Tam Wai/UNSPLASH
Already outside a legal framework, now facing closed borders, restrictions in rights and mobility, two experts - Sumudu Attaputu, Executive Director of the Madison Human Rights Program at the University of Wisconsin and Abdullah Resul Demir, head of the Istanbul-based International Refugee Rights Association - weigh in. Attaputu says the recent UN Human Rights Committee’s decision in Ionae Teitota v. New Zealand in January 2020 was a positive step forward in legal solutions for cross-border climate displacement but people will move whether there is a legal framework or not if they feel it is unsafe to stay in their homelands.
Demir highlighted refugee realities that are only heightened by the Coronavirus pandemic. For instance, many recognized refugees and those who lack legal status are equally likely to have minimal right and access to education, technology, communications, economic participation, healthcare access and more. Similarly, migrants and refugees work with no insurance, so unlike impacted businesses and economies, refugees don’t even have the insurance indemnities to buttress losses. He added that environmental migration is a result of " unequal income distribution and (a ) system of exploitation,” and so long as these economic irregularities continue unchecked, people will be forced to migrate. (AA)
Analysis
As we shared in our World Refugee Day Feature, surveillance, curfews and lack of status, rights and more are just some of the impediments impacting refugee access to COVID-19 medical treatment, and it’s in these conditions, that refugees are stepping up in their own communities to respond to the needs of fellow refugees and migrants.