The challenge

An article from the Ovi magazine

Living in the EU I have seen refugees for decades coming not only for a better future but for the simple reason to save their and their children's lives and the bitter truth is that in the beginning of the twenty-first century the refugee reality becomes more and more challenging for all the world.

At this very moment more than forty million people all around the world have become refugees escaping from their homes, roots and countries because of violence and persecution and this doesn’t include a lot more millions that were forced to immigrate due to economic reasons. In contrast with the economic immigrants who are aiming the industrial west, refugees are often forced to escape anywhere as long they can survive away from their home violence and most of time anywhere is better than home.

And it is not only a civil war, warlords or a dictatorship the only reasoning, homosexuality is punished with death in most of the Middle East and Arab countries with Iran championing. And it doesn’t stop in the dark dictatorships, in Turkey to say anything about a Kurdish state or against the army means imprisonment, in Zimbabwe if you don’t agree with Mugabe you are an English spy and you endanger your life, in the ‘secure’ Iraq people sleep with a gun under their pillow.

People nowadays due to expanding information are more aware of their rights and rightfully they demand them, often having to face with a hard and injustice state. So you find people asking for the refugee’s status from the most surprising countries. The same time waves of refuges have to deal with local xenophobia and sometimes racism with latest example the embarrassing events in South Africa. The role of the hosting states becomes increasingly serious as well having except provide shelter and protection but to advocate and help to build a new life and this is were all the challenges start.

The role of the UN and the Refugee Agency is critical since they are oblige to make reality all the above, lead and help the host countries and most of all put a blueprint for all the government to secure health, education and protection for the refugees.

What we have to understand is that these people didn’t have a choice; the alternative to their fleeing would have been their life. And I have no idea how bold to make that for everybody to understand it, to tell you imagine living the circumstances that led them to their action is nothing to the reality they lived. Just think that 30,000 kids die every single day with the majority of them victims of wars and conflicts; just think what thousands of other kids have seen while our kids were playing in the park or at the seaside.

I don’t know if there is anything else to say but give a chance to these people who had none in their own homes.