On 20 June, nations across the globe celebrated World Refugee Day, a holiday created by the United Nations in an attempt to bring awareness to those forced to flee their countries as a result of war, oppression, persecution and other human rights violations that threaten their safety. The UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees defines refugees as those “unable to return to their native land due to fears of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality and/or membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, over 42 million people were displaced in 2010, an increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009. This massive increase is mainly due to the impact of “mega-disasters” such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and earthquakes in Chile and Haiti. Even today, the long-standing debate continues over the definition of refugee, and therefore, who qualifies as a refugee.
It is unfortunate that this reality hampers the humanitarian efforts aimed at protecting and defending the rights of displaced peoples around the world. Additionally if an asylum seeker fails in his/her “refugee status determination”, he/she can be refused refugee status and be deported. In today’s world, one can be forced to flee for a multitude of reasons; economic and climate factors are beginning to dominate the “push” factors that result in the mass migration trends we are seeing around the world. Climate plays a central role in all of this. With droughts come increased food prices and economic strains on a country; drought and poverty can lead people to face starvation if they don’t migrate. In some countries there are corrupt leaders, there is a lack of political stability and elections are not free or fair, which leads people to flee from the resulting extreme poverty and hardship.
Sadly according to many countries, these forced migrants do not meet the UN definition of the term refugee and thus the UNHCR have no obligation to assist them. Their need for refuge is questioned–merely because of an absence of war—and their refugee status denied, which deportation becomes a veritable reality. PASSOP advocates for all people and, while we appreciate and support World Refugee Day, we do so with the entire global community of displaced peoples and forced migrants in mind, not just those lucky enough to be termed “refugee”. If governments continue to deny forced migrants the right to refuge and thus deny them refugee status, perhaps we need to enact a “World Forced Migrants Day” in order to globally conscientise their undeniable hardships.