Refugee crises a symptom of a failed global system

According to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, a record 117.3 million peoples were forcibly displaced at the end of 2023 due to conflict, violence, or climate-related disasters. This is nearly equivalent to the populations of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia combined.

Alarmingly, the number of forcibly displaced peoples has doubled in the last decade. Armed conflicts in places like Ukraine, Syria, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Palestine have led to millions fleeing their homes for fear of persecution.

In countries like Afghanistan, Haiti, and Venezuela people have fled from human rights violations and chronic insecurity. And the growing and recurrent ravages of drought, famine, disease and disaster, which then fuel intercommunal conflict over increasingly scarce resources, have led to millions being displaced in countries like Cameroon and Sudan.

And yet, over the past decade we have seen countries around the world tighten their borders and close their doors to the destitute, distressed and dispossessed. Recently, the United States severely restricted people’s legal right to seek asylum, leaving tens of thousands of those seeking refuge stuck on the US-Mexico border indefinitely. Similarly the UK Government is moving ahead with plans to eliminate asylum-seeking rights for almost all individuals, and to have asylum claims considered by third-party countries like Rwanda.

This ‘offshoring’ of asylum seekers though, is not a new phenomenon. For nearly a decade, Australia sent asylum seekers to Nauru and Papua New Guinea to be processed and permanently resettled. And since 2015, the European Union has signed numerous security pacts with several countries outside the EU, including Albania, Libya, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, to ensure that they contain and defer asylum seekers from reaching European shores.

This combination, of increasing numbers of peoples being forcibly displaced alongside the wealthiest nations closing its borders to most of them, has several consequences.
 

Firstly, the majority of refugees reside in neighbouring host countries, most of which are low or middle-income nations struggling to support their own populations with basic services. UNHCR’s recent report highlights how 80 percent of the refugee population is hosted by countries that together produce less than 20 percent of the world’s income. In a country like Lebanon, for example, one in every six residents is a refugee today.

Remarkably, many of these countries have demonstrated humanity which countries in the Global North have not; extending basic entitlements like access to education, health care, housing, and social protection to displaced populations.

But despite the basic level of protection which many of those living in these hosting countries receive, the long-term capacity and political appetite to permanently resettle refugees in these countries remains low. In Lebanon, for instance, which has been plagued by economic and political insecurity in recent years, there has been growing xenophobia, discrimination and violence towards Syrian refugees.

Deportations, along with voluntary repatriation of these refugees back to Syria, is becoming more prevalent as a consequence, despite the country remaining unsafe for many to return to. Such actions stand against the principle of non-refoulment under international law, which prohibits returning displaced peoples to a setting where they risk facing irreparable harm including persecution or the denial of basic rights.

With the average person being displaced for 12 years on average, and asylum claims taking longer to process, millions more find themselves living in a state of prolonged precarity, not knowing if, where and when they might be permanently resettled, receive refugee status or be able to safely return home for good. In the meantime, refugees and asylum seekers depend on the benevolence of hosting countries, UN agencies and humanitarian organisations to support them, in a context where resources are increasingly constrained.

This has led to significant, ongoing protection risks for those who are the most vulnerable, particularly children who comprise 40 percent of the world’s refugee and internally displaced population.

About seven million refugee children aren’t able to go to school. Many also lack access to basic health care, which coupled with their living conditions, make them prone to infectious disease and malnutrition. Hundreds of thousands of young refugees end up working in low-paying and risky informal economies, where they are subject to abuse, exploitation and the risk of arrest. Children separated from their families are at high risk of being illegally trafficked, of being subjected to sexual and gender-based violence and being forcibly recruited into armed groups or gangs.

Tens of millions of young people are being robbed of their futures.

As we mark World Refugee Day this week, what then should be done to protect and honour the rights of those who have to flee their home countries to escape conflict or persecution?