{"id":26098,"date":"2018-10-11T09:10:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T08:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.journals.cambridge.org\/?p=26098"},"modified":"2018-10-11T08:59:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T07:59:33","slug":"refugees-migrants-idps-protecting-people-on-the-move-without-distinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2018\/10\/11\/refugees-migrants-idps-protecting-people-on-the-move-without-distinction\/","title":{"rendered":"Refugees, migrants, IDPs: Protecting people on the move\u2014without distinction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u2018It is not the movement of persons that is the problem, it is the movement of persons without the protection of fundamental rights and norms.\u2019<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

Thus concludes\u00a0the published report<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Forced to flee: A multi-disciplinary conference on internal displacement, migration and refugee crises<\/i>, supported among others by the ICRC and held last November at SOAS, University of London.<\/em><\/p>\n

Throughout history people have migrated in search of a better life\u2014for a wide variety of reasons. Today, however, the extent of migration is challenging the international order and is accompanied by largely negative perceptions about migrants. In a sense, this is nothing new. History shows us that people on the move have often been treated as an inconvenience rather than as being entitled to humanitarian assistance and protection. Yet, all people who leave their homes\u2014for whatever reason\u2014deserve our respect and our support. In this context, labels matter. The labels chosen by observers determine the future of these vulnerable people in a very real and heart-rending way\u2014whether they are called \u2018economic migrants\u2019, \u2018forced migrants\u2019, \u2018internally displaced persons\u2019 (IDPs) or \u2018refugees\u2019. In order to find truly sustainable solutions to the current crises of people on the move we must look beyond these labels.\u00a0This blog post considers the scope of the global crisis, the negative labels placed on migrants, the historical use of these categories, and how we could respond in a better way.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

The global reach of the crisis<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The conference took place against the background of Europe\u2019s continuing inability to deal humanely and effectively with the twin crises of refugees fleeing the armed conflict in Syria and economic migrants escaping poverty and deprivation in Africa, but also\u2014as the report points out\u2014of a less visible but much bigger crisis in the developing world: \u2018Today, 86% of refugees are in developing countries; the top six host countries in Africa have three times the number of refugees as the top six in Europe<\/a>.\u2019<\/p>\n

Quoting\u00a0UNHCR data<\/a>, the report states that: \u2018In 2015, there were reportedly some 20 million refugees and 40 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide.\u2019 However, it also points out that \u2018In addition, there are many so-called \u201ceconomic\u201d migrants, who are also vulnerable to violence\u2014including kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion and sexual violence\u2014along the route to their destination, and many are detained or interned.<\/a>\u2019 Thus, Europe\u2019s refugee crisis is in reality a relatively small part of a much greater global phenomenon of vulnerable people on the move\u2014often at great personal risk. Speakers at the\u00a0public event accompanying the conference<\/a>\u00a0emphasised that these people have not decided to leave their homes lightly; as the accompanying film produced by the British Red Cross put it, they have embarked on \u2018journeys filled with resilience, determination, and uncertainty about the future\u2019\u2014and they are entitled to our respect and support rather than our indifference or hostility.<\/p>\n

Labels and negative connotations<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This brings us to the leitmotif of the conference: forced to flee. In a sense it is quite an unhelpful concept: who is to determine what constitutes being \u2018forced\u2019 when it comes to abandoning situations of conflict and violence, extreme poverty, or marginalisation? Contemporary discourse, at least in Europe and North America, distinguishes between \u2018refugees\u2019 and \u2018migrants\u2019. The implication is that while the former are forced to flee their homes, the latter do so of their own volition\u2014and are therefore somehow less deserving of our sympathy. Although international law does reserve particular\u00a0rights for refugees<\/a>, and in that sense the distinction is valid, the terms \u2018migrant\u2019\u2014and even more\u2014\u2018immigrant\u2019\u2014have acquired decidedly negative connotations in contemporary western society. Thus, a phenomenon as old as the human race itself has been reconceptualised as a problem. But what seems to have happened also is that negative feelings about migration have been projected onto refugees, so that even those fleeing persecution no longer command our sympathy in a way they might once have done\u2014and the force of international law is also diminished.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is in the Mediterranean region, where economic migrants from Africa and refugees from Syria come together in a crazy and anarchic maelstrom of human misery. Both groups have undertaken hazardous journeys, often at the mercy of unscrupulous people traffickers\u2014and yet neither is welcome in Europe. They are just contributors to \u2018our\u2019, i.e. Europe\u2019s, problem, and Europe\u2019s preferred solution is the questionable notion of \u2018humanitarian border management\u2019. This concept is, as contributors to the conference pointed out, fundamentally self-referential and contradictory\u2014and is in fact an abuse of the word \u2018humanitarian\u2019: one can \u2018manage\u2019 people more or less \u2018humanely\u2019, but it certainly is not \u2018humanitarian\u2019 to take action that primarily serves the interests of the person taking it.<\/p>\n

Learning from history<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The conference\u2019s starting point was that a deeper historical understanding of migration might enable contemporary society to deal with migration in a better way. Certainly, history reveals that the problems we face today are not new. But, sadly, it also reminds us of the enduring ability of States and other authorities to treat vulnerable people on the move as a threat to the established order and as a risk to be managed rather than as people at risk and in need of our protection. Refugees, IDPs, and other migrants have always been vulnerable to a realpolitik that puts their human rights second to the interests of the powerful.<\/p>\n

For example, as the conference report explains: \u2018Decolonisation exposed the limitations of the Refugee Convention, since its way of separating refugees, IDPs and economic migrants bore little resemblance to what was happening on the ground.\u2019 In reality, people in colonial and postcolonial societies were displaced from their communities for a wide variety of reasons that defied such neat categorisations. Yet, the way they were categorized and treated depended more on what was convenient for the authorities than on the human rights of those displaced.<\/p>\n

A similar conflation is evident in the treatment, in the 1980s, of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who took to small boats to escape the chaos in their country. The British government and the colonial authorities in Hong Kong quickly decided that those arriving there were economic migrants rather than refugees. These \u2018economic\u2019 migrants were kept behind barbed wire in detention centres\u2014where some of them stayed for many years.<\/p>\n

During the Cold War, those fleeing communism and coming to the West were welcomed as refugees because their flight supported the narrative of \u2018The Evil Empire\u2019 with which the West was in conflict. After the collapse of the Soviet Union \u2018forced migrants\u2019 became \u2018economic migrants\u2019\u2014a burden on the West. Even when the countries of East and Central Europe became part of the European Union\u2014with guaranteed free movement of people\u2014their citizens\u2019 desire to pursue economic opportunities in Western Europe became a political hot potato in the latter. It seems that while we embrace the free movement of capital we do not feel the same way about the free movement of labour, i.e. economic migration.<\/p>\n

Today, would-be immigrants into the United States who have fled into Mexico from violence in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are still mostly treated as economic migrants regardless of the reasons that caused them to flee in the first place. One of the most heartbreaking stories at the conference was from a young woman from El Salvador whose husband had been murdered as a result of local political violence. Fearing for her own life she risked the journey to Mexico in an attempt to find safety in the United States. Her account of the dangers faced by a young woman travelling alone with her children as an illegal immigrant with no protection from various forms of exploitation encountered along the way was truly humbling\u2014and shaming. (This and other cases are documented in a powerful\u00a0report published by MSF in May 2017<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Responding to today\u2019s migration crisis<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Thus, whether someone is deemed to be a \u2018forced migrant\u2019 or an \u2018economic migrant\u2019 is likely to depend on the point of view of the observer. Certainly, the labels will mean nothing to those on the move and yet the labels that are chosen will frame the nature of the debate about their future: the fate of \u2018refugees\u2019 is discussed in one way and that of \u2018migrants\u2019 in another. Only by turning this through 180\u00b0 and seeing things from the perspective of vulnerable people themselves can we claim any moral high ground in the way we respond to their situations.<\/p>\n

It is not that international law is somehow absent from or unhelpful to this discussion. Admittedly, the\u00a0Refugee Convention of 1951<\/a>\u00a0contains a narrow definition of what it means to be a \u2018refugee\u2019. And this continues to cause problems for international agencies grappling with the issue of IDPs. The 1951 Convention provides protection for people who have crossed national borders but not for those who have been displaced in their own country. But, the\u00a0Geneva Conventions of 1949<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Additional Protocols of 1977<\/a>, not to mention the\u00a0International Convention on Civil and Political Rights of 1966<\/a>, provide a clear framework for protection of vulnerable people whether they are on the move or not, and, depending on the convention, whether they are in situations of armed conflict or not. Greater respect for existing law would therefore be a good place to start. And let us not forget that the emerging norm of the\u00a0Responsibility to Protect (R2P)<\/a>\u00a0originated precisely from the need to articulate the responsibilities of sovereign governments towards IDPs in their own country: the notion of \u2018sovereignty as responsibility\u2019. The framework is there if we choose to use it.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that people on the move have the same rights as everyone else, whatever it was that caused them to embark on their journey in the first place. Our inability to make this the starting point for how we engage with the challenge of protecting them is\u2014or should be\u2014a source of shame in a supposedly civilised international society.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

For a more in depth discussion on this topic<\/h3>\n

Read the recently published ‘Forced to flee: A multi-disciplinary conference on internal displacement, migration and refugee crises’\u00a0in the International Review of the Red Cross, <\/em>which\u00a0can be\u00a0read online at this link<\/a>. Enjoy free access until the end of November 2018.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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