ICRC survey shows disturbing impact of hostilities on civilians

International Committee of the Red Cross Press release
23-06-2009

War and armed violence take an alarming toll on civilians in conflict-affected countries across the globe, according to new findings published by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday. The survey reveals that displacement, separation from family members and a lack of access to basic necessities are among people's most common experiences and biggest fears.

Of those people directly affected by hostilities, 56% said they had been displaced by fighting, while almost half said they had lost contact with a loved one. One in five said they had lost their means of income.

The report, entitled "Our world. Views from the field" looks at the personal experiences, needs, worries, expectations and frustrations of conflict-affected populations in eight countries: Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Georgia, Haiti, Lebanon, Liberia and the Philippines. It was compiled by the Ipsos research agency and is being released to mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Solferino on 24 June.

"What's new about this research is that it gives us a more comprehensive overview of how the victims of armed conflict and violence are affected across the board," said Pierre Krähenbühl, the ICRC's director of operations. "These figures represent millions of people who are struggling to provide for their children, who have been forced to flee their villages under threat, or who live in constant fear that someone they care for will be killed, assaulted or disappear. That's very disturbing."

In Afghanistan, 76% of those who had personal experience of armed conflict said they were forced to leave their homes, while 61% said they had lost contact with a close relative. In Liberia, a startling 90% of people said they had been displaced, followed by 61% in Lebanon and 58% in DRC. The loss of contact with a relative was also high in Liberia (86%), Lebanon (51%) and DRC (47%).

Limited access to services, such as water, electricity and health care, emerged as a widespread problem, particularly in Afghanistan and Haiti, where well over half of the people directly affected by armed violence said they had experienced a lack of these basic necessities.

As part of the research process, the ICRC conducted focus groups in the conflict-affected countries to gain a more in-depth understanding of people's true experiences of war.

"By talking to a wide range of people, and really listening to what they have to say, we're able to see the situation through their eyes. This will greatly enhance and inform our approach towards helping them and others in need," said the ICRC's deputy director of communication, Charlotte Lindsey, who oversaw the survey.

According to the report, people most often turn to those “closest to home” for help. In all of the countries where the research took place, people said their families and communities were first to give assistance and best understood their needs.

“We need to do everything we can to strengthen the capacity of communities to cope in the face of armed conflict," said Mr. Krähenbühl. “By working with people from affected areas, and with National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and local authorities, we try to accompany families and communities at a grassroots level. The survey underscores the importance of this way of working.”

Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Solferino, which took place on 24 June 1859, the new research looks at "today's Solferinos" and their impact on people. More than 38,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in 1859, when allied Franco-Sardinian troops clashed with Austrian soldiers in northern Italy. The battle led to the creation of the ICRC, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the Geneva Conventions.

"When you look at Solferino, where only one civilian was reportedly killed, and you compare it with modern-day conflicts in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Gaza or Somalia, you find that warfare today takes a more widespread physical and emotional toll on civilians," said Mr. Krähenbühl. "This clearly points to a need for warring parties to better respect international humanitarian law and the rules of war. Civilians and their property must be spared and protected at all times."

Other key findings of the report

Of the more than 4,000 people surveyed, 44% overall said they had personally experienced armed conflict. The highest figures were in Liberia (96%), Lebanon (75%) and Afghanistan (60%).

Around 66% of all respondents said they had felt the consequences of hostilities, even if they did not consider themselves personally or directly affected. This includes almost everyone in Lebanon (96%), Liberia (96%), Haiti (98%) and Afghanistan (96%).

Almost 30% of those directly affected by fighting said a close family member had been killed during fighting. This figure was dramatically higher in Liberia (69%) and Afghanistan (45%). In both Lebanon and DRC, the corresponding figure was about 25%.

The loss of income among those directly affected by violence and armed conflict was highest in Afghanistan (60%), Lebanon (51%) and Haiti (40%). Across the eight countries, 18% said they had been wounded by fighting. In addition, 17% said they had been tortured, while 32% said they had experienced humiliation.

UNITED MEDIA RELEASE 18/06/09: INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE DAY - 20 JUNE 2009

13.250 MIGRANT DEATHS DOCUMENTED BY UNITED

'The amounts needed to rescue people are less than what is needed to rescue banks'.
Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner

'The best town for living is one in which a foreigner feels at home'.
Italo Calvino, Italian writer born in Cuba

- At least 13.250 persons have died in their desperate attempt to find a safe shelter in Europe since 1993

- Their names and their stories have been compiled by the UNITED secretariat under the so-called 'List of Deaths'

- The experts say it is impossible to know the real number and it is likely to be three times higher

- Hundreds of organizations from Turkey to Finland speak out against this intolerable human cost of building 'Fortress Europe' to celebrate the International Refugee Day

- On the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention in 2001, the United Nations declared June 20th the International Refugee Day.

Adam Osman Mohammed was 38 years old when he was shot in Darfur after accepting voluntary repatriation when his asylum claim was refused in Great Britain; he died in his home in front of his wife and his four-year-old son. Chulun Liua, a 51-year-old Chinese woman, was left in coma after jumping out of a window to avoid a police raid in Paris. Afrim Magastena, a 24-year-old Albanian man from Kosovo, hanged himself in a detention center in Prenzlau, Germany, in fear of deportation.

13.250 sad stories like these ones are documented in the 'List of Deaths' whereby the UNITED for Intercultural Action secretariat has been monitoring the deadly results of 'Fortress Europe' since 1993. The current 'List of Deaths' already includes 13.250 deaths of asylum seekers and migrants who have lost their lives in an attempt to find a safe shelter in Europe.

Although the experts say it is impossible to know the real number, which is likely to be three times higher, the UNITED 'List of Deaths' has been made with a rigorous method of comparing sources, from news to NGOs' media releases.

Where, when and under which circumstances the refugees died is data compiled exclusively from officially documented deaths.

With these facts UNITED spreads a powerful lobby and awareness-raising tool possible to use in campaign actions all over Europe.

20th of June: International Refugee Day

On the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention in 2001, the United Nations declared the 20th of June the International Refugee Day.

Every year on the 20th of June, UNITED for Intercultural Action -the largest pan European network against racism, fascism, nationalism and in support of refugees and migrants- celebrates the International Refugee Day.

Around this day, hundreds of organizations from Turkey to Finland speak out against this intolerable human cost of building 'Fortress Europe' to celebrate the International Refugee Day. Under the common slogan 'Fortress Europe. Weakness Humanity' hundreds of activities and events take place all over the continent in order to highlight this issue and promote refugees' rights.

The main point of these acts is raising awareness about the human side of the refugee issue and preserving their dignity.

Building a safe Fortress

Hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers all over Europe are fleeing from war, persecution or poverty. In the last years the number of migrants seeking refuge has grown considerably, due to several ongoing wars, the increasing intolerance toward minorities in many countries and the global economical crisis.

This week the UN High Commissioner, Antonio Guterres, has launched the UNHCR's annual '2008 Global Trends' report which shows the number of people forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide stood at 42 million at the end of last year.

Nevertheless, while the need for protection is increasing, the open attitude of those countries where migrants seek refuge is decreasing.

In fact the European public debate tendency links crime rates with migration. The economical situation creates an atmosphere, which drives people to look for scapegoats.

In Greece, for example, the Government has recently promised the deportation of 100 migrants and asylum seekers per day.

UNITED is convinced that this attitude cannot be accepted. This kind of Government decisions is dangerous because it legitimizes racist and discriminatory attitudes. Many examples can prove the inhuman consequences of these policies, such as the migrants' detention centers, prisons for undocumented people without any legal supervision. Also, the use of deportation as a tool to control 'illegal' migration is often beyond the limits of Europe's democratic and humanitarian legacy. The increasing externalization of Europe's borders as a practice of territorial protection is also beyond human and political legitimization. Indeed the new European borders are now outside its territory. Libya, Morocco and Mauritania, countries that haven't signed some of the most basic international agreements on human rights, have built new detention centers, which examine migrant-candidates. By externalizing deportation Europe cannot guarantee that the rights contemplated by the Geneva Convention are respected. Therefore, Europe violates the most important international agreement on human rights.

UNITED for Intercultural Action European network against nationalism, racism, fascism and in support of migrants and refugees Postbus 413 - NL 1000 AK Amsterdam - phone +31-20-6834778 - fax +31-20-6834582 - 20june@unitedagainstracism.org -www.unitedagainstracism.org

Teenage asylum seekers need better treatment in Central Europe

As more and more teenagers seek refugee status on their own in Central Europe, they are finding that asylum systems which cope well with adults do not always adequately meet their needs.
That's one of the chief findings to emerge from the first eight months of the largest project UNHCR has ever carried out – with co-funding from the European Union – to improve asylum decisions in eight Central European countries.
"I was really struck by the fact that Germany had more than 3,000 unaccompanied asylum seekers last year under the age of 18," said Natasa Hrncarova, a UNHCR officer who is evaluating the work of asylum officers making decisions in Slovakia. "That's more than three times as many asylum seekers – of all ages – as Slovakia had in 2008."
Hrncarova was speaking after a recent conference in Vienna where evaluators from Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia took stock of the progress achieved since September 2008.
The other main findings were that asylum seekers urgently need simplified legal information in their own languages to understand the complexities of EU asylum law and its implications for their own future, and that more attention needs to be paid to the professional standard of interpretation at every step of the process.
Under the project, now at the half-way point, evaluators have been listening in on refugee status determination interviews and analyzing files to detect weaknesses in first instance decision-making.
Their findings were used to prepare recommendations tailor-made for each country. Those include workshops, tutoring programmes, practical guidelines and checklists for asylum officials that can immediately improve procedures and the quality of decisions.
At first, asylum officers were apprehensive as evaluators shadowed their interviews and reviewed their files. But gradually adjudicators realized the evaluators are not simply auditors but fellow experts whose advice is constructive and helpful, and suspicion gave way to collaboration and friendship. "Now they even call me if they have questions," one national evaluator said.
Sebastiaan de Groot, president of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges, and an outside evaluator, said he was "amazed at the abilities and zeal of the national evaluators and the cooperative working relationships they have with their governmental colleagues. This is a very worthwhile project."
Michael Ross, a seasoned asylum judge from Canada who came out of retirement to head the 500,000-euro project, said he has been surprised and pleased daily at the accomplishments of the project.
There is, he said, a "growing recognition with our partners that we each have much to learn from each other as we work toward the common goal of making refugee protection in the region the best it can be."
Among the most common recommendations to emerge so far were that legal advisers be provided for separated children at initial interviews, that guardians be trained on how to effectively represent asylum seekers' interests, and that better procedures be used to determine the precise age of applicants under 18.
In Austria, the Federal Asylum Agency has taken the project's findings to heart. As a result of recommendations from the national evaluator, Austria says it now takes greater care to make sure legal advisers are present whenever under-aged asylum seekers are questioned by police as well as during asylum interviews. It also has improved its methods of determining applicants' ages.
"It was very gratifying to see our recommendations implemented so quickly and so successfully," said Markus Kainradl, national refugee status determination evaluator at UNHCR's office in Vienna.

By Melita H. Šunjić In Vienna, Austria
UNHCR News Stories

Economic crisis reveals deeper human rights problems

Amnesty International Press release
28 May 2009

More than six decades of human rights failures by governments have been exacerbated by the world economic crisis, which brought the problems of poverty and inequality to the fore, according to Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

"It’s not just the economy, it’s a human rights crisis: the world is sitting on a social, political and economic time bomb," said Irene Kahn as she launched Amnesty International’s annual report on the state of the world’s human rights.

Billions of people are suffering from insecurity, injustice and indignity around the world. In many cases, the economic crisis made matters worse, with millions more sliding into poverty.

Increased poverty and deprivation have led to denial of economic and social rights – including food shortages and the use of food as a political weapon; forced evictions; abuse of rights of indigenous peoples. Yet human rights problems have been relegated to the backseat as political and business leaders grapple with the economic crisis.

2008 saw massive rises in the price of the most basic of necessities – food – which had the effect of making the poorest people in the world even poorer. People took to the streets across the world and, in many countries, were faced with violent repression.

In Zimbabwe, more than five million people were in need of food aid by the end of 2008, according to the UN. The government has used food as a weapon against its political opponents. Across the country, political opponents, human rights activists and trade union representatives were attacked, abducted, arrested and killed with impunity.

Hundreds of activists protesting against economic decline and social conditions were arrested and detained without charge.

Across Africa, people demonstrated against desperate social and economic situations and sharp rises in living costs. In a taste of what could lie ahead, some demonstrations turned violent; the authorities often repressed protests with excessive force.

Social tensions and economic disparities led to thousands of protests throughout China. In the Americas, social protest at economic conditions increased in Peru; in Chile there were demonstrations throughout 2008 on Indigenous People’s rights and rising living costs.

In the Middle East and North Africa, the economic and social insecurity was highlighted by strikes and protests in several countries, including Egypt. In Tunisia, strikes and protests were put down with force, causing two deaths, many injuries and more than 2,000 prosecutions of alleged organizers, some culminating in long prison sentences.

"The events we’ve seen in 2008, with the world economic crisis at the top, demand a new kind of leadership from world leaders," said Irene Khan. "They must take real action, centred on human rights, to tackle growing poverty around the world, and they must invest in human rights as purposefully as they invest in economic growth."

Look beyond the label

Look beyond the label from British Red Cross on Vimeo.

Financial crisis could push more girls into child labour

The financial crisis threatens to push more children – especially girls – into child labour, the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) said in a new report.

Despite falling numbers of children involved in child labour worldwide, the current economic turmoil could roll back those gains, according to the new study, entitled “Girls a Chance: Tackling child labour, a key to the future,” issued on the World Day Against Child Labour.

Most recent estimates indicate that over 100 million girls are involved in child labour, with many exposed to its worst forms, according to the report.

It also notes that the danger of girls being forced into labor is linked to evidence that families in many nations prefer boys when making decisions on children’s education.

“Protecting girls – and all children – from child labor calls for integrated responses that include jobs for parents, and social protection measures that help them to keep both girls and boys in school,” said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. “Access to basic education and training for girls and boys must also be part of the solutions for the future.”

Events were held in 50 countries to celebrate the World Day through events music performances, conferences and other public events.