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(c) Peter Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch
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50 Years On
What Future for Refugee Protection? 
In the course of its monitoring, Human Rights Watch has drawn special attention to the needs of particular groups of refugees, including refugee women, refugee children, and urban refugees, and to the needs of stateless persons. Human Rights Watch has identified various shortcomings in UNHCR's activities on behalf of these groups and have advocated for greater and more specialized protection.
The protection of particular groups of refugees Refugee women The protection of women is often seriously compromised in refugee settings. Women frequently make up a high proportion of refugee populations and there are large numbers of female-headed households, especially in conflict situations where men are either engaged in fighting or have been killed, or where male family members are farming, working, or trading outside the refugee camps. Human Rights Watch has monitored the protection of refugee women in countries ranging from Tanzania, Kenya, Guinea, Bangladesh, and Pakistan over the past ten years and noted various shortcomings in both UNHCR's and governments' response to women's protection needs. In an in-depth study on the protection of Burundian refugee women in Tanzania, Human Rights Watch documented widespread sexual and domestic violence against refugee women and some serious inadequacies in UNHCR's initial response to the problem. To its credit, UNHCR had made significant improvements in the camps by September 2000, the date of the Human Rights Watch report publication. These included hiring two sexual and gender based violence assistants to follow up on cases of violence against women, two Tanzanian lawyers to assist women in taking their cases to court, and an international security liaison officer to train police deployed in the camps. In particular, Human Rights Watch drew attention to the lack of a coherent UNHCR policy to prevent and respond to the problem of domestic violence, both in the Tanzanian camps but also globally. Some UNHCR staff in Tanzania did not consider domestic violence to be a serious protection problem, viewing it instead as a "private matter" in which they could not intervene. There was no effective legal redress for victims of domestic violence, perpetrators usually went unpunished, and UNHCR failed to provide effective guidelines to its staff on how to respond to the problem. In general, Human Rights Watch found that UNHCR staff were insufficiently aware of the UNHCR guidelines on the protection of refugee women and the prevention of sexual violence, and were not held accountable for their full, speedy, and consistent implementation. In Guinea, Human Rights Watch interviewed Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugee women, some of them as young as fourteen, who were raped-in many cases gang raped - sexually assaulted, and humiliated often in the presence of family members, by mobs of armed civilian militia, police, and soldier, in the wake of anti-refugee declarations by President Conte in September 2000. Human Rights Watch charged that UNHCR and the international community were slow to publicly condemn the brutal attacks against refugee women and called on the Guinean government and UNHCR to immediately investigate the incidents of rape and bring the perpetrators to justice. Challenges for UNHCR
Refugee children Children suffer disproportionately during refugee crises, often with little official attention to their particular vulnerability. In our monitoring of the treatment of Sierra Leonean children in the refugee camps in Guinea Human Rights Watch found that children who had been separated from their parents were frequently the most vulnerable. Separated children were at high risk of sexual and domestic abuse, forced and hazardous labor, beating and other physical ill-treatment in the camps. Many of them were denied access to education, or had sporadic access, as they were required to work by their "caretaker" families. Refugee children were exposed to serious risks due to the lack of adequate assistance in the refugee camps, and the close proximity of the camps to the border with Sierra Leone. Refugee girls were forced into prostitution in order to survive, and girls and boys frequently crossed the border into Sierra Leone in search of food to supplement their meager diet, risking attacks and abduction by Sierra Leonean rebels. UNHCR staff were insufficiently aware of the UNHCR guidelines on the protection of refugee children and were not held accountable for their full, speedy, and consistent implementation. Elsewhere, in the United States Human Rights Watch found that UNHCR did not play a sufficient attention to the needs of unaccompanied minors in immigration detention, many of whom were held for lengthy periods of time by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in secure facilities alongside juvenile offenders, without adequate access to legal representation or being fully informed of their rights.Challenges for UNHCR
Urban refugees As well as meeting the needs of refugees in situations of mass influx, UNHCR is also responsible for assisting individual refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom come to urban centers seeking protection and assistance. These are usually termed "urban refugees". Human Rights Watch has monitored the rights of urban refugees in countries varying from Thailand , Bangladesh, and Malaysia, the Russian Federation and other countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania. In the course of its work, Human Rights Watch has identified a series of problems in UNHCR's activities on behalf of urban refugees. First, in countries where UNHCR is responsible for refugee status determination, Human Rights Watch has found that the procedures are frequently ad hoc and inconsistent and lack adequate procedural safeguards. Many UNHCR offices are severely understaffed, with too few protection officers responsible for status determination, resulting in long delays and inadequacies in procedures. Applicants are provided with insufficient information about the asylum procedures and access to UNHCR offices is often difficult. Independent legal counsel is rarely provided to asylum seekers. Rejection letters for asylum seekers whose claims have been turned down are often inadequate, failing to provide individuals with sufficient information about why their claim was rejected. Neither is there an independent appeal process for rejected claimants and UNHCR often does not make public the basis on which status determination decisions are reached. Policies for providing refugees with documentation are often inconsistent and ad hoc. Finally, there is a conflict of interests between UNHCR's role as adjudicator in these procedures and more generally as advocate for the refugees. The second problem identified by Human Rights Watch relates to restrictions on freedom of movement and confinement of refugees in camps. Closely linked to this is the third problem of lack of assistance for urban refugees in many countries. Countries, such as Thailand, Kenya, Tanzania, and Guinea, for example, have implemented policies requiring urban refugees to move to rural refugee camps in order to qualify for UNHCR protection and assistance, and access to durable solutions, including third country resettlement. These strategies have, in part, been a response to the security problems associated with refugees in urban areas. But they have also severely restricted the freedom of movement and freedom of choice of residence of large numbers of refugees, while at the same time denying refugees access to basic assistance, including access to food, shelter, education, and health care in urban areas. The policy of confining refugees in camps is ill advised on several counts. In many cases, the protection of refugees can not be guaranteed in camps, especially where they are located too close to the borders with neighboring countries and are vulnerable to cross-border attacks and incursions. Women and children are at particular risk of sexual and domestic violence in refugee camps. In many cases, UNHCR has actively participated in policies to move urban refugees and restrict provision of assistance to camps, even when the protection of refugees can not be guaranteed and there are compelling protection reasons to continue to provide assistance and protection in urban areas.Challenges for UNHCR In countries where UNHCR has primary responsibility for refugee status determination it should adopt more transparent, consistent, and accountable procedures. These include:
In addition:
Stateless persons As well as its mandate to protect and assist refugees, UNHCR also has another, lesser known mandate, to protect stateless persons and to prevent and reduce statelessness. The U.N. General Assembly and UNHCR's Executive Committee (ExCom) have mandated UNHCR to act as the intermediary between states and stateless persons, as provided for under the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and to provide technical guidance and assistance to states on the preparation and implementation of their nationality legislation. In some areas of the world UNHCR has effectively applied this mandate. In central and eastern Europe, UNHCR has provided guidance and assistance to newly formed states on the formation of nationality laws, including in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Czech and Slovak Republics, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, and in the former Yugoslavia. Elsewhere, such as in Ethiopia and Eritrea, or in Burma, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, for example, UNHCR has been less successful in implementing its mandate on statelessness. The reasons for this inconsistency are multifarious. First the governments in central and eastern Europe were open to UNHCR's involvement in nationality issues - governments elsewhere have been more resistant. Second, UNHCR itself devotes too few resources to its activities to prevent and reduce statelessness. There is only one senior legal officer with the assistance of a junior legal officer responsible for all UNHCR's activities on statelessness and nationality. Third, and closely linked to the above, is the lack of donor interest and support for UNHCR's activities regarding statelessness and nationality, particularly outside Europe. Human Rights Watch has identified three areas where UNHCR has inadequately, applied its mandate on statelessness. The first relates to refugee status determination. In reports on Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and Malaysia, for example, Human Rights Watch found that insufficient attention was paid to denial of nationality as a grounds for granting refugee status. Human Rights Watch argued that denial of Burmese nationality was a key factor in the severe discrimination and accompanying human rights abuses faced by Rohingya and should be taken into account when determining refugee status. Second, more attention should be paid to ensuring that children born as refugees are not rendered stateless, particularly in situations where the nationality of their parents is disputed. It is very important that the births of all children born in refugee camps are properly registered and documented with the authorities in the country of asylum, or if this is not possible with UNHCR. This will help to ensure that children, like the Rohingya refugee children born in Malaysia, are able to activate their right to a nationality whether they return to their own country, remain in the country of asylum, or are resettled to a third country. Third, and finally, greater attention should be paid to the link between nationality and durable solutions to refugee problems. Statelessness can be a cause, consequence, and obstacle to the resolution of situations of forced displacement. In many situations, like the case of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and Burma or Bhutanese refugees of ethnic Nepali origin in Nepal, questions of nationality are central to finding a lasting resolution to the refugee problem. Until refugees are provided with full citizenship rights in their country of origin, their return will not be sustainable and, as in the case of the Rohingya refugees, problems of displacement are likely to re-occur.Challenges for UNHCR
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Chechen children asleep in a camp in Ingushetia for those displaced by the fighting in Chechnya.
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