Warehoused Refugees
Nearly 9 million of the world's 14 million refugees have languished in segregated camps for ten years or more. They are denied many basic human rights including the rights to engage in wage-employment or self-employment, to practice a profession, to own property, to move freely, to acquire a residence, and to obtain travel documents (rights garanteed under the 1951 Refugee Convention).
Despite having fled their home countries, and some of the world's worst regimes, these 'warehoused' refugees have been forced into remote refugee camps in border areas and live in a perpetual state of insecurity, unsure of their future and dependent on foriegn aid. They have no freedom of movement, are often denied access to health and education, and are frequently suffer from the violence, impoverishment and sexual axpoitation prevalent in most refugee camps.
Of the three million refugees in Africa, nearly 75 per cent have been warehoused for more than 20 years. In Southeast Asia, 400,000 of the 600,000 warehoused refugees had lived under such condition for more than ten years; they mostly come from Burma where more than 30,000 exiles are created every year. More than 100,000 refugees from Sri Lanka have remained in India for 20 years while 114,000 Bhutanese have been in Nepal since 1992. Refugees in the Middle East comprise 37 per cent of the world’s total in 2003; nearly 50 per cent of them have been warehoused for 55 years.
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