Forced Migration Online: Blog

Italy has been transformed in recent decades from a nation of emigrants to a destination country for mass immigration, receiving tens of thousands of immigrant from south-east Europe and north Africa each year.

Its long coast lines and developed economy make it both an attractive destination and an easy route into Europe. As immigration rates have risen sharply, relations between the Italian and immigrant population have often been tense.

FMO’s latest resource summary  highlights a selection of web-based resources that focus on Italy. Links are provided to full-text documents, journal articles, external resources, and organizations.

• Resource summary: Italy

FMO’s latest resource summary highlights a selection of web-based resources that focus on both on South Korean refugee policy and on the status of refugees from North Korea.

Links are provided to full-text documents, journal articles, external resources, and organizations.

South Korea joined the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in 1992 and recognised its first refugee in 2001. Due to its democratic political system and successful economic growth in the 1980s, South Korea has seen a recent increase in the number of refugees claiming asylum.

The South Korean constitution stipulates that all North Koreans are entitled to South Korean citizenship. North Koreans are therefore admitted under a resettlement program that includes basic job training, healthcare services and financial subsidies. Due to this policy, the UNHCR considers North Koreans to be ‘persons of concern’ rather than refugees.

• Resource summary

The most recent RSC Policy Briefing “Protecting Palestinian children from political violence: the role of the international community” was launched in London on Thursday 30 September.

The briefing, written by Dr Jason Hart and Claudia Lo Forte, considers the role of international and UN organisations in protecting Palestinian children. Four distinguishing features of a rights-based approach to child protection are identified:

• the prioritisation of child protection over national self-interest;
• a focus on causes and not merely effects;
• the need for political engagement around international legal standards;
• the mobilisation of public opinion

Following the publication of this policy briefing, we have also updated our Resource Summary on Palestine.

• RSC Policy Briefing
• FMO Resource Summary: Palestine

Fragile states are those most vulnerable to internal and external shocks. Such states lack legitimate institutions, and are thus vulnerable to endemic conflict and crisis.

State fragility contributes to forced migration through many channels. In addition, such states offer particular obstacles to the securing of humanitarian assistance and spaces for protection.

• Fragile States Resource Summary

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

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

The Republic of Angola is on the west coast of south-central Africa, and has an estimated population of around 13 million people. Wealthy in natural resources, it is now one of the fastest growing economies in Africa, fuelled mainly by its oil production.

Despite this apparent wealth however, the country faces enormous socio-economic problems. These are the product of a 27-year long civil war, which raged from 1975 to 2002 between the governing MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola). At the height of the civil war, it is estimated that over 4 million people were displaced.

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.

• Angola resource summary
• Regional Resource Summaries
• Thematic Resource Summaries

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

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

Issue 34 of Forced Migration Review (FMR) is now available in the digital library. This issue focuses on the topic of “Urban Displacement”.

Articles explore the complexity of the challenges faced by those displaced into urban areas and by those seeking to protect and assist them, and argue for the need for a radical rethinking of approaches by the international community.

The issue also includes a spotlight on Haiti and the use of standards to shape response and recovery after the earthquake in January, plus a selection of articles on subjects such as Mauritania, South Africa, Timor-Leste, Colombia, Pakistan, the new Kampala Convention, family separation in the UK, cross-border mobility of Iraqi refugees, and maternal mortality among conflict-affected populations.

FMR is also published in French, Spanish and Arabic.

Forced Migration Online’s latest resource summary, which complements FMR 34, is also available to view online. It provides links to key resources, websites and documents exploring contemporary debate on these issues, as well as links to wider issues concerned with human rights and displacement.

Full Issue

• FMR 2010, No. 34:  Urban Displacement
  

Resource Summary

• Urban Displacement

Individual Articles

• Adapting to urban displacement
• Meeting humanitarian challenges in urban areas
• Protection challenges for persons of concern in urban settings
• Urban displacement and migration in Colombia
• Invisibility of urban IDPs in Europe
• Profiling urban IDPs
• Improving living conditions in Bossaso, Somalia
• The poor and the displaced in Khartoum
• The journey towards social exclusion in Colombia
• Desperate lives: urban refugee women in Malaysia and Egypt
• Urban refugee health: meeting the challenges
• Support systems among urban IDPs in Georgia
• Education and self-reliance in Egypt
• Urban shelter and the limits of humanitarian action
• Refugees and space in urban areas in Malaysia
• Urban IDPs in Uganda: victims of institutional convenience
• Transition, connection and uncertainty: IDPs in Kampala
• Urban Somali refugees in Yemen
• Displacement within the city: Colombia
• The role of municipal authorities
• Surviving in the city
• ATM cash assistance: does it work?
• Cities of Solidarity: local integration in Latin America
• City of Sanctuary – a UK initiative for hospitality
• Hosting ‘the enemy’
• “Legitimate” protection spaces: UNHCR’s 2009 policy
• Using standards to shape response and recovery in Haiti
• Beyond good intentions: implementing the Kampala Convention
• Norwegian Refugee Council: Shade netting: simple design – effective relief
• RAISE Initiative: The blind spot of the Millennium Development Goals
• International Displacement Monitoring Centre: Displacement in urban areas: implications for humanitarian action
• Cross-border mobility of Iraqi refugees
• Non-nationals displaced in South Africa
• Social mobilisation in IDP camps in Pakistan
• Flexible mandate for protection
• IDP camp closure and gender inequality in Timor-Leste
• Family breakdown in Bogotá
• Living death: separation in the UK
• Voluntary repatriation and the participation of Mauritanian refugees

Issue 33 of Forced Migration Review: Protracted displacement is now available in the digital library (FMR is one of five journals available).

Increasingly, growing numbers of displaced people remain displaced for years, even decades. This latest issue of FMR includes 29 articles by academic, international and local actors which assess the impact of such situations on people’s lives and our societies and explore the ‘solutions’ – political, humanitarian and personal.

The issue also includes a spotlight on the ‘internment camps’ in Sri Lanka and a mini-feature on Collective centres, plus a selection of articles on other aspects of forced migration such as rights and responsibilities in Darfur, smuggling in South Africa, IDP health needs in Colombia, climate change agreement talks, peace mediation, and community resilience in East Timor.

FMR is also published in French, Spanish and Arabic and the other language editions will follow soon.

A resource summary to complement FMR 33 is now available on Forced Migration Online and provides links to related key resources websites and documents.

Full Issue

• FMR 2009, No. 33: Protracted displacement

Individual Articles

• Sri Lanka: a question of rights
• Protecting housing rights for IDPs in Sri Lanka
• Understanding the challenge
• Doubly forgotten
• Riding on the back of a tortoise
• Listening to the experiences of the long-term displaced
• Crisis and displacement in Somalia
• Addressing core problems
• Repatriation to Afghanistan: durable solution or responsibility shifting?
• Unfinished business: IDPs in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Europe’s IDPs still marginalised
• Darfur: a way of life lost
• Comprehensive solutions: a ‘whole-of-government’ approach
• Daring to dream of an end to exile in sub-Saharan Africa
• Local integration in West Africa
• Durable solutions for Burundian refugees in Tanzania
• Burundi: seven years of refugee return
• Refugees: asset or burden?
• Refugee resources: Sri Lankan Tamils in India
• Displacement shock and recovery in Cyprus
• Local integration for refugees in Serbia
• Displacement, decentralisation and reparation in post-conflict Peru
• Peacebuilding in displacement
• Importance of access to financial services
• Hope and opportunities for young people
• Sudanese refugee youth ‘gangs’ in Cairo
• Activism among a new generation of Palestinian exiles
• Use of housing vouchers in Georgia
• Confidence-building measures in Western Sahara
• Refugees and mobility
• A regime at a loss?
• A missing element of ‘camp management’
• When ‘temporary’ lasts too long
• Rights and responsibilities in Darfur
• South Africa’s smugglers’ borderland
• IDP health in Colombia: needs and challenges
• Towards a humanitarian climate change agreement
• Protracted Muslim displacement in Sri Lanka
• Internal displacement and peace mediation
• Community resilience in rural East Timor