UNHCR’s top International Protection expert warned today of growing risks to people fleeing war and persecution, and said a renewed spirit of commitment from governments worldwide to the core human rights and rule of law principles on which the international refugee system is based is becoming urgently needed.
In a speech in Geneva to UNHCR’s annual Executive Committee meeting and looking at how protection of refugees and others is bearing up under pressure of today’s almost 60 million people forcibly displaced people globally, Volker Türk, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection spoke of a worrying outlook, with asylum and humanitarian considerations too often becoming trumped by security ones.
Türk described in his speech a troubled global landscape of increased war and conflict, a worsening humanitarian funding crunch, more countries building fences and walls to keep refugees out, countries using deterrence to push people away or simply shift them onto the territories of their neighbours, miserable reception and living conditions that make it impossible for refugees to stay where they are, detention of asylum seekers including children, absence of schooling for children and – for adults – denial of possibility to work legally.
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