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| 教 育 專 題 深 入 報 導《2007-06-22》 |
| 本期內容 | |
| ◎國際專題：難民5年來首度增加 | |
| ◎匈牙利學校歡迎難民孩童 | |
| ◎聯合國難民署：勿忽視難民需求 | |
| 國際專題：難民5年來首度增加 | |
| 策劃、編譯■唐澄暐、陳玫伶 | |
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就在6月20日國際難民日前夕，路透社發表了來自聯合國難民署的2006全球趨勢報告，顯示世界難民人數5年來首度增加，主要來自伊拉克。 在難民署難民託管地帶，難民人數去年增加了14％，達到1千萬人，是2002年1,059萬人以來的次高。同時，在難民署不同託管地的非難民身份人數也劇烈增加，多數是由於統計更為準確，以及登記制度改進的關係。 2006年，難民署託管地的最大宗難民依舊是阿富汗人（210萬），其次是伊拉克（150萬）、蘇丹人（68萬6千）、索馬利亞人（46萬）以及剛果民主共和國和蒲隆地（各40萬）。 到2006年底，難民署保護或協助的IDP（境內難民）達到1千3百萬人的記錄（超過全球IDP估計人數的一半）。這個人數已幾乎是2005年的兩倍，也是難民署託管地區各類（包括正式難民、境內難民或其他受保護但未有難民資格）人數，從2005年2千1百萬增至3千3百萬的主因。 當總體難民人數增加的同時，2006年的統計也顯露一些好跡象。約73萬4千位難民回到了阿富汗、賴比瑞亞、蒲隆地、安哥拉和蘇丹，其中多數是自願返鄉。 （路透社） Earlier today, on the eve of World Refugee Day, 20 June, we released UNHCR's 2006 Global Trends report which shows the number of refugees in the world has increased for the first time in five years, mainly due to the crisis in Iraq. In brief, the number of refugees under our mandate rose last year by 14 percent to almost 10 million, the highest level since 2002 when 10.59 million refugees were reported. At the same time, the share of other categories of people under UNHCR's different mandates also grew sharply, in most cases as a result of improved registration systems and more accurate statistics. In 2006, the main group of refugees under UNHCR's mandate continued to be Afghans (2.1 million), followed by Iraqis (1.5 million), Sudanese (686,000), Somalis (460,000), and refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi (about 400,000 each). By the end of 2006, the number of IDPs protected or assisted by UNHCR as part of the collaborative UN effort reached a record high of almost 13 million (more than half of the estimated IDP population in the world). This is almost double the previous year's figure and is the single biggest reason for the sharp increase in the overall number of people under UNHCR's mandates - from 21 million in 2005 to almost 33 million in 2006. While overall refugee numbers are up, the 2006 statistics also show some bright spots with some 734,000 refugees returning home voluntarily mainly to Afghanistan, Liberia, Burundi, Angola and Sudan. The High Commissioner is currently in southern Sudan ahead of World Refugee Day and is seeing for himself the difficult conditions refugees face on return to their home countries. On Monday, he joined a convoy of returning refugees from Moyo in northern Uganda and travelled with them in a truck for the two-hour, dusty and rough journey across the border to southern Sudan. Later today he will travel to Juba, the hub of UNHCR's operations in the south. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to take part in World Refugee Day events in Juba before flying to Nairobi. |
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| 匈牙利學校歡迎難民孩童 | |
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融合難民是一項困難的工作，但是一個在匈牙利最貧窮地帶的學校，已經發現了一種可行的方程式，並把歡迎難民學生視為一種必要工作。在匈牙利東南邊界，人口6萬農業城鎮貝凱什喬包的聖茲‧拉斯洛小學，收容難民學童的工作已經持續了15年。「貝凱什喬包的經驗堪稱典範。」聯合國難民署發言人安德烈‧索柏利茲表示：「這是其他學校做不到的。」 艾米納‧貝里沙是學校計劃的最佳範例。這個來自科索沃的14歲穆斯林羅姆人（舊稱吉普賽人），過去有7年的難民生涯，在多次搬遷之中，貝凱什喬包是她第一次感覺到自己受歡迎的地方。「因為其他孩子喜歡和我玩，老師也比較有教養，所以在這裡真的好多了。」皮膚黝黑，身材高挑的貝里沙用幾近流利的匈牙利語表示。 貝里沙是去年中歐1萬1千多名的難民之一。科索沃的種族暴力造成上千同胞死亡，迫使她和雙親與5個兄弟姐妹一同逃出。索柏利茲表示，急於發展工業的貝凱什喬包是匈牙利境內3個接受難民的城市之一，但它是其中最歡迎難民的一個。 就像世界各地其他難民一樣，來自科索沃的這一群也無法保證能得到醫療服務。在許多國家，歧視的態度普遍，難民常被視為經濟移民的入侵，而不是躲避迫害、需要保護的一群人。索柏利茲說，在匈牙利東部的狄布雷先，當地社群就對難民敵意頗深，當難民學生來到班上時，當地家長會直接將小孩帶走。「教導寬容的態度，並不在當地任何學校的安排中，老師被迫自己想辦法解決這個問題。」 聖茲‧拉斯洛小學的方法就很簡單：維持小班，每班只放入少數難民小孩，以迫使他們與當地小孩互動融入，但在正課上並不特別放鬆。校長凱特林‧加羅表示，她的目標就是希望藉由心胸開闊的孩童，來鼓勵他們的父母親學習包容。「孩童天生就有包容力，我們也有心胸開闊的老師，以及小班制和學會接受少數人與障礙孩童的家長。」 財務開支也是該校歡迎難民的理由。由於學生人數減少，1990年代該校一度關門大吉，當時教師就決定，必須增加學生人數以挽救學校。所以他們開始對障礙學生開放，並歡迎當地最大的羅姆人社群，以及附近的難民營。 然而，儘管學校努力不懈，社群依舊危機重重。2006年，2,117位難民在匈牙利申請政治庇護，其中多數來自越南、塞爾維亞與蒙坦內格羅，以及中國。只有99人獲得官方認可，另有99人獲准留在人道地區。索柏利茲表示，90％的申請者，以及幾乎所有的歐洲籍申請者，都會遭到該國拒絕其難民身分，其中60％從此就從難民營消失，因此孩子往往在學校待不到幾個月。由於難民營本身難以提供家長任何工作，多數家庭最後只能繼續漂泊。（路透社） |
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| （回目錄） | |
| 聯合國難民署：勿忽視難民需求 | |
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聯合國負責難民事務官員菲勒（Erika Feller）表示：「當各國政府擔心外來人口帶來社會犯罪、恐怖行動和非法移工之時，我們不應該躲避保護難民的責任。」她指出，合法難民在邊境因為庇護國對外國人的政策而遭逮捕，「這是非常粗暴的行為。」 聯合國難民署在世界難民日當天發表聲明指出，全球難民統計近1千萬人，佔世界人口14％，絕多數為伊拉克人。 菲勒在電訪中表示：「有些國家太過於強調外來人口的犯罪問題，聲稱為防範恐怖行動；即使該國已簽署1951難民公約，對於難民應有的人權與責任卻輕描淡寫。」她並沒有說出哪一個國家的態度如此不友善，但她特別肯定葉門和敘利亞政府，在自己國內嚴重的社會和經濟問題下，仍妥善處理難民議題。 「葉門一直敞開大門讓索馬利亞人尋求庇護」，菲勒指出，即使葉門是阿拉伯半島的窮國之一，在郊區仍設立很多臨時庇護所，讓索馬利亞難民居住。菲勒說道：「當地政府很努力處理城市難民造成的社會問題，但他們需要更多國際社會的幫忙。」然而，伊拉克和蘇丹達佛的衝突總是輪番搶上各大媒體頭版，葉門的聲援自然而然被忽視了。 敘利亞的做法和葉門不同，她並沒有簽署聯合國1951難民公約，但目前國內收容了140萬伊拉克難民。菲勒提到：「敘利亞極其照顧來自伊拉克的難民，即使她和伊的關係並不和諧。我們曾和伊拉克鄰國針對是否關閉國境進行討論，希望至少讓難民擁有一點基本生存空間和物資援助，使他們免於受遣返。」 菲勒還稱讚美國是「非常慷慨的國家」，其收容的難民數全球之冠。但該國法律認為尋求庇護者或難民是支援恐怖行動，「就像你遞了一杯水給叛軍」，造成難民安置計畫執行的困擾。美國已經接受緬甸等幾個不同國家的難民，但又認為難民可能會違反該國法律，最高難民署認為那些條文應該修正或取消。 聯合國1951難民公約在二次世界大戰後起草，將難民定義為「基於種族、宗教、國籍、特別社交組織成員或政治上的意見其中一種，具有充分理由因害怕而迫使其離開自己國家的人士」，並且秉持庇護國「應該要盡其所能接受難民」，但菲勒認為這個概念應該修正為「包括因為內戰離家的境內遷徙難民」，根據挪威難民委員會，全球有2億4千5百萬人屬於該類別。 菲勒道：「我個人意見認為目前公約不要做修正，並非不願見其改善，而是擔心我們可能失去原有的基礎，走上回頭路。」她認為，人類需要思考如何幫助流離失所的同胞們，這比全球暖化更迫切需要討論。「目前面臨的挑戰是如何掌握指導原則，使其成為更具約束力的規範。」 菲勒最後重申：「人口遷徙是全球面臨的問題之一，而且它將和氣候變遷一樣後果嚴重，所以問題是，誰將要負起責任，任何人都需要迫切思考在何種架構下，有效處理難民問題。」（路透社） In a world where more people are on the move than ever, governments jittery about cross-border criminals, terrorists and illegal migrants must not shirk their duty to protect refugees, a U.N. official said on Tuesday. Legitimate refugees caught up in these broader flows may be threatened by populist policies driven by xenophobia, said Erika Feller, assistant commissioner for protection at the U.N. refugee agency. "This is a very explosive mix," she added. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which marks World Refugee Day on Wednesday, says refugee numbers rose 14 percent last year to nearly 10 million, mainly due to an exodus from Iraq, after declining for several years. "There are countries which are rather keen to define away the refugee element of problems. They play up excessively the threat of international terrorism and other things to try and downplay their responsibilities under the 1951 refugee convention," Feller told Reuters in a telephone interview. She did not name the countries which are under-performing, but singled out Yemen and Syria as among a creditable band of developing nations striving to cope with floods of refugees despite formidable social and economic problems of their own. "Yemen has maintained a consistently open door to Somali asylum-seekers," she said of the impoverished Arab country. Some Somalis end up in a designated camp, but are free to come and go. Many settle on the outskirts of Yemeni cities. "The authorities have done their best to deal with all the problems that urban refugee conglomerations entail, but they need much more international assistance," Feller said. However, with crises in Iraq and Darfur grabbing most of the headlines, Yemen can slip beneath the radar of foreign donors. Syria, unlike Yemen, has not signed the 1951 convention, but it now hosts an estimated 1.4 million Iraqi refugees and is the only neighbouring country whose borders remain open to them. "Syria has been tremendously responsive to the Iraqi arrivals although its system is very strained," Feller said. "There are other countries neighbouring Iraq where we have had discussions about border closures, about making it possible for people to stay on a slightly longer term basis without the threat of deportation within weeks of arrival," she said. Feller called the United States a "very generous host country" with one of the world's biggest refugee populations. But its broad legislation barring asylum or refugee status to anyone deemed to have provided "material support" to a terrorist or armed opposition group -- which Feller said could be as little as "giving a glass of water to a passing rebel" -- was problematic for UNHCR resettlement programmes. Washington had instituted waivers for certain groups, such as Burmese refugees, who would otherwise fall foul of the law, but Feller said UNHCR hoped it would be scrapped or amended. She said the 1951 refugee convention, drawn up after the horrors of World War Two, remained "as effective as states will allow it to be" and she argued against the idea of revising it to include people internally displaced by conflict -- who now number 24.5 million, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council. The convention defines a refugee as someone who is outside their country due to "a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion" or due to having no nationality. It prohibits the forcible return of refugees to countries where their lives may be in danger. "Personally I wouldn't touch the convention, not because it couldn't be improved, but because I fear the result would take us backwards and we might lose some of the basics we already have," she said, noting that non-binding principles on the protection of internally displaced people already exist. "The challenge would be to pick up the guiding principles and see if we can develop them into a more binding instrument." The world also needs to think fast about how to help people displaced by global warming and environmental change, she said. "The movement of people is one of the biggest global problems, and it'll only get worse with climate change. "So the question of who's going to respond to this and how, in what framework of rights and responsibilities, needs to be looked at quite urgently," Feller declared. |
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