MEDFORD, Massachusetts — Conflicts force many of the world’s inhabitants to flee their lands because of violence, human rights violations and substandard living conditions. When someone flees their country due to a justified fear of persecution based on his or her membership in a group, he or she is defined as a refugee under international law.
Every year on June 20, the United Nations marks World Refugee Day as a day to commemorate the plights of the world’s refugees. The day serves to call the international community to action and raise awareness of the struggles faced daily by people forced out of their homes and into a future of uncertainty.
World Refugee Day is commemorated with local events in cities across the United States and around the globe sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, or UNHCR, and other smaller civic groups.
Refugee days and weeks have been held on smaller scales on both national and regional levels. With one of the largest refugee days, Africa Refugee Day, held annually on June 20, the U.N. General Assembly decided in December 2000 to establish an international day to raise awareness about the situations of refugees on June 20.
Situations of refugees around the globe vary greatly. Individual governments decide their own procedures for determining a person’s legal status as a refugee. The UNHCR documents these numbers. Governments may allow the UNHCR to intervene to determine a person’s refugee status.The UNHCR provides very specific guidelines for countries of asylum to determine refugee status.
Although the data for the end of the 2014-year has not yet been released, it has been announced that by June 2014, the UNHCR mandate accounted for 13.0 million refugees — the highest the count has been since 1996. This indicates an increase of over 2.3 million just within the first six months of the year. This is an increase that the global community has not seen at all in the past 10 years.
The UNHCR count covers all refugees worldwide, excluding an approximated 4.9 million Palestinian refugees living in areas operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which focuses on assistance and protection for Palestinian refugees in the Near East. Palestinian refugees are defined as people who were displaced from Palestine in the two years leading up to Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 15, 1948. Palestinian refugees who do not remain in UNRWA territory have been counted in the UNHCR mandate. Even in the past 10 years, the number of Palestinians with refugee status has skyrocketed. The UNRWA reports that the number is currently at 4.9 million, over five times the number of refugees at the time of Israeli Independence. This is because descendants of Palestinian refugees are also eligible for refugee status with the UNRWA. This is noteworthy because they are the only refugees in the world who maintain refugee status across generations.
Based on the collective data between the UNHCR and the UNRWA, there are a recorded number of 17.9 million refugees. The refugees officially counted by the UNHCR are those who have been given official legal status as refugees, and are not internally displaced persons, stateless persons or persons seeking asylum. So in actuality, the number of displaced persons due to conflict globally is greater than 50 million. Of this number, according to studies conducted by the UNHCR, half of the world’s refugees are under the age of 18.
As documented by the UNHCR in 2013, Pakistan is the biggest host country of refugees, while Afghanistan and Syria are the biggest sources of refugees. According to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, 86 percent of the world’s refugees live in the developing world, compared to 70 percent just 10 years ago. While this increase shows a generosity on behalf of the receiving nations, Ban and other global humanitarian leaders have called upon developed nations that are better equipped to provide for refugees to open their doors.
The UNHCR looks to the international community to observe World Refugee Day as a time to donate to its campaign to provide resources for refugees and as an opportunity to spread awareness about the situations of refugees globally, therefore hopefully inspiring further compassion and action.
– Arin Kerstein