Refugee Or Migrant?
There have been many debates around the terminology used for the people involved in the refugee crisis, resulting in terms being used interchangeably. To understand the crisis you have to understand the terms used to define the crisis in relation to its victims. It is very important the right terms are used because defining someone as a refugee or a migrant affects the level of protection they are entitled to. Refugees are protected under International Law. Countries deal with migrants under their own immigration laws and processes.
There are three main terms that you should be familiar with:
There are three main terms that you should be familiar with:
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Refugees are defined and protected in International Law by the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol and other legal texts like the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention. These are the main legal laws that are the cornerstone of modern refugee protection.
As defined by the 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is an individual who ‘owing to 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’. People who are fleeing conflicts or generalized violence are also generally considered to be refugees. An important principal which has been laid down in the Refugee convention is that refugees should not be expelled or returned “to the frontiers of territories where their life or freedom would be threatened.” The convention also outlines the basic rights that states should provide to refugees. |
Refugee |
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Environmental migrants or climate refugees are people who are forced to leave their home region due to sudden or long-term changes to their local environment. These are changes which compromise their well-being or secure livelihood.
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Climate Refugee / Environmental Migrant |
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Is a person who seeks safety from persecution or serious harm in a country other than his or her own and awaits a decision on the application for refugee status under relevant international and national instruments.
In countries that have individual procedures, an asylum seeker is someone whose claim has not been decided upon by the country in which he submitted the claim. If the decision by that country is negative they would have to leave that country. Not every asylum seeker will ultimately be recognised as a refugee, but every refugee is considered initially as an asylum seeker. |
Asylum Seeker |
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A person who is outside their country of origin. More often, it is used for people currently on the move or people with temporary status or no status at all in the country where they live. It tends to be applied to people at the bottom of the economic ladder. For example, its not often you hear of businessmen being called migrants.
The United Nations defines a migrant as ‘an individual who has resided in a foreign country for more than one year irrespective of the causes, voluntary or involuntary, and the means, regular or irregular, used to migrate’. This definition includes refugees, asylum-seekers and economic migrants. |
Migrant |
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An economic migrant is not a legal term but is used to describe people who move countries in order to take up a job or seek a better economic future. The term is correctly used for people whose motivations are entirely economic. They are not entitled to any legal protection
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Economic Migrant |
