Country: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Committee : United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Topic : Protecting the Rights of Refugee Women

Name : Eldad Workeneh

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an
international border to find safety in another country.1 These refugees face challenges when both
fleeing and flying home. Refugees may go through a lot of pain in their homeland, but then they
have to start from the very bottom of the social and economic ladder once they reach the country
of their haven. Accordingly, UNHCR works to protect and assist refugees everywhere. UNHCR
most recently estimated for 30 June 2020 shows that, for the first time in recorded history, the
number of people forcibly displaced is now 80 million, and over 26 million refugees.2 Women
address practically 50% of the 244 million migrants and half of the 19.6 million refugees around
the world. Refugee women face gender-specific challenges in navigating daily life at every stage
of their migration experience. Common challenges for all refugee women, regardless of other
demographic data, are access to healthcare and physical abuse and instances of discrimination,
sexual violence, and human trafficking are the most common ones. But even if women don't
become victims of such actions, they often face abuse and disregard for their specific needs and
experiences, which leads to complex consequences including demoralization, stigmatization, and
mental and physical health decay.

According to UNHCR statistics, at the end of 2019 there were  133,094  refugees, 61,968
pending asylum cases  and  161  stateless persons  in the UK. The UK government has extensive
provisions in place to provide protection to persons seeking asylum while protecting the public
from individuals who may exploit the asylum system. The application process for asylum seekers
starts at the border. A fast-track process has been developed to help reduce the extensive
caseload of asylum cases, which allows certain applications to be rejected upon receipt if the
individual is from a country deemed safe by the UK. For all other applicants, a decision is made
on the well-established criteria of whether the individual has a well-founded fear of persecution
or other harm. A new program has been introduced in response to the Syrian crisis, which
accepts selected refugees from the Syrian region.3 UNHCR’s protection activities implemented in
the past include: A) promoting accession to and implementation of refugee conventions and law;
B) ensuring that refugees are treated in accordance with recognised international standards of
law; C) ensuring that refugees are granted asylum and are not forcibly returned to the countries
from which they fled.4 Some of the treaties for the protection of refugee women are to provide all
refugee women and girls with effective and equitable access to basic services, including food,
water and relief supplies, health and sanitation, education and skills training, and make wage-
earning opportunities available to them and protection against manipulation, sexual and physical
abuse and exploitation, and protection against sexual discrimination in the delivery of goods and
services. This year one country, the UK, is spending more on asylum seekers (BRP1.5 billion,
equivalent to USD2.2 billion) than the UNHCR budget of USD1.7 billion, which is supposed to
protect the world's 22 million refugees.5 By this the government of UK is fullfilling the needs and
security of the refugees in the country.

The UK government strictly believes that the protection of women refugees is foremost,
therefore numerous national laws and treaties had been devised. Some of the laws that stands up
for the women refugees is Article 35 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
and Article II of its 1967 Protocol.

1
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2021, February 4). What is a refugee?
UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/what-is-a-refugee.html
2&3
Chia, J. (2021, March 28). How many refugees are there in the world? Refugee Council of
Australia. https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/how-many-refugees/#:%7E:text=UNHCR%20most
%20recently%20estimated%20for,and%20over%2026%20million%20refugees.

4
Protecting Refugees A FIELD GUIDE FOR NGOS (02 ed., Vol. 81). (1999). UNHCR and its
NGO partners.

5
House, C. P. A. (2013, February 18). The Problem with the 1951 Refugee Convention. Adrienne
Millbank.
https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pub
s/rp/rp0001/01rp05