Forced Migration Online: Blog

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees gave the 2010 Harrell-Bond Lecture at the Refugee Studies Centre on 18 October 2010.

In a lecture focusing on forced displacement, protection and humanitarian action, Guterres called for international action on global refugee crisis.

The Harrell-Bond Lecture is held annually in honour of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, founding former director of the Centre and of the academic field of refugee studies or forced migration studies.

• Listen to the podcast

Forced Migration Online has recently published a new resource summary, focusing on Algeria.

The summary provides an outline of present and historical causes of forced migration within Algeria. It also gives an overview of Algeria’s relationship to various international refugee conventions and its role as host to several thousand refugees including the Sahrawi, as well as refugees from Palestine and Sub-Saharan Africa.

All our summaries provide links to key resources, websites and documents exploring contemporary debate on on key issues, in forced migration as well as links to wider issues concerned with human rights and displacement. Our full collection of resource summaries, focusing on specific regions and themes, can be accessed from the links below.

• Algeria resource summary
• Regional Resource Summaries
• Thematic Resource Summaries

A new series of podcasts, recorded at a regional presentation in Amman, on the situation of Iraqi refugees, is now available from Forced Migration Online. The presentation was jointly organized by the Refugee Studies Centre and the Regional Human Security Centre (RHSC) in Amman, Jordan.

Based on a recent RSC Policy Briefing on Iraq’s refugees – beyond tolerance, this one-day event provided a platform for an open discussion  on the situation of Iraqis displaced internally and Iraqis displaced in the region.

The keynote address was given by HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. Other participants included:

• Dr Nasir Al-Samaraie, Adviser to the Iraq Head of Delegation, International Committee of the Red Cross
• Dr Philip Marfleet, Associate Director, CMRB, University of East London
• Dr Dawn Chatty, Deputy Director, RSC, University of Oxford
• Professor Adel Tweissi, Secretary General of the Higher Council of Science and Technology
• Mr Abed El-Baset Al Kabariti, Ministry of Interior, Government of Jordan
• Mr Arafat Jamal, UNHCR Deputy Representative in Jordan
• Ms Liana Paris, Displacement Monitoring Officer, IOM Iraq Mission

Key principles for consideration by policy makers were presented and discussed. The emphasis was on protection and durable solutions to displacement.

• Listen to the Podcasts
• Read: “Iraq’s refugees – beyond tolerance”
• Subscribe via iTunes

FMO has launched a series of podcasts recorded at the Romani Mobilities in Europe conference, held by the Refugee Studies Centre between 14th and 15th January 2010 at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. The event was made possible by a grant from the John Fell Oxford University Press Fund and the generous support of ERSTE Foundation. Further details about the event can be accessed on the Conference Blog.

• Podcasts
• Subscribe via iTunes

FMO has launched the first of a series of podcasts recorded at the bi-annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM), held in Nicosia, Cyprus between 28 June and 2 July 2009. The 12th IASFM conference was hosted by the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. The FMO team made audio recordings of the conference’s plenary sessions. The further details about the conference can be accessed on the FMO event page.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

The film ‘Iraqis in Egypt: Time is Running Out’ is now available to view online. The documentary looks at the lives of six Iraqi families who have been forced to flee their homes and are now living as refugees in the massive urban sprawl of Cairo. As the years pass by, their situations are becoming increasingly desperate, with little or no rights in their country of first asylum.

• Iraqis in Egypt: Time is Running Out

UPDATE: Visit iraqisinegypt.org for the latest media releases, films, podcasts and more.

This podcast was recorded at a lecture organised by the Refugee Studies Centre and sponsored by Clifford Chance, the event was held on Wednesday 18th June 2008 at the offices of Clifford Chance, London. Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister of State for Africa, Asia and the UN gave the lecture which was entitled ‘Reputational Hazard: Rescuing Refugees in the Era of Illegal Immigration and Terrorism’.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

Bhutanese Refugees is a new website which is a collaboration between PhotoVoice and the Bhutanese Refugee Support Group, who have both have worked closely with Bhutanese refugees. The website includes audio and video of refugees telling their personal stories.

Situated between the emerging superpowers of India and China, the isolated Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, hailed by some as ‘the last Shangri-La’, has generated one of the highest numbers of refugees in the world in proportion to its population.

Since 1991 over one sixth of Bhutan’s peoples have sought asylum in Nepal, India and other countries around the world.

• Bhutanese Refugees

In November 2007, the FMO team established a network of advisors for the OARS project, comprised of representatives of higher education (HE) institutions in the UK. Students, researchers and academics from universities and colleges form the backbone of FMO’s user community. It is therefore important to involve them in the FMO portal’s redevelopment and enhancement.

On behalf of the FMO team, the Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, Professor Roger Zetter, wrote to academic departments and centres in the UK requesting their input. They were asked to complete a brief questionnaire about their usage and opinions of FMO. This information will be used to inform the team in its work to make the enhancements to FMO through the OARS project.

We would strongly encourage all users of FMO – whether or not they be in the HE sector and/or in the UK – to contribute to the OARS project and assist the team in making the most appropriate changes to FMO to benefit all users. Further details can be found on the OARS project website, and the questionnaire can be completed and submitted online.

When Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond came in to be interviewed for the first FMO podcast, she very kindly brought us some interesting documents from the Southern Refugees Legal Advocates Conference, which was held last January in Nairobi.

The conference’s tasks were to establish a code of ethics for refugee legal aid practitioners who work through NGOs and law clinics and to consider creating a ‘southern’ network to address common concerns and to advocate more effectively on behalf of refugees as a collective.

The resulting three documents, the Nairobi Code, the SRLAN Charter and the conference report are now in the digital library.

• The Nairobi code: model rules of ethics for legal advisors in refugee cases
• Charter Southern Refugee Legal Advocacy Network (SRLAN)
• Report: Southern Refugee Legal Advocates Conference