What does success look like for newly resettled refugees? While exact expectations differ from country to country, self-sufficiency is the main goal, and the path to self-sufficiency must happen fast – often inordinately so. In the US, direct services provided…
In the wake of the 2010 earthquake, adolescent girls in Haiti became increasingly responsible for caring for their younger siblings and for earning an income. Over two years later, girls living in IDP camps and other relocation sites, particularly those…
The concept of protracted displacement situations is built on assumptions of largely sedentary populations waiting for durable (ie permanent and sustainable) solutions, and a regulated and documented existence within defined and accepted boundaries (of state, of official status and of…
Kakuma refugee camp is ‘home’ for refugees who come from many different countries in Africa and whose daily lives are directed and constrained by many rules and policies, both from the host country, Kenya, and UNHCR. Most of the camp’s…
‘Tolerated stay’ is only one among over 60 different protection statuses granted on 15 different grounds among European Union (EU) countries. It is often granted to persons whose removal is impossible either for practical reasons (such as lack of documents…
Internal displacement is such a widespread and longstanding phenomenon in Afghanistan that according to the ICRC over 76% of the Afghan population has experienced displacement. As of the end of June 2012, the number of IDPs reported in Afghanistan was…
There has been an alarming rise in the number of IDPs in Nigeria for reasons including ethnic, religious and political conflicts, violations of human rights, and mostly human-made and occasional natural disasters such as floods. Nigeria at present, however, has…
For residents of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon their prospects for the future are bleak; employment is hard to come by and most suffer difficult living conditions and a precarious socio-economic situation. In such an environment, depression affects almost…
In the late 1980s the government of Bhutan passed a series of restrictive laws that led to the expulsion of roughly one sixth of the nation’s population (mostly, Nepali-speaking minorities). Close to 100,000 Bhutanese refugees fled to eastern Nepal, where…
Argentina has a long tradition of immigration. Relatively high local wages, general economic prosperity, sound public education and a liberal legal framework encouraged European immigration, particularly between 1870 and 1914 and – though less significantly – in 1919-39 and 1945-60.…