---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: IRIN <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 3:08 AM Subject: Your daily selection of IRIN Africa English reports, 6/15/2015 To: Elisabeth Janaina <[email protected]>
[image: IRINnews logo] <http://www.irinnews.org/>
humanitarian news and analysis
Table of contents
1. Refugee versus migrant: time for a new label? <#14df9b1dce2e2455_1>
2. Turn on the taps to defeat the next Ebola <#14df9b1dce2e2455_2>
------------------------------
*Refugee versus migrant: time for a new label?
<http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=101636>*
[image: lead photo]OXFORD, 15 June 2015 (IRIN) - Refugees and migrants have
been making the headlines like never before in recent months. With the
start of Refugee Week today, culminating in World Refugee Day on Saturday,
that focus is only set to intensify. So what exactly is a refugee? How are
they distinct from migrants, and why is it important?
The definition spelt out by the 1951 Refugee Convention is deceptively
simple: a refugee is someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being
persecuted” has fled to another country and is in need of protection.
The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, acknowledges that since the Refugee
Convention was drafted, global migration patterns have become much more
complex and refugees now often travel alongside millions of so-called
economic migrants.
UNHCR states on its website <http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html>
that “refugees and migrants, even if they often travel in the same way, are
fundamentally different, and for that reason are treated very differently
under modern international law.”
It goes on to explain that “migrants, especially economic migrants, choose
to move in order to improve the future prospects of themselves and their
families,” whereas “refugees have to move if they are to save their lives
or preserve their freedom.”
The reality is much murkier. People often move for a number of reasons that
may include fear of persecution as well as wanting to find better economic
opportunities, and they may move more than once, like the Syrians who
initially crossed into Turkey or Jordan but are now boarding boats to
Greece.
In an age when neither refugees nor migrants are particularly welcome, the
line between the two is increasingly blurred and the terms themselves have
become politically loaded. Most of the boats now crossing the Mediterranean
contain both migrants and refugees, a phenomenon that researchers refer to
as “mixed migration”. However, it often serves the interests of politicians
to refer to everyone crossing the Mediterranean as illegal migrants, while
rights groups and activists are more likely to call them all asylum-seekers
or refugees.
Melissa Phillips, a researcher at the University of Melbourne, has pointed
out
<http://migrantsatsea.org/2014/07/01/guest-post-the-effect-of-negative-labelling-why-are-we-still-talking-about-migrants/>
that such distinctions matter because migrants are generally viewed as much
less deserving of our sympathy and support than refugees.
“It is time we stopped talking solely about migrants and start to use more
technically accurate and relevant labels,” she writes.
The problem is that the labels themselves no longer seem adequate to
encompass people who migrate willingly, those who flee for their lives, and
the whole spectrum of forced displacement and self-determination that falls
in between.
* Refugees and asylum-seekers *
International refugee law experts tend to agree that someone becomes a
refugee the moment they have to flee their country, even if they are not
recognised as such until they seek asylum in a host country.
In trying to reach that country, they may be forced to travel as
undocumented migrants, crossing borders clandestinely, often relying on
smugglers.
“When people are on the move, they can only be described as migrants or
asylum-seekers,” said Chris Horwood, coordinator of the Nairobi-based
Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat.
“If an Eritrean gets refugee status in Sudan and then moves on (as most do)
towards Europe, even though they may think of themselves as registered
refugees, once they leave Sudan they are migrants/asylum-seekers again.”
Even after arriving in a host country, they remain asylum-seekers until
they have gone through a process of refugee status adjudication that is
supposed to determine whether or not they are really in need of
international protection.
Barbara Harrell-Bond, who started the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford
University before founding the International Refugee Rights Initiative,
pointed out that “adjudication without legal aid is likely to find many
refugees ‘not credible’ and reject them.”
While failed asylum-seekers may still consider themselves refugees, the
state that rejected them now considers them an irregular migrant who must
either leave the country or be forced to leave.
The problem of “asylum shopping” has come about because asylum systems vary
considerably from one country to the next. So while Norway granted asylum
to 95 percent of Eritreans who applied there last year, France only granted
asylum to about 15 percent. Unsurprisingly, asylum-seekers gravitate to the
countries where they have the best chance of being granted refugee status.
We have to remember that until there is a fair procedure conducted for
each person, we really don't know if the person is a refugee or not.
“We have to remember that until there is a fair procedure conducted for
each person, we really don’t know if the person is a refugee or not,”
commented Michael Kagan, co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the
University of Nevada.
Only in situations where there are mass movements of refugees – usually as
a result of war – and no need or capacity to do individual refugee status
determinations, do host governments sometimes make the decision to
recognise all new arrivals from that country as “prima facie” refugees.
*Migrants or refugees or both?*
When commentators do attempt to distinguish between the different groups
currently trying to cross the Mediterranean on smugglers’ boats, they tend
to designate Syrians and Eritreans as the bona fide asylum-seekers, while
the many West Africans arriving in southern Italy are all lumped together
as “economic migrants”. Similarly, most international attention on the
recent crisis in Southeast Asia focused on the Rohingya, a persecuted
minority from Myanmar, while the many Bangladeshis who also boarded
smugglers’ boats were dismissed as economic migrants.
“This kind of view ignores the very complex reasons for why people set out
on these very dangerous journeys in the first place,” said Ruben Andersson,
an anthropologist with the London School of Economics and author of
“Illegality, Inc.”
He noted that many West Africans have experienced violence and repression
in countries such as The Gambia, Mali and Nigeria before going to Libya,
where arbitrary detention and violence targeting foreigners forced them to
flee again.
<http:///Photo/Details/201505131451550939/Survivors-from-an-abandoned-smugglers-boat-that-came-ashore-on-the-Malaysian-island-of-Langkawi>
Photo: MAPIM <http://www.mapim2u.com/>
Survivors from an abandoned smugglers' boat that came ashore on the
Malaysian island of Langkawi included Rohingya asylum seekers and
Bangladeshi migrants.
The term “forced migrants” is sometimes used, mainly by academics, to
acknowledge the many people who migrate unwillingly but don’t fall under
the Refugee Convention’s technical definition of a refugee and are
therefore not entitled to international protection. This would include
people who have abandoned their homes and countries because of drought or
some other natural disaster.
“Public policy relies on the myth of clearly distinguishable categories,”
commented Loren Landau at the African Centre for Migration & Society at the
University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
“[But] our research in southern Africa suggests that people who claim
asylum or become refugees are, for the most part, little different in
experiences or needs than those who don't.”
He added that to say this publicly had become increasingly difficult as it
was viewed as giving ammunition to those who would like to place more
limits on asylum.
“Our terminology on human movement is in a real muddle,” concluded
Andersson. “A fundamental rethink of our terminology is needed that takes
account of secondary movement and mixed motivations while still ensuring
that international protection is safeguarded.”
ks/ag
Access report online <http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=101636>
------------------------------
*Turn on the taps to defeat the next Ebola
<http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=101637>*
[image: lead photo]DAKAR, 15 June 2015 (IRIN) - It is a cruel irony that
many of the top doctors and nurses in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will
not be around to help rebuild their health systems in the wake of Ebola,
having succumbed themselves to the virus. For those that are, the biggest
challenges are likely to be electricity, sanitation, and, most of all,
water.
“How is it possible to build, or rebuild, as you may call it, a health
institution or hospital without [access to] water, which serves as a major
catalyst to run the facility?” asked Moses Tamba, a spokesperson for
Liberia’s Ministry of Public Works. “It is not possible. You need water.”
With the head of one international aid organisation warning in recent days
<http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN0OU09320150614?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_content=buffer72d5b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>
that if the Ebola epidemic was to flare up again, health authorities in
West Africa would be no better off to deal with it than they were a year
ago, it is time to focus urgently on what can be done.
Even before the outbreak began in December 2013, the three countries that
were to become worst affected had some of the weakest health systems in the
world. Frequent power cuts and water shortages afflicted even the
most-developed clinics and hospitals in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone on
a near-daily basis.
During the Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 11,150 people in the
region and is still rife in Guinea and Sierra Leone, a lack of access to
water both in private households and public health clinics meant that the
virus, which is passed on through contact with infected individuals or
soiled materials, continued to spread.
Many people were unaware or unable to properly disinfect their homes and
belongings.
“You need water to boil to wash bedding, clothes, cooking utensils,
equipment and so forth,” Tamba said. “You need water to drink, both for
hospital staff and the patents. Electricity is also essential to operate
our health facilities. This is serious and every health facility needs
these [basic necessities].”
*Lessons learned*
Worldwide, more than 2.5 billion people still don’t have access to proper
sanitation facilities, including toilets, according to a 12 June joint
report <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/uhc-report/en/> by
the World Bank and World Health Organization.
In Guinea, a quarter of the population has no access to potable water,
according to the international development organisation WaterAid. In Sierra
Leone and Liberia, 40 percent and 25 percent of people, respectively, don’t
have sustainable access to safe drinking water.
“If you really look at these figures, they can help to explain some issues
around hygiene attitude and the context that has caused Ebola to spread,”
head of WaterAid’s West Africa region Mariame Dem told IRIN. “If you have
health centres where you can’t ensure proper hygiene practices, supported
by the availability of toilets… and if you can’t ensure 24-hour access to
safe water… it will really have a bad impact on [people’s] health and
hygiene.”
*Moving forward*
All three countries, backed by their international partners, have pledged
to improve their public health systems despite the fact that the Ebola
outbreak has strained their already limited resources.
In Guinea, the government has allocated more than $200 million to modernise
and equip Conakry’s Donka hospital with better access to water and
sanitation facilities. Across the country, 3,000 hand pumps will be
installed outside hospitals and health clinics so that “patients can stay
clean,” Health Minister Remy Lamah told IRIN.
The Guinean government has also just completed a new dam that will supply
hospitals and clinics in and around Conakry with “constant power.” The
government says it is also in the process of installing generators in many
of these facilities in case of power failures.
But, for many, it’s a question of too little too late.
“If the government had previously taken the initiative to improve the
Guinean health care system… Ebola could have been detected and eradicated
long ago,” said Mohamed Toure, an epidemiologist at Donka hospital, which
now contains the country’s largest Ebola treatment centre.
In Sierra Leone, Jonathon Abass Kamara, a public liaison officer at the
Ministry of Health, told IRIN that the government was, “working very hard
to ensure that public health services are improved beyond what they used to
be.”
He warned, however, that funding would be a problem.
Sierra Leone spends just 1.7 percent of GDP on public health expenditures,
according to the World Bank.
But Dem warned that fixing the problem would require a lot more than just
money.
“It’s obvious that funding, or rather, a lack of funding, is one of the
reasons [why water and sanitation remain poor] in these countries,” she
said. “But we also need to go beyond that because… the most important thing
is political will – not only by the government of the country, but also at
the global level.”
The world has already met the Millennium Development Goal of halving the
number of people who don’t have sustainable access to safe drinking water
by 2015, but Dem said even that wasn’t adequate for the fight against Ebola.
“We need to go beyond these commitments,” she said. “If you invest in water
and sanitation systems, you will not only give better quality health
services, but also lessen the burden, lessen the impact, in terms of
financial cost and human cost, of Ebola and these other diseases, during
times of crisis.”
*(With contributions from Prince Collins in Liberia, Karim Kamara in Guinea
and John Sahr in Sierra Leone)*
jl/kk/lc/pc/ag
Access report online <http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=101637>
------------------------------
Copyright © IRIN. All rights reserved. Details:
http://www.irinnews.org/copyright
unsubscribe <http://www.irinnews.org/registration/account/Unsubscribe>|
change
your subscription settings <http://www.irinnews.org/registration/account/>
IRIN <https://www.facebook.com/IRINnews> | Promote your Page too
<https://en-gb.facebook.com/advertising>
<https://www.facebook.com/IRINnews>
--
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob
View this message at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oqa7U6Bu%2Bh%3Do7epWxJHZrNBeDgQk%3D4c8yVZ5oSRBkXJDg%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Title:
Untitled Page
Parameter is not valid.at System.Drawing.Bitmap..ctor(String filename, Boolean useIcm) at Photo_Download.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) in c:\inetpub\newsite\photo\Download.aspx.cs:line 88
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob
View this message at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oqa7U6Bu%2Bh%3Do7epWxJHZrNBeDgQk%3D4c8yVZ5oSRBkXJDg%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
