Suchergebnisse

Survival migration -- The national politics of international institutions -- South Africa : the ad hoc response to the Zimbabwean influx -- Botswana : the division of Zimbabweans into refugees and migrants -- Angola : the expulsion of the Congolese back to the southern provinces -- Tanzania : the paradoxical response to congolese from South Kivu -- Kenya : humanitarian containment and the Somalis -- Yemen : contrasting responses to Somalis and Ethiopians -- Improving the refugee protection regime

Survival migration -- The national politics of international institutions -- South Africa : the ad hoc response to the Zimbabwean influx -- Botswana : the division of Zimbabweans into refugees and migrants -- Angola : the expulsion of the Congolese back to the southern provinces -- Tanzania : the paradoxical response to congolese from South Kivu -- Kenya : humanitarian containment and the Somalis -- Yemen : contrasting responses to Somalis and Ethiopians -- Improving the refugee protection regime

Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as "refugees," preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection. In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of "survival migration" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves.

International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as "refugees," preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection. In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of "survival migration" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves. Examining flight from three of the most fragile states in Africa—Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia—Betts explains variation in institutional responses across the neighboring host states. There is massive inconsistency. Some survival migrants are offered asylum as refugees; others are rounded up, detained, and deported, often in brutal conditions. The inadequacies of the current refugee regime are a disaster for human rights and gravely threaten international security. In Survival Migration, Betts outlines these failings, illustrates the enormous human suffering that results, and argues strongly for an expansion of protected categories.

Systematic research on transgender migration is limited and mostly focused on the 'during' and 'post' stages of displacement. Little attention has been paid to the decision-making process and pre-migration phase. In Central America, transwomen face severe discrimination, marginalization and abuses based on their gender identity and are exposed to constant physical and sexual violence. Despite limited data, reports show that they are part of the new wave of international displacement affecting the region. Analysing why they flee and the factors contributing to their decision is essential to understand the multiple facets of displacement and this often-invisible phenomenon. This study uses life-stories to deepen the knowledge of transwomen's decision-making to flee across borders, often following multiple life experiences of internal displacement. It uses the concept of 'survival migration' to describe movements that literally save their lives, situations of flight that result from the deprivation of basic rights and from persecution, exploring how the broad range of factors affecting the decision interrelate. The findings suggest that although seeking a safe place in which it would be possible to build a better life is important, their life experiences, and the decisions they make are complex. The changing circumstances in which their reactive or preventive movements occur will determine the nature of their decision to flee across borders. Often for them, migration does not necessarily mean freedom, but a limited strategy to survive. The objective of this study is to provide a new insight into the complexity of transwomen's decisions to flee. In doing so, it contributes to the knowledge about this community, and the urgent need to listen to them in order to understand the multitude of interconnected reasons underpinning their decisions to migrate.