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Refugees Human Rights Have No Borders AI Index: ACT 34/03/97 Preface

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Refugees Human Rights Have No Borders AI Index: ACT 34/03/97 Preface Refugees Human Rights have no borders AI Index: ACT 34/03/97 Preface Amnesty International’s one million members around the world believe that human rights are for everyone. They lobby governments all over the world to improve their human rights records and to use their influence over other states to enhance the protection of human rights. Amnesty International’s members work with the news media to expose abuses and mobilize public opinion. They organize locally, nationally and internationally to build the momentum for change. They collaborate with other organizations, including refugee groups, in the struggle to build a fairer and safer world. As part of this work, Amnesty International opposes the forcible return (refoulement) of any person to a country where he or she would be at risk of falling victim to imprisonment as a prisoner of conscience1, torture, “disappearance”, extrajudicial execution or the death penalty. This is the basis of Amnesty International’s work for refugees. It is an important element of preventive human rights work — acting to prevent human rights violations, not just responding after they have occurred. Amnesty International calls on governments to ensure that they do not obstruct asylum-seekers’ access to their countries and that they provide asylum procedures that are fair, impartial and thorough. The organization demands that no asylum-seeker is forcibly expelled without having had his or her claim properly examined. It also calls on states to ensure that they do not expel anyone to a country which may itself forcibly return them to danger. Much of Amnesty International’s work on behalf of refugees is carried out by the movement’s national sections based in the countries where people seek protection. Amnesty International members provide information about human rights violations in asylum-seekers’ countries of origin to governments, to those who make decisions on asylum claims, and to lawyers and others working on behalf of asylum-seekers. Amnesty International’s sections also monitor governments’ asylum policies and practices to ensure they are adequate to identify and protect those at risk. In some casesAmnesty International members intervene directly with the authorities to prevent the refoulement of a refugee. This report is part of a worldwide Amnesty International campaign for refugees’ human rights. The campaign, launched in March 1997, focuses on three cornerstone issues, which are increasingly threatened, undermined or ignored by governments around the world: human rights protection in countries of origin — action to prevent human rights violations, so that people are not forced to leave their countries in search of safety; human rights protection in countries of asylum — action to ensure that those who flee human rights violations are allowed to reach a place of safety, that they are given effective protection against refoulement, and that their human rights are respected in their host country; human rights protection at the international level — action to ensure that human rights considerations are paramount in decisions about refugee protection issues, such as the need for protection of people internally displaced within their own countries, developments in international refugee law and practice, and programs for refugees to return home. Human rights activists involved with refugees face a dual challenge at the international level. They must defend the protection provided by international refugee and human rights law in 2 the face of growing government efforts to avoid and circumvent their obligations. They must also strive to ensure that as new human rights challenges arise, the system of international protection is able to meet those challenges. Amnesty International urges all people concerned with human rights to join this campaign to remind the world’s governments that every refugee is a human being with rights that must be respected. Introduction “People often ask what it was like, but most people don’t listen when you tell them how bad it really was.” A Bosnian woman refugee Refugees have been forced to abandon their homes, friends and livelihoods. Some have responded instinctively to an immediate and terrible threat. Others have taken the painful decision to leave their country after a long period of uncertainty, when all other options have failed. All have had their lives overturned by forces beyond their control. Each would be at grave risk of human rights violations if returned home. Every refugee is entitled to international protection. But the international system that is supposed to protect refugees is in crisis. Over recent years the number of refugees has significantly increased — from around eight million a decade ago to around 15 million today — as human rights crises have proliferated. At the same time, governments’ commitment to offering asylum is dwindling, as is their political will to resolve the crises from which people have been forced to flee. This report shows that there is a clearly identifiable (and preventable) reason for the flight of so many refugees from their homes — human rights violations. Some such people who have fled from their countries have been given asylum. Others have not. This report explains how international and regional refugee treaties define who is eligible for protection as a refugee, and what rights refugees are entitled to under these treaties. It emphasizes that refugees are entitled to have all their basic human rights protected. The report highlights the ways in which governments are evading or avoiding their international obligations towards refugees. It addresses refugee issues that are currently being debated by the international community, including voluntary repatriation, “temporary protection” and the failure of governments to share the responsibility for the world’s refugees. The report concludes by making a series of recommendations based on human rights principles to ensure protection for refugees. Amnesty International believes such steps are urgently needed to safeguard the interests of the 15 million individuals who have uprooted themselves to search for safety. The overwhelming majority of these people — 90 per cent — live in the south, many in the world’s poorest countries. Africa shelters more than twice as many refugees as Europe, North America and Oceania combined. This stark fact reflects the sad reality that northern states, despite their small share of the world’s refugee population, have taken concerted steps to make it nearly impossible for refugees to enter their territories and to deny protection to many of those who do succeed. The cases highlighted in this report reflect only a small proportion of the world’s refugees. Typically, refugees have walked across a border to a neighbouring country, where they eke out a precarious living or depend on often unreliable relief supplies. The vast majority are women and children, a reality often hidden by the fact that most of those who manage to reach relatively wealthy countries and apply for asylum are men. Most women have fled for the same reasons as men — to avoid repression, violence and human rights abuses. Some, however, have left their 3 countries to escape abuses that are directed solely or primarily at women, such as sexual violence. Some women seek sanctuary abroad from “private” violence, such as domestic violence, when their government will make no effort to protect them, or to avoid female genital mutilation. Other women, as well as men, face persecution because of their sexual orientation. In addition to the world’s 15 million refugees, an estimated 25 to 30 million people have been forced to leave their homes because of human rights violations or threats to their lives, but have not crossed — or have been unable to cross — an international border. They are displaced within their own countries. Again, most are in the poorest parts of the world, often within or near conflict zones. The international response to the plight of internally displaced people has been uneven at best, and at worst driven by narrow political and economic interests. Continuing human rights violations The human rights violations that force people to seek international protection continue unabated. All over the world, governments driven by political expediency and self-interest commit atrocities. They stand by while police officers and prison guards torture prisoners. They actively or tacitly encourage their forces to kill political opponents or people identified as “undesirable”. They foster ethnic division and racial violence. Some states have disintegrated into a patchwork of territories controlled by warring factions for whom looting, raping and killing have become routine. Vicious internal conflicts, often based on ethnic differences, have spread. And so individuals, families and whole communities are forced to seek refuge abroad. Every refugee has a unique story to tell — a story of repression and abuse, of fear and flight. If governments fulfilled their responsibilities — if they protected their citizens instead of persecuting them — then millions of women, men and children would not have to gamble on an uncertain future in a foreign land, and those in exile could return home safely. The growing number of refugees is neither a temporary problem nor the random product of chance events. It is the predictable consequence of human rights crises, the result of decisions made by individuals who wield power over people’s lives. Amnesty International calls on states to learn from past mistakes and to heed the warnings of human rights organizations. In the past those warnings have too often been ignored with tragic consequences. In the year before the outbreak of genocidal violence in Rwanda, the UN was repeatedly urged by human rights organizations, as well as its own senior advisers, to take action to protect civilians from massacres. These appeals were not heeded. The UN’s member states allowed the situation to deteriorate and then, when mass killings began, withdrew almost all UN troops. More than two million Rwandese refugees fled their country. Refugees are not necessarily safe even when they have succeeded in escaping.
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