55th Session of the UNHCR
Executive Committee of the High Commissioner's Programme
Geneva, 4 - 8 October 2004

GENERAL DEBATE

NGO SUBMISSION

FACILITATED BY ICVA WITH INPUT FROM A WIDE VARIETY OF NGOS

Mr. Chairman,

This statement has been drafted, and is delivered, on behalf of a wide range of NGOs.

As UNHCR's partners, we first wish to express our appreciation for being able to address this session of EXCOM. We would like to pay tribute to outgoing Ambassador Jean-Marc Boulgaris and Rapporteur Laura Joyce for their inclusion of, and interaction with, NGOs throughout the year. We look forward to continuing this fruitful relationship with the new Bureau and EXCOM.

The European Solution?
NGOs condemn the recent deportations of hundreds of asylum-seekers from the Italian island of Lampedusa to Libya. Such an action could amount to collective expulsion and could be a violation of the right of these people to seek and enjoy asylum.

While we agree that economic reasons are not within the ambit of the 1951 Convention as a basis for seeking asylum, these deportations and possible refoulement are of particular concern given Libya's record of detaining and refouling refugees and of deporting migrants. The European Court of Human Rights has consistently ruled that the principle of non-refoulement prevents removal to a country where an individual may be at risk of persecution. As the Court has ruled, this principle also prevents removal to a country from which a person may subsequently be removed to a third country where they could face persecution.

NGOs are alarmed by recent loose plans, proposed by a number of European governments, to effectively cordon off the Mediterranean to prevent asylum-seekers and migrants from reaching Europe's borders. We understand that these plans also foresee these people being kept in processing centres (i.e. camps) in North Africa. Similar plans are being made in other contexts than the so-called Mediterranean approach. We understand that, fortunately, the Ukrainian government has not agreed to plans from other European governments to "offload" Chechens by holding them and processing them in camps in the Ukraine.

Such policies severely undermine the refugee protection regime, in particular the 1951 Refugee Convention, and are in flagrant contradiction of the well-recognised international principles of responsibility-sharing and solidarity.

States should also keep in mind the costs associated with such off-shore plans. The decision by Australia to process asylum-seekers in the Pacific has resulted in each application costing an estimated five times what it would cost if the application was assessed in Australia: approximately USD 180,000 compared to about USD 36,000.

Interception/Interdiction
The policies and practices to "manage migration," however, are not exclusive to Europe. NGOs are concerned that many governments have resorted to numerous interception and interdiction measures, without the concurrent sufficient safeguards to assess protection needs and ensure refugee protection, including non-refoulement.

Effective protection
The desire of many governments to keep refugees and asylum seekers in their regions of origin," has also given rise to the debate of what constitutes effective protection.

As we gather here in Geneva, the large majority of refugees are facing insecurity, poverty, and discrimination. They continue to be crowded into unsafe and unsanitary camps and are unable to enjoy fundamental economic, social and cultural rights, and durable solutions are not easily found. At the same time, asylum-seekers continue to be denied access to territory and refugee status determination procedures.

If we agree that we must locate any discussion about "effective protection" in this context, we will understand the formidable task of the international community to provide quality protection in the foreseeable future. As a starting point, refugees should enjoy all the rights enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, especially those related to their ability to earn a livelihood and move freely. Effective or quality protection requires the fulfilment of the various elements of protection, firmly grounded in international human rights standards, and where the dignity of the individual human being is an essential component. It should be linked to the search for, and delivery of, durable solutions.

Of particular concern are refugee women who often experience multiple incidents of sexual and gender based violence, leaving them extremely vulnerable. Sadly the international protection system often fails to respond to the needs of these women.

Impact of counter-terrorist measures on asylum seekers The ongoing campaign against terrorism has seriously undermined the respect for international law, in particular human rights and refugee law, at a time when it most needs to be upheld.

In many cases, governments have opportunistically seized upon the fight against terrorism to justify sweeping, arbitrary, and disproportionate measures against non-citizens, including refugees and asylum-seekers. In addition to individual cases of refoulement and the violation of refugee law by a number of governments, such measures have included prolonged arbitrary detention of foreign nationals, in some cases constituting blanket detention of asylum-seekers coming from certain countries; summary expulsions; and failure to respect the right to due process guarantees in asylum-processes. These counter-terrorist measures are often discriminatory in nature and disproportionately affect non-citizens from particular countries.

The above measures constitute a flagrant violation of states' obligations under international law, in particular human rights and refugee law. Refugees and asylum-seekers must no longer be a casualty of the campaign against terrorism.

Humanitarian Context
NGOs understand UNHCR's commitment, as a UN agency, to integrated UN missions. However, being partners of the UN, we are concerned about the increase in the number of integrated UN missions, as these missions seem to have contributed to a further blurring of the lines between the humanitarian and military and political arms of the international system. NGOs are particularly concerned about the potential wedge that integrated missions may drive between UN and non-UN agencies because of the lack of distinction between humanitarian action and the broader political drive.

We urge that governments take into consideration the impact that their militaries undertaking "humanitarian" work can have on real humanitarian workers. This so-called humanitarian role of militaries is further blurring the lines and contributing to increased insecurity.

IDPs/Darfur
The question of the trigger for UNHCR's responsibility in an IDP response continues to be an unanswered one. Despite various policy documents issued by UNHCR, it still seems that the decision of UNHCR to get involved in an IDP situation remains an ad hoc one. We welcome, however, UNHCR's commitment to the inter-agency process to put in place procedures related to the collaborative approach. The severe lack of consultation in assigning operational responsibility to IOM for the IDPs in Darfur is one that we hope will not be repeated in future situations.

Given UNHCR's protection experience and expertise, UNHCR should have been more pro-active in encouraging the international community to operationalise protection for IDPs in Darfur at an earlier date. UNHCR should also have been more forthcoming in terms of providing protection officers in Darfur. We believe that such a proactive role could potentially have avoided that a non-protection agency, IOM, was handed a protection role by the Government of Sudan. In this respect, we welcome the views and efforts of a number of humanitarian agencies and others to find other ways to ensure protection for IDPs in Darfur. Such an approach is a welcome alternative to the MoU between the Government of Sudan and IOM.

Food Security
NGOs welcome the focus of this session of EXCOM on food security and the dialogue with WFP. We hope that concrete steps to improve the provision and distribution of food will also be part of this continuing process.

The severe and long-lasting physical, mental, and psycho-social consequences of denial of fundamental human rights of displaced persons - including the right to food - urgently need to be addressed.

We also note the crucial aspect of food security in sustainable repatriation movements. Inadequate and inequitable food allowances for returnees jeopardise the sustainability of returns and fail to take into account the time required for allowing returnees to become self-sufficient.

We oppose any reductions in rations as a push factor for refugee returns. These reductions, witnessed in several countries, seriously affect the well-being of refugees and runs counter to the concept of voluntary repatriation.

Urban Refugees
Many urban refugees do not enjoy access to a legal status or to basic economic, social, and cultural rights, such as the right to work or to adequate housing. Many urban refugees around the world fall into a "protection gap" and are thereby rendered invisible to the international community. Unaccompanied minors living in urban areas face specific problems; they are particularly vulnerable to abuse. Urban refugee women face problems of sexual and gender based violence, are often forced into prostitution, or fall prey to traffickers. In many cases, they lack access to UNHCR offices. A large number of refugees arrive in urban areas as onward movers in search of effective protection where many fall into a downward spiral of abuse and exploitation due to these gaps in protection. In many cases, inadequacies in refugee status determination procedures further increase the vulnerability of urban refugees.

NGOs call on states to commit to respecting and protecting the rights of all urban refugees on their territories, with specific attention being paid to particularly vulnerable refugees, including women, children, and the elderly. UNHCR should make public, and actively implement in the field, its policy document of "guiding principles and good practices" in relation to urban refugees.

Refugee Women and Children
In conflict situations around the world, women and children continue to experience gross human rights violations including, rape, sexual torture, forced labour, forced portering, and abduction as child soldiers. Recent reports from a number of conflict situations, including Sudan and Burma, highlight the ongoing strategic use of rape and sexual violence by the military against women and children in civilian populations. It is essential that the physical and psychological impact of these human rights violations on women and children be recognised and addressed through the provision of effective protection including access to food, shelter, health, and education, as well as appropriate psychosocial services in countries of asylum.

Sadly, these human rights violations often do not cease once they have reached sites of so-called safety in refugee camps or urban areas in countries of first asylum. The protection of refugee women is a core activity of UNHCR policy. Effective strategies to address violence against women and girls must be realised in consultation with countries of origin, host countries, resettlement countries, and the refugee women themselves. States and UNHCR must ensure that women, who are refugees, and those in other emergency humanitarian situations, are protected from acts of violence, including sexual violence, rape and abuse. They must also ensure appropriate methods of recourse for victims, based on human rights principles, through the prosecution of the perpetrators of such acts of violence. In addition, UNHCR should be supported to fully implement its guidelines on the protection of refugee women and children.

Gender and Age Mainstreaming
Despite the commitment to gender and age mainstreaming we are again disappointed to see the lack of reporting on this issue in the regional reports. We are particularly concerned with the lack of reporting on refugee children. These refugee groups are again becoming invisible in our deliberations. We urge that the particular focus, on a biannual basis, respectively on refugee women and refugee children be taken up again.

The pilot projects on gender and age mainstreaming are a positive development in exploring very concrete and practical ways of gender and age mainstreaming. The reports from NGOs involved in the pilot projects show that a community development approach with full participation of refugees is key to improving protection of refugee women and children. The pilot projects show that we are beginning to make, in some places, progress in the implementation of the HC's commitments to refugee women. However, we are not nearly as successful in implementing the priority areas for refugee children - namely, education, separated children, child soldiers, prevention of sexual exploitation, and special needs of adolescents.

If we want to offer refugee children and youth a positive option for the future, more attention will have to be given to education for refugees: not only primary education, but also secondary and tertiary education. Education for refugees - be it formal, informal, or vocational training - is imperative if we want to avoid refugees, returnees, or IDPs becoming a social and economic burden for the host or home country.

Resettlement
NGOs welcome the current positive debates around increasing the use of resettlement as a protection tool. We welcome the initiative of states in expanding their resettlement programmes, in particular the initiative of European Union countries to develop an EU wide resettlement scheme, but emphasise that this must not replace states' obligations to asylum-seekers arriving in their countries. We also stress the need for a more significant expansion of resettlement opportunities. UNHCR needs to match this interest and commitment by states by ensuring that its resettlement section is able to adequately respond.

We must ensure that the method of selection of refugees for resettlement as part of any comprehensive plans of action or group resettlements, does not result in the creation of a 'residual caseload' of the most vulnerable refugees, as happened in the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese refugees. This residual caseload included many women and children who were at extreme risk, people with disabilities, people with low educational attainment, and the elderly. Resettlement should be founded on the principle of resettling those in greatest need of protection and should not be used to select refugees according to 'integration criteria,' labour market needs of resettlement states, or other non-protection criteria.

Moreover, resettlement should not be used as a substitute for a state's obligation towards refugees. We would recommend a rethinking of the women at risk concept to ensure that resettlement is truly an effective protection tool for refugee women.

We note that resettlement is a continuing process and that, in the past, and in some current situations, the failure to provide adequate and appropriate services in resettlement countries has led to refugees experiencing problems in resettlement and integration, and resentment from host populations.

Cartagena Declaration
Finally, we would like to welcome the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees of 1984. The initiative has provided a unique forum for states, experts, and civil society to analyse current challenges for refugee protection in Latin America and to propose actions to better respond to the humanitarian needs of refugees in the region. The plan of action, to be adopted at the commemorative event in Mexico City in November, should bring benefits to refugees and other persons in need of international protection by ensuring visibility and effective protection to hundreds of thousands of Colombians in countries in the Andean region and beyond, whose needs remain largely ignored by the international community.

Thank you.