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A Rohingya refugee girl looks next to newly arrived refugees who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in Ukhiya in September 2017. Agence France-Presse/KM Asad

WORLD Refugee Day is observed internationally on June 20 every year to honour refugees across the globe. First known as Africa Refugee Day, it was renamed by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2000. It was first observed on June 20, 2001, and since then, it commemorates the plight of refugees worldwide and honours the strength and courage of people forced to flee their home country due to conflict or persecution.

The purpose of World Refugee Day is to bring attention to refugees rights, needs, and aspirations and to mobilise political will and financial resources to help them flourish. Every day is a good day to protect and enhance the lives of refugees, but special days like this help us draw attention to the situation of people escaping war or persecution.

To understand the depth of our current refugee crisis, let us have a glance at some overwhelming numbers. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, about 82.4 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced. More than 26.4 million of these people are refugees, and millions are in statelessness, while 42,500 people flee their homes every day in search of safety either within the borders or outside and more than 20 people leave their country every minute to avoid terror and war. The developing countries alone host 86 per cent of the worlds refugees. As per statistics, about half of the refugees are under the age of 18. This is the highest number of child refugees documented since the end of World War II.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the differences between the terms migrant and refugee. Migrants are people who leave their country for reasons other than persecution, such as seeking better economic opportunities or abandoning drought-stricken areas in search of better conditions. Here, it is important to remember that the responsible authority for deciding whether someone is a refugee will, once again, depend on the circumstances in which the decision is made.

In reaction to the massive persecutions and displacements during World War II, the UNs 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees defined the current concept of refugee. It states that a refugee is someone who is outside their country of origin and cannot return due to valid fear of persecution in their home country. Persecution can be driven by an individuals ethnicity, religion, race, social group membership, or political ideas, and it is frequently associated with conflict and bloodshed.

Today, as mentioned earlier, over half of the worlds refugees are children. Many of them are fleeing their homes without the company of an adult, making them more vulnerable to being exploited and exposed to sexual or physical labour. Refugees experiences vary; many are forced to embark on dangerous trips with uncertain consequences. Many people have been relocated around the world due to natural catastrophes, food insecurity, and other difficulties, but international law, rightfully or wrongfully, only recognises individuals fleeing war and violence as refugees.

What happens when a person leaves their own country? Most refugee trips are lengthy and dangerous, with little shelter, water, or food. Due to the unexpected nature of the flight, belongings are often left behind, and people fleeing violence often lack the necessary documentation, such as visas, to board aircraft and enter other countries. Financial and political factors may prevent them from taking conventional routes. This means they can usually only travel by land or water and may rely on smugglers to cross borders. Some seek safety with their families, while others depart alone, hoping to be reunited later. This separation is extremely stressful and painful.

While cities shelter more than half of the worlds refugees, a UN refugee agency or local government-run camp is occasionally the first destination for people trying to escape violence. Refugee camps are temporary shelters until residents may return home, integrate into the host nation, or move to another country. Relocation and long-term integration options are limited. Many refugees are stuck in camps for years, if not decades.

According to statistics, long-term displacement is the new normal. In the absence of answers to their exile, people are trapped in persistent temporariness for years or decades in the case of Somalis, Afghans, and Palestinians. Only a few hundred thousand refugees return home each year, few states in the global South are willing to let them stay permanently, and less than 1 per cent of refugees are allowed to settle in a third nation.

Extensive exile is the outcome of containment measures that have made the international refugee situation and its durable solutions obsolete. States generally agree that refugees require protection albeit basic survival protection rather than a dignified existence but they also believe such protection should be provided in the refugees home country rather than in the global North. The desire to keep refugees in the global South has resulted in the deployment of measures to prevent individuals from crossing borders and claiming asylum, or, where this is not possible, to deter people from claiming asylum, or, when they do manage to cross borders, to keep them in camps in marginal regions.

Such exclusionary policies and practices have been legitimised by being presented as critical to national security. Refugees who fled for their own safety are cast as a security threat that must be contained. The exiled ones are othered in such depictions and are hardly seen as fellow humans. They have been turned into potentially threatening beneficiaries rather than political and right-bearing subjects. This observation resonates with Hannah Arendts views on refugees exclusion from the human race, reduction to bare life, and ensuing marginalisation from the political realm. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres rightly reminded us that the problems are violence and hatred, not individuals fleeing.

Asylum is a refugees first legal step in a new country. They are asylum seekers and wont be recognised as refugees until their case is granted. While most nations agree on a uniform definition of a refugee, each host country is responsible for reviewing all asylum claims and determining whether applicants qualify for refugee status. Guidelines vary by country. Host nations owe various obligations to those they have recognised as refugees, including providing basic care and non-discrimination. The most fundamental commitment to refugees is non-refoulment, which prohibits a government from relocating a person to a risky region. In practice, refugees are constantly subjected to inconsistency and discrimination.

People forced to evacuate, no matter who they are, should be treated decently. Anyone can seek protection regardless of who they are or what they think. It is a human right to seek safety. Anyone compelled to leave should be welcomed. Refugees arrive from all over the world. They could fly, sail, or walk to safety. The right to seek safety remains universal. If forced to evacuate, people should be safeguarded. Everyone needs protection from war, violence, or persecution. All those forced to flee should have free borders. Border closures and access limitations may put refugees at risk. Forced repatriation is unconstitutional when it endangers lives or liberties.

In other words, governments should not force someone back until they have weighed the threats the person might face. Those who cross international boundaries should not face prejudice. Refugees asylum claims should be treated equally, regardless of ethnicity or religion. People forced to escape should be treated with decency and respect. Like any other human, they have the right to respect and safety. This includes preventing arbitrary imprisonment, keeping families together, and safeguarding individuals from human traffickers, among other things. Imagine tracing your family tree. In that situation, chances are there that your ancestors were compelled to leave their homes, either escaping air or fleeing discrimination and persecution. We must remember their tales when we hear about refugees who are currently displaced and searching for a new home.

World Refugee Day aims to draw attention to the issue at hand and show refugees that their predicament may be alleviated if we all work together to aid displaced people in finding homes where they would be safe and content. Human rights are the fundamental rights a person enjoys as a part of the human family. The significance of human rights in the current refugee scenario must be recognised. As the international community has repeatedly stated over the last five decades, they embody the ideas and ideals that serve as the foundation for global freedom, justice, and peace.

Human Rights in the refugee situation helps improve and develop refugee legislation by responding compassionately and practically to human and social needs. They also ensure that the refugee crisis is viewed as primarily a human issue and addressed thoroughly and rationally. It would be insufficient just to state that respect for human rights demands national and international social and economic growth. In a society where tyranny, injustice, and violence are prevalent and chronic, human rights cannot thrive. Today, freedom, justice, and peace should all be considered as part of a drive for peace and progress and as we go on thriving for changing the sites of refugees for betterment, we must consciously consider everything from a more human ground.

Md Rakibul Alam is a lecturer in English in the Bangladesh Army University of Engineering and Technology in Natore.

Continued here:
Human dignities in zones of exception - newagebd.net