The definition of a refugee was forged by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and then adopted by the United Nations General Assembly: A refugee is a person, who “owing to a 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 to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” (Article 1, A, 2) Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees at UNHCR, the United Nations’ agency specialized in refugee assistance, describes the present situation with pressing words: “The combination of multiple conflicts and resulting mass displacement, fresh challenges to asylum, the funding gap between humanitarian needs and resources, and growing xenophobia is very dangerous.” Photo Credit: Refugees & Migrant Section, Vatican
Recent data shows that the average refugee displacement is 10 years. Once a person has been a refugee for five years, the average duration of displacement is a staggering 21 years. Not a single European country is placed on the UNHCR list of top hosting countries for refugees. Only 17 per cent of the displaced are hosted in Europe, comparing to 30 per cent hosted in Africa and 26 per cent hosted in the Middle East and North Africa.
Source: UNHCR | Global Trends 2023
UNHCR is the biggest global agency that takes care of refugees and implements global policies towards them. It is, in fact, symbolic that the current Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr António Guterres, formerly hosted a post of UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees for ten years before becoming Secretary General in 2015.
According to UNHCR (Global Trends, 2017), migration is “concentrated in the poorer parts of the world. Europe, accounting for more than 20 per cent of global income, has 11 per cent of the world’s refugees. The United States, with 25 per cent of global income, has 1 per cent of the world’s refugees”.
“Behind these stark and rising numbers lie countless human tragedies. That suffering must galvanize the international community to act urgently to tackle the root causes of forced displacement.”
Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Photo Credit: George Castellanos