Suchergebnisse

This study investigates media coverage of Afghan refugees by English-language media in Pakistan and explores how coverage is shaped by a shift in the political stance of the Pakistani state and establishment towards Afghanistan. The author examines how Afghan refugees, their forced repatriation from Pakistan, and the subsequent conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan were framed in both long-form and short-form media coverage over three years. Using Galtung's Peace and War Journalism Model to inform the Critical Discourse Analysis, this study finds that conflict-escalatory frames dominated media coverage, and media stance changed over time to reflect state policy on the forced repatriation of over three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Findings reveal that the coverage in all four publications was highly politicized and inflammatory, the voice of Afghan refugees was significantly missing from coverage, while the Pakistani government and military elite were predominantly used as news sources. Based on the findings, the author argues that pressures from the Pakistani state and military establishment are key reasons why media coverage of Afghan refugees frequently contained negative frames of terrorism and ethnonationalism. Sporadic employment of limited peace-oriented framing was, however, observed in some of the coverage.

Many countries in the European Union (EU)—among them Sweden—are engaged in accelerated removals of refugees, including unaccompanied, asylum-seeking refugee children. Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), international directives and national policies prescribe that the dignity of refugees must be respected when they are forcibly repatriated to their countries of origin. Simultaneously however, the government demands that police services improve their efficiency by continuously increasing the number of forced repatriations, something that prompts a question on the relationship between efficiency and dignity. To what extent is there a conflict between these two goals? Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to explore and analyse how Swedish police officers perceive their participation in forced repatriations of unaccompanied, asylum-seeking refugee children. Interviews with police officers were conducted and analysed drawing on Lipsky's street-level bureaucracy perspective. The findings show that police officers use discretion to create individual perceptions of what constitutes an efficient and dignified repatriation. One main conclusion is that they perceive no conflict between efficiency and dignity. The police officers' own interpretations of what dignity is make it cognitively possible for them to combine efficiency and dignity.

Introduction Not all children seeking asylum without parents or other relatives are entitled to residence permits. In the last few years, more than one in four unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children have been forced to repatriate, either to their home country or to a transit country. Mostly the children refuse to leave the country voluntarily, and it becomes a forced repatriation. Five actors collaborate in the Swedish child forced repatriation process: social workers, staff at care homes, police officers, Swedish Migration Board officers and legal guardians. When a child is forced to repatriate, the Swedish workers involved must consider two different demands. The first demand requires dignified repatriation, which is incorporated from the European Union's (EU's) Return Directive into Swedish Aliens Act. The second demand requires that the repatriation process be conducted efficiently, which means that a higher number of repatriation cases must be processed. The fact that the same professionals have different and seemingly contradictory requirements places high demands on the involved collaborators. Two professionals have a legal responsibility for the children until the last minute before they leave Sweden: social workers and police officers. That makes them key actors in forced repatriation, as they carry most of the responsibility in the process. Further, they often work with children who are afraid what will happen when they return to their home country and often express their fear through powerful emotions. Being responsible and obliged to carry out the government's decision, despite forcing children to leave a safe country, may evoke negative emotional and mental stress for the professionals involved in forced repatriation. Aim The overall aim of this study is to explore and analyse forced repatriation workers' collaboration and perceived mental health, with special focus on social workers and police officers in the Swedish context. Materials and methods The study combines a qualitative and quantitative research design in order to shed light at both a deep and general level on forced repatriation. In qualitative substudy I, a qualitative case study methodology was used in one municipality in a middle-sized city in Sweden. The municipality had a contract regarding the reception of unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children iv with the Swedish Migration Board. The municipality in focus has a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants. The city in which the data were collected has developed a refugee reception system where unaccompanied asylumseeking refugee children are resettled and await a final decision regarding their permit applications. This situation made it possible to recruit participants who had worked with unaccompanied refugee children without a permit. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 20 social workers, staff at care homes, police officers, Swedish Migration Board officers and legal guardians. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data. In quantitative substudies II, III and IV, a national survey of social workers (n = 380) and police officers (n = 714), with and without experience of forced repatriation, was conducted. The questionnaires included sociodemographic characteristics, the Swedish Demand-Control Questionnaire, Interview Schedule for Social Interaction, Ways of Coping Questionnaire and the 12- item General Mental Health Questionnaire. Factor analysis, correlational analysis, and univariate and multivariable regression models were used to analyse the data. Results The qualitative results in substudy I showed low levels of collaboration among the actors (social workers, staff at care homes, police officers, Swedish Migration Board officers and legal guardians) and the use of different strategies to manage their work tasks. Some of them used a teamwork pattern, showing an understanding of the different roles in forced repatriation, and were willing to compromise for the sake of collaboration. Others tended to isolate themselves from interaction and acted on the basis of personal preference, and some tended to behave sensitively, withdraw and become passive observers rather than active partners in the forced repatriation. The quantitative results in substudy II showed that poorer mental health was associated with working with unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children among social workers but not among police officers. Psychological job demand was a significant predictor for mental health among social workers, while psychological job demand, decision latitude and marital status were predictors among police officers. Substudy III showed that both social workers and police officers reported relatively high access to social support. Furthermore, police officers working in forced repatriation with low levels of satisfaction with social interaction and close emotional support increased the odds of psychological disturbances. In substudy IV, social workers used more escape avoidance, distancing and positive-reappraisal coping, whereas police officers used more planful problem solving and self-controlling coping. Additionally, social workers with experience in forced repatriation used more planful problem solving than those without experience. Conclusions In order to create the most dignified forced repatriation, based on human dignity, for unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children and with healthy actors, a forced repatriation system needs: overall statutory national guidance, interagency collaboration, actors working within a teamworking pattern, forced repatriation workers with reasonable job demands and decision latitude, with a high level of social support and adaptive coping strategies. The point of departure for an interagency model is that it is impossible to change the circumstances of the asylum process, but it is possible to make the system more functional and better adapted to both the children's needs and those of the professionals who are set to handle the children. A centre for unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children, consisting of all actors involved in the children's asylum process sitting under the same roof, at the governmental level (Swedish Migration Board, the police authority) and municipality level (social services, board of legal guardians), can meet all requirements.

"Die Bilder der Massenflucht von etwa 1,5 Millionen Ruandern im April 1994 aus ihrer Heimat in die Nachbarländer Zaire und Tansania sind immer noch präsent: Endlose, erschöpfte Menschenschlangen, die den mit Leichen angefüllten Grenzfluß zu Tansania überqueren und schließlich in einer hügeligen, spärlich besiedelten Landschaft angehalten werden, wo sie kampieren und mit Nothilfe versorgt werden sollen. Daraus entstanden die eng beieinander liegenden Flüchtlingslager für ca. 500.000 Personen in Ngara und Karagwe, die bis zu ihrer gewaltsamen Räumung im Dezember 1996 mehr Fragen an die Konzeption der Flüchtlingshilfe stellen würden, als daß sie Antworten bereithielten. Schon 1995 wurden die Lager von den Regierungen der Geberländer als nicht mehr tragbar angesehen, denn für die ruandischen Flüchtlinge in Zaire und Tansania mußten zusammen mehr als 2 Mio. Dollar pro Tag ausgegeben werden. Man hatte von Beginn an einen 'camp approach'jverfolgt: Eine große Zahl von Menschen wird auf einer kleinen, abgegrenzten Fläche zusammengehalten und ihre Bewegungsfreiheit eingeschränkt. Dies dient zwar der effizienten Logistik, der Registrierung und schnellen Versorgung mit Nahrungsmitteln und Medikamenten, die in der ersten Phase der Nothilfe eine hohe Priorität haben. Je länger die Situation andauert und je mehr sich der gesundheitliche Zustand der Flüchtlinge verbessert, um so stärker machen sich jedoch negative Entwicklungen bemerkbar. Umweltschäden, Verslumung, Beschäftigungslosigkeit und vieles mehr. Es gibt über die Nothilfe hinaus keine Entwicklungsperspektiven. Die Erfindung des abgegrenzten Lagers, in dem Flüchtlinge als passive Empfänger von Hilfsleistungen gelten, erweist sich als Illusion, weil sie die Handlungsfähigkeit und die vielfältige soziale und wirtschaftliche Interaktion der Flüchtlinge mit ihrer Umgebung außer acht läßt. Derartige Lager müssen deshalb in ihrem Entwurf von vornherein auf eine möglichst kurze Zeitspanne und damit auf eine baldige Rückkehr der Flüchtlinge in ihre Heimat angelegt sein. Dabei bleibt anzumerken, daß Lager die Politisierung der Flüchtlinge, die von vielen als das entscheidende Hindernis für eine freiwillige Rückkehr angesehen wurde, geradezu in idealer Weise fördern. In Zaire, aber auch in Tansania, wurden die Flüchtlinge in der Regel nach ihren Herkunftsgemeinden gruppiert, so daß oftmals auch die alten lokalen Autoritäten in der neuen Umgebung ihre Macht behielten. Die Diskussion über die Bedingungen der Rückkehr und die Fluchtursachen erhalten bei diesem Konzept dann ein zweitrangiges Gewicht." (Textauszug)

"During his reign, Joseph Stalin oversaw the forced resettlement of people by the millions - a maniacal passion that he used for social engineering. Six million people were resettled before Stalin's death. This volume is the first attempt to comprehensively examine the history of forced and semi-voluntary population movements within or organized by the Soviet Union. Contents range from the early 1920s to the rehabilitation of repressed nationalities in the 1990s, dealing with internal (kulaks, ethnic and political deportations) and international forced migrations (German internees and occupied territories)."--Jacket

The paper will outline a research project – its goals and methods – that focuses on what 1) makes humans flee from their home, land and country, at the risk of losing their lives, 2) seek refuge in another place, 3) what individual assessments they made before, during and after flight, and 4) how they assess the question of return to their countries/places of origin when the original causes of their flight – e.g. civil unrest, civil strife or civil war – are not any more directly present in the country or place from which they fled.