NGO Statement on International Protection

Extended Written Version

Agenda Item 3(a)

 

A. Thematic Concerns...................................................................................................... 3

1. Refugees.............................................................................................................................................................. 3

(i) Registration.................................................................................................................................................... 3

(ii) Refugee Status Determination (RSD)............................................................................................... 3

(iii) Protecting LGBTI Asylum Seekers.................................................................................................. 4

2. Stateless Persons............................................................................................................................................ 4

3. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).................................................................................................... 5

(i) Durable Solutions....................................................................................................................................... 5

(ii) Coordination................................................................................................................................................ 5

4. Community-Based Protection................................................................................................................. 6

B. Country-specific Situations of Concern..................................................................... 6

1. Africa................................................................................................................................................................... 6

(i) Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)............................................................................................ 6

(ii) Kenya............................................................................................................................................................. 7

(iii) Malian IDPs and Refugees in West Africa................................................................................... 8

(iv) Application of Cessation Clause to Rwandan Refugees........................................................ 9

(v) Somalia........................................................................................................................................................ 10

(vi) South Africa............................................................................................................................................ 10

(vii) South Sudan........................................................................................................................................... 11

(viii) Sudan....................................................................................................................................................... 13

2. The Americas................................................................................................................................................ 14

(i) Canada.......................................................................................................................................................... 14

(ii) Colombia.................................................................................................................................................... 15

(iv) Ecuador...................................................................................................................................................... 16

(v) The United States.................................................................................................................................... 16

3. Asia and the Pacific................................................................................................................................... 17

(i) Afghanistan................................................................................................................................................ 17

(ii) Australia...................................................................................................................................................... 17

(iii) Indonesia................................................................................................................................................... 18

(iv) Myanmar................................................................................................................................................... 19

(v) Pakistan....................................................................................................................................................... 20

(vi) Sri Lanka................................................................................................................................................... 21

(vii) Thailand................................................................................................................................................... 22

4. Europe.............................................................................................................................................................. 23

(i) The European Union (EU)................................................................................................................... 23

(ii) Greece.......................................................................................................................................................... 24

(iii) Italy.............................................................................................................................................................. 25

(iv) Malta........................................................................................................................................................... 25

(v) Turkey......................................................................................................................................................... 26

(vi) Ukraine...................................................................................................................................................... 26

5. Middle East and North Africa............................................................................................................. 27

(i) Egypt.............................................................................................................................................................. 27

(ii) Israel............................................................................................................................................................. 28

(iii) Kuwait........................................................................................................................................................ 29

(iv) Syrian IDPs and refugees in the region....................................................................................... 29

 

 

 

Madame Chair, Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

This statement (available at: www.icvanetwork.org) has been drafted in consultation with, and is delivered on behalf of, a wide range of NGOs and aims to reflect the diversity of views within the NGO community.

 

Over the past months, many situations around the world have arisen involving serious protection issues for refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs), stateless persons, and others of concern to UNHCR. NGOs take the opportunity of the 57th Standing Committee meeting to highlight some of the most serious situations in which UNHCR and Member States should take urgent action to protect the rights of all these persons. We raise these concerns in the spirit of cooperation that brings us all together to serve the populations of concern to UNHCR.

A. Thematic Concerns 

1. Refugees

 

NGOs applaud Member States who are working to implement pledges made during the commemoration of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and stand ready to assist in the implementation of these pledges.

 

UNHCR’s Note on International Protection refers to direct and indirect refoulement carried out by a number of States.  We urge States to end refoulement and UNHCR to help prevent it, including by reinforcing its registration and RSD functions.

(i) Registration

 

UNHCR’s note reports that the multiplicity of new crises has strained its operational capacity, including in the crucial area of refugee registration. UNHCR acknowledges it is struggling to collect comprehensive data, including disaggregated data, as part of UNHCR’ age, gender and diversity (AGD) approach.  NGOs have observed UNHCR’s limited capacity in several locations, especially in countries affected by the Syrian crisis.  NGOs encourage UNHCR to improve its registration processes and ensure they are underpinned by rigorous analyses of specific vulnerabilities. We encourage UNHCR to further disseminate, monitor, and train its staff on internal guidance materials regarding age, gender, disability, minority groups and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) asylum seekers in order to see these better implemented in the field.

 

(ii) Refugee Status Determination (RSD)

 

UNHCR carried out RSDs in 66 countries last year.  NGOs are concerned that UNHCR Bangkok’s office appears to be using a boilerplate rationale to reject asylum seekers if they cannot show “a heightened political profile” in their country of origin.  Applying a “heightened profile” standard as a requirement (rather than as a possible element in an individual status determination) would set a higher bar for refugee recognition than the “well-founded fear” standard of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.  NGOs call on UNHCR Bangkok to end its use of a “heightened profile” test in its RSDs, and ensure that each applicant is evaluated based on the specific facts of his or her case.

NGOs working in North Africa and the Middle East have reported concerns that asylum seekers do not have access to professional interpreters or legal assistance and have received UNHCR rejection letters lacking an explanation of reasons for denial.  Specific concerns have been raised about 300 rejected asylum seekers living in Tunisia’s Choucha camp who have refused to repatriate despite IOM’s offers of increased financial support.  NGOs urge UNHCR to review these cases and ensure that all 300 receive adequate food, water and medication while their cases are under review.

(iii) Protecting LGBTI Asylum Seekers

 

NGOs are concerned that many countries that have ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention do not recognize persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity as grounds for granting asylum. As a result, LGBTI asylum seekers struggle to receive protection in those countries and risk being refouled to their countries of origin. 

 

NGOs echo the call made by former Assistant Commissioner for Protection Erika Feller at ExCom’s October 2012 meeting for more countries to recognize asylum claims based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity. We commend UNHCR for releasing its October 2012 Guidelines on International Protection on Claims to Refugee Status based on Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity. We call on UNHCR to develop strategies to ensure that LGBTI asylum seekers can access international protection regardless of where they flee, including by providing protection officers and RSD staff with additional training on issues concerning sexually and gender nonconforming people, conducting mandate RSDs where needed, and expediting processing for this vulnerable population.

              

2. Stateless Persons

 

At the June 2013 UNHCR-NGO Annual Consultation there was acknowledgement of recent progress made in tackling statelessness – but equally a recognition, as articulated by High Commissioner Guterres, that maintaining momentum requires a bolder ambition: the goal of eradicating statelessness within a decade. This will require: urgent implementation of existing State pledges made during the December 2011 Ministerial Intergovernmental Commemoration of the 1951 Refugee and 1961 Statelessness Conventions; targeted attention and resources to identify stateless persons, address protracted situations, and protect, respect and fulfil the human rights of stateless persons; the abolition of nationality laws and practices that discriminate on the basis of gender and other grounds; and much greater awareness and mainstreaming of statelessness issues in order to mobilise all the actors necessary.  Please refer to the NGO statement on statelessness (agenda item 3b) for more information in this regard.

 

3. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)

 

In 2012, the number of people internal displaced as a result of conflict
reached 28.8 million, the highest figure ever recorded.  NGOs have been calling on UNHCR to increase the attention and resources it dedicates to IDPs.  We welcome the decision of the High Commissioner to make IDPs the theme of his December 2013 High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection.

(i) Durable Solutions

Durable solutions, critical to the achievement of development goals, will
only be achieved when internal displacement is recognised as a development
as well as a humanitarian challenge.  NGOs recommend that UNHCR, as global cluster lead agency on protection, provides necessary technical expertise to the country teams to support the development of durable solutions strategies.  The closure of protection
clusters should be done according to an exit strategy identifying
outstanding issues and addressed to HC and RCs for follow up by relevant
stakeholders including national and development actors.  NGOs also recommend that UNHCR works with development partners, including UNDP and others, to ensure IDP specific issues that are an obstacle to durable solutions (such as documentation, land tenure and titling) are integrated into national development plans as part of poverty reduction strategy plans.

(ii) Coordination

UNHCR’s Global Strategic Priorities for Support and Management
include a focus on cluster and inter-agency coordination at global and operational levels.  Protection coordination bodies such as Clusters or Working Groups are vital
for sharing and analysing information, defining priorities and developing
strategies to respond.

 

The strength and effectiveness of protection clusters and protection working groups at the local, provincial (or equivalent) and national levels vary greatly. Progress has been made to improve the tools available, to strengthen coordination, including through
NGO co-leads, and there have been some positive joint advocacy initiatives.  Greater efforts are needed, however, to ensure adequate resources for coordination, including funding of co-leads, and UNHCR’s role as provider of last resort.  Likewise, NGOs encourage UNHCR to strengthen information mechanisms between protection clusters, HCs and HCTs to ensure effective advocacy on IDP protection. 

 

Protection coordination gaps have been most obvious in settings with mixed refugee and IDP flows. NGOs call on UNHCR to streamline its protection services in favour of all persons of concern.

 

 

4. Community-Based Protection

 

The new UNHCR paper on community-based protection is a very welcome initiative.  Families and communities are the first responders in a crisis and will develop their own strategies to deal with protection threats.  It is important that protection interventions are not only about working with communities, but are also about supporting protection strategies developed by the communities themselves.  UNHCR and other humanitarian protection actors already work to support local communities’ protection initiatives aimed at holding protection duty bearers to account, communicating civilians’ grievances, reducing risks, and ensuring greater access to referral services.  This applies to refugee and IDP settings and more complex emergencies.  The mention of UNHCR activities advocating for mechanisms of participation or consultation with IDPs in high-level fora, including in the drafting and adoption of laws and policies that affect them, is also particularly welcome.

B. Country-specific Situations of Concern

 

1. Africa

 

(i) Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

 

In the last few months of 2012, continued conflict in eastern DRC and violence against civilians, including sexual violence, displaced an estimated 570,000 people, of whom 70,000 sought refuge in Rwanda and Uganda. As of end May 2013, there were about 2.6 million IDPs in DRC, of whom 1.8 million were in North and South Kivu provinces, and almost half a million Congolese refugees in the region.

Despite the significant increase in IDPs in these areas, UNHCR recently reallocated resources from its IDP programs to its refugee work. UNHCR’s IDP assistance and protection work focuses on the 13 per cent who live in camps, not on the 87 per cent living in towns, villages and informal camps across the region. There have also been cuts in assistance to camp-based IDPs: in May 2013 UNHCR had half as many camp coordination staff working in IDP camps compared to 2008. In 2012, UNHCR also closed its office in Masisi territory in North Kivu, even though there are about 260,000 IDPs there. UNHCR’s absence has led to an information gap on protection threats to IDPs and a reduction in assistance to IDPs in the area.

NGOs call on UNHCR and the protection cluster to ensure resources are allocated according to needs, including those of the most vulnerable who have often been displaced multiple times, and to closely monitor the impact of UNHCR’s recent reduction in support to IDPs.  We also call on UNHCR to ensure it increases its support to IDPs who do not live in camps (the majority of IDPs), and to reopen its Masisi office.  We urge donors to increase their support for these activities.

(ii) Kenya

 

Torture and abuse of refugees in Nairobi and shut down of urban refugee registration and services

 

Responding to a series of grenade and other attacks in Nairobi that began in mid-November 2012 and a December 2012 government order for all 55,000 of Kenya’s urban refugees to move to the country’s squalid refugee camps, police in Nairobi unleashed three months of torture and abuse of mostly Somali and Ethiopian refugees. Abuses included rape, other serious assaults, widespread theft and extortion, and arbitrary detention in inhuman and degrading conditions. To date there has been no investigation into the abuses, let alone accountability for officers committing them. NGOs call on Kenya to immediately investigate the torture and other abuses inflicted on refugees and asylum seekers in Eastleigh between November 19, 2012 and late January 2103 and to hold responsible police officers to account. UNHCR failed to adequately document the abuses and to speak out against them.  NGOs call on UNHCR to improve its protection monitoring in Nairobi and to speak out publicly against any future abuses.

 

Under the December 2012 urban refugee relocation plan, the Kenyan authorities stopped registering asylum seekers and renewing refugee permits and ordered UNHCR and NGOs to cease all services for urban refugees, including health care and livelihood assistance. Despite a January 23 high court order to suspend the plan while the court considers its legality, registration remains suspended, leaving would-be asylum seekers, as well as registered asylum seekers and refugees, unable to renew permits and rendering them vulnerable to arrest and prosecution for unlawful presence in Kenya. Refugees accepted for resettlement are also unable to leave Kenya without appropriate documentation from Kenya’s Department of Refugee Affairs.  NGOs call on the Kenyan authorities to comply with the High Court’s order for the authorities to suspend all aspects of the relocation plan, including the suspension of registration and services.

 

Statements encouraging premature returns to Somalia

 

Given widespread continued insecurity throughout south central Somalia, including Mogadishu, NGOs are concerned about senior Kenyan officials’ repeated statements that Somali refugees should imminently return to Somalia. NGOs call on UNHCR to swiftly issue new Eligibility Guidelines for Somali Asylum Seekers highlighting the on-going insecurity in south central Somalia and to ensure that Somali refugees in the Dadaab camps and Nairobi are assisted in reaching informed decisions on whether to return. Refugees have told NGOs that the recent violence in Eastleigh caused them and their relatives to leave Kenya for Somalia or neighbouring countries. We call on Kenya and UNHCR to ensure that Somali refugees are in no way encouraged to return to their country until it is safe to do so.

 

 

IDPs in Kenya

 

Kenya’s new IDP legislation tasks a National Consultative Coordination Committee with overseeing implementation of the new IDP law. NGOs call on the authorities to closely consult with NGOs working with IDPs in Kenya and to appoint the Committee in a fair and transparent manner. NGOs also call on the authorities to swiftly adopt a National IDP Policy under the new legislation to help ensure all IDPs are assisted and protected according to a comprehensive legal and policy framework.

 

In April and May 2103, heavy rains and flooding displaced at least 100,000 people and killed at least 74.  The Kenyan authorities have not collected information about the displaced to help identify those with the most urgent needs and vulnerabilities, and NGOs call on them to urgently do so.

 

(iii) Malian IDPs and Refugees in West Africa

 

Assistance for Malian IDPs

 

The Mali crisis has displaced at least 475,000 people, of whom 300,000 are IDPs. Many live in harsh conditions, without work and in a country facing chronic food insecurity. More than 90 per cent of IDPs in Mali’s south live with host families who struggle to shelter and feed their guests. Increasingly, IDPs have to rent their own accommodation despite an inability to pay rent. IDP children have irregular access to school. The longer IDPs remain displaced, the greater their needs, which in turn risks slowing down the pace of securing post-conflict stability and the safe return of IDPs to their homes. As of 24 June, the Consolidated Appeals Process was only 33 per cent funded, leading to significant assistance gaps, particularly in relation to shelter, food and education.  NGOs call on donors to respond more generously to the appeal, including elements in support of host communities.

 

Protection of Malian IDPs

 

NGOs have received reports that IDP women and girls face sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) by unknown perpetrators.  Many female IDPs also faced SGBV before fleeing their homes.  They need assistance, including psychosocial support.  However, the humanitarian community’s understanding of the nature of these abuses—and of child recruitment by armed groups in Mali—remains weak.  Many IDPs need help replacing lost identity documents and birth certificates, especially in light of upcoming elections.  In early 2013, the protection cluster in Bamako concluded that the most urgent issues facing IDPs in Mali include SGBV, the threat of mines, and child protection.  Protection monitoring work is key.

 

NGOs are concerned that the humanitarian community does not have sufficient or appropriate means to document and respond to these and other protection problems IDPs face. To date, the protection cluster's activities are only 26 per cent funded, more than half of which is dedicated to demining and mine-risk education. NGOs are also concerned that too much protection funding is dedicated to mainstreaming protection, which reduces the amount available for specific protection activities, including monitoring and documentation of abuses and threats to IDPs’ well being.

 

NGOs call on donors to better fund agencies’ protection work in Mali, to fund mainstreaming protection activities through non-protection clusters, and to earmark protection cluster funding for standalone protection programs, including better monitoring and documentation of abuses and threats. NGOs also call on the protection cluster to use the Humanitarian Country team’s position on how humanitarian actors should interact with Mali’s armed forces to develop guidelines on how to engage with peacekeepers deployed under the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali.

 

Malian refugees

 

Since January 2012, about 175,000 people have fled northern Mali to Burkina Faso (about 50,000), Mauritania (about 75,000) and Niger (about 50,000). In recent months, refugees in all three countries have told NGOs they feel it is not safe to return home.  About 140,000 live in refugee camps. About 35,000 live in rural and urban areas in Burkina Faso and Niger and many more struggle to get registered as refugees. In all three host countries, the camps are located in remote areas with severe food and water shortages. Tension between refugees, who brought their livestock with them, and local communities near the camps, who fear additional animals may threaten their environment, means it is essential donors and agencies assist local communities. Parts of the refugee community, particularly the Bella and Haratin communities, are marginalized and receive less assistance.

UNHCR’s coordination and information sharing role has been weak in all three host countries, including as a result of poor management of protection coordination fora.

To-date, the Malian authorities have taken no steps to ensure that refugees in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger can vote in first round of the Malian Presidential elections, on 28 July 2013.

NGOs call on UNHCR in countries hosting Malian refugees to improve the way it interacts with the rest of the humanitarian community, to ensure refugees’ assistance and protection needs are better addressed, including those of marginalized refugee communities and unregistered refugees in urban areas. We also call on UNHCR and donors to ensure host communities receive adequate assistance.

 

(iv) Application of Cessation Clause to Rwandan Refugees

To-date, only a very few states hosting Rwandan refugees have announced they plan to invoke the 1951 Refugee Convention’s cessation clause for Rwandan refugees soon. Rwandans continue to flee their country and seek asylum abroad.

NGOs urge States who plan to invoke the cessation clause to ensure that any refugees requesting exemption from the clause’s application, as well as new Rwandan asylum seekers, have their cases examined in a fair, efficient and transparent manner and that refugees are given access to lawyers to help them in complicated cases. We also call on States in the East African Community who are hosting Rwandan refugees to use the East African Community protocols to grant Rwandan refugees citizenship or other forms of long-term legal status. Finally, we call on UNHCR and Rwanda to work closely together to ensure a comprehensive and effective returns monitoring program is put in place in Rwanda.

 

(v) Somalia

 

Somalia plans to start relocating Mogadishu’s IDPs—between 200,000 and 400,000—to three new IDP camps on the city’s outskirts, possibly as early as July 2013. NGOs are concerned about insecurity in the proposed relocation sites, as the armed Islamist group al-Shabaab is present in the area while Somalia’s police are not. To date, IDPs have not been informed about the reason for the relocation, nor about conditions in the new sites.

 

Moving IDPs to insecure sites would breach Somalia’s obligation to protect them against violence. Moving IDPs anywhere without consulting them first would breach their right to be informed about the reasons for such a move.

 

NGO’s call on Somalia and UNHCR to refrain from moving IDPs to insecure areas, to discuss relocation plans with them, and to ensure that IDPs would have access to food, shelter, health care, and education in any new IDP sites. NGOs also call on Somalia and UNHCR to ensure that IDPs are not encouraged or forced in any way to return to insecure areas of origin and that IDPs wishing to remain in Mogadishu in the long-term be allowed to remain in the city under principles of local integration.   

 

NGOs have also noted how over the past two years, government forces, militia, camp managers and security personnel known as “gatekeepers” have committed serious abuses against Mogadishu’s IDPs, including rape and sexual assault, food diversion and imposition of free movement restrictions. The Somali authorities have taken no steps to deter or punish those responsible. We call on Somalia to investigate these abuses and hold those responsible to account.

 

(vi) South Africa

 

Shrinking asylum space

 

South Africa continues to reduce asylum seekers’ and refugees’ access to protection in a number of ways, increasing the likelihood of refoulement. South Africa’s failure to consult with refugee NGOs and the lack of effective UNHCR advocacy on these retrogressive steps is of serious concern.

Restrictive and unlawful steps include: preventing asylum seekers from entering South Africa if they come from a country South Africa says is safe, or if they have passed through one or more other countries where South Africa believes they should have claimed asylum (first/third safe country policy), or if they are Zimbabwean and do not have travel documents; not issuing asylum seekers transit permits and then refusing them access to refugee reception offices (RROs) to lodge their asylum claims because they do not have such a permit; introducing new administrative hurdles to appeal against asylum claim rejections which deter such appeals; refusing to abide by three court rulings ordering the authorities to re-open three RROs closed in the past two years, thereby seriously reducing asylum seekers’ access to the asylum system, and moving forward with plans to move all urban RROs to remote border areas; and plans to restrict asylum seekers right to work and study and their right to freedom of movement.

NGOs call on South Africa to regularly engage and consult with NGOs and UNHCR on developing the country’s asylum policy, to replace South Africa’s unlawful and retrogressive policies with progressive asylum polices in line with South African and international refugee and human rights law. We also call on UNHCR to proactively and assertively advocate with South Africa to reverse its unlawful and otherwise restrictive policies towards refugees and asylum seekers.

Xenophobic Violence

 

Since 2008, including most recently in late May 2013, xenophobic violence has killed at least 230 foreign nationals. In recent months, UNHCR’s hotline, which passes reports on to police, received a monthly average of 238 reports of xenophobic violence from foreign nationals of whom an unknown number are registered refugees and asylum seekers. The violence shows no signs of decreasing. South Africa has taken few concrete measures to prevent and prosecute these crimes. Police statistics show that significant numbers of Somali and Ethiopian nationals with small businesses, including refugees and asylum seekers, are targeted by South Africans who apparently try to force them out of their areas. Many Somalis returning to their still insecure country tell NGOs the threat of such violence gives them no option but to leave South Africa. 

NGOs call on South Africa to take concrete steps to end the violence, including finalizing its hate crimes legislation and policy, deploying greater numbers of police to areas where there are high threats of violence, aggressively investigating all such violence and prosecuting those responsible, and putting in place conflict resolution programs in affected areas to help decrease tensions between South African nationals and foreign nationals. We also call on UNHCR to publicly report on the type of information UNHCR receives on its hotline to help raise awareness about xenophobic violence and threats in South Africa.

(vii) South Sudan

 

Sudanese refugees

 

Over the past 3 years, about 190,000 Sudanese nationals have fled conflict and food shortages in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states to South Sudan’s Unity and Upper Nile states. Yida camp in Unity state currently hosts about 70,000 refugees, and 120,000 live in several camps in Upper Nile state.

 

NGOs have a number of concerns relating to Yida camp. Located 11 kilometers from the Sudanese border, South Sudanese military and Sudanese rebel fighters are known to regularly spend time in the camp, which compromises its humanitarian nature. On 1 April 2013, South Sudan ordered UNHCR not to issue new arrivals in the Yida camp with ration cards to encourage them to move to a new camp at Ajoung Thok. Since then, refugees unwilling to move to the new camp depend on other refugees’ limited food supplies.

 

NGOs have observed various abuses against refugees in camps in Upper Nile’s Maban County. Some armed groups have recruited children, and women and girls collecting rations, water and firewood have been killed, sexually abused and beaten by unknown perpetrators. According to refugees, many women fearing stigmatisation do not report what happens to them.

 

NGOs call on South Sudanese soldiers and rebel groups to ensure their forces do not settle inside the Yida camp. NGOs call on South Sudan, UNHCR and donors to ensure that refugees remaining in Yida, either in the short or long term, continue to receive adequate assistance. We also call on UNHCR to put in place appropriate services and protection monitoring in Ajoung Thok camp and to support the development of women’s centers in camps in Maban county to help women report on attacks against them.  

 

IDPs and returning refugees from Sudan

 

During the first five months of 2013, at least 15,000 people were displaced by inter-ethnic conflict and by a South Sudanese military-led disarmament campaign in South Sudan’s Jonglei, Unity, Warrap and Lakes states that involved widespread impunity for crimes, such as murder, torture, abduction, property destruction and looting. These abuses follow abuses by the SPLA and armed groups against South Sudan’s IDPs in all phases of their displacement since early 2012, especially in Jonglei state.

 

Thousands have also been displaced by flooding and conflict over natural resources and are not adequately assisted, in part because agencies do not have proper preparedness and contingency plans in place despite the often seasonal nature of displacement.

 

Many returning refugees from Sudan end up displaced because of a lack of assistance in return areas. A lack of monitoring means agencies do not have a clear idea of the extent of their needs and struggle to develop comprehensive plans prioritizing reintegration and reconciliation between hostile communities. Many returnees also struggle to access identity papers, which causes numerous challenges, especially for returnees seeking to reclaim land.   

 

Agencies working with IDPs and returning refugees struggle to objectively identify which groups most urgently require assistance. As reflected in agencies’ stated funding priorities, refugees are often prioritized over IDPs. The protection cluster, working with IDPs, was poorly funded in 2012, while the SGBV sub-cluster has had to almost halve the number of IDPs it hopes to assist and protect.

 

NGOs call on South Sudan to allow unhindered humanitarian access to all people in need in Jonglei state, to end abuses by its military and to hold soldiers responsible to account. We call on South Sudan to increase its commitment to policies and projects aimed at reconciling warring ethnic groups. 

 

We also call on donors to work closely with UNHCR as protection cluster lead and with South Sudan to increase assistance to IDPs and to implement the comprehensive strategy for support to returning refugees, including emergency assistance during the return journey and support in return areas, including land allocation and security of tenure.

 

(viii) Sudan

 

Law enforcement collusion with traffickers and torturers of Eritrean refugees

 

NGOs have documented Sudanese police and military collusion with Sudanese traffickers who kidnap and torture Eritrean refugees from inside and near eastern Sudan’s Eritrean refugee camps near the town of Kassala and traffic them to Egypt where they hand them over to Egyptian traffickers who torture them further. NGOs call on Sudan to end its law enforcement’s collusion with traffickers and to prosecute trafficking groups responsible for such crimes. While we acknowledge that Sudan places heavy restrictions on UNHCR’s ability to properly assist and protect Eritrean refugees in eastern Sudan, we call on UNHCR to work closely with Sudan to end trafficking crimes in and around the Kassala camps, including collusion with traffickers by state officials.

 

IDPs in general

 

As of May 2013, there were at least 2.6 million IDPs in Sudan, of whom at least 775,000 were displaced between January 2012 and May 2013. For various reasons, agencies struggle to document disaggregated numbers and locations of IDPs, particularly in urban areas. This makes it hard for agencies to develop assistance programs, including for the most vulnerable, including urban IDPs who are regular evicted by landlords.

At various points in 2012, state and non-state actors have attacked IDPs, including in camps, for their perceived support for other warring factions. The UN’s Special Representative on IDPs recently reported on that female IDPs face GBV at all stages of their displacement and struggle to access psychosocial support and legal advice.

NGOs call on UNHCR and agencies to develop better methods for documenting the profiles and locations of IDPs in various parts of Sudan and on Sudan and warring groups not to attack IDPs for their perceived support to opposing groups.

 

IDPs in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile

 

Throughout 2012 and the first five months of 2013, Sudan continued its policy of indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilian areas in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states—which has destroyed water points, markets, schools, clinics and places of worship—and of blocking almost all humanitarian aid by local and international aid agencies to an estimated 1 million IDPs in those two states, leading to food shortages and other urgent needs. NGOs call on Sudan to end its bombardment of civilian areas and to allow all aid agencies unhindered access to IDPs and other civilians in need.

 

IDPs in Darfur

 

Since early 2013, conflict has displaced 270,000 people in Darfur and forced 30,000 across the border into Chad. Sudan continues its policy of restricting aid worker movement in Darfur, thereby hindering efforts to adequately assist 1.4 million IDPs in the region, including with urgently needed food assistance. NGOs call on Sudan to allow NGOs to freely assist IDPs without hindrance.   

 

2. The Americas

 

(i) Canada

NGOs are concerned about recent changes to Canada’s refugee legislation that violate refugees’ basic rights under international refugee law. Asylum seekers originating from “designated countries of origin”—which seem to be arbitrarily identified by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration—face a series of unreasonably tight deadlines during asylum proceedings and are denied access to health care. Together with some other categories of asylum seekers, they are not permitted to appeal a rejection of their asylum claim. A rejected asylum seeker may not present new persecution-related evidence within 12 months of the rejection of his or her asylum claim and may be deported during that time.

The Minister of Public Safety may officially designate groups of asylum seekers as “irregular arrivals” who must be detained if older than 16. Such detainees have only limited options to challenge their detention and are not entitled to permanent residency status until they have lived for five years as recognised refugees in Canada. In 2012, Canada resettled 26 per cent fewer refugees than in 2011, thereby failing to fulfil its 2011 pledge to increase resettlement by 20 per cent in 2012.

NGOs call on Canada to revoke recent amendments to its refugee legislation that violate basic refugee rights and to ensure asylum seekers have access to healthcare.

 

(ii) Colombia

 

As of early June 2013, there were between 4.7 and 5.7 million IDPs in Colombia. According to the government, violence displaced just under 100,000 people in 2012, while OCHA puts the figure at 340,000. The different figures are partly the result of Colombia’s 2012 decision not to recognize as an IDP anyone displaced by violence involving paramilitary successor groups, which the government calls emerging criminal bands (“Bacrim”). NGOs call on Colombia to change this policy and to recognize all people forced from their homes by violence as IDPs.

 

In 2012 Colombia began implementing the Victims and Land Restitution Law, which aims to return millions of hectares of stolen and abandoned land to IDPs. As of April 2013, IDPs had filed more than 39,000 land restitution claims and judges had adjudicated roughly 250 of them. Hundreds of IDPs and their leaders seeking land restitution throughout the country have faced death and other threats by paramilitary successor groups, third parties who acquired IDPs’ land, and guerrilla groups. NGOs call on Colombia to investigate these threats and hold those responsible to account.

 

(iii) Dominican Republic

 

In 2005, the Inter-American court ruled that the government of the Dominican Republic’s birth registration policy for people of Haitian descent amounts to racial discrimination, renders affected children stateless, and violates numerous parts of the American Convention on Human Rights, including the rights to be recognised as a person by the law and to equality under the law, and the rights to a name and nationality.

 

To date, the Dominican authorities have failed to put in place a new policy.  People of Haitian ancestry in the Dominican Republic continue to face obstacles in claiming Dominican nationality. The authorities have also unlawfully stripped some of their nationality.  In May 2013, the authorities publicly admitted they were not yet complying fully with the 2005 judgment.

 

Over the past year, sixty individuals have used the Dominican courts to try to access documentation they say proves their Dominican nationality. Despite court decisions recognising some of the claimants’ right to Dominican nationality, the Dominican Central Electoral Board has refused to issue claimants with the relevant documents. In early 2013, the Dominican Republic’s Congress investigated the Central Electoral Board’s refusal, but has yet to issue its report.

 

Some claimants have organized public demonstrations and international petitions calling the Dominican authorities to grant them Dominican nationality. NGOs call on the Dominican government to comply with the Inter-American Court’s 2005 judgment and on UNHCR to draw upon its statelessness mandate to support Dominican civil society in its efforts to hold the Dominican authorities to their legal obligations.

 

(iv) Ecuador

 

Ecuador’s Decree 1182 of 30 May 2012 restricts refugee protection in Ecuador in a number of ways. First, it eliminates the Cartagena Declaration’s refugee definition from Ecuador’s asylum laws which risks denying refugee status to thousands of asylum seekers who have fled Columbia to escape general violence in their country. Second, it grants decision-making powers to bodies not normally competent to review asylum claims and gives them power to reject claims they believe to be “manifestly unfounded” or “abusive” without interviewing the applicant. Third, the decree allows officials to deport asylum seekers before evaluating a claim if the decision-maker believes the applicant has committed crimes in Ecuador equivalent to those listed in the Refugee Convention. This runs contrary to the UNHCR guidelines’ requirement that the decision to exclude a person from refugee status take place during regular refugee status determination and not during accelerated procedures. Finally, the decree allows officials to reject an asylum seeker if they find that he or she “has been involved in crimes or situations that undermine the safety of Ecuador,” a lower burden of proof than under the Refugee Convention.

 

NGOs call on Ecuador to revoke Decree 1182, and to adopt legislation that respect’s Ecuador’s international legal obligations and guarantees all asylum seekers access to fair asylum procedures.

 

(v) The United States

 

Asylum seekers in the US may only apply for work authorization 150 days after they lodged their asylum claim. If during that time the authorities believe an asylum seeker has caused a delay in the processing of his claim, they may extend the 150-day deadline by days or weeks. The law is not clear on what constitutes behavior causing a delay, nor the criteria that determines the length of the extension. After the 150 days (and any extension), asylum seekers must wait at least an additional 30 days to receive work authorization. During this time, the US does not support asylum seekers in any other financial way. As a result, many asylum seekers are destitute for at least six months after they enter the US.

 

The US does not grant asylum seekers the right to free legal representation in their asylum claims. Asylum seekers unable to work cannot afford to pay for private legal representation, which in turn affects their ability to submit as strong an asylum claim as possible. 

 

Proposed US immigration reform does not address asylum seekers’ work rights. NGOs call on the US to return to the pre-1997 rules under which asylum seekers may work from the moment they lodge a non-frivolous asylum application (a claim in which none of the material elements of the claim are deliberately fabricated).

 

3. Asia and the Pacific

 

(i) Afghanistan

 

As of mid-2013, there were at least 530,000 Afghan IDPs, almost all displaced by conflict. Agencies struggle to identify many more, and to assist those they know about. NGOs welcome the fact that as of mid-June, Afghanistan was on the brink of adopting a national IDP policy. NGOs call on UNHCR to urge Afghanistan to swiftly adopt the policy and to help the authorities develop provincial action plans with an emphasis on durable solutions and better registration of IDPs in provinces where registration and profiling has been weak.

 

(ii) Australia

 

Offshore processing

 

In August 2012, Australia reintroduced the previously scrapped "Pacific Solution", a program under which Australia removes some asylum seekers arriving in Australia irregularly by boat to be detained in offshore detention centres in the Republic of Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island. Australia says the move is necessary as part of its "no advantage policy," under which people arriving by boat should not "gain advantage" over people who arrive through legal channels.

As of late April 2013, Australia had transferred just over 700 people to the islands and a further 8,000 were detained in Australia, including on Christmas Island. None of the 20,000 people who have arrived irregularly by boat since August 2012 have had their asylum claims adjudicated.

According to doctors who have worked at the detention centre on Manus Island, inadequate health services in the centre puts children's lives at risk. Other reports say some detainees have purposefully hurt themselves or attempted suicide, but NGOs cannot confirm these reports as the authorities deny them access to the detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island, where the authorities are responsible for RSD, asylum seekers have limited access to lawyers.

NGOs call on Australia to expeditiously process all the claims of asylum seekers arriving by boat, not to transfer them to detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island, and to use detention only as a last resort.

Indefinite detention of recognised refugees

As of late June 2013, Australia was detaining 52 recognised refugees because they had failed Australian Security and Intelligence Office security screening. None of them know why they failed screening and they are not entitled to challenge the decision in court. Some have been detained for almost four years. None will be released until Australia grants them a visa or until they are removed from Australia, which means they face indefinite detention, unlawful under international law. NGOs call on Australia to ensure detainees can challenge the grounds for their detention and are not detained indefinitely.
 

“Enhanced screening” of Sri Lankan nationals arriving in Australia

Between August 2012 and late May 2013, Australia returned nearly 1,000 Sri Lankan asylum seekers arriving by boat or other “illegal” means for “failing to engage Australia's international obligations.” The rejections took place under an accelerated “enhanced screening” procedure that applies only to Sri Lankan nationals. NGOs are concerned that the procedures fail to comply with minimum RSD standards as claimants are not informed of their right to legal advice and are given only a phone, a phone book and an interpreter if they ask for a lawyer. Claims are rapidly reviewed by an immigration official whose decision to reject is reviewed by a second official whose decision cannot be appealed. The system means Australia is likely mistakenly rejecting genuine asylum claims and is thereby committing refoulement. NGOs call on Australia to scrap its "enhanced screening" process and to properly review all asylum claims.

 

(iii) Indonesia

 

Indonesia detains thousands of asylum seekers and refugees, including very young children, in overcrowded and poor conditions. Their detention is arbitrary because they are not allowed to challenge in court the decision to detain them. NGOs have documented cases in which guards have assaulted detainees, including an incident in February 2012 when guards at the Pontianak Immigration Detention Centre beat an Afghan asylum seeker so hard he died of his injuries. Unaccompanied children are detained with unrelated adults, and NGOs have documented a number of cases of guards beating children.  

 

Many asylum seekers wait months or even years for UNHCR to process their cases, during which some are detained. Some urban asylum seekers and refugees struggle to survive. Indonesia does not grant UNHCR-recognised refugees or UNHCR-registered asylum seekers any kind of legal status. Those released after an initial period in detention are often arrested and detained again because they lack official legal status.

 

Indonesia does not allow asylum seekers or refugees to work and children have limited access to education. Indonesia also unlawfully restricts asylum seekers’ and refugees’ freedom of movement because it has not justified, in accordance with strict criteria under international law, why they are required to live in designated areas.

 

NGOs call on Indonesia to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention, to end its arbitrary detention of refugees and asylum seekers, to stop violence by guards in detention centres and hold those responsible to account, to end the detention of unaccompanied children with unrelated adults, and to ensure unaccompanied children are appointed guardians. We also call on Indonesia to ensure that registered asylum seekers and recognised refugees are given formal legal status, are allowed to work and go to school and are given free movement throughout Indonesia.

 

(iv) Myanmar

 

For many decades, Myanmar has applied discriminatory regulations to hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingya Muslims living in northern Rakhine State, for example by requiring them to obtain government permission to marry and travel even short distances from their homes. In June 2012, sectarian conflict erupted between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya communities and in October 2012 Rakhine Buddhists attacked Rohingya and Kaman Muslims in violence that amounted to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. As of June 2013, the violence had displaced at least 140,000 Rohingya and Kaman Muslims who now live in extremely poor conditions that threaten their health and wellbeing.

 

In many areas of Rakhine state, security forces strictly enforce policies that effectively segregate Muslims from Buddhists. They restrict the movement of Rohingya and Kaman IDPs living in official and unofficial IDP camps, depriving them of the opportunity to work and access emergency health care and education. They have also refused to register many IDPs who are consequently not allowed to live in official IDP camps, which means they cannot access aid there.

 

Since June 2012, the authorities have extended movement restrictions on Rohingya in northern Rakhine State to other parts of the State, with entire communities unable to leave their villages. These include 8,000 Rohingya and Kaman Muslims unable to leave the Aung Mingalar neighborhood of Sittwe, the provincial capital of Rakhine state, as well as IDPs living in camps west of Sittwe, and in Myebon, Pauktaw, and other townships affected by violence in October 2012.

 

Rohingya unable to leave their home areas or camps depend entirely on aid. Some political and religious leaders of the Buddhist Rakhine community continue to incite hatred against Muslims, and have harassed and threatened Rakhine and Rohingya staff working with national and international aid agencies attempting to assist these communities. Local police and authorities have taken no steps to prevent or investigate these threats, and in some instances the authorities have used these threats as an excuse to deny agencies travel authorization required to assist communities. Two local humanitarian workers remain in detention on charges connected to the 2012 violence. Their due process rights have not been respected, which has intimidated other humanitarian workers, some of whom have left the area. This has further reduced agencies’ ability to assist those in need. 

 

Many of the Rohingya IDP camps are located in low-lying areas, including on flood-prone paddy fields, without adequate sources of clean water and have poor sanitation. With the beginning of the May-October monsoon season, conditions have deteriorated further. To date, Myanmar has not fully operationalized its “Emergency Coordination Centre” to coordinate government and international aid agency assistance in Rakhine state. Current government response structures prevent or limit national and international aid agencies from reaching IDPs by refusing access to certain areas, thereby severely limiting their ability to assist IDPs and the authorities take a very long time to issue aid agency travel permits.

 

NGOs call on Myanmar to grant all aid agencies unfettered access to all IDP camps and other affected Muslim communities, and to allow all Rohingya to move freely throughout their home areas and other parts of the country. NGOs call on Myanmar to promote reconciliation between the Rakhine and Rohingya, without which there is little chance of IDPs voluntarily and safely returning to their home areas any time soon. We also call on Myanmar to amend the 1982 Citizenship Law to bring it in line with international human rights standards, to guarantee all Rohingya the right to apply for full Burmese citizenship.  We call on UNHCR and donor countries to encourage Myanmar to take these steps. NGOs also call on Myanmar to urgently relocate IDPs living in flood-prone areas to new camps with adequate shelter and lift all obstacles to aid delivery.

 

Since July 2012, international humanitarian staff has been prohibited from assisting tens of thousands of Kachin IDPs in areas controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) because Myanmar regularly refuses UN agencies access to any area in the country not under government control. However, on 12 June the government permitted a UN-led aid convoy to enter KIO controlled areas. NGOs call on Myanmar to immediately grant continuous and unfettered UN access to these areas to assess IDPs’ needs and to assist them.

 

(v) Pakistan

 

Flood-affected IDP families

 

Pakistan has been repeatedly hard hit by natural disasters, including the 2012 monsoon in North Sindh, South Punjab and Northeast Balochistan that affected 2.8 million people, damaged 386,000 houses, and compelled thousands of IDP families to live in camps managed by the Government of Pakistan and NGOs.  Thousands of affected IDP families are still living without shelters.  NGOs call on donors to provide additional support, as humanitarian actors on the ground are struggling to respond to the needs of homeless families with decreasing resources.

 

Conflicted-affected IDPs

In 2012 and early 2013, more than 415,000 people were internally displaced as a result of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations by the Pakistani army, clashes between non-state armed actors, and related human rights abuses the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan’s volatile north-west. Between mid-May and mid-June 2013, 131,000 people were displaced in the Kurram and Khyber “agencies.” There are now 1.1 million registered IDPs in northwest Pakistan, and many more unregistered IDPs in the region and elsewhere.

National and international aid agencies have provided much assistance. However, the government prohibits them from giving food to non-registered IDPs and restricts registration to families whose head originates from an area or tribe the government officially recognizes as conflict-affected and who hold a valid national ID card. IDPs who do not meet those criteria are not registered or assisted.

NGOs welcome Pakistan’s recent establishment of an IDP registration working group that will try to develop ways of ensuring all IDPs are registered and assisted. However, we remain concerned that at present humanitarian aid to IDPs is not provided in an impartial or needs-based manner. We urge UNHCR to continue to advocate with the authorities to bring IDP registration criteria in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and to ensure that assistance reaches the most vulnerable IDPs, including those in protracted situations and urban areas.

 

(vi) Sri Lanka

 

Acquisition of IDP land

 

As of early June 2013, there were about 90,000 IDPs in Sri Lanka. Almost a third cannot return home because the Sri Lankan military has occupied their land. In April 2013, the authorities began to acquire some of that land for military installations, hotels and farms, which may breach Sri Lankan law’s requirement that any acquisition be for “public purposes” and which may constitute a case of arbitrary displacement. The authorities have also failed to compensate IDPs whose land they have acquired, either by giving them new land or by helping them to integrate into communities that have hosted them for many years. This prevents IDPs from returning to normal life and affects all communities’ attempts at reconciliation.

NGOs call on Sri Lanka not to cause arbitrary displacement by unlawfully acquiring land, which would violate international law. We call on UNHCR to work closely with Sri Lanka to reduce arbitrary displacement and to press Sri Lanka to assist all individuals whose land has been lawfully acquired by resettling them and giving them adequate compensation. Where Sri Lanka fails to do so, we call on UNHCR to publicly express its concern.

 

Abuses against IDPS in return areas

 

NGOs have documented cases in which Sri Lankan soldiers have sexually abused returning IDP women. Other women have been unable to access food or shelter and say they have no choice but to exchange sex to support themselves and their families.  In all return areas, IDPs face a poorly run justice system.

 

In addition, tens of thousands of IDPs who recently returned to their home areas struggle to access water, shelter, work, healthcare and education. In some return areas, the World Food Program has concluded that food insecurity has reached emergency levels.

 

In some cases, IDPs displaced before 2009 returning to their land have not received any form of assistance, such as food rations, emergency shelter material or basic non-food items, because UNHCR prioritises assistance to returning IDPs displaced after 2008.

 

We call on Sri Lanka to investigate sexual violence by its military against returning IDP women and to hold perpetrators to account. We also call on UNHCR to assist all those in need, and not to prioritise assistance to IDPs displaced before 2009 over those displaced after 2009.

 

No coordination mechanisms for UNHCR and aid agencies working in northern Sri Lanka

 

In late 2012, the UN ended agencies’ use of the cluster system to better address humanitarian agency coordination, despite the fact that Inter Agency Standing Committee guidelines on when to end use of the cluster system were not met and despite the fact that UNHCR had not responded to NGOs’ request that UNHCR establish a Rule of Law Thematic Group and an IDP and Durable Solutions Working Group before agreeing to dissolve the cluster system’s IDP Protection Working Group. There are now a large number of aid agencies who urgently need an alternative forum in which to coordinate their and UNHCR’s work to address serious protection needs of IDPs and returnees. In particular, agencies now struggle to undertake needs assessments, to coordinate protection responses, and to work jointly to help build the capacity of national institutions.

 

NGOs call on ExCom Member States to adequately fund UNHCR and NGOs working in northern and eastern Sri Lanka to ensure they can assist and protect tens of thousands of IDPs and returnees. We also call on UNHCR to urgently establish a new protection-focused forum for agencies to jointly discuss and plan their work.

 

(vii) Thailand

 

Rohingya asylum seekers

 

Since June 2012, Thailand has repeatedly failed to protect stateless Rohingya asylum seekers fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Arakan state.

 

Under its so-called “help on” policy, the Thai navy regularly intercepts boats carrying Rohingya asylum seekers to prevent them from reaching Thai waters or land. It hands over food, water and other essential items, and then forces the boats to sail onwards to Malaysia or Indonesia. NGOs have received reports that one of these boats was rescued by the Sri Lankan navy in February 2013 after the majority on board had already died.

 

When boats manage to reach Thailand, officials have allowed some to disembark their passengers, but NGOs have received reports that since early 2013 Thai officials have handed over Rohingya to traffickers who abuse them while taking them to Malaysia. As of early June 2013, Thailand was also detaining about 2,000 Rohingya—who have recently fled Myanmar—in overcrowded detention centres and was denying them access to UNHCR.

 

NGOs call on Thailand to end its push backs of Rohingya boats on the high seas, to assist and protect all Rohingya wishing to seek asylum in Thailand and to grant them access to UNHCR.

 

Refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border

 

About 130,000 Burmese refugees live in ten camps on the Thai-Myanmar border. Over 40,000 arrived after 2005 but have not yet had their asylum claims reviewed by Thailand’s Provincial Admission Boards. NGOs call on Thailand to review their claims and to allow UNHCR to monitor this process to ensure decisions are taken in accordance with minimum RSD standards. We also call on Thailand and UNHCR to ensure that any repatriation to Myanmar is voluntary and that refugees are fully informed about other options, such as third country resettlement or locally integrating in Thailand.

 

4. Europe

 

(i) The European Union (EU)

 

EU Member States’ response to Syrian refugees

 

EU Member States continue to respond to Syrian refugees arriving in the EU in very different ways, creating an assistance and protection lottery for the estimated 30,000 who applied for asylum between early 2011 and the end of 2012.

 

For a number of reasons, many newly arriving Syrians in the EU have not lodged asylum claims, including in Greece where they do not seek protection because of Greece’s dysfunctional asylum system or because Greece refuses to register their claims. Only a few have applied for asylum in Greece and none have been recognized as refugees. Since early 2011, Greece has arrested 10,000 Syrians for unlawful entry. Some countries, such as Greece and Cyprus, detain newly arrived Syrians for days or weeks.

 

NGOs call on EU Member States to ensure that Syrian refugees arriving in the EU are given adequate assistance and protection in all EU Member States.

 

Ongoing returns under the Dublin II Regulation to Greece

 

The Dublin II Regulation allows EU Member States to return asylum seekers to the country through which they first entered the EU. In January 2011, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Greece’s dysfunctional asylum system, appalling detention conditions, law enforcement abuses, and lack of assistance meant the country’s treatment of asylum seekers amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment. However, some European countries—including Bulgaria and Switzerland—continue to return asylum seekers to Greece.

 

We call on all countries to suspend Dublin transfers to Greece until Greece guarantees all asylum seekers access to its asylum procedure, properly adjudicates claims and puts in place reception conditions that comply with EU standards. We also urge EU member states to reform the Dublin II Regulations to give less importance to the country of first arrival and to recognize the numerous factors that might connect an asylum seeker to one state over another.

 

(ii) Greece

 

Between 4 August 2012 and 22 February 2013, Greek police took almost 85,000 third country nationals—including registered asylum seekers recognized refugees—to police stations to verify their legal status. Police arrested more than 4,000 for illegal entry and presence and detained them pending deportation to their countries of origin. NGOs are concerned that the sweeps unlawfully targeted people on the basis of race or ethnicity, resulting in arbitrary detention. NGOs call on Greece to end mass roundups of people on the basis of their ethnic or racial appearance and to ensure no one is detained without suspicion of criminal wrongdoing.

 

NGOs are concerned that Greece has made little progress in implementing recent legislative reforms aimed at improving its asylum system. The asylum system remains largely dysfunctional, with the lowest refugee recognition rate at first instance in Europe (0.27 per cent in 2012). NGOs do recognize that some progress has been made at appeal level, with a recognition rate of about 12 per cent. 

 

Greece recently extended the maximum period it may detain asylum seekers from 3 to 15 months, and from 6 to 18 months for those who apply for asylum in detention. Since April 2012, Greece has opened 5 new detention centres to hold undocumented third country nationals pending deportation. NGOs are concerned that asylum seekers, including Syrians, are among those detained. Despite some efforts to improve detention conditions, NGOs are also concerned that they still remain inhuman and degrading, both due to overcrowding and due to the length of detention. In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 5 separate cases that Greece had subjected undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in detention to inhuman and degrading treatment.

 

In December 2012, Greece completed a 12.5-kilometer fence along its border with Turkey to prevent migrants and asylum seekers from entering Greece from Turkey. The fence has forced Syrians and others to arrive in Greece by sea and there are reports that the Greek coastguard has forced boats back to Turkey.

 

After 18 months of delays, a new asylum service will begin in June 2013 to process all new asylum applications at first instance, while the police will continue to be responsible for tens of thousands of old claims that risk taking years to process.

 

NGOs call on Greece to ensure that all asylum seekers are able to lodge their claims and have them swiftly and fairly adjudicated. We also urge Greece to stop its pushbacks of asylum seekers at its land and sea borders, only to use detention as a last resort, and to urgently improve detention conditions.

 

NGOs are also concerned about continued racist and xenophobic violence in Greece. The recently published Racist Violence Reporting Network 2102 annual report recorded 154 incidents of violence against primarily refugees and migrants, including by police. Only 24 victims lodged police complaints, the rest citing fears of arrest and deportation. NGOs call on Greece to build on recent steps to improve access to justice for victims of racist and xenophobic violence and to investigate and hold abusive police officers to account.

 

(iii) Italy

 

NGOs echo the concerns raised in April 2013 by United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants about the implementation of bilateral readmission agreements between Italy and Tunisia, Egypt, and Greece. The agreements with Tunisia and Egypt allow Italy to accelerate identification and return of undocumented nationals to those two countries without giving them access to NGOs, lawyers or information about Italy’s asylum procedures.

 

Italian officials intercepting third country nationals arriving irregularly on ferries from Greece are summarily returned to Greece without providing them information about their rights or allowing them to lodge asylum claims in Italy. Border police fail to screen arrivals for asylum seekers or unaccompanied children. Both the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants, in April 2013, and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, in September 2012, criticized these procedures, and the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs indicated in April 2013 that the Commission had requested information from Italian authorities about these procedures.

 

NGOs call on the Italian government to immediately suspend summary returns to Greece, ensure asylum seekers can lodge claims and admit to Italy anyone claiming to be a child so that their age can be determined.

 

(iv) Malta

 

Malta continues to detain almost all third country nationals arriving irregularly by boat, despite a 2010 European Court of Human Rights ruling that their inability to challenge their detention means it is arbitrary. Approximately 1,000 asylum seekers detained each year are held for up to 12 months or, if their claims are rejected, up to 18 months.

 

Malta routinely detains unaccompanied children unable to prove their age with identity documents while it assesses their age. Although Malta says it has reduced the length of time it detains children, they are detained for months with unrelated adults instead of separately as required under international law.

 

NGOs call on Malta to detain third country nationals, including asylum seekers, only as a last resort, to ensure all detainees can challenge their detention and not to detain unaccompanied minors while their age is determined.

 

(v) Turkey

 

Turkey has the largest protracted IDP population in Europe, with between 900,000 to 1,200,000 mainly Kurdish IDPs still facing discrimination in accessing work, education and adequate housing. NGOs acknowledge Turkey’s steps to help IDPs return to their homes. However, for those unwilling to return, we call on Turkey to promote local integration of IDPs in their host communities or resettlement elsewhere in the country and on UNHCR to ensure that it supports UNDP as lead agency on IDPs in Turkey. In the section on Syrian refugees below, we also call on Turkey to stop pushing back tens of thousands of Syrians at its border and allow all to immediately cross to Turkey to seek asylum.

 

(vi) Ukraine

 

In Ukraine, asylum seekers face numerous obstacles accessing asylum procedures, including a lack of information on how to lodge claims, a failure to issue asylum documents at some stages of the procedure (which exposes asylum seekers to arbitrary arrest), detention and extortion by police, and a lack of interpreters.

 

In 2012, Ukraine also unlawfully detained 140 asylum seekers in its “Centers for Illegal Foreigners,” in breach of its Law on Foreigners and Stateless Persons. Rejected asylum seekers are detained in extremely poor conditions pending their removal. Seven percent of asylum seekers live in substandard conditions in “Temporary Accommodation Centers” and have little prospect of moving into local communities.

 

NGOs have also documented a number of cases in which asylum seekers from some Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), including Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, have been refouled by the Ukrainian authorities or who have been abducted by unknown persons and taken back to their countries. In all of the abduction cases, the asylum seeker was the subject of extradition requests, indicating Ukrainian officials ordered the abduction and return and therefore committed refoulement.

 

Ukraine refuses to grant unaccompanied minors legal representation, psychologists, interpreters and education, and has no accommodation facilities to house them. NGOs are also concerned about flawed procedures used to determine unaccompanied children’s ages.

 

NGOs call on Ukraine to ensure all asylum seekers are able to lodge asylum claims and remain safely in Ukraine without fear of abduction and refoulement while their claims are examined. We call on Ukraine to prevent police from arbitrarily detaining and extorting money from asylum seekers and refugees and to improve conditions in its Temporary Accommodation Centers. Finally, we call on Ukraine to ensure unaccompanied children are granted access to legal representation, are never detained with adults and have their ages assessed in an impartial way under appropriate procedures.

 

NGOs also call on UNHCR to expedite the resettlement of the most vulnerable refugees in Ukraine, including high profile refugees from CIS states who risk abduction and refoulement, and refugees with serious medical conditions who are not eligible for free medical care in Ukraine.

 

5. Middle East and North Africa

 

(i) Egypt

 

Since 2010, NGOs have reported on widespread trafficker abuse in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula of mostly Eritrean but also of other sub-Saharan nationals, including refugees and asylum seekers. Traffickers severely abuse their victims to extort money from their relatives in exchange for their release. In late 2012, NGOs documented Egyptian law enforcement collusion with traffickers. Egyptian law enforcement officials’ collusion with traffickers means the trafficker abuses amount to torture under the UN Convention Against Torture, which also obliges Egypt to investigate alleged torture cases and prosecute officials acquiescing or colluding in torture. Egypt’s Anti-Trafficking law also obliges Egypt to investigate allegations of trafficking and related abuses. Yet for three years, it appears Egypt has failed to take a single step to investigate the Sinai abuses and there have been no prosecutions of Sinai traffickers and torturers.

 

Trafficking and torture victims who are released or escape their captors are often arrested by Egyptian police. The Egyptian authorities fail to protect their rights under the Anti-Trafficking law, which includes the right to access healthcare, legal representation and immunity from any criminal charges, including immigration offenses. Instead, they: systematically detain trafficking victims for months on end in inhumane conditions in Sinai’s police stations; deny them—including torture survivors—access to adequate medical care; deny any access to UNHCR to help identify asylum seekers and refugees among them; and either prosecute them on immigration offenses or directly deport them to Ethiopia.

 

Egypt also continues to detain large numbers of asylum seekers in prisons without giving them access to UNHCR and without allowing them to challenge their detention in court.

 

Over the past months, a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers in Cairo have informed NGOs about Egyptian nationals robbing, sexually abusing or otherwise assaulting them while shouting racist language. They say Egyptian police refuse to register their cases, sometimes claiming they cannot do so until the victim brings the suspected perpetrator to the police station. In the few cases where police register cases, they do not conduct detailed interviews with victims and there is little evidence of any investigation. In some cases where the police charge and the state prosecutes refugees or asylum seekers, they do not provide interpreters. Denying refugees and asylum seeker the opportunity to file criminal complaints or access to interpreters and failing to properly investigate complaints violates their due process rights.

 

NGOS call on Egypt to investigate and prosecute traffickers in Sinai, to prosecute officials acquiescing or colluding in torture, to ensure trafficking victims’ rights are fully protected and to grant UNHCR unhindered access to all detained asylum seekers. We also call on Egypt to ensure that refugees and asylum seekers wishing to register cases with the police are given unhindered access to the justice system and treated in accordance with their due process rights.

 

(ii) Israel

 

NGOs have repeatedly drawn attention to Israel’s increasingly draconian and repressive policies towards asylum seekers, almost all of whom are termed “infiltrators” under Israeli law. Most recently, the Israeli authorities have threatened almost 2,000 detained Eritrean and Sudanese nationals—including over 1,000 who have claimed asylum—with prolonged detention to pressure them to leave Israel. Hundreds of the detained Eritreans only reached Israel after surviving kidnapping in Sudan and Egypt, and torture by criminal gangs in Egypt’s Sinai desert. Since Israel completed its border fence with Egypt in early 2013, the number of Eritreans and Sudanese entering Israel from Egypt has dropped from about 1,500 to 10 a month. Reports suggest that the few who are now allowed to cross are given permission because their torture wounds are so appalling Israeli border guards feel unable to reject them.

 

Sudanese and Eritreans face a real risk of harm if they return to their home countries.   Israel would violate the refoulement prohibition if a person “chooses” to return to danger after threats of prolonged or indefinite detention as the only alternative. UNHCR has correctly said “such a choice could not be considered voluntary by any criterion.”

 
NGOs are also concerned about statements made by senior Israeli officials that Israel plans to return about 35,000 Eritreans and about 15,000 Sudanese nationals who live in Israel’s cities to an as yet unnamed third country without first allowing them to claim asylum in Israel. Since 2006, Israel has informally suspended their deportation and not registered them as asylum seekers. Such an agreement would also contravene recent UNHCR Guidelines to States on bilateral or multi-lateral transfer arrangements for asylum-seekers which say that “arrangements should be aimed at enhancing burden- and responsibility-sharing and international/regional cooperation, and not be burden shifting” and that “such arrangements would not be appropriate where they represent an attempt, in whole or part, by a 1951 Convention State party to divest itself of responsibility; or they are used as an excuse to deny or limit jurisdiction and responsibility under international refugee and human rights law.”

 

NGOs call on Israel to release all Eritrean and Sudanese detainees who have lodged asylum claims, to allow all non-detained Eritreans and Sudanese wishing to claim asylum to do so, and to fairly adjudicate their claims. We also call on Israel to allow all asylum seekers reaching its border with Sinai to enter Israel and seek protection and not to transfer Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers to any other countries.

 

(iii) Kuwait

 

Kuwait’s government continues to deny 120,000 stateless people access to citizenship. While UNHCR has engaged in advocacy with the government, UNHCR’s Kuwait office has had limited contact with those affected. NGOs call on Kuwait to grant this group citizenship and on UNHCR’s Kuwait office to regularly meet with stateless persons and to renew its advocacy with Kuwait on their behalf.

(iv) Syrian IDPs and refugees in the region

 

Syrian IDPs

 

As of June 2013, an estimated 5 million Syrians are displaced in their country – including older people and people living with disabilities who are unable to flee.  They require humanitarian aid that cannot reach them as a result of escalating violence. Thousands of refugees, including Afghans and Sudanese nationals, are also affected.

 

We encourage UNHCR to work closely with OCHA and other agencies to help compile as accurate a picture as possible of IDPs’ needs throughout Syria in a way that does not compromise agencies’ security. We also call on UNHCR and other UN agencies to do more to facilitate and support the expansion of cross-border operations by nongovernmental groups and to consider conducting cross-border operations themselves to meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in opposition-controlled areas in the most efficient and expeditious way possible.

 

Syrian refugees

 

As of mid-June 2013, UNHCR and host governments had registered almost 1.6 million Syrian refugees across the region, with Lebanon and Jordan hosting half a million each. The scale of the crisis in Lebanon and Jordan has placed national systems and many local communities under severe strain, requiring response that addresses the needs of host communities and refugees together.

 

75 per cent of Syrian refugees live in urban areas, while 25 per cent live in camps.  Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees living in urban areas in all host countries do not have adequate access to healthcare, education and social services and struggle to access housing and enough food. Refugees receive little or no guidance as they attempt to navigate public service providers, and many are required to travel considerable distances to be registered by UNHCR. In some places—particularly Jordan where refugees are not officially allowed to work—women resort to harmful coping strategies such as eating less so their children, and in some cases their husbands, have more. 

 

The Syrian refugee crisis has seen a new phenomenon - refugees who are not in camps, but rather are in semi-urban settings, outside of the capital, creating multiple challenges for service delivery.  NGOs hope to work with UNHCR to respond to these challenges and to ensure adequate protection for non-camp based refugees and IDPs.

NGOs call on UNHCR to increase the number of staff tasked with ensuring refugees—including the most vulnerable such as older people and people living with disabilities—can rapidly and easily access registration and the help they need or, in the case of Turkey, to support Turkish NGOs to do so. We also call on UNHCR and OCHA to develop better mechanisms to prioritise assistance to those most in need and to ensure that all agencies adequately consider and address the needs of particularly vulnerable groups, including children, older people and people living with disabilities. 

 

The 200,000 refugees living in Jordan’s closed camps live in poor conditions and require increased assistance with housing, education and psychosocial services. Jordan continues to confine refugees to the camps, thereby triggering repeated protests. NGOs call on donors to improve conditions in Jordan’s camps and to press Jordan to guarantee refugees’ freedom of movement.

 

Jordan, Turkey and Iraq have all partially and unlawfully closed their borders since mid-2012. Jordan routinely rejects Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, single males, and documented people seeking asylum at its border with Syria and closed its border entirely for at least five days in late May 2013, putting tens of thousands of people caught up in fighting in southern Syria at risk. Turkey continues to block tens of thousands of would-be asylum seekers at its border with Syria, forcing them to remain stuck as IDPs while they wait to access Turkey. Iraq has completely closed most or, at times, all of its border crossings with Syria, also forcing tens of thousands back into Syria. NGOs call on all countries in the region not to close their borders to Syrian refugees, a violation of the cornerstone of international refugee law. We also call on UNHCR to publicly comment on specific countries’ border closures.

NGOs have documented large and increasing numbers of cases involving violence against refugees, including violent crime and physical abuse by locals motivated by resentment over having to share scarce local resources. Women report feeling at risk of kidnapping, robbery, attacks, and sexual harassment from local men.

NGOs call on UNHCR to increase the number of protection staff working in urban areas, as well as in camps, to monitor refugees’ wellbeing and to advocate for increased law enforcement protection if needed.

While many efforts are being made by NGOs, national authorities and the UN, clearly the scale and potential enduring displacement of this crisis urgently requires the engagement of development actors and additional expertise in urban planning, management and economic development.