A riveting tale of dislocation, survival, and the power of stories to break or save us Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbours began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Clare, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years wandering through seven African countries, searching for safety-perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive. When Clemantine was twelve, she and her sister were granted refugee status in the United States, where she embarked on another journey, ultimately graduating from Yale. Yet the years of being treated as less than human, of going hungry and seeing death, could not be erased. She felt at the same time six years old and one hundred years old. In The Girl Who Smiled Beads, Clemantine provokes us to look beyond the label of `victim' and recognize the power of the imagination to transcend even the most profound injuries and aftershocks. Devastating yet beautiful, and bracingly original, it is a powerful testament to her commitment to constructing a life on her own terms.

Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour investigates one of the most under-examined aspects of the great migration crisis of our time. As millions seek passage to Europe in order to escape conflicts, repressive governments and poverty, their movements are enabled and actively encouraged by professional criminal networks that earn billions of dollars. Many of these smugglers carry out their activities with little regard for human rights, which has led to a manifold increase in human suffering, not only in the Mediterranean Sea, but also along the overland smuggling routes that cross the Sahara, penetrate deep into the Balkans, and into hidden corners of Europe's capitals. But others are revered as saviours by those that they move, for it is they who deliver men, women and children to a safer place and better life. Disconcertingly, it is often criminals who help the most desperate among us when the international system turns them away. This book is a measured attempt, born of years of research and reporting in the field, to better understand how people-smuggling networks function, the ways in which they have evolved, and what they mean for peace and security in the future.

No Haven for the Oppressed was the most thorough and comprehensive analysis to be written to date on the United States policy toward Jewish refugees during World War II.

In Being Kurdish in a Hostile World, Ayub Nuri writes of growing up during the Iran-Iraq War, of Saddam Hussein's chemical attack that killed thousands in Nuri's home town of Halabja, of civil war, of living in refugee camps, and of years of starvation that followed the UN's sanctions. The story begins with the historic betrayal by the French and British that deprived the Kurds of a country of their own. Nuri recounts living through the 2003 American invasion and the collapse of Hussein's totalitarian rule, and how, for a brief period, he felt optimism for the future. Then came bloody sectarian violence, and recently, the harrowing ascent of ISIS, which Nuri reported from Mosul.

This book presents an interdisciplinary approach to definition of torture by bringing together behavioral science and international law perspectives on torture. It is a collaborative effort by a group of prominent scholars of behavioral sciences, international law, human rights, and public health with internationally recognized expertise and authority in their field. It represents a first ever attempt to explore the scientific basis of legal understanding of torture and inform international law on various definitional issues by proposing a sound theory- and empirical-evidence-based psychological formulation of torture. Drawing on scientific evidence from the editor's 30 years of systematic research on torture, it proposes a learning theory formulation of torture based on the concept of helplessness under the control of others and offers an assessment methodology that can reduce the element of subjectivity in legal judgments in individual cases. It also demonstrates how this formulation can help understand the nature and severity of ill-treatments in different contexts, such as domestic violence and adverse conditions of penal confinement. Through a learning theory analysis of "enhanced interrogation techniques," it demonstrates not only why these techniques constitute torture but also how they help us understand the contextual defining characteristic of torture in general. The proposed formulation implies a broader concept of torture than previously understood, provides scientific and moral justification for the evolving trends in international law towards a broader coverage of ill-treatments in contexts beyond official custody and points to new directions of expansion of the concept. With a focus on the concepts of shame and humiliation and their evolutionary origin, the book explains why inhuman or degrading treatments can cause as much pain or suffering as physical torture. Although treatment issues are not covered, the book sheds light on potentially effective treatment approaches by offering important insights into psychology of torture.

One global issue at the forefront of World Bank Group work this year and beyond is the forced displacement of people and its impact on ending extreme poverty. This report, prepared by The World Bank Group and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), looks closely at the complex realities and lives of forcibly displaced people around the world, with the aim of providing a better characterisation of the crisis. The report seeks to clarify the meaning of terms like refugees, migrants, forcibly displaced persons, and internally displaced persons and aims to present a measured, evidence-based, proportional tone to the discourse surrounding the crisis. Not just a humanitarian issue, forced displacement is emerging as an important development challenge, and the development approach to providing support to it is multifold.

Germany, the most racist of countries less than a century ago, has for the past two years welcomed over one million refugees, more than any other European country. To find out the secret behind this turn of character, Tuvia Tenenbom, a Jew born in Israel, presented himself as a Jordanian and was able to gain entry into many refugee camps.

Living in squalid conditions in airless rooms, and with barely edible food, the refugees begged Tuvia to help them get out of the camps. When not with the refugees, Tuvia traveled through the land and mingled with the local people who shared with him that they, the Germans, were the kindest people in Europe, far superior to the "inhumane” Jews.

Tuvia Tenenbom's provocative re-enactment of the refugee reality in the middle of Europe, coupled with the rising anti-Semitism of the people who proclaim themselves to be kind, exposes the hypocrisy of the "Refugees Welcome" mantra chiming throughout the Western world.

A collection of serial poems, Think of Lampedusa addresses the 2013 shipwreck that killed 366 Africans attempting to migrate secretly to Lampedusa, an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. The crossing from North Africa to this island and other Mediterranean way stations has become the most dangerous migrant route in the world. Interested in what is producing such epic displacement, Josue Guebo's poems combine elements of history and mythology. Guebo considers the Mediterranean not only as a literal space but also as a space of expectation, anxiety, hope, and anguish for migrants. He meditates on the long history of narratives and bodies trafficked across the Mediterranean Sea. What did it-and what does it-connect and separate? Whose sea is it? Ultimately he is searching for what motivates a person to become part of what he calls a "seasonal suicide epidemic." This translation of Guebo's Songe a Lampedusa, winner of the Tchicaya U Tam'si Prize for African Poetry, is a searing work from a major African poet.

THREE DAYS IN DAMASCUS is a memoir about a three year fight for a chance at love with an Iraqi refugee the author met in Syria. While traveling to Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to interview Iraqi refugees and hear some of their stories, Kim never expected to fall in love with one of them. But that is exactly what happened. This is the story of one American woman and one Iraqi man set against the backdrop of the Iraqi refugee crisis. Through actual Iraqi refugee interviews, a whirlwind middle-eastern love story and the consequently doomed, intercontinental relationship told through texts and emails with civil war, revolution and an arranged marriage as the backdrop, we learn of culture and devastation, desperation and redemption, while still never losing hope. While there are roughly 65 million refugees worldwide, approximately five million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes since the U.S led invasion of their country, most of them fleeing to Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Since Syria is currently in the midst of a violent civil war, the Iraqis there are left in an extremely dangerous position- stuck between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go. This timely memoir examines the lives of dozens of these Iraqi refugees trying desperately to survive in a world blind to their plight and one Iraqi in particular: Omar. Told through a strong narrative and a surprisingly comedic lens, the reader travels with the author through this unknown, sandy terrain breaking assumptions, stereotypes and expectations - in a journey that ultimately ends in the most traditional assumption one could imagine: a Middle Eastern man agreeing to an arranged marriage. And after three years of trying to "save" Omar and salvage a life for/with him, she discovers maybe he wasn't the one who needed saving.

Often called the 'Jungle', the refugee camp near Calais in Northern France epitomises for many the suffering, uncertainty and violence which characterises the situation of refugees in Europe today. But the media soundbites we hear ignore the voices of the people who lived there - people who have travelled to Europe from conflict-torn countries such as Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan and Eritrea: people with astounding stories, who are looking for peace and a better future. Voices from the 'Jungle' is a collection of these stories. Through its pages, the refugees speak to us in powerful, vivid language. They reveal their childhood dreams and struggles for education; the wars and persecution that drove them from their homes; their terror and strength during their extraordinary journeys. They expose the reality of living in the camp; tell of their lives after the 'Jungle' and their hopes for the future. Through their stories, the refugees paint a picture of a different kind of 'Jungle': one with a powerful sense of community despite evictions and attacks, and of a solidarity which crosses national and religious boundaries. Illustrated with photographs and drawings by the writers, and interspersed with poems, this book must be read by everyone seeking to understand the human consequences of this world crisis.

During the decade that preceded Syria's 2011 uprising and descent into violence, the country was in the midst of another crisis: the mass arrival of Iraqi migrants and a flood of humanitarian aid to handle the refugee emergency. International aid organizations, the media, and diplomats alike praised the Syrian government for keeping open borders and providing a safe haven for Iraqis fleeing the violence in Baghdad and Iraq's southern provinces. Only a few analysts looked beneath the surface to understand how the apparent generosity toward refugees squared with the ruthless oppression that characterized the Syrian government. In this volume, Hoffmann offers a richly detailed analysis of this contradiction, shedding light on Syria's domestic and international politics shortly before the outbreak of war. Drawing on firsthand observations and interviews, Hoffmann provides a nuanced portrait of the conditions of daily life for Iraqis living in Syria. She finds that Syria's illiberal government does not differentiate between citizen and foreigner, while the liberal politics of international aid organizations do. Based on detailed ethnographic research, Iraqi Migrants in Syria draws a highly original comparison between the Syrian government's and aid organizations' approaches to Iraqi migration, throwing into question many widely held assumptions about freedom, and its absence, in authoritarian contexts.

A remarkably warm-hearted, uplifting and inspiring story of one boy's survival against the odds. Abdi's world fell apart when he was only fifteen and Somalia's vicious civil war hit Mogadishu. Unable to find his family and effectively an orphan, he fled with some sixty others,heading to Kenya. On the way, death squads hunted them and they daily faced violence, danger and starvation. After almost four months, they arrived in at refugee camps in Kenya - of the group he'd set out with, only five had survived. All alone in the world and desperate to find his family, Abdi couldn't stay in Kenya, so he turned around and undertook the dangerous journey back to Mogadishu. But the search was fruitless, and eventually Abdi made his way - alone, with no money in his pockets - to Romania, then to Germany, completely dependent on the kindess of strangers. He was just seventeen years old when he arrived in Melbourne. He had no English, no family or friends, no money, no home. Yet, against the odds, he not only survived, he thrived. Abdi went on to complete secondary education and later university. He became a youth worker, was acknowledged with the 2007 Victorian Refugee Recognition Award and was featured in the SBS second series of Go Back to Where You Came From. Despite what he has gone through, Abdi is a most inspiring man, who is constantly thankful for his life and what he has. Everything he has endured and achieved is testament to his quiet strength and courage, his resilience and most of all, his warm-hearted, shining and enduring optimism. 'Powerful and uplifting' Bookseller + Publisher 'Aden's odyssey belongs to our time ...Here is a man who counts his blessings and has an inspiring story to tell.' Sydney Morning Herald

The Islamic threat is possibly the most disturbing political issue of our time, as it impacts on the fears of so many ordinary people. The propagation of puritanical Wahabism, through the oil 'wealth of the Gulf States, ensures that its ideology is spread worldwide as the most influential force in the world today. The entire thinking and life-style of Muslims is dictated by religious demands to the exclusion of anything regarded as profane. Such a mind-set established by the Prophet Mohammed and his followers, is long enshrined in tradition, and remains to the present day. Hence God is the single authority and his commands are interpreted through holy text alone. It is the exclusion of a secular dimension, with its appeal to independent reason that defines Islam as a totalitarian movement. The problem in the non-Islamic world, especially in Western Europe, is the penetration of nation states by a proselytising religious totalitarianism on democratic societies. The variety of means in attempting to achieve this, and the subtlety of the methods, is the subject of this book. The main objection of non-Muslims to the penetration of their culture is the creation of pseudo-legal structures, or a state within the state, e.g., their own parliament," or the announcement of no-go zones, or the establishment of Sharia courts with no legal authority. The resistance of Muslims to the idea of integration leaves them with two alternatives only: either they must create their own mini-states within the state, or else they must attempt by subtler means to seize control of leading administrative institutions. Muslims in Britain are engaged in both the above alternatives, as witnessed by their numbers and close cooperation in both Houses of Parliament, and their power in local government councils nationwide. Through a sociological and objective approach that appreciates the religious priorities of Islamic people, this book attempts to find a harmonious middle path to ensure a lasting concord between two contrasting civilisations.

In these Gasson Lectures, Frank Brennan addresses various contested contemporary issues such as church-state relations, physician assisted suicide and national border protection. He writes, 'I hope that these lectures can help persons of all faiths and none maintain what Pope John Paul II, when addressing the Italian Parliament, called "a convinced and pondered trust in the heritage of virtues and values handed down by your forebears". In these lectures I have drawn much inspiration from Pope Francis who travelled to the island of Lampedusa to speak boldly and prophetically about the plight of asylum seekers coming across the Mediterranean Sea in search of new life. Before offering his blessing and casting a wreath on the waters, Francis asked, "Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters of ours?" In these lectures, I seek to draw on my own religious tradition to answer that question to the satisfaction of persons of all faiths and none, and in the many precarious situations in which people find themselves, especially at the borders of life and of nation states.'

In these Gasson Lectures, Frank Brennan addresses various contested contemporary issues such as church-state relations, physician assisted suicide and national border protection. He writes, 'I hope that these lectures can help persons of all faiths and none maintain what Pope John Paul II, when addressing the Italian Parliament, called "a convinced and pondered trust in the heritage of virtues and values handed down by your forebears". In these lectures I have drawn much inspiration from Pope Francis who travelled to the island of Lampedusa to speak boldly and prophetically about the plight of asylum seekers coming across the Mediterranean Sea in search of new life. Before offering his blessing and casting a wreath on the waters, Francis asked, "Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters of ours?" In these lectures, I seek to draw on my own religious tradition to answer that question to the satisfaction of persons of all faiths and none, and in the many precarious situations in which people find themselves, especially at the borders of life and of nation states.'

Climate change presents one of the greatest challenges of our time, and has become one of the defining issues of the twenty-first century. The radical changes which both developed and developing countries will need to make, in economic and in legal terms, to respond to climate change are unprecedented. International law, including treaty regimes, institutions, and customary international law, needs to address the myriad challenges and consequences of climate change, including variations in the weather patterns, sea level rise, and the resulting migration of peoples. The Oxford Handbook of International Climate Change Law provides an unprecedented and authoritative overview of all aspects of international climate change law as it currently stands, with guidance for how it should develop in the future. Over forty leading scholars and practitioners set out a comprehensive understanding of the legal issues that surround this vitally important but still emerging area of international law. This book addresses the major legal dimensions of the problems caused by climate change: not only in the content and nature of the international legal frameworks, which need implementation at the national level, but also the development of carbon trading systems as a means of reducing the costs of meeting emission reduction targets. After an introduction to the field, the Handbook assesses the relevant institutions, the key applicable principles of international law, the international mitigation regime and its consequences, and climate change litigation, before providing perspectives focused upon specific countries or regions. The Handbook will be an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and practitioners of international climate change law. It provides readers with diverse perspectives, bringing together interpretations from different disciplines, countries, and cultures.

Since the complex emergencies of the 1990s, humanitarian agencies have placed increasing emphasis on the protection of civilians during armed conflict. In spite of this, there is a consensus among humanitarians that outcomes are falling short of intentions, and that the increased emphasis on protection by humanitarian actors has failed to yield a corresponding improvement in the security of the civilian population. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are two of the most important humanitarian agencies for the protection of civilians, and both have protection at the heart of their mandates. Protecting Civilians in War explores how organizational history, structure, and culture affect how each organization goes about protection, and highlights the ways in which their resulting approaches to protection are inherently limited. Whereas existing explanations for shortcomings in humanitarian protection tend to blame factors external to humanitarian agencies, the focus of this book is on the organizations themselves, and their understandings of protection. While acknowledging the importance of other actors in determining the level of civilian security or insecurity, the analysis in this book focuses on the ways in which the ICRC and UNHCR conceptualise and practise protection in order to add another layer to our understanding of why protection outcomes are so often so disappointing. Based on research in Geneva, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Myanmar, it examines headquarter-level policy and the way that such policy is translated into practice on the ground.

The Syrian refugee crisis, which began in 2011, is one of the most pressing disasters in the world today, with its effects reverberating around the globe. By the end of 2015, more than 7.6 million of the country's people had been internally displaced and 4.3 million were registered refugees. The number of internally displaced persons and refugees amounts to about half of Syria's precrisis population. Thousands have died while trying to reach safety. Due to the large humanitarian response, there is now a wealth of available information on refugees' income and expenses, food and nutrition, health, education, employment, vulnerability, housing, and other measures of well-being. These data have been little explored, as humanitarian organisations face daily challenges that make the full use of existing data very difficult. The Welfare of Syrian Refugees: Evidence from Jordan and Lebanon aims to assess the poverty and vulnerability of these refugees and evaluate existing and alternative policies designed to help them. The authors find that current policies, including cash transfers and food vouchers, are effective in reducing poverty, but fail to lead to- nor are they designed to yield-economic inclusion and self-reliance. Those goals would require a different humanitarian and development paradigm, one that focuses on growth policies for areas affected by refugees where the target population has a mix of refugees and hosting populations. This volume is the result of the first comprehensive collaboration between the World Bank Group and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and aims to better understand and ultimately improve the well-being of Syrian refugees living in Jordan and Lebanon

In the first half of the 20th century, throughout the Balkans and Middle East, a familiar story of destroyed communities forced to flee war or economic crisis unfolded. Often, these refugees of the Ottoman Empire - Christians, Muslims and Jews - found their way to new continents, forming an Ottoman diaspora that had a remarkable ability to reconstitute, and even expand, the ethnic, religious, and ideological diversity of their homelands. Ottoman Refugees, 1878-1939 offers a unique study of a transitional period in world history experienced through these refugees living in the Middle East, the Americas, South-East Asia, East Africa and Europe. Isa Blumi explores the tensions emerging between those trying to preserve a world almost entirely destroyed by both the nation-state and global capitalism and the agents of the so-called Modern era.

Today, Australia's response to asylum-seeking 'boat people' is a hot-button issue that feeds the political news cycle. But the daily reports and political promises lack the historical context that would allow for informed debate. Have we ever taken our fair share of refugees? Have our past responses been motivated by humanitarian concerns or economic self-interest? Is the influx of 'boat people' over the last fifteen years really unprecedented? In this eloquent and informative book, historian Klaus Neumann examines both government policy and public attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers since Federation. He places the Australian story in the context of global refugee movements, and international responses to them. Neumann examines many case studies, including the resettlement of displaced persons from European refugee camps in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the panic generated by the arrival of Vietnamese asylum seekers during the 1977 federal election campaign. By exploring the ways in which politicians have approached asylum-seeker issues in the past, Neumann aims to inspire more creative thinking about current refugee and asylum-seeker policy. 'Klaus Neumann has written a humane, engrossing book imbued with the awareness that in telling the history of Australia, one tells the story of immigration. Immigrants - always resisted, always blasted by invective and ever essential to our society and polity - show us ourselves through the heroic journeys of ancestors, the recurrent frenzies of resistance, right up to our present parlous state as the most supposedly tolerant intolerant society on earth. But if you think you've read all this before, you should know Neumann has brought to this book a novelty of approach, a freshness of perception, that means all the others have been mere preparation.' Tom Keneally 'Across the Seas is a call to remember, to rethink, and regenerate. And to overcome our culture of forgetting ...it's a fine and vital book - a work of highly accessible and gripping historical scholarship, which must be read by as many people in this country, and abroad, as possible.' David Manne

The Forgotten Kindertransportees offers a compelling new exploration of the Kindertransport episode in Britain. The Kindertransport brought close to 10,000 unaccompanied children and young people to Britain on a trans-migrant basis between 1938 and 1939, with an estimated 70% of these children being of the Jewish faith. The outbreak of the Second World War turned this short-term initiative into a longer-term episode and Britain became home to the thousands that had been forced to migrate across the continent to flee the Nazis and the tragic Holocaust that would take place. This book re-evaluates and challenges misconceptions about the Kindertransportees' experiences in Britain - misconceptions that currently pervade Kindertransport scholarship. It focuses on the particularity of the Scottish experience, scrutinising misleading national pictures, which have dominated existing literature and excluded this important part of the Kindertransport episode. An estimated 8% of Kindertransportees were cared for in Scotland for the duration of the war years and this book demonstrates how national agendas were put into practice in a region that was far removed from the administrative and bureaucratic hub of London. The Forgotten Kindertransportees provides original interpretations as it considers a number of important aspects of the Kindertransportees' experiences in Scotland, including those of a social, political and religious nature.This includes an examination of Scotland's philanthropic welfare solutions for the dependent trans-migrant minor, the role of Zionism and the impact of Scottish-Jewry's particular approach to Judaism and a Jewish lifestyle upon broader life stories of Kindertransportees. Using a vast body of new research material, Frances Williams provides a fascinating and detailed examination of the Kindertransport that is region-specific and one that is all the more important because of its specificity. This is an important text for anyone interested in the Holocaust and the social history of those involved.

Exile and Everyday Life focusses on the everyday life experience of refugees fleeing National Socialism in the 1930s and 1940s as well as the representation of this experience in literature and culture. The contributions in this volume show experiences of loss, strategies of adaptation and the creation of a new identity and life. It covers topics such as Exile in Shanghai, Ireland, the US and the UK, food in exile, the writers Gina Kaus, Vicki Baum and Jean Amery, refugees in the medical profession and the creative arts, and the Kindertransport to the UK.

The treatment of migrants is one of the most challenging issues that human rights, as a political philosophy, faces today. It has increasingly become a contentious issue for many governments and international organizations around the world. The controversies surrounding immigration can lead to practices at odds with the ethical message embodied in the concept of human rights, and the notion of 'migrants' as a group which should be treated in a distinct manner. This book examines the way in which two institutions tasked with ensuring the protection of human rights, the European Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, treat claims lodged by migrants. It combines legal, sociological, and historical analysis to show that the two courts were the product of different backgrounds, which led to differing attitudes towards migrants in their founding texts, and that these differences were reinforced in their developing case law. The book assesses the case law of both courts in detail to argue that they approach migrant cases from fundamentally different perspectives. It asserts that the European Court of Human Rights treats migrants first as aliens, and then, but only as a second step in its reasoning, as human beings. By contrast, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights approaches migrants first as human beings, and secondly as foreigners (if they are). Dembour argues therefore that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights takes a fundamentally more human rights-driven approach to this issue. The book shows how these trends formed at the courts, and assesses whether their approaches have changed over time. It also assesses in detail the issue of the detention of irregular migrants. Ultimately it analyses whether the divergence in the case law of the two courts is likely to continue, or whether they could potentially adopt a more unified practice.

In this unique volume, leading analysts from the Red Cross, Middle East Institute and Refugee Affairs - many of whom have been actively involved in past negotiations on this issue - provide an overview of the key dimensions of the Palestinian refugee problem. Mindful of the sensitive and contested nature of the subject, none offers a single solution. Instead, each contribution summarises and synthesises the existing scholarly and governmental work on the topic. Each paper develops an array of policy options for resolving various aspects of the refugee issue. From moral acknowledgements of the plight of refugees, to host countries, repatriation and reparations, each policy analysis is written to provide a broad menu of choices rather than a single narrow set of recommendations. No other work on the Palestinian refugee issue has undertaken such a task. The Palestinian Refugee Problem: The Search for a Resolution is likely to be a pre-eminent reference and analytical work on the topic for many years to come.