It is no coincidence that the current crisis in Rakhine State in Burma has taken place against the back-drop of Burma’s widely hailed, yet still fragile, democratic reform process, the beginnings of which were marked by the elections of 2010.…
In February 2012, the South Korean press reported that China’s police were holding some 30 North Koreans who had crossed the border illegally, and were about to return them. Although this practice had been going on for many years, the…
The demands placed on the humanitarian community in emergencies are enormously challenging. These are compounded by the fact that the IT and telecommunications infrastructure – critical for efficiently carrying out life-saving operations, though often taken for granted at headquarter level…
For women refugees, work is frequently a double-edged sword. To meet basic needs, even within a camp, displaced women must often work to feed and educate their children, and displacement can create new opportunities for them to earn money and…
It is estimated that 4.3 million people globally were affected by forced evictions in 2007-08. In the developing world especially, there is a hope that grassroots mobilisation can serve as a means for marginalised groups to address such challenges. Dar…
Among humanitarians and students of international law, Fridtjof Nansen is mainly remembered as the first High Commissioner for Refugees whose ‘Nansen passport’ provided a degree of international protection to scores of paperless refugees. A wider public knows him as the…
Thirty years ago ICARA 1 (International Conference on Assistance to Refugees in Africa, 1981) and ICARA 2 (1984) highlighted the ‘burden’ that refugees place on their hosts: imposing additional costs on already hard-pressed public and social welfare budgets, arresting economic…
Cultural orientation (CO) programmes operate in over 40 countries to facilitate the resettlement of refugees in the United States (US). These programmes focus on employment, housing, education, health, money management, travel, hygiene and the role of the resettlement agency. Previous…
NGOs that provide support in the Global South for refugees and asylum seekers in the refugee status determination process (RSD) or with respect to asylum claims usually host both domestic and foreign attorneys in their offices. What, then, should their…
Since internal displacement takes place within the boundaries of a state, its prevention and the protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs) are first and foremost a duty of the concerned state. However, other states not confronted with displacement on their…