Line of Inquiry #1
Institutions That Help Promote Human Rights Jesuit Refugee Service Indonesia Foundation is an organization founded on November 14th, 1980. During the last 30 years, JRS helped the rights of refugees both those in the refugee camps and urban areas. With all staff and volunteers, JRS provides services to refugees in West Timor, IDPs in Moluccas, Aceh and North Sumatera ,West Java, Central Java, and people affected by natural disaster of Special Province of Yogyakarta. Since 2009, JRS Indonesia played a role in accompanying refugees and asylum seekers in accordance to its initial mandate. JRS Indonesia Foundation started to accompany Rohingya asylum seekers in Aceh and North Sumatera. “SUAKA” is the Bahasa Indonesia word for asylum. It came together in October 2012 when a group of like-minded individuals and organisations realised that there was a problem in providing legal assistance and human rights advocacy for asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia. Mission Suaka works to protect and promote the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia by: 1. Providing legal aid, advice and information to asylum seekers and refugees; 2. Empowering asylum seekers and refugees to understand and support their human rights; 3. Raising public awareness on asylum and refugee issues 4. Supporting policies that protect the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. For over 20 years Red Cross has been providing support to people who have arrived in Australia seeking protection. They work with people regardless of how they arrived in Australia and regardless of their immigration status. They believe that everyone deserves the right to dignity and respect. Asylum seekers can face extreme hardship and uncertainty about the future. Their programs are designed to provide support and opportunities for asylum seekers while they resolve their immigration status. How they help They help asylum seekers access medical, housing and other necessary services. They provide housing for families and children who are living in the community and offer support to help ensure children attend school in the local community. They offer one-on-one case work to eligible clients and run group education sessions for asylum seekers. In these sessions they provide information on topics such as finding accommodation, setting up bank accounts and accessing government services. The Canadian Council for Refugees is an organization dedicated to the rights and protection of refugees and other vulnerable migrants in Canada and around the world. The Council serves the networking, information-exchange and advocacy needs of its membership. The mandate of the Canadian Council for Refugees is rooted in the belief that: Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from hostility. The Danish Refugee Council is currently implementing a broad range of activities relevant to conflict affected communities and persons. The activities are categorized in ten sectors: Shelter and Non-food Items, Food Security, Protection, Income Generation, Coordination & Operational Services, Community Infrastructure & Services, Humanitarian Mine Action, Armed Violence Reduction, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH), and Education. These sectors should be seen as cross-cutting, providing a broad overview of the work and various activities of DRC’s numerous programmes across more than 30 conflict pr displacement affected countries worldwide. UNHCR has been operating in the Philippines for over 30 years. UNHCR supports the process where refugees can get citizenship and helps refugees to become self confident. UNHCR assumed leadership of the protection cluster under the joint UN response to the situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mindanao in mid-2010. It assists the authorities to ensure that the protection needs of vulnerable populations are met through effective coordination. In the context of a renewed dialogue between the Government and armed groups in southern Philippines, UNHCR established presence in Mindanao by opening a field office in Cotabato City. In early 2012, UNHCR expanded its presence in the islands with two filed units: one in Iligan and in Davao City. The establishment of these offices addresses the issues related to internal displacement to operationalize the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. An estimated 11 million Syrians have fled their homes since the civil war in March 2011. Now, people are in need of assistance within the country. Among those escaping the conflict, the majority have sought refuge in neighbouring countries or within Syria itself. According to the UNHCR, 4.8 million have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, and 6.6 million are displaced within Syria. About one million have requested asylum to Europe. Germany, with more than 300,000 applications, and Sweden with 100,000, are EU’s top receiving countries. It is true that the EU is a leading contributor to the humanitarian aid to the region, the amount donated by each of its 28 member states varies greatly. To date, the EU has accepted the vast majority of Syrians who have requested asylum. Despite the exponential increase in 2015, these have accounted for less than 10% of the total number of displaced Syrians. In contrast, absorbing the influx of refugees has been an enormous challenge for Syria’s neighbours, with strong implications for the stability of the entire region. ORAM’s mission is to enable the international community to protect vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers. To this end, they are dedicated to delivering innovative tools, cutting-edge research and empirically-based assessment programs for refugee professionals around the world. They work closely with governments of refugee-receiving and transit countries, the United Nations, international NGOs, community and faith-based organizations, and academic institutions. Through their capacity-building programs, they have trained thousands of professionals on refugee protection and claims adjudication. Their tools are utilized by thousands of refugee professionals and agencies worldwide. They are trusted by governments, international agencies and communities to develop and deliver rare expertise in their constantly evolving field. By training refugee professionals and making their tools accessible to them, they reach hundreds of thousands who seek refuge and asylum. Line of Inquiry #2 Right to free movement, protection in another country and nationality A refugee has the right to safe asylum. Refugees should receive at least the same rights and basic help as any other foreigner who is a legal resident, including freedom of thought, of movement, and freedom from torture and degrading treatment. Economic and social rights are equal. Refugees should have access to medical care, schooling and the right to work. The international organizations such as UNHCR may include financial grants, food, tools and shelter and basic infrastructure such as schools and clinics. With projects such as income-generating activities and skill training programme, UNHCR makes every effort to ensure that refugees become self-sufficient as quickly as possible. People's opinion on Refugees I believe that refugees should be treated as normal people because they have been unlucky with their circumstances and have no choice but to do things which are illegal, such as leaving their home land without a visa. If anyone else was in the situation of a refugee, they would react much, much worse. Nobody in our world deserves to be put under that pressure, and it makes me feel how privileged we are to all have a roof under our heads. Refugees are after all human beings like us. Think about a refugee who came from nothing, came to Australia in a visa given by the government, and established a huge business that made him a lot of money. If you didn't know anything about this person, how would you perceive them? You would hold the person in high regard, but if he knew him from his past as a refugee, you would perceive him as an unimportant person. - Peter Frangos Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, now look what is happening all over Europe and indeed the world a horrible mess! - Trump To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. - Justin Trudeau At last, child refugees are being rescued from the squalor and danger of the Calist Camp and brought to Britain. But the process has taken far too long; and even now it is still too slow. This evening, 24 hours after the French government declared “job done”, the home secretary was sending angry messages to her opposite number to demand that children left to sleep rough on the first night were now properly protected. The Home Office is finally grinding into action. But the inaction of both London and Paris, allowing the camp to fester for years, has meant it metastasised into a crisis of inhumanity, devastating for its victims and shaming for the British government. Many of the people who cross Europe to Calais do so to come to Britain, a country where many have family, where they share a language, and think they have the best chance of getting a job or an education. They are only a tiny number compared with the thousands who find refuge in Germany and Sweden. But the British government still insists that asylum seekers must apply in the first safe country they reach. It argues that admitting asylum seekers through Calais acts as a pull factor, attracting even young and vulnerable children to make a perilous journey from which only people smugglers benefit. Charities that work in the camps and try to help people with their paperwork believe the inertia comes from the very top of the British government. Even after the Home Office was forced by parliament earlier this year to accept the Dubs amendment allowing in as many as 3,000 unaccompanied minors without family ties in the UK, the decision was taken to work in Greece and Italy among newly arrived refugees, rather than in Calais. While Yvette Cooper, now chair of the home affairs committee, argued that each country should take half the children and teenagers, progress remained near-invisible. Only this month, as domestic political pressure has the Home Office agreed to take children under the Dubs deal along with those with British family advertisement. - TheGuardian |
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