08.12.09
Displacement inevitably leads to a need of protection no matter if the displacement is caused by war, persecution, poverty or climate changes. Thus, Danish Refugee Council has had to modify or adjust its mandate more than once in order to live up to its vision: that no displaced person should be denied protection and a durable solution.
When Danish Refugee Council (DRC) was established in 1956, the task of the organisation was limited to receiving and integrating the 1400 Hungarian refugees who had fled to Denmark following the Soviet invasion of their country. At the time, nobody expected that more refugees would come to Denmark. The integration programme for the Hungarian refugees was simply considered to be a one-off.
DRC’s original mandate was therefore extremely narrow: to assist the Hungarian refugees, who at the time were considered refugees according to the 1951 Refugee Convention. When the Hungarians had found their way into Danish society, DRC was to be dissolved.
Today, more than 50 years later, DRC still exists. Initially, it was the arrival of new groups of refugees in Denmark that demanded the organisation to keep up its work. Later, the knowledge and lessons learned from assisting refugees in Denmark were used to assists people in need of protection in other countries. Today, DRC assists refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants in more than 30 countries worldwide.
Mixed migration
The image of the world of 1956, when conflicts were normally fought between well-defined nations - creating well-defined refugees – has completely changed.
The majority of present conflicts are very complex and so are the reasons for people being displaced. People are on the move for a variety of reasons that are fundamentally related to safeguarding physical and economical security. Thus, migration is very much linked to coping with livelihood problems caused by complex issues such as persecution, political turmoil and armed conflict, poverty and environmental problems arising out of factors such as climate change, population pressure and natural disasters.
Further, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between the groups of migrants, regular or irregular, due to the mixed motivations for migrating and due to the frequent phenomena of changing status en route. An IDP, for instance, may become a refugee when crossing the border to a neighbouring country, only to move on to other countries as a migrant in search of improved livelihood opportunities, thereby changing his or her legal status.
Protection of rights
Whatever the causes of displacement, displacement inevitably leads to a pressure on people’s rights. And people without rights need protection – not necessarily against persecution (like refugees) but against the loss of rights to a dignified life.
In that sense, the concept of protection has developed from protection against persecution to protection of rights in general. DRC is a rights-based organisation – and this is why DRC has been able to add new groups to the list of beneficiaries and to modify its mandate more than once.
For DRC to remain a relevant organisation capable of meeting the present and future protection needs of displaced people, it is important and necessary for the organisation to adapt and extend the original understanding of the concept protection.
National focus on integration
Since the first group of Hungarian refugees came to Denmark, DRC’s national focus has been on integration. For the first many years, there was no reason to change this focus because the refugees who arrived in Denmark had often lived under very difficult circumstances and had been subjected to persecution. It was therefore necessary to assist them in re-establishing their life in the new host communities.
Working towards successful integration of refugees is a twofold process. One aspect of integration includes an introduction to the new society and support to find solutions related to housing, school, education, work, etc., including a general effort to ensure equal rights for the refugees. The other aspect of integration of refugees presents a challenge not only to the refugees themselves, but also to the receiving society that must be receptive and tolerant towards the new citizens who often have a different cultural background, other habits and customs. Over the past years, the challenges have been exacerbated by increased migration flows in the globalised world and in Denmark.
Migrants from third world countries often have the same needs for integration support as refugees do if their integration is to succeed. Furthermore, the receiving society often conceives the two groups – migrants and refugees – as one, with the result that integration and acceptance of refugees depends on the overall integration of all new citizens. Therefore, it soon became obvious to DRC that the work towards successful integration in Denmark necessarily had to include integration of refugees as well as other migrant groups.
The task of the future includes irregular migrants
Today, the services offered by DRC in relation to refugees and migrants are, among other things, language training, social and cultural understanding, assistance to vulnerable families and interpretation services. Furthermore, the broad voluntary network, coordinated by DRC, includes more than 250 voluntary groups across the country. These groups assist both refugees and migrants in homework support units, in setting up clubs for boys and girls or helping the adults in finding job – or just finding their way in the Danish society.
Some of the services provided by DRC are now also made available to workers from other European countries, and DRC’s mandate will be adapted to also include irregular migrants, au pairs and other persons in need of help and counselling in relation to their legal status and options in Denmark.
The fact that DRC is now making its knowledge and services available to society's overall work in integrating both refugees and migrant groups, will not result in decreased focus on the specific problems of refugees. It is simply a consequence of the fact that the new groups are also under pressure. Being an ‘irregular migrant’ simply means that ‘you have no rights’. And people without rights need protection against their loss of rights.
Refugees, IDPs and irregular migrants
Internationally, DRC’s work was primarily based on the 1951 Refugee Convention and the target group defined therein, namely the classic refugees – people fleeing their country for fear of persecution. But today, only a few of the world's conflicts can be described as classic and therefore the majority of the world's displaced people today are the so-called internally displaced persons, (IDPs).
The nature of persecution of IDPs is similar to that of the classic refugees – they have fled from persecution and need protection and durable solutions. The main difference is that IDPs continue to reside in their own country, which in principle is responsible for them.
Hence, refugee organisations like DRC have had to extend their mandate to include not only classic refugees but also IDPs. This adjustment of the mandate has not been the last as displacement today has many other causes than persecution. Poverty or miserable living conditions are forcing a growing number of people to move. And since there it is not a possibility for these people to obtain a visa or even travel documents that will make the journey towards a new country easy, most of them end up as irregular migrants.
Without legal rights
As is the case with the irregular migrants reaching Denmark, irregular migrants worldwide are trapped in a grey area. They might be accepted in society as cheap labour. Nevertheless they work illegally and have no access to education, medical care or other services. Being without legal rights, they are vulnerable to hazards and violations of their human rights and risk becoming victims of trafficking, human smuggling and inhuman treatment or lose their life. Such abuses and suffering are strongly reflected in reports on migratory flows between e.g. West Africa and the Canary Islands, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf States, and across Central and Eastern Europe.
The actual loss of rights associated with the status as irregular migrant, at the same time establishes the need for protection of individual fundamental rights. DRC is already working with groups of refugees who are considered irregular, for instance rejected asylum seekers who are not living legally in Denmark. DRC is thus prepared to help other irregular groups through counselling, support for legalisation, assistance with regard to return etc.
Over the next 50 years, climate changes will increasingly undermine livelihood opportunities for many people in the developing world as it may in the future affect access to and pressure on natural resources. For many people a natural response is to migrate in search of alternative opportunities elsewhere. DRC, other NGOs and the international community are prepared for this challenge, which we must meet if we want to remain a relevant actor and create solutions for the world's displaced people.
Dilemmas and challenges
Although it has been obvious and relevant for DRC to extend its mandate and include new target groups under the umbrella of work carried out, assisting the new groups of beneficiaries has raised new challenges to the organisation.
For example, the assistance to IDPs is carried out in the country in which the IDPs have been persecuted. This means that the authorities of the country are unable – or even worse - unwilling to ensure the adequate protection of their own people.
The assistance delivered by DRC and others is therefore often received with a lesser degree of acceptance from the host country, which might not even be in control of the territory. Moreover, access to the people in need can be extremely difficult and subsequently the safety of the relief workers very poor.
In addition, UN agencies and NGOs realise that in many countries their presence depends entirely on the discretion and will of the authorities who may expel them if convenient. To advocate on behalf of the displaced people is therefore often a challenging balancing act if the organisation wants to be present in an area where persecution is taking place.
Such a challenge requires that the organisation masters humanitarian diplomacy. DRC meets the challenges by focusing on transparency in the work of the organisation, ensuring involvement of the displaced people and their surroundings and by always staying in close contact with authorities and governments with regard to DRC’s humanitarian errand.
The reasons for migration are mixed and the complex tendencies have contributed to increasing xenophobia in receiving countries. None of this has changed the ultimate vision and focus of DRC. No displaced person should be denied protection of basic rights, whatever the reason for the displacement may be.
Climate changes are expected to be the next major cause for people being displaced. Other reasons will come – perhaps even simultaneously. So far, DRC has continued to be a relevant actor in the efforts to tackle protection gaps and identify durable solutions for those in need. Given the organisations broad national and international expertise, its global outreach, and not least its rights-based approach and flexible mandate, DRC expects to be able to stay on track.