2. A Refugee is a Person who….
Is out side their country
Has a well founded fear of persecution for reasons of ……
Religion
Nationality
Race
Social
group
Political
opinion
Is unable or unwilling to return home
3. Refugee, Migrant, Displaced Person, Asylum
Seeker?
Refugee:
Forced to flee a country due to persecution
Internally displaced:
Forced to flee but does not cross a border to leave their country
Asylum seeker:
A refugee who is seeking protection, but no country has ‘determined’ whether or
not the person meets the definition of a refugee
Migrant :
A person who moves, usually voluntarily, to live or work, either temporarily or
permanently. May or may not cross a border.
8. I Welcome: Campaign Goal
GOAL
Refugees are protected and enjoy their human rights through strengthened global
responsibility-sharing and international cooperation.
8
9. What IS responsibility-sharing?
Protect the Rights of Refugees
RESPONSIBILITY-SHARING 9
Distribution mechanism for resettlement
(10% of refugees by 2018 or 2.1 million)
Open up more safe and legal routes for refugees
Guaranteed funding of humanitarian appeals
10. 1. Refugees and Resettlement
Column1
21 million refugees in the world
1 million most vulnerable in need
resettlement
107,100 resettled 2015
11. 2015 main resettlement countries
30 countries currently run some kind of refugee resettlement programme,
USA 52,583
Canada 10,236
Australia 5,211
Norway 2,220
Germany 2,097
Sweden 1,808
UK 1,768
12. 2. Safe and legal routes
• Provide refugees with visas to travel safely and apply for asylum when
they arrive.
• Enhance family reunification; enables people to reunite with relatives who
are already in a country.
• Develop and improve asylum systems to guarantee access to fair and
efficient asylum processes
17. Mexico and USA: Refugees not recognized
Neither Mexico or US properly screen for possible asylum claims
Both countries deport Central Americans without properly informing them of their
rights to seek international protection (asylum).
In 2015, the US granted only approximately 4% all asylum applications lodged by
people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in immigration courts.
Fewer than 1% of Central Americans formally seek asylum in Mexico and the
Commission on Refugees granted refugee status to approximately 27% of claimants
in 2015; in the first four months of 2016 this rate rose to 37%.
22. Join our Human Rights Education Couse
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/education/2016/09/register-now-for-amnestys-free-online-
course-on-refugee-rights/
26. Refugees in Canada
2016 Immigration Levels Plan: IRCC
Protected Persons in Canada and Dependants Abroad 11,000
Resettled Refugees 44,800
Immigration Class
2016 Levels Plan
Target
2015 Levels Plan
Target
Economic Total 160,600 181,300
Family Total 80,000 68,000
Refugee Total 55,800 24,800
Humanitarian Total 3,600 5,100
OVERALL 300,000 279,200
27. Protected Persons in Canada
by the numbers: 2015
The numbers of claims continued to climb in 2015, after an historic low in
2013
16,521 claims in 2015
13,652 claims in 2014
10,356 claims in 2013
20,223 claims in 2012
9,531 (58%) were positive (compared to 49% in 2014)
5,332 (33%) were negative (compared to 39% in 2014)
The international community’s response to one of the largeset movements of refugees and asylum seekers in WW@ has been grossly inadequate. An urgent solution is needed in order to provide refugees with the international protection they are entitled to.
The rights of refugees are protected in International law under the 1951 Convention Relating to the status of Refugees. Countries like Canada who sign the convention are obligated to protect the rights of refugees who arrive in their country.
Race
religion” may assume various forms, e.g. prohibition of membership of a religious community, of worship in private or in public, of religious instruction, or serious measures of discrimination imposed on persons because they practise their religion or belong to a particular religious community.
“nationality” not only “citizenship”. It refers also to membership of an ethnic or linguistic group and may occasionally overlap with the term “race”. Persecution for reasons of nationality may consist of adverse attitudes and measures directed against a national (ethnic, linguistic) minority and in certain circumstances the fact of belonging to such a minority may in itself give rise to well-founded fear of persecution.
A “particular social group” persons of similar background, habits or social status. May include women or sexual minorities who are not protected in their home country.
political opinions: opinions not tolerated by the authorities, which are critical of their policies or methods.
Source: UNHCR Handbook and Guidelines on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status http://www.unhcr.org/3d58e13b4.html
Refugee: rights are protected by 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
Internally displaced: may also be at risk of persecution but the Refugee Convention does not apply
Asylum Seeker: until there is a formal process which determines they are NOT a refugee; they are considered a refugee and are protected by the 1951 Refugee Convention
Migrant: some migrants are forced to move for life and death reasons (extreme poverty; environmental degradation (drought), but they are not considered refugees unless they also face persecution.
An unprecedented 65.3 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are nearly 21.3 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18.
There are also 10 million stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.
In a world where nearly 34,000 people are forcibly displaced every day as a result of conflict or persecution, our work at UNHCR is more important than ever before.
The Syrian Arab Republic remained the largest source country of refugees, with a refugee population of 4.2 million by mid-2015. As of mid-2014, the Syrian Arab Republic replaced Afghanistan as the main source country of refugees worldwide, a rank Afghanistan had previously held for more than three decades.
Surrounding countries continue to be impacted heavily by the crisis, with the number of registered Syrians in Turkey (1.8 million), (4) Lebanon (1.2 million), Jordan (628,800), Iraq (251,300), and Egypt (131,900) remaining high. Outside the immediate region, Germany was hosting 66,000 Syrian refugees at mid-2015, up from 41,000 six months earlier.
The Afghan refugee population remained relatively stable at about 2.6 million.
Majority of refugees are living in some of the poorest nations of the world
Half in Asia and some 28 per cent in Africa.
They live in widely varying conditions, from well-established camps and collective centres to makeshift shelters or living in the open. More than half live in urban areas. They all face three possible solutions: repatriation; local integration or resettlement.
At the end of 2015, approximately one third of the global refugee population was comprised of people in a “protracted situation”, meaning they had been displaced for five years or longer.
Responsibility sharing is all about protecting refugee rights. AI is campaigning for increased resettlement (10% or 2.1 million by 2018), safe and legal routes and guaranteed funding of humanitarian appeals.
Currently 21 million refugees of which only 1 million have been identified by the UNHCR as being in urgent need of resettlement. In 2015 the countries of the world only agreed to resettle 107,100 refugees through formal resettlement programs. Millions of refugees do not wait to be resettled. They cross borders on their own in search of safety.
In September 2016 President Obama hosted a Leaders’ Summit which increased pledges from 18 countries to admit 360,000 refugees globally. However, neither the US nor the countries that offered resettlement published full details. Not clear whether the 360,000 places offered covered one or more years.
The following countries each resettled between two and 1,000 refugees: Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Spain and Switzerland.
At the 2016 Un General Assembly States agreed to work towards a Global Compact on refugees by 2018. This Compact must include a means to overcome the ad hoc nature of resettlement. Amnesty International is calling for individual states to show leadership and significantly increase the number of resettlement places available globally.
States that currently run resettlement programmes should look to increase the number of refugee resettlement places they offer annually. States that do not have a resettlement programme should establish one.
Countries should open up more safe and legal routes for refugees so they can seek asylum without having to cross dangerous seas in overcrowded boats or walk hundreds of miles. When they arrive in a country they must have access to fair procedures which will determine their need for protection.
Humanitarian appeals to assist refugees and other vulnerable populations are chronically underfunded. Of all appeals for humanitarian funding in 2016 (for refugees as well as other crises, including natural disasters), the UN reported that only 40% of the required US$19.48 billion had been covered.
Guaranteed ful, flexible and predictable funding for refugee protection and meaningul financial support to countries hosting large numbers of refugees.
States must increase their contributions to UN inter-agency humanitarian appeals for refugee crisis situations,
Annually publish the amounts States commit and disburse.
As of 26 September 2016, the Burundi response plan was only 37% funded,
Syria regional refugee and resilience plan was only 48% funded,
Yemen regional and refugee and migrant response plan was only 27% funded
Countries of focus in this campaign cover all world regions. We will focus on three. Central America/US/Mexico; Australia; Kenya
The inability of NT countries to halt the gangs’ rapid growth and control of territory, coupled with the complicity and abuses of frequently corrupt law enforcement and security forces, has left people unprotected and at risk of violence
In 2012, Honduras was one of the most deadly countries in the world outside of a warzone
In 2015, the capital San Salvador became one of the world’s most dangerous cities outside a conflict zone.
17,522 – people were murdered in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in 2015. Half were under 30 years old
The number of refugees and asylum-seekers that presented new applications from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras increased from 8,052 persons in 2010 to 56,097 persons in 2015, an increase of 59.7% over five years. Of the asylum-seekers who presented new applications in 2015, the majority (22,917 cases) were from El Salvador, the smallest of the three countries with roughly six million citizens.
While the majority of those claims were made in the United States, UNHCR reported a tenfold increase in applications presented in Belize, a 65% percent increase in Mexico, a 16% percent increase in Costa Rica (176% per cent increase from 2013) as well as significant increases in Panama and Nicaragua. The increases suggests that while the lure of the “American dream” may still be alive, basic survival needs are leading the citizens of the Northern Triangle countries to seek refuge wherever they can find it.
Mexican government in particular is failing to comply with its own national law, which adheres to regional standards such as the Cartagena Declaration of 1984, an international instrument generally accepted by bodies such as UNHCR, which calls for refugee status to people fleeing generalized violence in their countries, such as those from Central America´s Northern Triangle.
Australia’s “Operation Sovereign Borders” aims to stop anyone – including asylum-seekers and refugees – from reaching Australia irregularly by boat. In operations that are called “pushbacks” or “turnbacks,” Australian officials intercept boats of asylum-seekers and prevent them from landing in Australia.
In cases of those seeking asylum who do reach Australian territory irregularly by boat, the authorities impose a policy of mandatory offshore detention in Australian-run facilities in the Republic of Nauru or on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea
An Amnesty International researcher visited Nauru in July 2016 and found that the 1,200 women, men and children living there suffer severe abuse, inhumane treatment and neglect
physical and mental health of detainees, leading to several deaths, suicides,127 suicide attempts, self-harm such as self-immolation,128 hunger strikes, violence and depression.
The East and Horn region of Africa hosts the largest number of refugees in sub-Saharan Africa. Many countries, including South Sudan, Sudan and Ethiopia, simultaneously produce and host refugees. Kenya proposes to close the Dadaab refugee camp and return refugees to Somalia where they remain at risk/
Ethiopia hosts the largest number of refugees and asylum-seekers at over 740,000,50 followed by Kenya and Uganda which are each host to between 500,000 and 600,000 refugees. All of these countries have seen increases in their refugee populations in 2016, due in part to conflict in South Sudan.
Kenya is home to the two largest refugee camps in the world: Dadaab hosts more than 300,000 people, mostly from Somalia; and Kakuma hosts over 150,000 from a wide range of countries including South Sudan, Sudan, Burundi, Ethiopia and the DRC.
Some refugees have been hosted by Kenya for over two decades with no prospect of returning to their countries and with limited humanitarian support or options for livelihoods or other durable solutions available to them. International support to Kenya as a refugee host country has been limited. Only relatively few refugees are resettled from Kenya to other countries,
On 10 May 2016 the Kenyan government announced that it would be closing Dadaab refugee camp, citing national security concerns and the need for the international community to collectively take responsibility for the refugees which Kenya is hosting. The predominantly Somali refugee population in Dadaab is now being pushed to return to Somalia despite the ongoing conflict
Throughout the course of this campaign we will provide actions on countries from all of these regions. Stay tuned More actions to come
You can now register for Amnesty's second massive open online course (MOOC) on human rights. It will help you gain the knowledge to defend and promote the rights of refugees across the world.
Places are unlimited on our free online course Human Rights: The Rights of Refugees which will be available for 12 months from 16 November 2016 to 19 November 2017.
Protected Persons: Refugee claimants
Dependants abroad (wives and children)
Resettled Refugees (like Syrians and Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, and Eritrea)
Compare this to over 1 million who have entered Germany in 2015.
Canada has gone from highs of 40,000 in 1980, (SE Asia) and 35,000 in1989 (Kosovo) to approximately 14,000. The division between government sponsorship and private sponsorship has also shifted. Since 2009 private sponsors have been responsible for the majority of those who were resettled. The current commitment to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees now shifts the major responsibility for sponsorship back to the government.
