Refugees, UNHCR and Host Countries
Livunia Limon, Executive Director of the U S Committee for Refugees (USCR) once wrote “What if your world had stood still for the last ten years? What if none of your plans had been materialized? What if the events in your life during the last ten years had been eating, sleeping, births, and deaths- all experienced in dire poverty, isolation, and stultifying idleness? What if the only exceptions to this numbing boredom were occasional attacks by armed invaders, rapes, murders, or opportunities to be trafficked? What if you couldn’t work, go to school, or travel outside your immediate environment? What if you and your children had no future, no hope, and no freedom? Then you become a refugee!” These questions are sufficient to explain what a refugee really has. Someone, whose next meal is not dependent upon international charity, hardly understands a refugee. Limon even termed refugee as an object of billions of dollars in international donations and burden-sharing efforts.
Jalozai camp, home to over 70, 000 Afghan refugees, outside Peshawar is one of the oldest refugee camps in Pakistan. Set up for Afghans who rushed to Pakistan when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Jalozai was to close-down formally from April 15 following a tripartite agreement between refugee leaders, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Afghan government. When police tried to dismantle the huts of refugees on April 15, thousands of refugees restricted police and even pelted bulldozers and armoured automobiles. A heartfelt tragedy to lose shelter, the government applied force to demolish some 500 shops at the camps and even power and water supplies were suspended. The prime reason of demolition, as claimed by Pakistani government, was the camp had become hiding places for Taliban militants. Addressing them a heaven for terrorists and criminals, over the past five years Pakistan has been pressurizing UNHCR to shut down Jalozai camp.
UNHCR is a mandated body to mobilize the funds from potential donors for the welfare and protection of refugees. Its activities should target the wellbeing and better protection of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) rather than accelerating the closure of a refugee camp. The global initiative of UNHCR to extend care and shelter is praiseworthy and would remain immortal. However, just making a refugee or IDP survived is not the ultimate goal. Refugees should be given freedom to choose where they want to spend their life.
According to 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, no refugees can be forced to choose repatriation, local integration or third country resettlement. UNHCR, which has been appealing to Iraq’s neighbors to postpone the repatriation of Iraqi refugees, expressing concern about safety and the lack of international representatives inside the country, was ready to assist Pakistani government to demolish Jalozai camp forgetting that weather conditions in Afghanistan stand as the greatest barriers for rehabilitation of returnees. According to World Refugee Survey of the USCR, of the world’s nearly 12 million refugees, more than 7 million languish in refugee camps or segregated settlements in situations lasting ten years or more, some for generations.
When a refugee or IDP spends his generous life meaninglessly in a protracted situation, it should be the efforts of both host country and UNHCR to relieve him to lead a dignified life. The UNHCR Global Consultations on International Protect has stressed that a protected refugee situation is one where, over time, there have been considerable changes in refugees’ needs, which neither UNHCR nor the host country have been able to address in a meaningful manner, thus leaving refugees in a state of material dependency and often without adequate access to basic rights including employment, freedom of movement and education, even after many years spent in the host country.
In conclusion, it is noteworthy to mention here that Afghans from Jalozai camp should have opportunity to be shifted to other camps in Pakistan until the conditions for repatriation to their country become favourable. There are dozens of camps within Pakistan where, according to the UNHCR, two million Afghan refugees dwell. Further, Pakistan should respect Article 26 of 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees clearly states that each Contracting State shall accord to refugees lawfully in its territory the right to choose their place of residence and to move freely within its territory, subject to any regulations applicable to aliens generally in the same circumstances. UNHCR could play a unique monitoring role by ensuring that refugees and IDPs enjoy their Convention rights, qualifying any resulting fiscal burden to the host country, and presenting the bill to donors. It is equally important for host country to acknowledge the fact that refugees often bring with them skills, business experiences than their local counterparts, and knowledge of markets in their host countries.