Protracted Refugee Situations Research Articles

Assessment of Implementation of an Anaemia Reduction Initiative Including Blanket Supplementary Feeding Distributing LNS and MNP on Anaemia in a Protracted Refugee Situation

Assessment of Implementation of an Anaemia Reduction Initiative Including Blanket Supplementary Feeding Distributing LNS and MNP on Anaemia in a Protracted Refugee Situation

Palestinian Refugees and the Syrian Uprising: Filling the Protection Gap during Secondary Forced Displacement

Palestinian refugees in the Middle East constitute a protracted refugee situation. In response to political considerations by multiple state actors, they are denied return to their homes of habitual residence and are refused meaningful legal protection in their host countries. Palestinians are therefore suspended between their political objectification in a prolonged conflict on the one hand, and the vulnerability of their humanitarian condition, like all other refugees, on the other. Unlike their refugee counterparts who are persons of concern to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Palestinian refugees endure an uneven legal regime. Since the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) fell into abeyance, no international agency has searched for durable solutions on behalf of Palestinian refugees, thus exposing them to a protection gap. Instead, the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), established to furnish Palestinian refugees with aid and relief, has provided them with incremental protection, which, however significant, has been insufficient to close the gap. The extent of this protection gap has been vividly demonstrated during several epi sodes of secondary forced displacement in the Middle East. In response to their mass expulsion from Kuwait in 1991, Libya in 1996, and Iraq in 2003, UNRWA and UNHCR have closely collaborated in order to bridge this gap and provide Palestinian refugees with adequate protection. These incidents of inter-agency collaboration constitute de facto policies between the two agencies, which demonstrate the flexibility of otherwise rigid delineations between their existing mandates. In particular, past practice makes clear that UNRWA and UNCHR can have overlapping geographic and operational mandates. During the most recent crisis in Syria, these de facto policies have proven inadequate to protect Palestinian refugees. To overcome this challenge, UNHCR and UNRWA should formalize their inter-agency collaboration on behalf of Palestinian refugees during times of calm as well as crisis, in conformity with the spirit of the UNHCR Statute and the 1951 Refugee Convention as well as with past practice. Beyond crisis, the agencies should consider innovative approaches to definitively close the protection gap.

Questioning the Dynamics and Language of Forced Migration in Asia: The experiences of ethnic Chinese refugees

To what extent are different parts of the world exceptional when it comes to the history of forced migration and refugee experiences? For instance, is forced migration in Asia distinct from developments elsewhere? Or is forced migration in Asia part of wider processes of displacement and emplacement so characteristic of the modern world? Over the past few decades, the fields of refugee and forced migration studies have ballooned. Scholars in a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, political science, geography, and history have sought to understand the nature of population displacements in the modern world. Much of the early scholarship in this field focused on Europe in the immediate aftermath of the First and Second World Wars. Scholars have also sought to understand the nature of protracted refugee situations in Africa.1 More recently, scholars have investigated forced migration within globalized and transnational frameworks.2 Yet no sooner had scholars started to think of displacement in these terms than critics began to contend that the unique, and localized, dimensions of displaced populations, including refugees, forced migrants, and internally displaced people, were being ignored. Questions about what is gained and what is lost in approaching the study of modern refugee populations from various vantage points now frame much of the work in the fields of refugee and forced migration studies.3

Can Global Refugee Policy Leverage Durable Solutions? Lessons from Tanzania's Naturalization of Burundian Refugees

When Tanzania announced its willingness to naturalize some of the 220,000 Burundian refugees it had hosted since 1972, this became a test of a new global policy on protracted refugee situations and its ability to leverage durable solutions for refugees. This article examines the impact of global policy on naturalization in Tanzania, and argues that while global policy partially contributed to the formulation and early implementation of Tanzania’s naturalization policy, it has not been able to ensure the full implementation of the policy in light of increased domestic opposition to local integration. In contrast, a range of domestic factors, especially within Tanzanian politics, more fully explain the formulation and uneven implementation of the naturalization policy. As such, the case of Tanzania illustrates the challenges associated with implementing global refugee policy in a domestic context and underscores the importance of ongoing political analysis in the future study and practice of global refugee policy.

Questioning Governance in Protracted Refugee Situations: The Fiduciary Nature of the State-Refugee Relationship

In recent decades, increases in the number and duration of protracted refugee situations (PRSs) have revealed substantial shortcomings in the international refugee protection framework. Falling as they do outside of the range of traditional refugee crises, PRSs present the international community with new challenges specifically with respect to effective responses and the allocation of responsibility. Efforts to address these situations have been hampered not only by the lack resources and political will among states but by the absence of a clear legal framework. Too often states abdicate their protection responsibilities and rely upon UNHCR to step into their shoes. At a time when there is the need for effective monitoring and enforcement of refugee protection and assistance, UNHCR is reduced to the role of mere aid provider. This article proposes an alternative conception of state responsibility for PRS based on the fiduciary theory of state legal authority. By embracing a fiduciary understanding of the refugee-host state relationship, we have a legal basis for the duty and responsibility of states to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of refugees within their borders that arises as a function of that relationship as opposed to being imposed externally. With the fiduciary theory of state legal authority clearly placing primary responsibility for refugee protection on the host state, the refugee assistance function of UNHCR can be reconceived as being supportive in nature and supplementary to its original protection and supervisory mandate.

A Dignified Approach: Legal Empowerment and Justice for Human Rights Violations in Protracted Refugee Situations

Although the concept of legal empowerment has gained significant traction in development studies recently as a means of addressing social inequality, exclusion and human rights violations, little scholarship exists on its potential in the context of protracted refugee situations (PRS). This article seeks to further the discussion on the role of law and justice in PRS by proposing that legal empowerment-based approaches offer an alternative to traditional aid initiatives which respects the dignity and agency of recipients. It is argued here that enabling refugees to use the law and legal mechanisms to protect and advance their rights and acquire greater control over their lives could have important implications. In particular, legal empowerment has the potential to improve the administration of justice within refugee camps, to increase the accountability of host state authorities and aid providers, and to contribute to the achievement of durable solutions either by providing the skills and knowledge to facilitate resettlement or local integration or by empowering refugees to be actors in resettlement and transitional justice initiatives.

Human trafficking: the case of Burmese refugees in Thailand

With an estimated 30 protracted refugee situations around the globe, the number of refugees finding themselves in prolonged displacement is alarming. While demarcated refugee camps are a visible component of this phenomenon, the link between protracted displacement and increased risks of human trafficking is much less evident. Within refugee camps, the lack of law and order or police protection along with the presence of large numbers of helpless people create a pool of readily available supply for those who want to exploit them. This account will discuss the conditions of displacement that contribute to human trafficking risks, particularly as they relate to the protracted refugee situation of Burmese in Thailand. The case study will be followed by a number of policy and practice recommendations for the reduction of these risks.

A Refugee Camp Conundrum: Geopolitics, Liberal Democracy, and Protracted Refugee Situations

Liberal democratic norms are embodied in refugee camps and the states that host them in a multitude of ways: through refugee law and the ‘good offices’ of the United Nations; in relation to international aid and the prerequisites recipient governments must meet to receive it; and in refugee education to name but a few. In the Dadaab camps of Northeast Kenya, democracy and law meet intense geopolitical pressures. The camps are situated in what was once contested territory during the period of colonial rule. In the early 1990s and again in 2011, as Somalia faced armed conflict and related famine, thousands of refugees fled to the Dadaab camps. The presence of Somali refugees in Kenya is not politically neutral or merely humanitarian. The contradictions between liberal democratic norms and the prevailing geopolitical sentiments that favour keeping refugees in camps them are explored in the context of Dadaab.

Assessment of the Psychosocial Development of Children Attending Nursery Schools in Karen Refugee Camps in Thailand

The Karen, an ethnic minority group in Burma, have experienced a prolonged state of exile in refugee camps in neighboring Thailand because of ethnic conflict in their home country. Nursery schools in the three largest Karen refugee camps aim to promote the psychosocial development of young children by providing a child-centered, creative, learning-friendly environment. Psychosocial development and potentially concerning behaviors of two to five-year-old children in nursery schools were examined by use of a psychosocial checklist. The results showed that psychosocial development of the children increased with age, with most five year olds being proficient in playing cooperatively with other children. Sadness or emotional outbursts were observed for a third of the children. Difficulty separating from parents was also observed. The results also showed that children who attended the nursery schools for more than a year were better at playing cooperatively with other children and were more aware of their own and others’ feelings. On the other hand, children who were newer to the nursery schools were more polite and better at following rules and controlling their feelings when frustrated. The results indicate that nursery schools can be a promising practice to promote healthy psychosocial development of children in protracted refugee situations.

Paths to a Future for Youth in Protracted Refugee Situations: A View from the Thai-Burmese Border

As youth in protracted refugee situations reach adulthood, the challenges of providing education to them have increased. Along the Thai-Burmese border, some creative approaches are being taken in order to respond to their needs. This article describes four programs, each with a different character. Although available to relatively few, they demonstrate some roles that civil society, and in particular educators and educational institutions, can play in delivering or in ensuring access to higher education for refugee youth living in protracted situations. Most critical are creativity, flexibility, and respectful collaboration betwee neducators and both refugee and host communities.

Tertiary Education for Refugees: A Case Study from the Thai-Burma Border

The Australian Catholic University (ACU) has, since 2003, been involved in providing tertiary education for young refugees who have fled persecution in Burma to end up in refugee camps in Thailand. This paper examines the origins of the program, the changes made as lessons are learned, and the current Diploma program which is also supported by three US universities and York University in Toronto. It also examines how past graduates have used their qualifications for the common good, a term derived from Catholic social thought which informs ACU’s specific Catholic identity as a university. The paper further looks at what challenges lie ahead within the Thai-Burmese context and how this model can be replicated in other protracted refugee situations.

Humanitarian assistance to refugees in rural Ghana: Implications for refugee–host relations

In the face of protracted refugee situations worldwide, peaceful co-existence with host populations is necessary to ensure a meaningful life for refugees. Refugees need assistance to survive, especially in the emergency phase of their arrival in host communities. However, establishing refugee camps in predominantly rural communities with poor living conditions questions the type of assistance that should be offered in order to avoid resentment from rural hosts. The article explores the implications of humanitarian assistance to refugees in Krisan Refugee Camp in Ghana for refugee–host relations. Where assistance to refugees is perceived to be above average living conditions in the host communities, there is likely to be resentment among hosts. This may create antagonism between refugees and hosts, thereby jeopardising peaceful co-existence. It is concluded that assistance should also take the needs of local populations into consideration in order to create a congenial atmosphere for co-existence.

Waiting for what? The feminization of asylum in protracted situations

Millions of refugees are stuck in camps and cities of the global South without permanent legal status. They wait in limbo, their status unresolved in what the United Nations (UN) calls ‘protracted refugee situations’ (PRS). The material conditions and depictions of such refugees as immobile and passive contributes to a feminization of asylum in such spaces. In contrast, refugees on the move to seek asylum in the global North are perceived as threats and coded as part of a masculinist geopolitical agenda that controls and securitizes their movement. Policies to externalize asylum and keep potential refugees away from the affluent nations of the global North, in which they may seek legal status, represent one strategy of exclusion. This article traces these divergent trajectories of im/mobility and demonstrates how humanitarian space for both groups is narrowing over time. For those seeking asylum in the global North, measures such as increased detention and rapid return to transit countries aim to deter migrants from arriving at all. It is contended that the discrete systems that manage asylum seekers in the global North and refugees in long-term limbo are themselves gendered. European Union policies to ‘externalize’ asylum and keep asylum seekers offshore dovetail with policies by EU member states to ‘build capacity’ for refugee protection in refugee ‘regions of origin’. These represent a shifting, not a sharing, of responsibility for their welfare and prolongs their wait.

Exploring Barriers to Higher Education in Protracted Refugee Situations: The Case of Burmese Refugees in Thailand

3 LIST OF ACRONYMS 4 CHAPTER 1 – HIGHER EDUCATION IN PROTRACTED REFUGEE SITUATIONS: A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS? 6 1.1. AIMS AND RATIONALE OF THE STUDY 9 1.2. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 10 1.3. OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 13 CHAPTER 2 – TOWARD RESOLVING THE PARADOXES 15 2.1. SETTING THE SCENE: EDUCATING REFUGEES 16 2.1.1. THE EMERGING FIELD OF EMERGENCY EDUCATION 16 2.1.2. ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION ‘ON THE BASIS OF MERIT’ 17 2.1.3. THE TWO FACES OF EMERGENCY EDUCATION 20 2.2. AN EXPLORATION OF PARADOXES SURROUNDING HIGHER EDUCATION IN PROTRACTED REFUGEE SITUATIONS 22 2.2.1. FROM RELIEF TO DEVELOPMENT 27 2.2.2. HIGHER EDUCATION WITHOUT A NATION-STATE 32 2.2.3. FROM VICTIMISATION TO EMPOWERMENT 37 CHAPTER 3 – MAKING IT WORK: HIGHER EDUCATION FOR BURMESE REFUGEES IN THAILAND 44 3.1. THE PROTRACTED REFUGEE SITUATION IN THAILAND 46 3.2. EDUCATION IN THE REFUGEE CAMPS ALONG THE BORDER 50 3.2.1. REASONS FOR GROWING DEMAND FOR HIGHER EDUCATION 53 3.3. HIGHER EDUCATION ALONG THE BORDER 57 3.3.1. FROM RELIEF TO DEVELOPMENT: MOVING TOWARDS ACCREDITATION 58 3.3.2. CREATING SPACES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION TRANSCENDING NATION-STATES 64 3.3.3. EMPOWERING REFUGEES TO BECOME AGENTS OF DEVELOPMENT 71 CHAPTER 4 – CHALLENGES AND THE ROAD AHEAD 80 REFERENCES 88

Forced Displacement In Africa: Dimensions, Difficulties, And Policy Directions

Forced displacement has become a defining characteristic of sub-Saharan Africa, obliging people to abandon their homes and seek refuge elsewhere, often at the price of serious threats to their welfare and rights. Focusing on mass displacements, this article examines the changing scope, scale, and dynamics of the problem of human displacement in Africa. The article then goes on to analyse a number of policy challenges related to this issue: the principle and practice of asylum; insecurity in refugee-populated areas; protracted refugee situations; the return and reintegration of displaced people; and the protection of people who have been displaced within their own country.

Economic Challenges and Coping Mechanisms in Protracted Displacement: A Case Study of the Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

In protracted refugee situations, basic needs are increasingly deficient as humanitarian relief decreases over time. In response to unmet needs, refugees often seek opportunities for income generation to meet their basic needs. The objective of this qualitative study was to explore the desires and concerns of refugee populations surviving without adequate aid in order to explore risks associated with income-generating activities and the possibilities for livelihood support. The case study focused on the Rohingya refugees, an ethnic Muslim minority from Myanmar, residing in southern Bangladesh. This study, based on 127 interviews, showed that although there is no legal right to work for refugees in Bangladesh, nearly every refugee household was engaged in multiple forms of wage-earning employment as a coping mechanism to economic deprivations.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World. By Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart. Development Economics through the Decades: A Critical Look at 30 Years of the World Development Report. By Shahid Yusuf, with Angus Deaton, Kemal Dervis, William Easterly, Takatoshi Ito and Joseph E. Stiglitz. Protracted Refugee Situations: Political, Human Rights and Security Implications. Edited by Gil Loescher, James Milner, Edward Newman and Gary Troeller. Inclusion and Exclusion in Local Governance: Field Studies from Rural India. Edited by B. S. Baviskar and George Mathew. Women's Land Rights and Privatisation in Eastern Africa. Edited by B. Englert and E. Daley. Gender Sensitive Disaster Management: A Toolkit For Practitioners: How To Incorporate Gender Mainstreaming in Disaster Response and Preparedness. By C. Pincha. Making Sense of Global Health Governance: A Policy Perspective. Edited by Kent Buse, Wolfgang Hein and Nick Drager.

The lack of refugee burden-sharing in Tanzania: tragic effects

The United Republic of Tanzania has been and currently still is one of the most important host countries in the world for refugees. The majority of those refugees have been living in camps for many years and have no prospect of a durable solution of their situation via repatriation, integration or resettlement. As a result, Tanzania is confronted with protracted refugee situations. The purpose of this article is to answer the question who is responsible for the plight of these refugees. Tanzania’s national refugee policy since the 1960s is analysed, whereby a clear evolution can be observed from an ‘Open Door’ policy to a policy with heavy restrictions and the absence of local integration as a durable solution. However, it will be concluded that it is not Tanzania but the international community that is to be held responsible. There is a lack of international refugee burden-sharing, as evidenced by the lack of an international legal framework for durable solutions for refugees. A ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ should be the basis of international cooperation to solve protracted refugee situations such as those occurring in Tanzania. Key words: African Great Lakes region, protracted refugee situations, national policy

Refugees and the Regional Dynamics of Peacebuilding

This article examines the relationship between refugees and the regional dynamics of peacebuilding. It argues that recent approaches to peacebuilding have adopted a narrow understanding of conflict. The article outlines the links between protracted refugee situations and regional insecurity to argue that the relationship between peacebuilding and refugees goes beyond repatriation. Instead, the presence of “ spoilers” within the refugee-populated areas, the potential for early and forced repatriation, and the politicization of refugees while in exile have all the proven potential to undermine peacebuilding efforts, while the experience of exile may enable refugees to contribute to the peacebuilding process.

UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugees After Sixty Years: Some Reflections

This volume of Refugee Survey Quarterly marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Unlike its sister agency UNHCR, which is mandated to assist and protect refugees worldwide, UNRWA remains dedicated to supporting and protecting Palestinian refugees. The Agency has undergone extensive reformation since its inception in response to operational challenges and evolving refugee needs and has sought to remain abreast of emerging international practices. As such, it became a leader in responding to protracted refugee situations. The aim of this volume is to pay tribute to the important role UNRWA has played on behalf of Palestinian refugees and to engage in reflection and debate that might foster the Agency’s continued success in fulfilling its mandate and help the refugees live in dignity pending a just and comprehensive solution to their plight. When the United Nations General Assembly met in December 1949 to consider the establishment of a successor to the United Nations Relief for