United Nations High Commission On Refugees Research Articles

On Trial for Being Victims of Trauma: Sexual Abuse of Migrants in ICE Custody

On Trial for Being Victims of Trauma: Sexual Abuse of Migrants in ICE Custody

Voices of the vulnerable: Exploring the livelihood strategies, coping mechanisms and their impact on food insecurity, health and access to health care among Syrian refugees in the Beqaa region of Lebanon.

Lebanon has approximately one million Syrian refugees (SR) registered with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and an unknown number of unregistered SR, who cannot benefit from formal assistance. This study aimed to examine the livelihoods, coping strategies, and access to healthcare among SR based on registration status and accompanying formal assistance. A mixed-method approach with more emphasis on the qualitative design was adopted. A purposive convenient sampling approach was used to recruit SR from informal tented settlements (ITS) in the Beqaa region in Lebanon. Data collection included 19 focus group discussions (FGDs) that were conducted with participants, who were further divided into three groups: registered refugees with assistance, registered without assistance and unregistered. Twelve in-depth interviews were conducted with key informants from humanitarian organizations. All interviews and FGDs were audio recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed. SR were highly dependent on formal assistance when received, albeit being insufficient. Regardless of registration status, refugees resorted to informal livelihood strategies, including informal employment, child labor, early marriage, and accruing debt. Poor living conditions and food insecurity were reported among all SR. Limited healthcare access and high out-of-pocket costs led to limited use of antenatal care services, prioritizing life-threatening conditions, and resorting to alternative sources of healthcare. Severity of these conditions and their adverse health consequences were especially pronounced among unregistered refugees. Our findings shed light on the economic and health disparities among marginalized SR, with the lack of registration and formal assistance increasing their vulnerability. More tailored and sustainable humanitarian programs are needed to target the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups.

INDONESIA’S RESPONSE TO ILO 185 CONVENTION AN ANALYSIS

To protect its labour who work overseas Indonesia has initiated cooperation with some Middle Eastern countries and some organizations such as United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and International Organization of Migration (IOM). ILO Convention 185/2003 has been put in place as a result of the American pressure on the International Labour Organisation (ILO). While the benefits of the convention are difficult to deny there are also concerns about its potential abuse and other problems arising from its implementation.

Introduction to ASR Focus

Commentaries on Marie Beatrice Umutesi's Surviving the Slaughter Introduction to ASR Focus Marie Beatrice Umutesi. Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire. Translated by Julia Emerson. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004 [2000]. in Africa and the Diaspora Series. 259 pp. Acronyms. Chronologies. $19.95. Paper. Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire is a remarkable book by an extraordinary and brave woman, Marie Beatrice Umutesi. Originally published in French as Fuir ou mourir au Zaire: Le vecu d'une refugiee Rwandaise (L'Harmattan, 2000), the book was translated into Dutch, Spanish, and Catalan. The book has now been published in English (translated by Julia Emerson) by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Press as part of its series, Women in Africa and the Diaspora. Umutesi is one of a handful of Rwandans who have published book-length accounts of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath. She writes beautifully, clearly, and with poignancy about the impact of the genocide on ordinary people as they experienced the unfolding of events. What follows this introduction are five commentaries on the book from a variety of perspectives. The world was shaken by the swiftness and magnitude of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda directed primarily against the Tutsi minority and in which close to a million people perished. Little has been written or said of the mass killings that targeted the 1.5 million Hutu refugees who fled to eastern Congo-Kinshasa (then called Zaire). At least three hundred thousand people perished in these massacres as well as from exhaustion, hunger, and illness. The author, Marie Beatrice Umutesi, is a universitytrained woman who was working with women's associations in Byumba, Rwanda. In 1993 Umutesi was forced to flee with tens of thousands of people from Byumba to Kigali as a result of incursions of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) into Rwanda. Then in 1994 after the genocide, as the RPF took over Kigali, she fled to Congo/Zaire with members of her family and several others in the massive exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees. They moved from one refugee camp to another while being pursued by the RPF soldiers. She and other refugees walked, sometimes ran, 2,000 kilometers from Bukavu to Mbandaka through the rain forests of Zaire. They were hunted down, not only by the RPF but also by other marauding armies, and refugees died by the thousands in gruesome attacks by Rwandese forces and from hunger, disease, and exhaustion. They were largely ignored by the international community and betrayed by humanitarian associations, especially the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). Umutesi eventually made it out of Congo and today lives in exile. By writing this book she has made herself a potential target of those in positions of power who wish to silence her. As Jan Vansina, the renowned historian of central Africa (and professor emeritus of UW-Madison) eloquently put it in a review of the book (2000) : She tells in unadorned, honest, and straightforward language what happened to her and to her companions: what they saw, what they felt, what rumors they heard during their flights or in the camps, their fears, their hopes, their disappointments, their illnesses, deaths, and the horror of it all. This account testifies above all to what humanity itself consists of in its greatness, depravity, and resilience. There are no enemy groups in this book; members of all of them were equally stricken. Vansina calls this a towering work, some of whose pages achieve a surpassing that of any ordinary memoir or testimony. He compares parts to War and Peace and predicts that the book will become a classic: For Umutesi's book is also a literary monument. Her story is an epic for our times, a tale to ponder for the lessons it conveys, testimony so powerful and moving that it reaches an unintended literary greatness (2000:134). …

Implications for psychiatric services of chronic civilian strife: young refugees in the UK

Over the past century war and organised violence have led to the displacement of large populations and threatened or resulted in genocide of many ethnic or cultural groups. Although many people are internally displaced within their own country, some flee and seek asylum in other countries. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) defines a refugee as someone who: ‘Owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside that country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it’ (UNHCR, 1951: Article 1A(2)).

Refugee Resettlement in Belize

Belize has the smallest population of any country in Central America. The 1991 census recorded a population of fewer than 190,000, of whom an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 were refugees or displaced persons (Montgomery 1991; PRODERE 1992b). Most of these refugees came from El Salvador or Guatemala, where political unrest during the 1980s produced two million refugees (Committee 1989). The purpose of this article is to analyze and compare two types of refugee resettlement in Belize: squatting, and planned or assisted agricultural settlement. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of each type on the basis of self-perceived resident satisfaction. Most geographical investigation of refugees traditionally falls into one of three topical categories: movement, distribution, or effects on destinations. This research presented here shifts focus to the less-studied actions and experiences of refugees (Black 1991) in the dual contexts of pre- and post-migration perceptions of sponsored and spontaneous resettlement. Examination and analysis of resettlement effectiveness rest primarily on structured interviews with one hundred refugee heads of household, male and female, divided equally between the two types of resettlement. A bilingual questionnaire was administered in the government project by a Belizean national; a registered Salvadoran refugee couple canvased the largest spontaneous settlement. Open-ended interviews and on-site observations were conducted in each refugee settlement. Additional data came from recent government-authorized surveys conducted by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Of special utility were reports by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Development Programme for Refugees (UNDP/PRODERE). In addition, Belizean political leaders, governmental officials, and representatives of NGOs were interviewed. BACKGROUND Immigrants have had little difficulty finding the tiny Central American territory of Belize. Over the centuries British privateers, African slaves, mestizos, Chinese, Syrians, Garifuna, and Mennonite farmers arrived. To many Belizeans the resultant cultural pluralism and a historic tolerance of immigration are matters of pride, although both characteristics may be waning. The current immigration is unprecedented: never have so many people arrived so quickly. Already evident by 1980, the migration stream grew dramatically in 1984 and 1985 and again in 1988 and 1989, a result of increased violence in El Salvador and Guatemala. Current estimates place refugees at 15 to 25 percent of the total Belizean population, with concentrations as high as 40 percent in some areas (Montgomery 1991). Immigration is likely to continue even if peace efforts in neighboring countries can be sustained. Several factors warrant this conclusion. One is proximity. Most Guatemalan immigrants reported the adjacent Peten as their last previous address (Stone 1990a). For Salvadorans, a two-day bus ride is required. Proximity also promotes migrant letters, return visits, and chain migrations (Palacio 1990). Immigration is further encouraged by a long-term resident population of Maya and Spanish-speaking mestizos who facilitate acculturation in Belize. Funds and personnel do not exist to find, apprehend, and deport any significant number of undocumented persons or to patrol international borders and waters. Consequently, in 1984 the Belize government granted amnesty to almost 9,000 undocumented residents (Palacio 1990). With official policies that are typically indifferent, benign, or even helpful, it is hardly surprising that most refugees plan to stay. Among squatters estimates of stayers range from 50 percent (Montgomery 1991) to 75 percent (Foster 1988). In the government's resettlement program 99 percent plan to remain (Stone 1990b). RESETTLEMENT In 1982 the Belizean government began to resettle refugees on more than 6,000 hectares of uncleared forest in the upper Belize River Valley, approximately 20 kilometers from Belmopan, the capital city [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. …

Yugoslav Refugees, Displaced Persons and the Civil War

Background Slovenia and Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991. That was the date of the collective thanatos' which led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia. As a result of German pressure, the European Community, followed by a number of other states, recognized the independence of the secessionist republics on 15 January 1992 and buried the second Y~goslavia.~ Although the Westernmedia have now shifted their attention to the former Soviet Union, where other similar and potentially even more dangerous conflicts are brewing, that is not because genuine peace has been established in former Yugoslavia. To the contrary: blood continues to flow among the civilian population and among military and paramilitary personnel. As I write, the war is spreading to Bosnia and Herzegovina and threatens to turn into a disaster of far wider scope than the war in Croatia. The conflict has already claimed 3,083 civilian victims according to Croatian sources. The Yugoslav Army has confirmed about 1,279 dead soldiers. But it is reliably estimated that from 10,000 to 30,000people have been killed in all and another 30,000 people are reported mi~s ing .~ The estimated number of refugees ranges from 600,000 to over 1 milliona4 This is the third mass migration of Yugoslavians since 1939. The first consisted of people fleeing persecution in the Second World War and the mainly involuntary internal migration and emigration of Yugoslavians in the immediate post-war period. The second mass population movement was a legal labour migration, mainly to various West European countries as part of the guest worker programme of the 1960s and 1970s. It was a unique case among the socialist countries. The present tragedy can only be compared to that of the Second World War; from an international perspective, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) compares it in scope, scale of atrocities and consequences for the population, to the Cambodian civil war. In three ways, analyzing the refugees' situation contributes to our understanding of issues beyond the human tragedy of the people themselves. First, it demystifies the genesis of the Yugoslav conflict, which is often reduced to a matter ethnic hatred. It shows that the separation of populations along lines, while favouredby the power elites of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, only intensifies existing problems or creates new ones. Second, it draws attention to a category of for whom refugee status does not apply and therefore underscores the need to grant these people more security and protection than they have so far enjoyed. Third, given the relatively small number of refugees who have fled abroad compared to the number who have sought refuge within the boundaries of former Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav case may also help de-dramatize the East I West invasion scenarios which predict disruptive mass movements caused by political and violence or ecological catastrophe in the countries aligned with the former Soviet empire. The Demographic Structure The 600,000 to 1 million displaced persons referred to above come from Croatia, whose total population is 4.7 million (see Figure 1). Moreover, most of these people come from a relatively small area the front line, which is now under the control of the Yugoslav Army and Serbian forces. This means that in the course of six months, an average of at least 100,000 people were forced to leave their homes each month. Vast areas have been devastated and depopulated. In general, the destinations of the refugees are the larger urban centres notably the capitals of the republics, but also such regions as Vojvodina and Istria. About 300,000 refugees have sought shelter in safe areas of Croatia. Over 160,000 have fled to Serbia (including Vojvodina), around 100,000