Sansar News
This year, Refugee Day is being celebrated with the theme ‘Solidarity with Refugees’. Every year, in June 20th World Refugee Day is celebrated in many countries around the world with various events in support of refugees. These activities are led or involved by refugees themselves and by organizing communities, companies, celebrities and school children at the government level.
World Refugee Day highlights the rights and needs of refugees. It helps mobilize political will and resources. So that refugees can not only survive but also thrive. While it is important to protect and improve the lives of refugees every day, events like World Refugee Day
While it is important to protect and improve the lives of refugees every day so that they can thrive, international days like World Refugee Day help focus global attention on the plight of those fleeing conflict or persecution. Many activities organized on World Refugee Day create opportunities to support refugees.
People are forced to leave their homeland due to war, conflict or persecution within the country. People who are forced to leave their country in this way are called refugees. The imperialist US has been waging war and conflict in the world. In this process, the incidents of war and violence in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Yemen are similar to the wars and violence in Russia – Ukraine.
Other reasons for being forced to leave their homeland include political, ethnic, religious or gender-specific persecution. Increasingly, natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and extreme droughts have also forced people to become refugees.
According to the UN, every minute, 20 people leave everything to flee conflict, persecution, or terror, and World Refugee Day serves as an opportunity to build empathy and understanding for their predicament, as well as to recognise their resilience in reconstructing their lives.
According to the Geneva Convention, a refugee is a person who, owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of religion or war or of his status as a member of a particular social group or political opinion (political refugee), is unable to avail himself of the protection of that country or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of that protection. In real life, refugees swim to escape bombings in war-torn countries.
Women who cannot swim are forced to jump into the sea with their children to escape the bomb blasts in the country and reach the ‘civilized Western world’. There they are kept helplessly in locked cells.Many people die from simple appendicitis. Children living in modern concentration camps, so-called hot spots, unable to go to school, unable to play, suddenly becoming adults after seeing the dead bodies of their friends or family members, families separated while fleeing after a military attack on their place, and political leaders of powerful states preventing their reunion, Nor do they prevent their reunification, because ‘their economy’ cannot handle a large number of refugees.
There are currently 122.6 million people forcibly displaced including 43.7 million refugees of which 32 million are under the mandate of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 6 million are Palestinians under UNRWA’s and 5.8 million are others in need of international protection plus 72.1 million internally displaced and 8 million seeking asylum.
Apart from Bhutanese and Tibetans, refugees from nine different countries are taking shelter in Nepal. Among them, citizens of Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran, as well as African countries Somalia and Congo have also entered Nepal as refugees. The government has not granted refugee status to citizens of other countries apart from Bhutanese and Tibetans.
The government has put such citizens on a list of people residing illegally. Although there is no actual data, it is estimated that there are more than 50,000 refugees from various countries in Nepal due to the open borders.
As the protracted displacement of refugees increases, many conflicts and disasters have left them waiting for legal recognition for more than a decade, leading to a difficult life. More than 70 percent of them are in low- and middle-income countries. They are often in urban areas where legal, financial and structural barriers hinder their access to health. More than 47 million of them are children, who face barriers to access to health, education and protection.
Today, people around the world have become refugees, forced to flee wars, oppression, and disasters waged by the imperialist US in various countries. The plight of millions of refugees is appalling. Each refugee carries a story of profound loss. And they face uprooted families and a shattered future. Many refugees face closed doors and a growing wave of xenophobia. From Sudan to Ukraine, from Haiti to Myanmar, people are fleeing for their lives.
While support is dwindling. And, in developing countries, host communities are often bearing the brunt of the burden. This is unfair and unsustainable. But even as the world shrinks, refugees continue to show extraordinary courage, resilience and determination
Solidarity on World Refugee Day means promoting humanitarian and development assistance, expanding protection and durable solutions such as resettlement, upholding the right to seek asylum as a pillar of international law, and pressing for an end to war. It also means listening to refugees and ensuring their voices are heard in shaping their future. And it means investing in long-term integration through education, decent work and equal rights. Being a refugee is never an option. Refugees’ right to life must be guaranteed in the spirit of humanity.
Providing adequate support to refugees means fighting to eliminate the causes that lead to forced displacement and refugee status. And, most importantly, preventing wars.
It must be done and brought to light. This is capitalism, a socio-economic system based on the greed of big capital, where war and conflict have taken place.
The working class of the world needs to intensify its struggle, develop its solidarity and increase its activities around the refugee issue, regardless of race, nationality, religion or gender, to support refugees. It is not just about helping or donating to refugees. It is necessary to celebrate Refugee Day with demands and movements for the reunification of all refugee families who were separated while fleeing their homes, for access to schooling for all refugee children, for an immediate end to all wars and military interventions.
Imperialist military conflicts have generated migration and refugee crises. Similarly, there is a conflict between powerful states seeking to control the natural resources of their people for profit, between multinational companies; this is nothing less than exploitation that divides society between rich and poor.
The exploitation and plunder of the wealth of underdeveloped countries is a driving force behind poverty and migration. Therefore, the elimination of the external debt of poor countries should become a major agenda of the international trade union movement.
Similarly, to protect the lives and rights of migrants and refugees, to condemn racism and discrimination against migrant workers and to promote the joint struggle of local and migrant workers and to promote the rights of workers regardless of their race, origin, language, religion, etc. And public services for migrants and refugees should be provided with all necessary and permanent staff, without the involvement of international NGOs, to meet their contemporary needs, regardless of their race, origin, language, religion, etc.
(Mr Khanal is the Presidential Council Member of World Federation of Trade Unions -(WFTU))
वि.सं.२०८२ साउन २२ बिहीवार १९:४६ मा प्रकाशित
