This week, the world commemorates World Refugee Day, an event that has been marked every year since 2001.
While many of us are aware of the concept of being a refugee, majority have not had the unfortunate experience of being forced out of a life built over generations into the unknown. Such is what ordinary people experience when they are suddenly, and without notice, uprooted from their homelands and forced to look for refuge elsewhere.
Being away from one’s homeland involuntarily is bad enough, but having to stay in a sprawling camp, often in harsh climatic conditions and with limited resources can be depressing to the toughest of human beings.
Most uprooted people do not arrive by planes, trains, buses or cars. They will have trekked for hundreds of kilometres across territorial boundaries, braving dangerous terrains, sometimes evading militias and wild animals, to get to a place where they can finally find a semblance of safety and acceptance. In the excruciating journey, adults are forced to carry their young, the elderly and the sick on their shoulders or rafters. Some, overcome with hunger and disease, succumb on the way and are buried in unmarked graves which their loved ones will probably never retrace. The psychological and physical trauma that refugees and displaced people endure would make anyone shed a tear. Yet, for many, arrival in the host country is usually just the beginning of an uncertain future characterized by rejection, joblessness and limited access to essential services.
As the world marks World Refugee Day 2024 this week, it is time to reflect on the plight of refugees and on what can be done better to reduce the frequency and intensity of events that drive people out of their homelands in the first place. The world has long gotten used to the usual promises made by leaders that very often yield little. For instance, the Global Compact on Refugees, launched in 2018, to provide a mechanism for improving international responses to displacement, has suffered from poor follow through on commitments made six years ago. The plan, like many others before it, was not legally binding on actors, and it lacked an implementation plan and clear indicators. World leaders must now walk the talk and take decisive action to end the refugee crisis and create conditions that make it unnecessary for people to become refugees in the first place. The best gift leaders can give refugees on this World Refugee Day is to provide the financing and political support to ease pressure on host countries, enhance refugee self-reliance, expand access to third-country resettlement, and support conditions in refugees’ countries of origin for a safe return.
There are multiple reasons why people involuntarily move from their homelands to seek refuge elsewhere. Fortunately, the most common are those that can be prevented when leaders embrace dialogue, democracy and good governance as well as peaceful coexistence.
They include interclan warfare, civil wars, animosity between nations and political persecution based on one’s race, ethnicity, or political and religious beliefs. As I write this, there are multiple conflicts going on around the world. There are also uncountable cases of harassment and persecution both by government and militias.
Thousands displaced in East Africa
Extreme weather events manifesting as prolonged droughts and/or flooding situations is fast becoming another important cause of the refugee crisis. These events are growing in intensity, often leaving property destroyed and people displaced. The el nino rains which hit the eastern Africa region in the last few months, for instance, led to massive destruction of property, loss of human life and displacement of thousands in Kenya and other Eastern Africa countries. The unusually heavy rains caused unprecedented flooding in both the urban and rural areas, affecting both the well-to-do and the low-income earners. But whereas the well to do will recover quickly and return to normal life, it might take years for poorer communities to find a semblance of normalcy.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that the number of refugees in the world has crossed the 120 million mark as at June 2024. That is 1 in every 69 people on earth or 1.5% of the total world population. Also important to note is that nine in 10 of the world’s refugees are hosted by developing nations. The Eastern Africa countries of Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia, for instance, host up to 4 million refugees and latest statistics show that Kenya alone hosts more than 600,000 refugees, majority of them in the Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps.
Whereas these statistics do help us appreciate the refugee situation better and can be helpful for planning purposes, we must be careful not to view refugees as mere statistics. Refugees are real people whose lives have been disrupted by conflict, persecution, public disorder, and/or environmental crises. We all should strive to see refugees through the eyes of that little child seeking warmth and protection, that mother struggling to provide for her children amid scarcity, and that father who once worked so hard to provide for his family, but whose livelihood has suddenly been upended through no fault of his own. Perhaps, if we started looking at refugees this way, we might embrace them and support efforts aimed at voluntary repatriation, local integration in the country of first asylum or resettlement in a third country.
What can we do as individuals and communities?
Individuals and communities have an important role to play in advancing refugee rights. The theme for this year’s World Refugee Day, “For a World Where Refugees Are Welcomed” is quite apt. The call is for all citizens to express solidarity with refugees by keeping doors open, celebrating their strengths and achievements, and reflecting on the challenges they face.
Positive public sentiment can be a strong motivation for policy makers to act in ways that empower refugees. It is, therefore, helpful for citizens to learn as much as they can about refugees, especially about the strengths and skills that refugees can bring to the host community.
Quite a few refugees come with technical and entrepreneurial skills, which they can employ in the host community. These skills can also be transferred to locals who in turn can use them to generate income. For this to happen, however, each host country needs a legal framework is needed to facilitate skilled refugees to work outside the refugee camps. While Kenya’s Refugee Act 2021 envisions integration of refugees into the host community, opportunities for economic inclusion remain limited.
It is also critical for refugees to be given a chance to acquire skills while in the host country and for children to obtain quality education that can enable them to settle and work in their home country, the country of first asylum or a third country.
