REFUGEE REALITIES
WHO IS A REFUGEE?
A refugee is a person outside his or her country who is unable or unwilling to return due to a well-founded fear of persecution.
This could be because of race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion.
30 people every minute are forced from their homes because of armed conflict or persecution.
An asylum seeker is a person who flees across the border of their country to seek safety and submit a case for asylum in the country they fled to.
WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHEN THEY FLEE?
Many refugees flee to camps run by various NGOs. Refugee camps are temporary facilities built to provide immediate protection and assistance to people. They are not meant to be permanent.
Yet, the average amount of time a refugee waits to be resettled to a third country is 17 years.
Due to crowding and lack of infrastructure, refugee camps are often unhygienic, with a high incidence of infectious diseases.
Most refugee camps do not have sufficient food for everyone, and refugees are frequently dependent entirely on humanitarian aid. Adding to that, host countries often refuse to allow refugees to have a job, and thus they have no way to provide for themselves.
STATISTICS
- 82.4 million forcibly displaced people worldwide
- Among them are nearly 26.4 million refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18.
- 3.1 million asylum seekers
- Less than 1% of the world’s refugees are resettled globally each year.
WHY DO REFUGEES FLEE?
The following list is the top 5 refugee-producing countries. To learn more about why people are fleeing each country, you can click on the country’s name (this is NOT required for training!).