar's play began as a group project with three other students, Vincent Kim, Hamza Lodhia, and Max Serlin. He later developed it into The Soldier's Dilemma.

A fortunate man?

In 1966, the writer John Berger and his regular collaborator the photographer Jean Mohr spent about 6 weeks living with and observing the daily work of a general practitioner called John Eskell, who practised in the village of St Briavels in Gloucestershire's Forest of Dean in the UK. Berger was already well known as a novelist and art critic, and he went on to win the Booker Prize in 1972. Mohr was a Swiss photojournalist noted for his work highlighting humanitarian issues, such as the plight of refugees.

General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church

The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) met in virtual form on 10 and 11 June 2021. In his charge to Synod, the Most Rev'd Dr Mark Strange, Primus, encouraged Synod members not to place their light under a bushel. The COVID-19 pandemic had denied people opportunities normally available to them to make their light shine and, at times, the bushel had felt very close. He reminded Synod members that in the valley of the shadow of death one need fear no evil. The evils of child poverty, the plight of refugees and unwarranted attacks on individuals in the public eye were all current evils to be confronted. Despite everything, the place of quiet waters and the comfort of the Shepherd's rod and staff still brought hope and joy, even in a pandemic.

Playing politics with the plight of refugees. How the EU went into Erdogan’s political receivership

At the peak of the ‘refugee crisis’ in late 2015-early 2016, the EU reached an agreement with the Turkish government, known as the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey. It has served as a bone of contention between the EU and Turkey ever since its implementation. As anticipated by many experts, critical voices and NGOs in Turkey and Europe, the Facility has provided the Erdogan regime with a strategic tool to blackmail the EU without caring for the humanitarian needs.

Seeking Asylum—Holding Patterns: The 2020 Ballina Region for Refugees Poetry Prize

Poetry provides valuable and insightful ways to explore and record social and political experiences and engagements. The plight of refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia is well known. Community groups such as the Ballina Region for Refugees provide support to refugees and asylum seekers both in Australia and offshore. To help raise awareness and validate the experience of refugees and asylum seekers, the Ballina Region for Refugees runs an annual Poetry Prize. The 2020 Ballina Region for Refugees Poetry Prize theme was Seeking Asylum—Holding Patterns. This article presents the winning and highly commended poems, along with poems by refugee and asylum seeker poets. Poems from both insider witnesses – refugees and asylum seekers – and outsider witnesses – poets who seek to express an empathy with the plight of refugees and asylum seekers – have contributed to this collection. From haunting statements of human dissolution that should strike fear into anyone’s heart, through glimpses of hope, the poems explore the trails of asylum seeking and the dysfunctionality of the aftermath.

The suffering of refugees in Ghassan Kanafani’s “The Child Goes to the Camp”: a critical appraisal

Purpose This paper aims to present a critical appraisal of Ghassan Kanafani’s short story “The Child Goes to the Camp” using the Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin and Rose (2007) in an attempt to investigate the predicament of the Palestinians who were forced to flee their country and live in refugee camps as well as the various effects refugee life had on them. Design/methodology/approach Using the Appraisal Theory, and with a special focus on the categories of Attitude and Graduation, the paper aims to shed light on the plight of refugees through revealing the narrator’s suffering in a refugee camp where the most important virtue becomes remaining alive. Findings Analysing the story using the Appraisal Theory reveals the impact refugee life has left on the narrator and his family. This story serves as a warning for the world of the suffering refugees have to endure when they are forced to flee their war-torn countries. Originality/value Although Kanafani’ resistance literature has been studied extensively, his short stories have not received much scholarly attention. In addition, his works have not been subject to linguistic analysis. This study presents an appraisal analysis of Kanafani’s “The Child Goes to the Camp” in an attempt to investigate how the author’s linguistic choices are key to highlighting the suffering of the Palestinians, especially children, in refugee camps.

The Plight of Refugees in ASEAN Member Countries

This paper identifies and analyzes the efforts of ASEAN member states in addressing the contemporary threats and hardships experienced by refugees. The situation is further exacerbated by the pandemic brought about by the COVID-19 coronavirus. As an international organization, ASEAN is expected to have a collective and cooperative strategy to address this. However, ASEAN member states do not exhibit large-scale collaborative efforts to resolve the plight of the refugees. Rather, mutual agreements seem to be limited to the host/transit country and the native country of the refugees. Liberal institutionalist theory that emphasizes the function of international institutions to aid multinationals cooperation in certain areas is used to explain ASEAN’s role to deal with the plight of refugees in South East Asia. It is recommended for ASEAN members to re-examine the potential of international relations in securing a safer and sustainable future for refugees.

The Protection of Refugee Children in Africa: Post-Convention on The Rights of The Child

The plight of refugees is currently one of the concerning global human rights issues. The refugee population is largely comprised of women and children who become displaced during armed conflicts; this is because the majority of persons killed or who become victims of forced disappearance are men. Forcibly displaced children face direct physical threats, as well as a variety of health-related problems. Although forcibly displaced children generally include those who are not refugees, this contribution is only concerned with refugee children. Refugee children are vulnerable to different types of abuse and exploitation, and often become the target of discrimination, sexual exploitation and social marginalisation in the refugee transit camps and countries of exile. Although the Convention on the Rights of Child, 1989 was adopted to protect children’s rights worldwide, the true impact of these provisions remains uncertain. This contribution examines the extent to which the adherence to the Convention on the Rights of the Child is promoted in Africa. This study compares the situation in South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia to pinpoint the legal and practical challenges that face refugee children in those countries. The contribution concludes with recommended solutions for effectively protecting and promoting refugee children’s rights in Africa.

Das Recht auf Asyl bei Emer de Vattel 1758: unvollkommenes Recht, vollkommenes Recht, Menschenrecht

When, within the framework of a highly controversial debate of the early 1990s in Germany on the right to asylum, Winfrid Brugger argued, a human right to asylum could not be based on sound reason, he referred to the supposed impossibility of an imputation of the plight of refugees to certain foreign states. In more recent debates, similar arguments have been brought forward and formulated as a problem of imperfect or perfect duties and rights. Much earlier, in 1758, Emer de Vattel already had discussed the right to asylum as a right that has aspects of both an imperfect right and a perfect right. This has mostly been ignored in the recent debate. In this article, I try to show how de Vattel reasoned. His argumentation limited the otherwise strong sovereignty of states by referring to the reasons of the moral legitimacy of their powers. This led him to the result that the per se perfect right to asylum, imperfect in relation to specific states, can, if states collectively fail to admit a refugee in urgent danger, become a claim against a specific country in the shape of a perfect right to self-help. I will briefly try to reconstruct some of de Vattel‘s ideas with concepts of Ronald Dworkin and Robert Alexy. The difference between Dworkin’s rule and Alexy’s Regel becomes relevant for understanding de Vattel’s perfect and human right to asylum. In the end, I will briefly investigate how much of de Vattel’s thought depends on assumptions a XXIst century thinker would probably not be ready to suppose any more. It will become clear that de Vattel’s thought on asylum is mostly independent from rather controversial assumptions of his work; it fits rather well to some recent approaches limiting sovereignty by human rights and concepts of territorial justice.

Reimagining refuge: a discussion of Serena Parekh’s No Refuge by the author of Justice for People on the Move

ABSTRACT This article is part of an ‘Author meets author' exchange that focuses on my recent book, Justice for People on the Move, and Serena Parekh’s forthcoming book, No Refuge. I describe some of the ways in which I believe Parekh and I usefully converge on similar recommendations, some of the ways in which we diverge and why there are important matters to discuss as we try to advance the conversation on how to reduce the injustices associated with our international arrangements for dealing with refugees. One point of difference that comes into view is that, because Parekh and I have different foci, the content of the responsibilities for which we advocate sometimes differs significantly. A recommendation which might seem important if we attend only to the plight of refugees might not be optimal if we hope to promote sustainable arrangements that assist as many of the most disadvantaged that surround refugee crises, as well as refugees. Here my broader focus on migration justice and global justice more generally suggest different courses of action should be promoted. Our different agendas sometimes affect the content of our responsibilities here and now.

Examining Internal Displacement through the Rohingya Crisis

The plight of refugees has recently received considerable media coverage. Yet, little attention is given to groups who are internally displaced. The purpose of this article is to model one way to teach about internally displaced peoples, drawing on the Rohingya crisis as a specific example. We first provide a background of the Rohingya crisis, and then use that context to describe a lesson to help students better understand issues associated with internally displaced peoples. The lesson is a history lab—an inquiry-based activity through which students recognize societal problems, evaluate evidence, and consider possible solutions or consequences. Using the history lab approach, students can investigate the Rohingya crisis from multiple perspectives and develop a better understanding of the Rohingya crisis, specifically, and of internally displaced peoples, broadly. There are currently 65 million + displaced people in the world. Questions of where they should go, who should harbor them, and what should be done about the violent situations that force them from their homelands are complex. The lesson aligns with the C3 Framework and as such, this article offers teachers an inquiry-based approach to examining a complex, global issue that currently receives little attention in formal social studies curricula.

Selected Poems from Chaim Grade's Refugees

Selected Poems from Chaim Grade's Refugees Beata Kasiarz Though often regarded as one of the most important Yiddish prose writers of the twentieth century, Chaim Grade (1910–1982) was first and foremost a prolific poet. Born in Vilna, "the Jerusalem of Lithuania," Grade spent his formative years studying in iconic Novaradok mussar yeshivas, only to abandon his studies at the age of twenty-two to pursue his passion for poetry. A member of the literary and artistic group Yung vilne [Young Vilna], Grade's first poetry publications in the 1930s focused on his beloved, pious mother, Vela Blumenthal, and the tensions arising between his deeply religious upbringing and his enthusiastic embrace of the secular world—subjects that would come to thoroughly permeate his literary oeuvre. When the Nazis invaded Vilna in 1941, Grade, upon the urging of his mother and first wife, Frumme-Liebe, fled to the Soviet interior. He spent the remainder of the war as a refugee, wandering the Central Asian Soviet Republics and writing poetry that would eventually be published in the book Pleytim (Refugees, 1947). In this collection, Grade delves into the complex nature of grief, mourning, and survival guilt, juxtaposing the foreign landscapes with the Vilna of his youth. The selected poems translated here disabuse us of any lingering notion that the plight of refugees is a safe reprieve—here they are hunted, chased, and abused, all the while shouldering the trauma of the decimated Jewish world they left behind. After Grade's first (and final) visit to the ruins of Vilna at the end of 1945, he and his second wife, Inna Hecker (1925–2010), moved to Poland, then France, before finally immigrating to New York in 1948, where they remained for the rest of their lives. Grade's move to America corresponded with his shift to primarily writing prose, through [End Page 307] which he painstakingly recreated and memorialized the now destroyed Lithuanian Jewry of his past. Although Grade published eleven books of poetry, only a single book, Oyf mayn veg tsu dir (On My Way to You, 1969), was translated (into Hebrew), in addition to occasional poems published in Hebrew and English newspapers during Grade's lifetime. After his death in 1982, Inna Hecker Grade managed Grade's literary estate protectively and usually denied requests to publish translations. Upon her death in 2010, the Public Administrator of Bronx County announced a public auction of the estate, and in 2013, YIVO and the National Library of Israel jointly purchased the collection. The Estate of Chaim Grade and Inna Hecker Grade is housed in the YIVO archives and library, and is in the process of being digitized. [End Page 308] [End Page 309] IN NIGHT, IN WIND In night, in wind, and in rainwe scatter through streets, parkstrain stations, stairs,like falling leaves of autumn.Drifting from train to train,we envy those who no longerbeg for a drink of water—God is already beside them.A pack of scrawny,scraggly beasts,we fight for waterwith fists, with hellish screams,cracking open the skywith brutal, aching cries.Our eyes, glimmering knivestear through the wallsas we wander the streets,in night, in wind, and in rain. The sons and daughters of Polandhowl like starved wolves.With thick beards like swamp grass,terrified and wild like oxenthat rip themselves away from the slaughter—we escaped Lithuania.Like a stray dog,Ukraine trembles and bows,and the villagers, like crows,mourn us, even though they drove us awayfrom their peaceful homes—still, death cuts them down.Trapped in the storm,waves engulf them. [End Page 310] The Don won't cradle us,the Neman spat rocks,from Minsk to icy Samarawe press on—a dark cloud.Vilnius meets Zhytomyr,both in mourning,buried in homeless grief,on snow-swept Siberian paths.Glowing lava, we flowfrom Zhmerynka, Bryansk, Poltava,over all the fences and borders.We'll poison the skywith our wounded bodiesscreaming towards heaven,a night brigade wailing:Who will demand the blood-reckoningfor bodies left to rot like trash in the street,in night, in wind, and in rain. [End...