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10th. e

dition

UNITED NATIONS HIGH

COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES

UNHCR

Handbook

ChairwomanBrenda Michelle Mejía Martínez

ModeratorCristina Fernández Salceda

Conference OfficersMelissa Vázquez Ruíz &

Ricardo Martínez Aguilar

2013TAEMUN

Escuela Tomás Alva Edison

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Dear Delegates:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is truly grateful to all the delegations for participating in this tenth edition of TAEMUN. As your chair, we are here to help you for whatever you require. Also, we expect from you a great debate full of new proposals in order to achieve both TAEMUN’s goals and this committee’s. This agency’s activities include leading and coordinating international action to protect refugees and displaced people, helping to resolve their problems worldwide.

During these three days, the chair hopes that all the delegates have an excellent and gratifying development in this International Forum. The first topic in our agenda is: protection of human rights for young immigrants. It is imperative not to forget that according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, any person, despite his or her social status, has access to enjoy the whole articles of the mentioned document.

The second topic is: children refugees’ right to education. It is a fact that nowadays, half of the world’s refugees are children, and the most polemic situation is that the majority do not have access to education for the environment they have to live in while their status of refugee takes place. Therefore, we need to have a solution for this topic.

As the chair already said, welcome to TAEMUN 2013 and we hope to listen and have creative and efficient solutions for both of these topics. Looking forward to sharing unforgettable experiences with you,

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

TAEMUN 2013

 

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Topic B: Children refugees’ right to education

“The education of refugees is an important but neglected humanitarian issue. (...). It is impossible to calculate the immense costs that are incurred by depriving refugees of education. A refugee who goes without education cannot look forward to a more productive and prosperous future. A refugee who is unable to attend school or a vocational training course is more likely to become frustrated and involved in illegitimate or military activities.” (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2001)

 Educating Refugees around the world

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=3fcb52bf1&query=E

ducating Refugees around the world

The Geneva Refugee Convention (1951) establishes that “A refugee is a person who, owning to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country” (UNHCR, 2001). Many countries consider food, shelter, health and water as the most important and principal

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necessities that people need during emergencies, although education is important because it helps them to develop in a progressive way. However, education, as the elemental right it is, is a constant lack in refugees’ placements. Education is a universal human right that should be available to all children. The UNHCR establishes that no government can deny a child this right to education within its borders, even though they are refugees or asylum seekers.

Taking in consideration the previous concept, it’s important to clarify to avoid confusions throughout the debate that a refugee, an asylum seeker and an internally displaced people (IDPs) are different. According to The UN Refugee Agency an asylum-seeker is “someone who says he or she is a refugee, but those claim have not been definitively evaluated yet.” And about IDPs, “they are people who have not crossed an international border to find sanctuary but they have remained inside their home countries. Even if they have fled for similar reasons as refugees (armed conflict, generalized violence, human rights violations), IDPs legally remain under the protection of their own government - even though that government might be the cause of their flight. As citizens, they retain all of their rights and protection under both human rights and international humanitarian law.” (UNHCR, 2012)

It is also important to mention that it can be a conflict to provide education to refugees precisely because of their status. There are several legal limitations to get access to education in several undeveloped countries, even if there is not a refugee status present, including the need of a permission (which varies according to the country). Furthermore, regions with important fluxes of refugees, such as the case of Africa, do not have enough resources to provide education to local nor incoming children.

 

(Global Increase in the Number of

Refugees and IDPs

http://thedemocraticdaily.com/

2008/06/18/global-increase-in-the-

number-of-refugees-and-idps/)

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Gender

Gender is a barrier to education and it is linked with other factors such as disability or ethnicity to deny access to formal education (elementary school and secondary).

Girls and young women miss out education for the following two main reasons:

Education is free; however materials such as books and uniforms are not. Therefore parents prefer to educate their sons rather than their daughters.

Depending on cultural aspects, gender activities are not considered to include education.

Conflicts and Wars

Many people have been forced to leave their country, because they want to escape from discrimination, violence, wars and persecutions. The majority of refugees move in the region of Africa, making it difficult to get into an asylum country that provides benefic opportunities for a further development. In many nations, there are camps for refugees’ families, however some of them aren’t big enough, and they lack safety and do not count with educational opportunities for children, mostly because of their purpose to remain temporarily in site.

Another constant lack is a teacher preparation program, where people can get the qualifications needed in order to provide education. For example in Bangladesh and Eritrea approximately 100% of teachers are unqualified, while camps in Saudi Arabia have teachers that are fully qualified. The number of teachers in the classroom also varies with camps in Tanzania averaging student/ teacher ratios of 132 to 1 and camps in Algeria averaging 42 to 1 (UNHCR, 2002)

Africahttp://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a02d7fd6.html

Another constant lack is a

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Africa

The Organization of African Unity Convention (Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa) considers as a refugee an African person who runs away from war and other events that seriously disrupt public order. In Africa the majority of refugees’ populations fly to Canadian schools, because as these children are affected because of war, their culture, ethnicity, language, and religion are diffe rent from their countries. The main countries that have this problem are Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Somalia.

“East Africa is currently suffering its most severe drought in sixty years. The worst-affected country has been Somalia, with famine in five districts, resulting in an outpouring of refugees to neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya.” (Pfleuger, 2011, parr 1). Nowadays Ethiopia is receiving refugees from Somalia because of the hard situation the country is facing.

America

There are a lot of refugees in America, and 70% of the 4.5 million, live within urban areas. Most of them get out of their homelands because of the violence in their homes or the violence caused by non- state actors. Colombia is the country from where most refugees get out, and the U.S. is the one where most refugees arrive. Natural disasters –like the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile- are also one major reason why many people become refugees.

Many offices of the UNHCR have also reported the growing in the number of asylum-seekers from Africa and Asia. Although the background is not good, the countries on this continent have taken exceptional measures against these problems. In Mexico, the New Refugee Law is the first one in Latin America to grant complementary forms of protection. Argentina has also adopted a protocol for the protection of unaccompanied asylum-seekers and refugees, from UN’s partners.  

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Asia

In Asia, there are 10.6 million of the refugee and asylum- seekers of the world; this is the 30% of the people of concern to UNHCR. Although this is a very big number, there is a big lack of normative frameworks for refugees in the continent. The UNHCR seeks to protect the spaces for refugees. In 2011, Nauru ratified the 1954 Statelessness Convention and the Parliament of Turkmenistan also did.

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/asia/regional-cooperation/refugees-uprooted-people/refugees-

and-uprooted-people_en.htm

The UNHCR Contribution

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees helps around 100 of countries, providing education services, especially on elementary school, however secondary and higher education are also taken into consideration. Every education program need to achieve the following goals:

Increase overall access of refugees and displaced persons to education facilities.

Improve the quality of available education.

Achieve that girls and women have the same opportunities as men.

The UNHCR has an important participation, because safeguarding and improving education ensure the protection of young people. This is one reason for protecting and creating five new strategies for 2012-2016. The first action that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has, is “More children will learn better in primary school”, which consist in training teachers and directors, provide an appropriate material such as e-books, and deliver an intensive language training. “Schools will protect

 

 

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children and young people”, is the second action, it is an important point because children are protected from sexual and gender-based violence and from child work. The UNHCR wants to expand secondary school to 1 million young people, for that reason the third action is “More young people will go to secondary school.”

Even though few people have the opportunity to access to higher education The UN Refugee Agency wants to increase this number by creating a new action called: “More Young People will follow higher education courses”. Finally, for ensuring that opportunities for education are lifelong and available according to everyone UNHCR proposed action five: “Education will be available at every age”.

Questions What is your delegation’s situation regarding immigration?

Does your delegation have high or low levels of refugees?

Which are your country’s national legislations to provide services to refugees?

Which is the scope of education in your country regarding this topic?

References Pfleuger, F. (2011). “Ethiopia: Education for Somali refugee children”.

Retrieved December 10, 2012 from http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20110822_1.htm

UNHCR (2007a) “Defending Refugees’ Access to Protection in Europe”. Retrieved on January 5th of 2012 http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4766464e2.pdf

UNHCR (2007b) “Educational Responses to HIV and Aids for refugees and internally displaced persons”. Retrieved on December 28th of 2012 from: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=45caf0ba2&query=right%20to%20education

UNHCR (2012a) “Critical Issues”. Retrieved on December 28th of 2012 from http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=3bb821334&query=right%20to%20education UNHCR (2012) “Education Strategy Summary”. Retrieved on December 28th of 2012 from: : http://www.unhcr.org/4af7e71d9.html

UNHCR (2012b) “Educating Refugees around the world”. Retrieved

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on January 10th of 2012 from: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=3fcb52bf1&query=Educating%20Refugees%20around%20the%20world

UNHCR (2012c) “Education: Wherever we go, education will remain with us”. Retrieved on January 10th of 2012 from: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=45225d5c2&query=Education:%20Wherever%20we%20go,%20education%20will%20remain%20with%20us

UNHCR (2012d) “Education”. Retrieved on December 28th of 2012 from: from: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646cda.html

UNHCR (2012e) “Learning for the future: Refugee Education in Developing Countries”. Retrieved on December 30th of 2012 from: from: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=4a1d5ba36&query=Learning%20for%20the%20future:%20Refugee%20Education%20in%20Developing%20Countries

UNHCR (2012f) “UN education investment scores high marks for Somali refugee students”. Retrieved on December 28th of 2012 from http://www.unhcr.org/5092864d6.html

UNHCR. (2001) Geneva Refugee Convention. Retrieved January 03, 2013 from http://www.unhcr.org/4a1d5ba36.pdf

UNICEF (2005) “Convención sobre los derechos de los niños” Enrédate con Unicef. Retrieved on December 13th of 2012 from: http://www2.ohchr.org/spanish/law/crc.htm

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (1995) “Refugees Magazine Issue 100 (Refugee for women) The difficulty of educating Leyla”. Retrieved on December 30th of 2012 from: http://www.unhcr.org/3b54358019.html

Yatta Kanu University of Manitoba (2011) “Educational Needs and Barriers for African Refugee students in Manitoba”. Retrieved on January 10h of 2012 from: http://www.csse-scee.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE31-4/CJE31-4-Kanu.pdf