WORLD REFUGEE DAY - INFO

Rome (Fides Service) – The Geneva Convention, 28 July 1951 and the New York Protocol 31 January 1967 define the refugee a person who, fearing persecution because of race, religion, nationality, or membership of a particular social group of political opinion, leaves his country of origin and cannot or will not avail himself of that country’s protection. These people are under the mandate of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees UNHCR from the moment they cross the border from their country and enter another country. The signing governments are committed to not force the repatriation of any person who fears persecution.
Two elements are an essential part of the definition: fear of persecution and the fact of being outside the country of one’s nationality. About 20 million people are in this situation and are therefore under the care of UNCHR. But the definition is not exhaustive of all the existing situations; because of different juridical conditions and ideological divergences no universal consensus exists for the granting of political asylum. According to experts and specialised organisations, in the world there are at least 45 million refugees and displaced persons, 80% of them are women and children.
Today refugees come in most cases from developing countries and they find first asylum in other third world countries, mainly in the Middle East and Africa. Industrialised countries participate in reduced terms in the process of acceptance: in the past fifty yeas the availability of western countries to grant asylum to refugees has been drastically reduced. Governments have put ever greater obstacles to discourage old and new aspirants to political asylum, nevertheless in more recent years the phenomenon has increased.
Forced exodus is the fruit of civil war, oppression, persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. According to the spirit of international law every human being has the right to be free of persecution and each state must protect this right within its territory. If a state fails to guarantee this right, it is the responsibility of the international community to render this freedom effective. PA (Fides Service 20/6/2003 EM lines 32 Words: 364)