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February 13, 2005

"From Flight to Freedom?" - The 2005 Inter-University Forced Migration Conference

Government advisers, NGO leaders, academics, and senior statesmen gathered for two days in ASEAN auditorium to discuss a critical problem that is, in the words of one panelist, “as old as the hills” – how to address the worldwide plight of refugees and internationally displaced persons (IDPs) as part of the 2005 Inter-University Forced Migration Conference at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

The conference, entitled “From Flight to Freedom? Tracing the Path of Displacement” drew an audience from Tufts, Harvard, Dartmouth and other New England universities in for a variety of panels: Health & Nutrition, Education, Security, and Livelihoods. Speakers addressed students and educators on these issues from the gamut of their own experiences either working directly with refugees and IDPs, or planning policy and funding for national program to deal with such migrant communities.

Keynote speaker Lavinia Limon, President and CEO of the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, set a challenging tone with words and ideas that would characterize the whole conference. She began by severely criticizing the current and common practice of “warehousing” refugees.

“Does that term objectify refugees? Will people be offended?” she asked. “Yes, but it’s OK, because we’re offended that it’s happening, and the practice is more offensive than the term.”

The average duration of a protracted refugee situation for an individual refugee has grown from nine years in 1993 to seventeen years today, Limon said. We may have standards which provide refugees with “medical care and schools,” she said, “but they have no future, no hope, no life, and time stands still.”

Ambassador Leonard Ngaithe of Kenya echoed the truth of this firsthand with a verbal snapshot of his own country’s experience, where 230,000 refugees and forced migrants have sought temporarily asylum from such conflict zones as Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti, Mozambique.

“Kenya is a developing country with its own problems, but as a country it is Kenya’s moral responsibility to help these refugees however we can,” he said. While education and training for refugees is free, Kenya is an economically struggling nation in which jobs – even for Kenyans – are scarce.

The case of Kenya is only one example of the dilemma posed for many states who provide protection and refuge, albeit limited, to forced migrants; how best to reconcile the needs of the refugees with the needs of the local population. Ngaithe said the solution is not only to provide for refugees in camps, but to work for peace and conflict resolution so that refugees can someday return home.

“Once there is peace there we expect that some of the refugees will go back home,” he said. “But nobody’s pushing them – we want them to go back in their own time, when it is safe to go…because as some return, hopefully the ones that remain will have a chance at a better life, because there will more resources available.”

Presenter Cindy Horst of the Amsterdam Research Institute for Global Issues and Development Studies, and former moderator for the UN High Commission for Refugees’ livelihoods network, also recognized the economic strain that influxes of refugees have normally created for host countries. But her solution called for a change in thinking, one that would focus “not only on economic costs…but on what a country can gain by have refugees stay in their country.”

“We can assist refugees…acknowledging and building on their existing efforts and skills… focusing not only on economic costs that they create, but on their potential, their assets, what can a country gain by having refugees stay in their country,” she said.

Quang Nguyen, a former refugee himself and current director of employment at the International Institute of Boston, suggested that a respite could come from developing refugees’ skills as well. “There’s [still] a big gap between the level of the forced migrants we work with and the requirements the employers put out to hire people,” he said. Since September 11th, he added, security concerns make it even more difficult to find a job.

While Limon agreed with these principles, she stressed that the problem was not coming up with new standards for protection, education, and acclamation for refugees – just implementing the ones that already exist, in the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. She reminded the audience that no policy maker is searching for a perfect solution. “Getting refugee protection doesn’t mean you’re not going to be poor, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to be digging ditches for a living. We’re not asking that their lives be made radically different because their refugees; we’re asking that nothing be taken away from them. And if we don’t get that that’s wrong, and that we have to change our policies, nothing’s going to happen.”

Fletcher student Marty Schmith, who was also the Conference’s main coordinator, asked Limon what the incentive was to change their attitude. “It’s really going to have to come from the donor nations saying ‘we don’t want to be complicit in incarcerating persecuted people anymore’,” she answered. “Therefore, we want the policies to change, and we’re going to commit to doing something different.”

“People often say we have to look at developing policy for forced migrants,” Horst said. “I think the best way to do this is to say ‘we need to look at developing policy with forced migrants.’”

Article by Karoun Demirjian, MALD '06

Posted by jessica at February 13, 2005 12:34 PM