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| Forced Migration & Refugees |
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| News headlines draw public attention to violent
conflict and obliging reporters focus their cameras and microphones on combatants
and political leaders. While men wrangle and debate in the world’s
spotlight, millions of women and innocent children suffer quietly in the
background, far from public view. When they do attract attention, it’s
usually in the role of victims - the starving, homeless masses that had
no stake in the fighting. |
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To avoid becoming innocent victims,
the women, children, the sick and elderly must flee in any way they
can to any safety they can find. They must avoid armed rebels, government
troops, and paramilitary marauders, making their way through fields
of deadly landmines in the numbing cold of winter or the sweltering
heat of summer. They must abandon their homes and what few belongings
they may have and trek to God knows where, without food, water, or
medicine. Their most valuable possessions are simply faith and hope
that somewhere they will find safety and perhaps a helping hand. |
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| These are the most
vulnerable people and the tragic victims of conflict. For suicide bomber,
or terrorist, the pain of death is quick, for refugees it is slow and tortuous.
Women are forced to watch their children die of hunger, or diarrhea, as
they search in vain for salvation. When the media does focus on the plight
of refugees, the public often averts their eyes in hopeless despair. |
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| In many countries, the little people are
caught in a vice, under attack from all sides. Rebels and terrorists demand
community support, while government and paramilitary forces terrorize the
public in viscous attempts to "drain the pond" that sustains insurgency.
In Afghanistan, for example, people have alternately been terrorized by
invaders from Russia, by rebel forces and by the unconscionably repressive
Taleban regime only to be liberated by invasion. |
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Perhaps most unforgivable is that governments
turn their backs on the real victims of conflict, too numerous to really
be helped, too invisible to demand attention. Whether world powers or
third world warlords the combatants seem always to have money for the
weapons and tools of destruction. Sadly, the cost of war seems never to
include the cost of human recovery and reconstruction. Again Afghanistan
is an example. After Russian forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the international
community abandoned the Afghani people. The recovery, there and elsewhere,
is left to a handful of humanitarian organizations, with possible support
from the UN, if it can overcome its onerous bureaucratic inertia.
Whether Bosnia and Kosovo, Rwanda or Liberia, Haiti, Colombia, or elsewhere,
conflicts inevitably claim lives and destroy lives and families. Yet the
international community and world powers remain reluctant to intervene,
except under the most dire circumstances, if then. Lacking is the political
will to engage in the peacemaking, peacekeeping and nation-building efforts
needed to resolve conflict and restore peace and hope. |
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| When the shooting war ends the armies of
soldiers and media are off to their next encounter with evil. In their wake
lie the ruined lives of millions of humans who will never recover and will
soon disappear from the world’s consciousness and conscience. Following
is a selection of reports and links to more information about refugees and
internally displaced persons and to the organizations trying to provide
assistance. There are also a few suggestions on ways that you can get involved
and earn a better sleep. |
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| ARTICLES, REPORTS & PUBLICATIONS… |
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| "Rights Have No Borders: Internal
Displacement Worldwide" |
Edited by Wendy Davis
© Norwegian Refugee Council/Global IDP Survey 1998 |
| http://www.nrc.no/global_idp_survey/rights_have_no_borders/frontpage.htm |
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| "Children’s Rights: What’s
All This About Rights?" |
| http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/childrights/index.html |
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| Reports & Investigations (various
and country specific reports) |
| http://www.womenscommission.org/reports/reports.html |
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| Articles from the Project on Internal
Displacement |
| Brookings Institute-CUNY Graduate Center |
| http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/fp/projects/idp/idp.htm |
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| Articles Related to Refugees from
US Committee on Refugees |
| (Including specific country information) |
| http://www.refugees.org/world/themes/idp.htm |
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| Publications on Children’s Issues
from Save the Children |
| http://www.savethechildren.org/publications.shtml
(U.S.) |
| http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/functions/wedo/pubs_conf.html#family
(U.K.) |
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| LINKS TO ORGANIZATIONS… |
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| Global IDP Project |
| www.idpproject.org |
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| Forced Migration Review Links |
| http://www.fmreview.org/ |
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| Save the Children (US) |
| http://www.savethechildren.org/home.shtml |
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| US Committee for Refugees |
| http://www.refugees.org/index.cfm |
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| Women’s Commission for Refugee
Women and Children |
| http://www.womenscommission.org/ |
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| Back To Top |
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