THE INNOCENT VICTIMS OF WAR- THE REFUGEES

The Innocent Victims of War - The Refugees

ABSTRACT

The issue of refugees and their settlement has raised many debates in contemporary world politics. Displacement of people at the mass level for various reasons has led to many problems, both for the refugees themselves, as well as the countries that are hosting them. The plea of the unfortunates and displaced people is usually heard by many international organizations and world bodies. However, they are still a long way from totally solving the miseries of refugees, especially in the long term. Here, the thing to be kept in mind is that equal focus should be given to the potential problems and a myriad of issues that the host countries face. As allocation of resources becomes a significant issue, at times, the host countries themselves suffer the repercussions of mass migration to their land. Our present study aims to establish a clear definition of the term, highlighting the work of the refugee organization, and analyses the problems shared by both, the refugees and the host countries. It is a part of international law that asylum seekers are entitled to be protected of their existence and survival, including those which pertain to freedom and basic needs. However, the concerns of the citizens of the host state or accommodating country are equally important. A balance need to be maintained. This can be the only right solution to the problems faced at both ends.

Background 

In the 1990s, the number of refugees worldwide reached unprecedented levels. It exceeded 20 million every year after 1990, peaking in 1995 with 26.1 million. Another 20 million people are 'internally displaced' or in 'refugee-like' situations. Four-fifths of these people are women and children. The largest numbers are found in Africa (the Horn, the area around the Great Lakes, West Africa), Europe (Bosnia and the former Soviet Union), the Middle East (Palestinians), Central Asia (Iraqis and Afghans) and Thailand (from Cambodia and Myanmar). Approximately, 15 per cent of all refugees are in the industrialized states in Western Europe and North America. In everyday language, the term 'refugee' refers to any person trying to escape persecution, violence, environmental disaster or poverty (United States Senate: The Refugee Act of 2009). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) bestows on every human being 'the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution' (Article 14). In the Geneva Convention, the use of 'refugee' is restricted to those people who have fled their home country because of a well founded fear of persecution, because of political or religious conviction or membership of an oppressed ethnic or social group. Asylum-seekers are individuals claiming to be refugees and awaiting a decision on their asylum request. The modern world has known several episodes of major refugee flows. For example, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the American and French Revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century, the dissolution of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires after World War I, the terror of Nazism and Stalinism in the 1930s and 1940s, and the decolonizations and social revolutions in the Third World between 1947 and 1965. At times refugees had to leave their country as a response tor evolution or they were victims of ethnic cleansing or discrimination at the mass level.(Zolberg 2005)The refugee flows of the 1980s and 1990s were partly the product of similar developments (the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the break-up of Yugoslavia, the ...