UNHCR has recently launched its online Protection Manual. The Protection Manual is organized by theme/subject. Under each heading, the documents are arranged in reverse chronological order and are accessible through a hyperlink. At the end of each subject heading, relevant related sources are listed, containing older guidance and documents which serve as background reading. Brief structure of the manual is as follows:
A. International Protection -
1.Refugee law instruments:- It contains all International instruments as well as Regional instruments Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, America, Asia, Europe, Council of Europe, Europe and European Union) on refugee protection.
2.UNHCR mandate and supervisory responsibility
3.Executive Committee Conclusions
4.General Assembly and Economic and Social Council Resolutions
5.UNHCR and Humanitarian Reform
B. Refugee Protection –
1.Inclusion (Article 1A(2)):- It contains instruments pertaining to Inclusion – general, Persecution, Agents of Persecution, Outside country of origin, Persons fleeing armed conflict and other situations of violence, Religious-based refugee claims, Membership of a particular social group, Gender-related persecution, Victims of trafficking, Child asylum claims, Sexual orientation and gender identity, Claims related to military service – Conscientious objection / Draft evasion / Desertion, Internal flight / relocation alternative, Safe countries of origin / Safe third countries / Safe first country of asylum / 'Secondary' or 'onward' movement and Family Unity and Derivative Refugee Status.
2.Cessation (Article 1C)
3.Exclusion:- It includes instruments and documents on Article 1D – Palestinian refugees, Article 1E and Article 1F.
4.Cancellation and revocation of refugee status
5.Regional Refugee Definitions and Complementary forms of protection
6.Country-related guidance:- It encompasses documents relating to Country-of-origin information and guidance, standards and procedures, Eligibility guidelines, Protection considerations, non-return advisories and other country-specific guidance, 'Country-of-asylum' guidance and Other 'country-related' guidance.
7.Procedures relating to Procedural safeguards / Due process rights, Credibility assessment / Use of country of origin information / Use of expert advice and evidence / Burden and standard of proof and UNHCR mandate procedures.
8.Effective remedies and access to courts
9.Reception
10.Entry (article 31) / Freedom of movement (Article 26) / (alternatives to) detention
11.Obligations of refugees
12.Expulsion and non-refoulement (Articles 32 and 33) which includes instruments on Expulsion (Article 32), Non-refoulement (Article 33(1)), Exceptions (Article 33(2)) and Diplomatic assurances.
13.Extradition
14.Rights of asylum-seekers and refugees, containing documents relating to Employment / Self-reliance (Articles 17-19), Housing, Land and Property (Article 21), Education (Article 22), Social welfare / Public relief (Article 23-24), Health and Other rights / Levels of attachment.
15.Identity papers / Convention Travel Documents (Articles 27-28)
C. Asylum and Migration - It encompasses instruments and documents pertaining to Asylum – general, Access to territory and procedures, Asylum / Migration nexus, Smuggling / Trafficking, Asylum-seekers at sea / Maritime issues, Persons not in need of international protection / Return of persons who have had their asylum claim rejected / Re-admission agreements, National security / International crimes / Terrorism and Extraterritorial processing.
D. Protection in Mass Influx Situations / Emergency Response - Under this head documents related to Protection in mass influx situations / Emergency response – general, Temporary protection, Civilian character of asylum / Physical security of refugees, Armed conflict / Relations with the military, Camps and Registration are enlisted.
E. International Solidarity / Burden-sharing / Responsibility-sharing / Comprehensive Approach
F. Specific Protection Priorities - Instruments under this head are directed towards specific protection people viz-Women of Concern, Children of Concern, Older Persons and Persons with Disabilities, National, Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex persons, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, HIV/AIDS, Age, Gender and Diversity, Protection of Civilians and Refugees in Urban Settings.
G. Durable Solutions - It includes documents on Durable Solutions – General (in relation to both refugees and IDPs), Return, Voluntary Repatriation and Reintegration, Resettlement, Local Integration in the Country of Asylum and Family Reunification.
H. Statelessness - It includes International legal instruments relating to nationality and statelessness, UNHCR's statelessness mandate, Guidance on specific aspects of UNHCR's mandate on identification, prevention, and reduction of statelessness and protection of stateless persons and Promotion of accession to the statelessness conventions
I. Internally Displaced Persons - It provides instruments on Normative framework on IDPs, Policy guidance regarding IDPs, Operational guidance regarding IDPs and Durable solutions for IDPs.
J. Global Protection Cluster - It includes documents on GPC guidance on IDPs, Protection Mainstreaming and Transformative Agenda
K. Displacement related to Climate Change or Natural Disasters
L. Human Rights
M. Other Operational Guidance - It contains instruments on Confidentiality and Data Protection, Commenting on National (Asylum) Legislation, Involvement with Courts, Relations with International Criminal Tribunals / ICC, Rule of Law, Communications and public information and Partnerships and high-level agreements
N. Miscellaneous
The Protection Manual is updated whenever a new protection policy or guidance document is published and can thus be relied upon to represent current state of UNHCR protection policies or guidance. The manual is extremely handy for being one-stop UNHCR's repository of protection policy and guidance documents.
The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) report which was finalized after the five day long conference on 30th March, 2014 deals with the impacts of climate change on human and natural systems, and possible methods of adaptation. The conference was held in Yokohama, Japan. The report says that climate change is a major threat to human security. This would disturb the ecosystem from equator to poles. It talks of “extreme weather events leading to breakdown of…critical services such as electricity, water supply and health and emergency services” and it sounds the alarm about “the breakdown of food systems, linked to warming”. The climate change also raises health concerns. Summer heat waves, sun burn, cold related deaths are all raising an alarming situation. Moreover this would in turn upset the public health and nutrition matter, distribution of access to food and water leading to a huge number of exoduses of migrants.
An important element that gets highlighted by the recent IPCC report is that there large scale human rights impact apprehended due to the climate change catastrophe. The very basic rights such as right to water, right to health, right to housing would be severely hampered. This would lead to large scale exodus of affected people from vulnerable countries. The vulnerability caused by the adverse impact of climate change is causing them to the migrate, both internally with in the country and cross-border migration. In this context, academic literature has tried to further and substantiate the terminology ‘climate refugees’. But even though there has been a persistent attempt from the academic community to highlight the necessity of separate classification of climate refugees, there is total lack of will from the policy makers side. This is reflected in the lack of any legal and policy initiative for the purpose of climate refugees.
The existing international legal framework for refugee protection is at present silent on the aspect of climate refugees. The Refugee Convention, 1951, which is drafted from the Euro-centric perspective and is a product of the post-world war times. Due to this fact the Refugee Convention, 1951 never emphasized upon the protection of refugees due to vulnerable environmental conditions. The Refugee Convention, 1951 scope was limited to that of persons who have fled their country in fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. Another major hurdle is the lack of consensus amongst states regarding the definition of climate refugee.
Conference of Parties, under the auspices of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is lacking focus on human rights impact and how causes vulnerability and leads to migration of the adversely affected population. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its latest report helps us to recognize the alarming situation regarding impact of climate change. Time has come for the international community to take concrete steps in creation of an inclusive legal framework regarding the climate refugees. International community has to reach at a consensus regarding the legal instruments and institutional mechanism by which the climate refugees could be dealt with a right based approach.
Sri Lankan refugees came to India during the Sri Lankan Civil War which continued erratically from 1983 to 2009 and millions of them have still not found an asylum in their own country. According to a statistical report brought out by the Government of India, there are more than 100,000 ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils residing in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which accounts for a minimum figure of 68,000 living in 112 government-run camps and 32,000 outside the camps. For a period of almost 26 years these people have been residing in the Indian subcontinent, working as daily wage laborers with no hope of a bright peaceful future. International Organisations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have tried to repatriate the refugees but the Tamil refugees have been reluctant to go back to their home country. They have cited various reasons for the same such as economic destitution, loss of habitation in their home land and gross human rights violation.
Many of the refugee children were born in India after their parents had migrated from Sri Lanka. Due to this rationale, they feel that they are more adept at the cultural, political and economic paradigms that exist in India. Inspite of having lived in India for almost half their lives these illegal migrants have not been granted citizenship and it seems that the Indian Government does not have the intention to confer such a right all together.
Advocate B Arulmozhimaran filed a PIL before the Madras High Court to declare S. 2(1)(b) of the Indian Citizenship Act as unconstitutional and accept the application for citizenship of the Tamil refugees. S. 2(1)(b) of the act disallows citizenship on the grounds that both parents are not citizens of India or that one of them is an illegal migrant. The petitioner argued that these people who had spent almost three decades of their lives in India could not be denied citizenship as it would violate their right to life as is guaranteed by Art. 21 of the Indian Constitution. They also contended that Article 11 of the Constitution does not prohibit any person from applying for citizenship and hence it was legally untenable to brand these refugees as illegal migrants and deny them Indian citizenship.
S Tamilarasan, counsel for the petitioner, contented that in the matter of Chakma refugees residing in Arunachal Pradesh, a petition was filed by the by National Human Rights commission and the Supreme Court had ruled in favour of citizenship for those 65,000 refugees, who were staying there for more than three decades. The rationale behind asking for citizenship for the Tamil refugees was the same. Nearly one lakh Sri Lankan refugees have been living in Tamil Nadu for the past three decades and denying them a social, cultural and economic identity would be inhuman to them and it would be violative of their fundamental right to live. In 2013, the first bench of the Supreme Court comprising the then acting Chief Justice R K Agrawal and Justice M. Sathyanarayanan ordered notices to central and state governments in the matter.
The Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have still not been granted with Indian citizenship and the judgement of the Supreme Court in the PIL is eagerly awaited. Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr. M. Karunanidhi supported the cause of the migrants stating that the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees would be granted Indian citizenship soon. His demand has been backed by spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
It has become a matter of utmost importance to provide these refugees with citizenship of India. Although the State government has been providing them with temporary housing facilities, free medical aid, education up to secondary level, cash benefits, subsidized food materials like rice, potatoes, clothing material and utensils for their survival, employability remains a problem in the absence of social integration and they face an uncertain future without the provision of citizenship. Providing de facto asylum without an intention to provide Indian citizenship - all the while suspending civil and political rights like right to property, right to free movement, right to voting, etc is an injustice for the Tamil refugee populations which have been stateless in Tamil Nadu since the 1980s.
Samata Biswas
Human Rights violations and its media coverage have been under a scanner for its inconsistence reporting, and choosing to report based on market interests and interests of target audience. These interests often clash, and collide with majoritarian views and wave of the masses leaving little space for generating content regarding issues that affect the marginalised. It is at this juncture, and with this realisation, that Dalit Camera: Through Untouchable Eyesself-consciously formed itself as a platform that would enable marginalised voices to tell their own stories.
In their own words:
Dalit Camera (DC) is a YouTube Channel, through which we (largely students) cover the perspectives on/voices of Dalits, Adivasis, Bahujans and Minorities (DABM). DC has been active for the past one year. The first incident covered by DC was the desecration of an Ambedkar statue in Hyderabad. Though we did upload some videos before, this was the first time that we started taking the perspectives of different voices on an issue. Basically we were fed up with mainstream English channels that were outdoing each other on accusing DABM people. As a response to the cartelised-hegemony of the English news channels, we started taking different views, including that of Dalit activists and making it available to the public. The first issue that we dealt with at length and gave us some fame was the Osmania University beef issue. Our standpoint found resonances in many campuses across India like the English and Foreign Languages University, Osmania University, Hyderabad Central University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University, where Dalit-Bahujan and Minority students rubbed shoulders for conducting beef festivals for gaining basic food rights in their respective campuses. The next issue we took up was the Ambedkar Cartoon controversy. This was soon followed by a critical discussion on Onam. The videos taken by DC in this regard played a vital role in examining the history of Onam from different DABM perspectives and forced several campuses across India to relook the way Onam was being celebrated and a hegemonically 'neutral' but violent Kerala identity was being constructed through that.
The platform of social media is extremely useful in this regard. Youtube allows one to upload any video one chooses (provided one has a camera and an internet connection. Platforms such as facebook and blogs, mailing lists related to similar concerns can then share the link on their pages and threads, whereby concerned individuals and groups can access the video. Since, there is minimal mediation and supervision, the content, no matter what, can be circulated widely and in very little time, across virtual and geographical boundaries. In contexts of forced migration, the narratives of forced migrants are hardly ever present. A case in point is Nonadanga, a displaced colony right next to Kolkata, where the conditions of living are abysmal, law and order situation deplorable. While interviewing the residents, Dalit Camera came across reports of gross misdemeanour by the police in the case of a domestic violence complaint filed by a Dalit woman against her husband. The subsequent suicide of the man led to protests in the area, which were termed “mob fury” by the mainstream media. Only through the interviews published uploaded by Dalit Camera could one truly understand the conditions of living, enabling various forms of violence and disabling the scope of protest. This is what one of the activists had to say:
After the setting up of the police camp here, there has been an increase in the number of arrack shops in the area. There were only two arrack shops before the camp was set up, but the number has risen to five now. Moreover, any organizational move made by us is squashed by the police. We do not want the police camp here.
Other incidents of caste atrocities, gender and communal atrocities also often face similar administrative and media apathy- more so when the atrocities are perpetrated by the organs of the state. At such a juncture, given the recent technological developments and the relative affordability/ availability of social media, Dalit Camera emerges as such a platform where marginalised people present their own stories, multiple points of views can speak to each other and different social movements and activists can communicate with one another.
Visit the following links for more details
http://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6999:suicide-of-uttam-mondal-and-arrest-of-shuma-mondal-the-dalit-protest-in nonadanga&catid=119&Itemid=132
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3BLyt6z4TM
Ishita Dey
In 2013, Joint IDP Profiling Service, the Feinstein International Centre (Tufts University) and UNHCRconducted a study on urban refugees in Delhi. The profiling study was based on a combination of methods and was limited to refugees that concern UNHCR – refugees from Myanmar, Afghan refugees ( Hindu Sikh Afghan refugees were excluded and Somalian refugees. The profiling work was carried out to identify specific areas that needed attention to design futures programmes and advocacy work- particularly to work towards self-reliance of the refugees. Hence, the study not only focussed on the refugee groups but their Indian neighbours as well.
The study focussed on five areas :
1)Demographic and household characteristics in terms of age, ethnicity, sex, ethnicity and household consumption
2)Migration patterns
3)Livelihood opportunities
4)Human and social capital including education and other skills required
5)Access to education among refugee children
The report highlighted that though Government of India has recently allowed UNHCR registered refugees to apply for long term visas which will allow them to seek employment in formal sector, the report brings to the forefront the harassment and discrimination faced by refugee children in Government schools. The report highlights that though access to government schools is not a problem the discrimination reported by Myanmarese and Somali children in these schools need special attention. There is a need to generate awareness campaigns in neighbourhoods with refugee population and to identify schools to improve the educational environment. The report feels that the intra-community networks and cultural exchanges between refugees and Indians is one of the ways to ensure cordial relationship with local communities. Refugees from Myanmar and Somalia reported harassment from all quarters (school, landlords and locals) in their neighbourhoods and the report feels such the ties between the local and refugee community should be strengthened. The profiling report could be a useful tool for institutions working on programmes regarding strengthening livelihoods and also calls for strengthening dialogue between the local population and refugee communities.
For detailed report:-
http://www.jips.org/system/cms/attachments/605/original_Urban_Profiling_of_Refugees_Situations_in_Delhi.pdf; Accessed on 10 January 2014
