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  1. Identification & Selection of refugees
  2. Identification of resettlement needs

Identification of resettlement needs

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Resettling Refugees: Canada’s Humanitarian Commitments

 

Introduction

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that almost 960,000 refugees are currently in need of resettlement in a third country. These are refugees who, according to the UNHCR, can neither return to their country of origin nor integrate into their country of first asylum.

Together, the international community has committed to resettle around 80,000 refugees each year. Historically, Canada has resettled approximately 10% of this total; the government’s current goal is to resettle between 8% and 12%. In 2010, the government committed to increase the number of refugees resettled each year from abroad by 20% (2,500 people). For 2015, the government has agreed to accept up to 14,500 resettled refugees, out of a total of 285,000 new immigrants.

Canada admits refugees for resettlement on a humanitarian basis. Resettlement also provides a way for Canada to alleviate the burden for host countries and share the responsibility for displaced persons. In addition to commitments to resettle refugees, Canada has international obligations to those who come to Canada on their own and are found to be in need of protection (refugee claimants or asylum seekers).

This publication provides an overview of Canada’s refugee resettlement programs, explaining who is eligible for resettlement and the different programs in place. Finally, it concludes with some of the operational issues involved in refugee resettlement.

'We are the victims of the separation': A Report on Bhutanese Refugees Remaining in Nepal

'In the early 1990s tens of thousands of Lhotshampas, ethnic Nepalese from the southern region of Bhutan, fled their homeland through India and sought refuge in Nepal. More than 100,000 refugees lived in camps in eastern Nepal in a protracted situation for 18 years until 2008, when several countries of the Global North announced that they would begin a program of mass resettlement and take the Bhutanese refugees out of Nepal. It has now been more than five years since the process of mass resettlement was initiated. There are 88,841 Bhutanese refugees who have already resettled to third countries and 28,735 remaining in the camps. Of the remaining population, 7,206 refugees have not indicated any interest in resettlement. 1 This report focuses on the voices of the people who do not wish to resettle, and thus includes refugee perspectives that may be critical of resettlement. The analysis undertaken in this report, however, is in no way meant to diminish the option of resettlement as a valuable, indeed a critical, solution. The report merely aims to shed light on the opinions of those refugees who do not plan to resettle so that their voices will not be forgotten or relegated to ‘old news.’

REMOVING THE STUMBLING BLOCKS: Ways to Use Resettlement More Effectively to Protect Vulnerable Refugee Minors

As documented in this report, most unaccompanied minors have little option but to remain in highly precarious situations in countries of first asylum. Others will go forth in search of sanctuary. Each year since 2010, the number of children arriving unaccompanied in the USA has doubled. It is estimated that 60,000 unaccompanied children will reach the USA in 2014. Though not on the same scale, other western states have also seen a significant increase in asylum applications from unaccompanied minors in recent years. 
 
Understanding why the international protection regime is failing to make effective use of one of the most important tools at its disposal – resettlement – is of critical importance. What are the obstacles? At what stage of the process do they occur? And what can be done to remove them? These and many other related questions provided the motivation for this research project. 

What is the European response to the Syrian refugee crisis?

Czech Radio's Daniela Vrbová produced a broadcast from the SHARE Network Conference for the 'Focus on Foreigners' programme.  Entitled 'What is the European response to the Syrian refugee crisis?' the 25-minute programme uses interviews with SHARE Network Conference participants and others to explore the European response to the Syrian refugee crisis, including via resettlement and Humanitarian Admission Programmes.

Among the individuals interviewed during the broadcast are Hugh Fenton (Director of the Office of the Danish Refugee Council in Jordan); Abdulkareem Abdulkareem, an Iraqi engineer resettled to Germany from Syria in 2009; Vincent Cochetel (Director, UNHCR Bureau for Europe); Karl Kopp (PRO ASYL); Hilde Scheidt (Deputy Mayor of the city of Aachen, Germany), Gabriela Strååt (County Administrative Board of Västerbotten, Sweden) and Lubomir Metnar (Deputy Interior Minister for Internal Security in Czech Republic).

You can listen to the English version of the programme and read a summary of its contents here (please note that the official broadcast lanuage is Czech, and the English audio version is an unofficial translation).

Welcome to Europe! A comprehensive guide to resettlement

 

This publication is an outcome of the joint IOM, UNHCR and ICMC project ‘Linking In EU resettlement – Linking the resettlement phases and connecting (local) resettlement practitioners’, co-funded by the European Commission via the European Refugee Fund.

This new edition of Welcome to Europe covers all aspects of global resettlement needs, processes, policy and partnerships, focusing on the ongoing growth and development of resettlement in Europe, as follows:

Chapter 1 – Resettlement and international protection

Chapter 2 – Global resettlement

Chapter 3 – Refugee situations in focus

Chapter 4 – The resettlement process: from identification to departure

Chapter 5 – Resettlement in Europe – rising slowly but surely

Chapter 7 – European resettlement programmes

Chapter 8 – Building a new life in the community: approaches to reception and integration in Europe

‘Welcome to Europe!’ underscores the life-saving role of resettlement, and contributes to the promotion of resettlement in Europe as one component of a comprehensive and durable approach to protecting refugees. To submit your contributions and reflections on the publication, please contact Sophie Ngo-Diep at communications.europe@icmc.net or start a discussion in the Community of Practice.

FA.RE. Feasibility Study for an Italian Resettlement Programme

“FA.RE. – Feasibility Study for an Italian Resettlement Programme” is a project cofinanced by the European Commission and the Ministry of Interior. CIR is the operational implementing partner of the Ministry of Interior. The study’s objective was to verify the feasibility of an Italian Resettlement Programme.
More precisely, FA.RE. has had the following objectives:
a) gaining an in-depth knowledge of the actual functioning of Resettlement programmes;
b) verifying whether other countries’ experiences may be transferred to Italy;
c) providing Italian institutions information and means to decide on the implementation
of an Italian resettlement programme and the participation in a future European
resettlement programme.
This project has been innovative and, in some ways, “revolutionary”. It is the first time, in fact, that Resettlement is treated in Italy as a long-term programme. It appeared necessary for Italy to give a clear political message to show its interest and commitment towards a future-oriented asylum policy, on one hand, and not excluding any necessary mean to facilitate the situation of people asking for protection, on the other.

(Article in Italian, English and Spanish language)

Europe, now it is your turn to act

In the wake of the conflict in Libya, thousands of refugees who were in the country at the time have been forced to flee again. Now, they have nowhere to go. The international community holds the solution: some states can offer to resettle them elsewhere. Yet so far, European countries have done little to help.