Forced Migration Online: Blog

A new RSC policy briefing, “Responding to Protracted Refugee Situations: Lessons from a Decade of Discussion” has been published.

In December 2009, the UNHCR adopted an ExCom Conclusion on protracted refugee situations. The purpose of this policy brief is to examine in detail the history and process of identifying protracted refugee situations as a significant international policy problem, the steps leading to the 2009 ExCom Conclusion and a consideration of the text of the Conclusion.

In presenting recommendations on addressing these constraints, this briefing first addresses the nature and scope of protracted displacement, some of its causes and consequences, and a short history of international responses to protracted refugee situations before examining in detail the process leading to the 2009 ExCom Conclusion and the steps required by states, UNHCR and NGOs to adequately respond to protracted refugee situations in the future.

• Responding to Protracted Refugee Situations: Lessons from a Decade of Discussion
• Other Policy Briefings from the RSC
  

Sahrawi boys playing football outside the precinct of the 27 February Women's School (2007). © 2007 Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh

A new collection of photographs: “The 27 February Camp: Sahrawi refugees in Algeria” is now available on Forced Migration Online.

Approximately 155,000 Sahrawi refugees are currently distributed amongst four major refugee camps in South-Western Algeria, named after the main cities in the Western Sahara (Aaiun, Ausserd, Smara and Dakhla).

A fifth camp, the ’27 February Camp’, is relatively small, having grown up around the National Women’s School. This collection of photographs focuses on life in the 27 February Camp.

The photographs in this collection were kindly provided by Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Departmental Lecturer in Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Elena carried out fieldwork in the 27 February Camp between 2001 and 2009.

• View the photographs

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

Monday 9 August marked the United Nations International Day of Indigenous Peoples.

“The world’s population of indigenous people now numbers some 350 million individuals representing over 5,000 languages and cultures in more than 70 countries on every continent. Many live on the fringes of society, in sometimes precarious and impoverished conditions. Their material, environmental and spiritual situations, together with their world-views and intimate relationship with the land and natural resources, are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of globalization. The resulting instability, aggravated by dispossession from their land and natural resources, has disrupted the handing down of their cultural heritage from one generation to the next.”

UNESCO, “International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People”

Forced Migration Online’s resource page on the subject highlights a number of key online information sources relating to indigenous peoples.

It also features a selection of full-text documents, web-based resources, and descriptions of relevant organizations available through FMO that focus on related issues.

• FMO Resource Summary: Indigenous Peoples

This podcast was recorded as part of the Oxfam Archive Oral History project.

It features an interview with Maurice Herson, Editor of Forced Migration Review and previously Deputy Humanitarian Director and Head of Humanitarian Programme Advisory Team at Oxfam.

‘Rwanda and the Great Lakes: A Personal View from the Oxfam Archive” is the second of a two-part series. In this recording, Maurice speaks about the Great Lakes emergency and the Rwanda genocide.

The first podcast focused on Maurice’s career in Sudan in the 1980s.

• Listen to the podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

This podcast was recorded as part of the Oxfam Archive Oral History project.

It features an interview with Maurice Herson, Editor of Forced Migration Review and previously Deputy Humanitarian Director and Head of Humanitarian Programme Advisory Team at Oxfam.

‘Sudan in the 1980s’ is the first of a two-part series. In this recording, Maurice speaks about his career as a Relief Coordinator in Sudan.

The second podcast in this series will be released next week. It will focus on the Great Lakes refugee crisis of the mid-1990s.

• Listen to the podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

‘Deportation, non-deportability and ideas of membership’ by Dr Emanuela Paoletti, the latest in the series of Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers, is now available online.

“The growing number of foreign nationals that find themselves in a legal limbo whereby they are not officially members of the host country, yet cannot be deported, raises a number of important questions. What explains the fact that the state is unable to deport a significant number of deportable people? How does this affect our understanding of the state’s social regulative function and capacity? What does this tell us about the rights and obligations that link the state and non-deportable people? How can the link between the state and non-deportability be conceptualised? These questions are the at the core of this paper whose starting assumption is that deportation and non-deportability can be treated as two distinct concepts which shed light on shifting notions and practices of membership.”

Read the paper:

• ‘Deportation, non-deportability and ideas of membership’ (PDF file 148 KB)
• Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers

Saturday 26 June is the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. It provides a time to reflect on the past, to honour the victims and survivors of torture and to look to a better future.

Forced Migration Online’s resource page on the subject highlights a number of key online information sources relating to torture, organized under the following headings:

• International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
• International Conventions
• Investigation and Reporting of Torture

It also features a selection of full-text documents, web-based resources, and descriptions of relevant organizations available through FMO that focus on torture-related issues.

This year, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims also has a useful map of observations taking place around the world.

• UN: International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
• FMO Resource Summary: Torture

Cover of FMR 35: Disability

Issue 35 of Forced Migration Review (FMR) is now available in the FMO digital library. This issue focuses on the topic of “Disability and Displacement”.

The World Health Organisation estimates that persons with disabilities account for 7-10% of the world’s population. This would imply that there are three to four million persons living with disability among the world’s 42 million displaced. It is not (yet) common practice, however, to include people with disabilities among those who are considered as particularly vulnerable in disasters and displacement and who therefore require targeted response.

Forced Migration Online’s latest resource summary, which complements FMR 35, is also available to view online. It provides links to key resources, websites and documents exploring contemporary debate on this issue as well as links to wider issues concerned with human rights and displacement.

Issue 35 of Forced Migration Review also contains a mini-feature on Brazil, as well as articles on: accountability, mobility, reproductive health in Darfur, repatriation decision-making and protection in natural disasters.

• FMR 2010, 2010, No. 35: Disability and Displacement
• FMO Resource summary: Disability

Sunday 20 June is World Refugee Day. First marked in 2001, World Refugee Day is an attempt to get the international community to remember the plight of the world’s millions of refugees.

A series of events and activities in more than 100 countries will seek to promote a better understanding of why people become refugees, and to highlight the challenges involved in trying to help them. These events will involve government officials, humanitarian aid workers, celebrities, civilians and the forcibly displaced themselves.

• UNHCR: World Refugee Day 2010
• Video: High Commissioner António Guterres’ message for World Refugee Day
• Red Cross – Look Beyond the Label
• Simple Acts: learn and do more with refugees
• FMO: resources on World Refugee Day and Refugee Week