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World Refugee Day 2021

  • 21 Jun 2021

World Refugee Day is observed every year on June 20 to respect and honour the courage and resilience of refugees across the world.

  • This year the theme for World Refugee Day is 'Together we heal, learn and shine'.
  • The United Nations has stated that the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has made it evident that we can only succeed by standing together. The UN has called for the greater inclusion of refugees in the healthcare system across the world.

Facts of Concern

  • According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 82.4 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced by the end of 2020 as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.
  • According to the latest UNHCR report on forced displacement, Turkey currently hosts 3.6 million refugees, the largest by a single country, followed by Columbia that shelters 1.8 million people, including people who fled Venezuela in the last few years.
  • The UNHCR report said, over two-thirds of the refugees worldwide come from just five countries, from Syria 6.6 million, Venezuela 3.7 million, South Sudan, 2.3 million and from Myanmar, 1.0 million.
  • At the end of 2020, a mammoth 82.4 million remained forcibly displaced worldwide due to persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations. According to the UN, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the rate of displacement, and thus the number of people seeking asylum remains high.
  • In 2020 alone, asylum-seekers submitted 1.1 million new claims.
  • More than 6 million refugees live in camps worldwide, as per the United Nations records.

Some Basic Definitions by UN

  • Refugees: A refugee is someone who fled his or her home and country owing to “a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion”, according to the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention. Many refugees are in exile to escape the effects of natural or human-made disasters.
  • Asylum Seekers: Asylum seekers say they are refugees and have fled their homes as refugees do, but their claim to refugee status is not yet definitively evaluated in the country to which they fled.
  • Internally Displaced Persons: Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are people who have not crossed an international border but have moved to a different region than the one they call home within their own country.
  • Stateless Persons: Stateless persons do not have a recognized nationality and do not belong to any country. Statelessness situations are usually caused by discrimination against certain groups. Their lack of identification — a citizenship certificate — can exclude them from access to important government services, including health care, education or employment.
  • Returnees: Returnees are former refugees who return to their own countries or regions of origin after time in exile. Returnees need continuous support and reintegration assistance to ensure that they can rebuild their lives at home.

UN Initiative towards Refugees: 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol

  • The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol help protect them. They are the only global legal instruments explicitly covering the most important aspects of a refugee’s life. According to their provisions, refugees deserve, as a minimum, the same standards of treatment enjoyed by other foreign nationals in a given country and, in many cases, the same treatment as nationals.
  • The 1951 Convention contains a number of rights and also highlights the obligations of refugees towards their host country. The cornerstone of the 1951 Convention is the principle of non-refoulement. According to this principle, a refugee should not be returned to a country where he or she faces serious threats to his or her life or freedom. This protection may not be claimed by refugees who are reasonably regarded as a danger to the security of the country, or having been convicted of a particularly serious crime, are considered a danger to the community.

The rights contained in the 1951 Convention include:

  • The right not to be expelled, except under certain, strictly defined conditions;
  • The right not to be punished for illegal entry into the territory of a contracting State;
  • The right to work;
  • The right to housing;
  • The right to education;
  • The right to public relief and assistance;
  • The right to freedom of religion;
  • The right to access the courts;
  • The right to freedom of movement within the territory;
  • The right to be issued identity and travel documents.

Some basic rights, including the right to be protected from refoulement, apply to all refugees. A refugee becomes entitled to other rights the longer they remain in the host country, which is based on the recognition that the longer they remain as refugees, the more rights they need.

India & UN Convention

  • India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention or the 1967 Protocol. Nor does India have a refugee policy or a refugee law of its own.
  • This has allowed India to keep its options open on the question of refugees. The government can declare any set of refugees as illegal immigrants — as has happened with Rohingya despite the UNHCR verification — and decide to deal with them as trespassers under the Foreigners Act or the Indian Passport Act.