Raising Awareness for Global Refugees

Somalia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Colombia, Iraq, Georgia: the list goes on and on. From developed to developing, religious to secular, East to West, refugees are everywhere, and they constitute a global issue.

The United Nations defines a refugee as anyone with “a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, who is outside of his or her country of nationality and unable or unwilling to return.” There are 9 million of these people on our earth today. There are an additional 22 million internally displaced persons, living as refugees within their own countries. Refugees and IDPs are the most vulnerable of all populations in the world to human rights violations.

Yesterday, the Columbia University chapter of Amnesty International co-hosted Global Refugee Awareness Day with several other campus groups. Low Plaza was covered in a huge map of the world, and information tables on different refugee crises lined the pathways between continents. In the evening, there was a speaker panel in Low Library complete with academic experts, activists, and refugees. These two events portrayed the full scope of the refugee crisis by targeting increased awareness and activism with much success.

For example, when I say “refugees in Africa,” you may instinctively respond “Darfur.” Instead, add to Darfur at least six more nations. Add the more than doubling of Somali IDPs from 400,000 at the beginning of 2007 to over a million by the end of 2007. This crisis is rarely reported in the Western media. Add the double refugee fronts the government of Pakistan must handle. Fleeing conflict, refugees flow across the border from Kashmir and Afghanistan with nothing, even as Pakistanis face their own weakening economy and the aftermath of a devastating earthquake. Add the refugee crises outside their conceptualized capitals of Africa and Asia—those in Georgia, Chechnya, and Colombia.

Refugee camps are dead ends for the displaced and stateless. Humanitarian aid is spread thin there, leading to malnutrition, chronic health issues, illiteracy, and non-existent livelihood development. Some people spend their entire lives in these conditions. In addition, camps such as Kakuma in Kenya, which houses 70,000 people, wreak havoc on resources, depriving the local communities of what is rightfully theirs and generating tensions between them and the displaced.

If humanity and moral standards are not enough to move governments such as the United States to action, then perhaps security is. It has been well-documented by many intelligence agencies that refugee camps provide the perfect breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists. Young men and women without any other opportunities for a future are being actively and successfully recruited by groups such as Al Qaeda. Shouldn’t this provoke Western governments to more directly address this issue for the sake of their constituents?

In particular, the United States must take greater responsibility for the refugee situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. These two countries now present the world with its two greatest refugee crises. However, U.S. monetary contributions to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees for Iraq and Afghanistan fall far below projected need. In addition, resettlement opportunities for Iraqis and Afghanis in the U.S. are almost nonexistent. For example, only 4,752 Iraqis have been resettled in the U.S. out of a total of 1.5 million refugees and 2.5 million IDPs. In general, admittance to the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program has been declining in recent years. While most refugees may originate half-way across the world, it is time we started bringing more to our country.

The refugee situation across the globe can only change with the advocacy and activism of those lucky enough to live freely and without fear. Although the issues facing refugees are endless, the ways in which individuals can help are endless, too. Stopping the wars and atrocities that lead to refugee outpourings is a first step, one that enlists politicians, soldiers, translators, religious leaders, and many more. In the meantime, refugees must live in camps that often operate as primitive cities. Camps such as Kakuma need teachers, engineers, doctors, civil servants, and more. The rebuilding of refugees’ post-conflict lives requires social workers, psychologists, entrepreneurs, and community builders. War, poverty, gender rights, health, and history are all present in this microcosm of world turmoil that is the global refugee crisis.

Uprooted from their homes and abandoned by systems of justice, refugees cannot turn to their own nations for protection. Thus, these men, women, and children are everyone’s responsibility—refugees are all of us in unluckier forms. They are truly citizens of the world, and they have no hope beyond what we, as that world, can give.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore. She is on the executive board for Columbia University Amnesty International.