JRS/U S A

The Refugee Voice
March 2010 — Vol 4, Issue 1 Jesuit Refugee Service/USA

Urban Refugees:
Hidden in Plain Sight
J esuit Refugee Service, one of the few organizations to assist refugees in urban
settings worldwide, has long recognized the severe state of neglect of urban
refugees, and has tried to address these needs. Through advocacy to UNHCR and
local authorities, direct assistance with food, housing and medical expenses, education,
livelihood projects, and counseling and referral services, JRS addresses the broad
spectrum of needs of urban refugees.
In many countries hosting large displaced populations, refugees are tolerated only
if they consent to live in camps designated by the government. These may be open
camps, which refugees can come and go more or less freely, or closed camps, where
refugees are confined by physical or legal barriers.
Camp life can be harsh, characterized by poor standards of housing, sanitation, lack
of adequate food, water, medical facilities, a lack of security and, perhaps worst of all,
enforced idleness and dependency. Refugees who chose not to live in camps or who
fear to do so may be treated like escaped prisoners: subject to arrest, detention, forced
return or even deportation. Even under more lenient regimes, refugees who do not
live in camps are usually at best ignored, and are subject to neglect and exploitation.
In those refugee hosting countries that have not established refugee camps, refugees
typically subsist on the margins of society: tolerated, perhaps, as a source of cheap
labor, but lacking access to legal status, legal employment, medical care, education and
social services.

continued on page 2

Refugees and asylum seekers waiting
for their documents outside the Depart-
ment of Home Affairs (the government
agency in charge of immigration and
asylum) in South Africa.
(JRS - Southern Africa)
A Note from the National Director
Dear Friends of JRS/USA:
From the beginning, Jesuit Refugee Service has made it a priority to work with
“forgotten” refugees – those living in the shadows – whose plight is overlooked by
others.
It may seem strange that many of these marginalized refugees live not in remote
border camps but right under our eyes in city settings. Barely tolerated, often home-
less or living in shantytowns of cardboard and tin, these urban refugees live a truly
hand to mouth existence. Despite neglect and intolerance, the number of urban
refugees is only increasing. A new UN policy affirming the rights of refugees to live
where they choose, and the obligation of states to protect them now offers new hope.
In this issue we explore the plight of urban refugees and how JRS is trying to help.
Fr. Ken Gavin, S.J.

J e s u i t R e f u g e e S e r v i c e / US A | 1 0 1 6 1 6 t h S t r e e t , N W, S t e 5 0 0 | W a s h i n g t o n , D C 2 0 0 3 6 | ( 2 0 2 ) 4 6 2 - 0 4 0 0 | www . jr s u s a . o r g
 For many years, the Office of barred from legal employment,
the UN High Commissioner urban refugees live in the poorest
for Refugees (UNHCR) – the neighborhoods, distant from
organization responsible for city services. Festus, an asylum
ensuring the protection of seeker in Kampala, Uganda, is
refugees – and international typical. He begins his search for
donors and aid agencies to a large employment each day at 5:00
degree accepted encampment a.m., walking six miles to the
as a necessary, temporary downtown market, where on a
expedient, feeling that this was good day he may earn between
a price that had to be paid in fifty cents and a dollar. Later in
order for governments to permit the day, he spends long hours
refugees to stay on their soil, waiting in lines seeking to move
and also feeling that the job of his refugee claim forward. Many
housing, feeding, and protecting A victim of violence who is a part of JRS’ home based care other refugees are afraid even to
large populations could best program in Pretoria, South Africa. (JRS Southern Africa) ask for help, knowing that risking
be achieved in an ordered and the attention of the authorities
contained camp environment. In accordance with this view, could get them thrown into a jail or detention facility with
refugee aid programs have often been limited to camps or the prospect of either lengthy incarceration under appalling
to rural border areas where refugees reside in camp-like conditions or summary deportation. For these refugees the
settings. As time has passed, however, and the hoped-for quiet assistance provided by JRS can be a lifeline.
durable solutions of return home, integration into local Even for refugees not afraid to seek help, a lack of legal
communities, and resettlement have in many instances documentation often means exclusion from services. In
proved unattainable, temporary camps have become the Dominican Republic, for
permanent homes to generations example, the children of Haitian
of increasingly despondent “Life is hard here. I am alone. My husband refugees are denied citizenship.
people. Funding to support died. I have no brothers, no sisters. I have As stateless persons, they do not
refugee camps has also become two girls. I have to do it all myself. We have have access to schools. Even
harder and harder to maintain, no money, no job, we don’t have food. …. I where urban refugee children do
and the resulting deterioration of sometimes ask God how I left one place so have access to schools, school
facilities, cuts in already meager bad and came here and now am alone. I have fees and required uniforms often
food rations, and overcrowding nobody.” – Angela, a refugee in Johannesburg put education out of reach.
have led to a host of social ills.
In many countries, the lack
In the meantime, the number of work authorization papers limits refugees to work in
of refugees living in urban settings has grown, with the the “informal sector,” surviving on odd jobs, and often
majority of refugees finding it necessary to make their own undertaking dangerous and physically demanding work
way in towns and cities. Increasingly, there has been a trend for little pay. Refugee workers are commonly exploited,
for refugees to leave camps or to bypass them entirely, and their lack of legal status means it is impossible to seek
seeking instead to settle in communities where they hope to redress. George, a refugee in Johannesburg explains:
find jobs to support themselves and their families. Indeed
some of the largest recent refugee flows – such as the flight “I was a teacher before, and I came here and tried to be
of refugees from Iraq – have been almost entirely to cities. a teacher. Nobody would hire me. They undervalue our
This trend has led to a re-evaluation of refugee needs by certificates, even when we have them…when they do hire
the international community, as reflected in the new urban us, they will not pay. You’ll work for three months and they
refugee policy recently published by UNHCR. The policy refuse to pay you. And there is nowhere you can go. There
re-asserts the principle enshrined in international treaty law is nothing you can do. I cannot hope anymore.”
that refugees have the right to freedom of movement and A helping hand in a time of darkness
are entitled to protection and assistance wherever they live.
Especially for rural refugees moving directly from the
A twilight existence terror of flight to the challenges of an urban existence,
One of the greatest barriers to improving care to urban the experience of being a stranger in a strange land can
refugees is their invisibility. Because they are so often be extremely difficult. In these cases, the JRS principle of

2
“accompaniment,” offering a shoulder to lean on and an ear
to listen, can be critical The Refugee Voice - March 2010
A 20-year-old Sudanese woman named Comfort, who fled
to Uganda after her family was killed when raiders burned
their farm in the night, came to JRS with severe physical
injuries and mental trauma. In halting English, she explains:
“If I didn’t get to JRS, I don’t know how my life is going to
be. I would be like in the street. I really don’t know. I think
I could have lost my life…since I came here to Agape [a
JRS program in Kampala, Uganda], I didn’t hear any bad
words from you … You gave me advice, whereby sometimes
I used to think a lot, even sometimes I think to kill myself,
alone inside, but then you come to speak to me ...I am very
happy for you to give me advice like that. Otherwise I don’t
know how is my life going to be: every time crying inside.”
The burden of daily survival combined with the social
Andrew produces cards and other crafts using banana fibre. He is a
isolation that refugees experience in unfamiliar cities Rwandese refugee and came to Kenya in 1997. Before he fled he studies
often leads to a sense of desperation. Outreach, counseling to become a teacher. He has four children, one of them is disabled and
and social support are key elements of JRS programs. In receives special needs education in Nairobi. He says “each card is like
addition to providing individual care, in cities such as handwriting” – unique. His wife stitches bags and placemats using dif-
ferent fabrics. (Angela Hellmuth for JRS)
Addis Ababa JRS
has established to legal barriers. In other cases, language is a barrier to
community centers learning. Too often, the cost of education is simply too high
where refugees can for people struggling to meet basic needs. JRS tries to help
gather. Frequented refugees to gain access to education in many ways, through
by more than 500 advocacy with local authorities, through payment of school
people, the center fees, by establishing classes especially for refugees, and
in Addis is a safe by helping parents to earn an income and become self
place where children sufficient.
can play and adults
“The money I gained was not sufficient to buy food and
can socialize, take
pay school fees…we only had one meal a day, which often
language, vocational
caused fighting among the children because they were
or computer classes,
hungry. For whole nights I could not sleep and over the day
send email and use
I suffered from a severe headache because I kept thinking
the library. “We give
about how I could solve all the problems on my own,” says
people temporary
Claudette, a Rwandan refugee in Nairobi.
respite so that they
may recover and After receiving food aid and a referral to counseling
regain their coping through JRS, Claudette said:
A refugee student studies at the JRS Refu-
skills,” says Sr. Nora “This was as great relief which I had not expected and
gee Community Center in Addis Ababa, McCarthy, who runs I do not know what I would have done without it. The
Ethiopia. (Angela Hellmuth for JRS) the JRS program. children could have lunch again and stopped fighting for
“We give them time food. A little later, I was granted the opportunity to sell
and some security so that they may set their eyes on the my crafts at the JRS Mikono Shop, which helps me to pay
future.” our rent. There is no prospect of me returning to Rwanda,
but it is my great desire to make sure that my children are
Access to education educated here and I hope that with the support from JRS
Access to education for their children is one of the greatest and the work of my own hands I can make this happen.”
challenges facing urban refugees. In some cases, as for the
Haitian children in the Dominican Republic, this is due
continued on page 4

J ESUIT R EFUGEE SE R VICE & U R B A N R EFUGEES

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 Only a beginning The new UNHCR urban refugee policy presents a
welcome opportunity to develop a more enlightened and
The successful programs carried out by JRS
comprehensive approach to identify, protect and serve
demonstrate that it is possible to help refugees to
refugees in urban settings. This will require efforts to
survive and prosper in an urban setting, despite the
end policies of forced encampment, arbitrary arrest and
many barriers that they face. The growing needs of
detention and the failure of states to adhere to existing
urban refugees far outstrip the resources of any one
refugee law.
agency, however, and require a concerted effort by
governments, international institutions, and civil
society to address.

Call to Action
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA calls on the international community to ensure adequate assistance to urban refugees by:
• Improving systems for outreach to and assessment of vulnerable individuals in urban refugee settings;
• Establishing programs to address the needs of especially vulnerable individuals, including urban refugee children,
and people with disabilities, either by referral to existing social services or, where necessary, the creation of special
programs;
• Improving access for all urban refugees to existing social services, including schools and hospitals;
• Creating assistance programs in urban areas to meet refugee specific needs, such as family tracing, trauma
counseling, re-certification and documentation;
• Improving access to durable solutions, including resettlement processing;
• Improving livelihood opportunities through income generating projects, access to micro credit loans, and skills
training;
• Reaching out to urban refugees to offer legal status and meet immediate needs.

Jesuit Refugee Service/USA

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Washington, DC 20036
(202) 462-0400 | www.jrsusa.org

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