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Australian Churches Set “Refugee Sunday”

The National Council of Churches in Australia is again featuring warehousing in its annual “Refugee Sunday” public education project, August 27, 2006.  See, especially, “How to Use this Kit” and the “Refugee Solutions Worksheet.”   Evocative excerpt:

Discussion starters: How old were you in 1995?
Imagine having lived in a refugee camp since then?
What would your life be like and your dreams

Azerbaijan Economist Calls for Employment for Refugees

Azerbaijan’s 1999 Labor Migration Law requires non-nationals to get work permits from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but the Ministry does not issue any. In April, Azeri economist Gubad Ibadoghlu, speaking before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, advocated programs for their employment. “We have to put an end to the poverty and neediness of refugees, and the best way is to open new jobs for them.”

Amnesty International calls on Human Rights Commission to Address Warehousing

In its March 10, 2005 “UN Commission on Human Rights: The UN’s chief guardian of human rights?,” Amnesty International calls upon the Commission to address refugee rights:

Refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants and non-nationals who have left their place of origin, continue to suffer human rights violations at different stages of their displacement. Refugees and IDPs are often housed in camp situations in the immediate aftermath of mass exoduses. Refugees and IDPs are in many cases unable to enjoy many of their human rights, including their economic, social and cultural rights, and many live without access to a durable solution, or have "solutions" imposed on them. In many such situations displaced persons are denied access to the right to employment, to adequate housing, or even in some cases to adequate food and clean water. Women, girls, the elderly and the ill are often discriminated against in the provision of basic services, and sexual and gender-based violence can be rife in such camps and settlements. In some camps and settlements, many displaced children are unable to receive an education, particularly a secondary or vocational education. Amnesty International is calling on the 61st session of the Commission to make the protection of the human rights of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and non-nationals a reality, by recommending specific action in the context of various country resolutions.

Jesuit Refugee Service Links Food to Rights

The theme of the March 2006 edition of Jesuit Refugee Service’s Servir is “Food—fundamental to refugee protection.”  Its analysis goes well beyond the usual appeal for more relief aid and addresses the centrality of refugees’ right to work and freedom of movement to food security in Germany, Thailand, Tanzania, and Namibia.  According to International Director Lluís Magriñà SJ’s editorial:

States and the international community in general have abandoned [refugees and other forced migrants] to fend for themselves, without giving them the right to farm land or to work.  JRS runs projects and advocacy campaigns that mitigate the effects of these policies; but it’s not enough when the focus of beneficiaries is survival. …

Of course rations should be increased but, more than that, [refugees] should be allowed to work and contribute to the development of the local economy.

Thailand: P.M. Visits Camp, Calls for Innovative Approaches, International Standards, and Civil Society Support

On February 6, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra led a group of ambassadors on a tour of the refugee camp at Ban Mae La on Thailand’s border with Myanmar.  In his remarks, Thaksin told the assembled diplomats that “Changing demand and circumstances require both innovative and workable approaches” to hosting refugees.  He added that he wanted to work with the international community to give refugees “assistance and protection in conformity with international standards and practice.”  He highlighted Thailand’s recent efforts to help educate the refugees as an example of this.

Thaksin also stressed the importance of building support in Thai civil society:

The success of hosting a great number of displaced persons over a long period of time relies heavily on the cooperation and goodwill of local communities, since the task imposes substantial costs on local resources.  We therefore need to sustain the level of local support for humanitarian work, in the spirit of international burden and responsibility sharing.

Ecuador: Art for Refugee-Host Solidarity

Ecuador does not warehouse refugees but civil society action is still important to enhance good relations between refugees and hosts and, in turn, refugee rights.  Fundación Desarrollo, Acción y Vida with UNHCR held an arts festival in Lita in the north of Ecuador to which many Colombians have fled the violent conflict in their home country.  According to this March 9 article, the festival draws on the multicultural traditions of locals and refugees and, along with the beauty of the Cotacachi-Cayapas natural reserve area, may stimulate the local tourism industry.  "By getting more in touch with their own culture," says Sandra Chamorro, the project's organizer, "the people of Lita will be better able to share their cultural heritage with other inhabitants.”  The show includes a performance on stilts of a traditional legend adapted to call on the people to preserve the area's ecosystem and a musical "banda mocha" three of whose members are refugees.

"Lita is a model of what can be done to help a small community organize itself to cope better with the tensions associated with different groups living together on the same land," says Sandra Chamorro. "Being so close to the border, Lita cannot be oblivious to the troubles on the other side and the people here are showing great generosity and solidarity with Colombian refugees."

Anti-Warehousing Activist in the News

Tek Nath Rizal will lead the new Bhutanese Movement Steering Committee, Nepalnews.com reports March 4, 2006.  A notable individual endorser of the Statement Calling for Solutions to End the Warehousing of Refugees, Rizal was also an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience during nine years he spent in Bhutanese prisons.

Play Football, End Warehousing!

About 2,500 turned out when the Chin Refugee Committee in Malaysia organized a second goodwill refugee football (soccer) tournament in Kuala Lumpur, according to the February 2, 2006 Malay Mail.  According to Committee co-ordinator, Simon Sang:

Life in Malaysia has been difficult for these ‘refugees’ because they are technically illegals and thus, cannot seek employment.  They cannot move around freely. They are all staying together here in Imbi so that they can look out for each other while efforts are being made to seek official status for them. We hope that something can be worked as soon on humanitarian grounds as these people are living a tough life.  [Some work in restaurants, construction, and plantations] but these workers keep a low profile and just go to work and return to the homes, for fear of being nabbed by the authorities

Sang estimated that 500 Myanmars are in detention camps and his committee is seeking their release.

In the final game of the 14-team competition, with cheerleaders in traditional outfits, the Matu community team bested the Zophie, 3-2.

“A Forgotten Population”:  Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon

Rania Matar’s moving photo exhibit of the daily lives of warehoused refugees is on display at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington from January 27 until March 3.  From Kaelen Wilson-Goldie’s review in the Daily Star, “Photographer gets in the face of refugee problem,”:

The most painful problem twisting in the gut of Lebanon's political body may very well be the one that is most often ignored. …

Will they ever be given the passports to travel, the permits to work, or the basic rights to live with dignity? If the refugee camps, which were established by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, are to continue as is, will they ever develop semi-permanent dwellings or traversable road networks? Will it ever be the Lebanese Army, as opposed to a heated network of militias and political factions, who will police them and provide for the security and wellbeing of their inhabitants?

Tennessee Students Create Mock Refugee Camp

Rhodes College senior Rachel Boulden organized a mock refugee camp on campus, reports the January 27, 2006 Memphis Flyer:

a cluster of tents made with plywood, clothesline, and tarps. Student guides explained the camp's namesake, Camp Kakuma, where 90,000 Sudanese refugees wait out the years in the desert region of Kenya. Next, the guides recreated the arduous process of camp life: trade a name for a number, get a ration card (lose it and you don't eat), wait in line at the medical tent (lice, cholera, and tuberculosis are rampant), drink a small ration of water (once a day at an assigned time), and then eat a ladle of red beans, hominy, and cornmeal mush (with your fingers because there are no forks).

"You sit and sit and sit because, except for cooking the meals, there is nothing to do," says Janet Banga, a Sudanese refugee who came to Memphis after living five years in a Kenyan camp. Today, Banga is perched on a large aluminum can near a tent and a crude fire pit. The cans, she says, were valuable because they could be shaped into stools or plates or containers for cooking. "The cans were all we had, plus dried beans and corn and a little salt," she says.

Her sister-in-law, Flora Elisa, shakes her head, agreeing with the memory. "Finding firewood was very hard," she says. "We had to walk five or six miles, always looking for more wood."

I listened carefully, amazed by the women's forthright accounts, told with no weariness or regret. "We have jobs and a good life now," Elisa says, smiling. "But there are many people still in camps. We cannot forget them."

“Abuse without end: Burmese refugee women and children at risk of trafficking”

Excerpts from the January 6, 2006 report from the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children:

Refugee camps are referred to as "temporary shelters" although many refugees, such as the ethnic Karens and Karennis, have been warehoused in border camps for decades. The majority of Burmese who have not been designated as refugees under that narrow interpretation are deemed "illegal" by the Thai government, regardless of the person's reason for entering Thailand. …

Regardless of their status, moreover, the vast majority of Burmese residing in Thailand have extremely limited means to support themselves and their families. … They live in fear of detection by the Thai authorities, not only because they are vulnerable to deportation back to Burma but also because the authorities will often exploit their lack of status to extort bribes from them.

Refugees who live in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border also face specific risks. … [Thai policy] requires prior written approval to enter or leave the camps, people leave surreptitiously to work on nearby farms for less than the wages paid to Thais; many simply abandon the camps permanently to seek relatively better wage labor in urban or semi-urban areas.  Refugees who leave the camps are vulnerable to arrest, harassment, extortion and trafficking.

Forced into an underground existence by their lack of status and precarious living conditions, Burmese in Thailand are at strong risk of being trafficked. …

[T]he fear of deportation haunts people living without status. Even workers who were registered for employment with the Thai government stated that some employers held on to their registration cards despite Thai law stating the workers must keep the card with them at all times.  … [T]he capacity to report abuses they experience is an inseparable issue from their insecure status in Thailand. …

The long-term stay of refugees in camps exposes an at-risk population to further exploitation… Traffickers take advantage of the lack of viable income generation options for refugees in the camps.