Problems Faced by Refugees in the Capitalist States - Essay Example

Running Head: Sociology: Problems Faced by Refugees in Capitalist States College Name: Introduction The issue of refugee has been a global problem. This is because of the recent increase in insecurity in many countries where citizens are forced to flee their states to go and look for a peaceful environmental in the neighbouring countries to avoid persecution, torture and denial of their rights. In the recent times there have been mass migrations of refugees in the neighbouring countries all over the world like in Asia in Afghanistan and Iraq where refugees have run from their home country to seek accommodation in Australia. Also in Africa there has been mass migration of refugees from Sudan, Somalia into Kenya. These refugees have been faced by many problems in these countries due to various prevailing conditions in those states. These problems experienced by the refugees have been reinforced by lack of good policies that govern and protect the rights of refugees in these foreign countries to help them avoid exploitation and discrimination while in these countries. (Dennis, 2005) Currently the number of refugees has gone high due to the increase in the insecurity in their countries. This can be well illustrated by looking at the movement of people from countries such as Iraq, Somali and Sudan due to the high insecurity that have raised the tension in those areas, Such that residents are fleeing to the neighbouring countries to seek for a peaceful environment to live in. This issue of movement of refugees to a certain country is bringing a number of problems to the refugees and also the citizens of these countries. This problem is being enhanced by the existence of capitalist government in these neighbouring countries where anyone minds about his/her own affairs and exploits every opportunity that arises for their own benefit only. So the movement of these refugees in those countries is not an issue that is welcomed by these residents’ people with both hands. This is because, most of these countries are overpopulated and have limited resources so they see the refugees as intruders that have brought competition on these scarce resources found in their country i.e. there is shortage of enough land for the resident people to farm and also the problem of unemployment. So the refugees in these countries are not welcomed well and in some places face rejection and discrimination, which inhibits them to, integrates well with the local residents of these areas. (Dennis, 2005) There has been a problem of assured refugees becoming permanent residents even after being in these countries for a long period of time. This makes their life hard as they remain denied some basic rights. These barriers are brought about by the following factors. Dennis (2005) asserts that for a refugee to be given permanent resident they must produce satisfactory identity documents. The most affected people are those from Somali and Afghanistan as they have first to be well investigated to ensure they are not terrorist. The other group are those people i.e. women and children who do not have identity documents such as driving licence or education certificates which makes it difficult for them to be granted permanent residential as it hard for the officials to satisfactory identity them as they lack necessary documents needed for the approval as permanent residence. This is in agreement to the changes introduced in 1993which governs the regulation of refugees. Economical Problems Some of the other factors that make the refugees to wait for long before being given permanent residence are the lack of enough officials to complete the review and the government does not have the right to process a permanent application for resident before a certain period of time. These problems of delayed processing of permanent residents make the refuges to experience some of the following problems. Refugees found it hard for them to secure a job. This is mostly contributed due to the high rate of unemployment in most of the countries they are in. This situation is made worse in cases where the local companies and employers are biased and discriminating as they prefer offering the local people a job rather than giving that chance to a refugee with the same qualifications or better. In most of these countries the refugees have to get a work permit before he can look for an employment and in some places they have to wait for long before it is offered. Some refugees do not have professional qualifications and this limits their chance of securing a job as the unskilled jobs are very competitive to get and in some countries such jobs are secured only for the residence. Their separation from their families worsens their financial situation, as they have frequently to send some money home to assist the family that was behind. (Richard, 1998) Discrimination to education facilities In most places, secondary schools and institutes of higher learning are limited. This makes the life of refugees very bad, as they do not have equal access to secondary schools and universities. Refugees are not awarded loans and bursaries to help them clear their school fees and this hinders many young people pursuing their education beyond certain level as they cannot be able to afford the high school fee required by these institutions in some cases they are denied the chance to join those institution since there are not residents and the chances that are available are few. These problems mostly are experienced by refugees found in Canada where such facilities are restricted to citizens or permanent residents only making it hard for the other s to have an access to these facilities. (Richard, 1998) Biasness in Financial Services There has been a big discrimination of the refugees in the access of financial services. This is reflected in the cases where the refuges that have not been given permanent residence cannot be offered loans by the banks. This limits them to advance financially because those interested to start a business becomes very difficult for them to raise the capital needed to start. In some places refugees have even been refused the use of credit card. (Richard, 1998) Interruption of Family Unity There is usually a big problem for those people who left their spouses or dependant children behind. This is because there are often difficulties in their communication and they might feel rejected or abandoned. This is because they cannot understand why the process of reunification is long and they usually suffer from a lot of stress. In some cases this disruption of family unit may lead to permanent separation as people might not be able to reunify again due to the changes that many might under go due to this prolonged separations this can contribute to family break up. According to Howard and John (1994) some refugees suffer from stress and even depression. This is because of their separation from their families. This situation is made worse where there is prolonged reunification, which makes them to suffer from anxiety depressive symptoms as they don’t know when they will reunite again with their families. Refugees Criminalizing There exist very strict immigration policies. These policies have forced so many refugees to use illegal ways to access into countries. This is because refugees flee from their countries to run from persecution or human rights abuse such that they don’t have an opportunity to obtain traveling documents such as passport or visas. And the increased barriers to their legal entry such as quotas and biasness to the rich or the skilled has lead to many refugees turning to criminal acts such as human trafficking and syndicates smuggling. This is because they are able to avoid routing immigration controls. These illegal networks are very dangerous to the refugees as they expose them to both physical and sexual harassment. In some cases their passports and other important documents are confiscated. In other places they are taken and used, as slaves where they offer forced labour. Some of these people and mostly the woman are forces to go into prostitution to be able to earn their living due to the harsh conditions they are forced to live in. (Howard and John, 1994) In Australia 5.7 million people have gone there as immigrants. This mass migration was meant to help Australia industries grow as these people could offer the industries the skilled and unskilled labour, which was high in demand. But many of these migrants were discriminations in terms of the job offered to them; the rate of payment and most of these women were used as slaves. This situation is worse mostly for those people who come from non- English speaking states, as they remain exploited and discriminated since there is a language barrier and cannot be able to express themselves well. In some countries like Malysia they do not have a system to offer protection to refugees. In these countries refugees instead of being welcomed and being offered temporal shelter, food and clothing. They arrest the refugees detain them and then deport them back to their countries where they are running from due to the insecurity there. Those that are lucky to avoid deportation live in pathetic condition and suffer extortion form the local police. Lack of Shelter Through the research finding it has been found that housing of refugees is a major problem in many places. This is because they have been observed being a high rate of overcrowdness in refugee camps. Also the houses provided for them in many areas are not up to the standard as in most cases are built hurriedly and are meant to be temporal accommodation for the refugees to use before their situation back home becomes better to go back. But in many cases those conflicts do not end quickly which forces the refuges to overstay and thus exposed to these poor housing conditions. (Peter, 2000) The lack of knowledge of the culture of the places where they free to and language differences contributes to their increased housing problems. This is because they cannot be able to interact well with the residence to be informed on their legal right as tenant or on the responsibility of the land lord in the case of the refugees who can afford to pay their house rent instead of living in the refugee camps The refugees should also be provided with clothing. This is because most of the refugees have no chance to carry their clothes when they are fleeing and if there are not given this assistance will suffer a lot as most of these refugees cannot avoid buying the clothes because they don’t have money. This situation becomes worse in places where the temperatures are very low and the refugees do not have the necessary clothing as it can lead them to get sick due to the cold weather. (Peter, 2000) Lack of Food In some cases the refugees suffers from hunger in some areas where food is not provided to them in plenty. This is because most of the refugees are wholly dependant on other people for food and other facilities. In some areas they may suffer from hunger if those people do not respond positive to their needs. There have also been cases where some people take advantages of the refugees and instead of taking the food donated to the refugees to them, sell it and pocket the money. This makes the refugees to go without food or to go without enough food because of very few people who want to enrich themselves without caring about the refugees who are desperate in need of that food. These people are supposed to be identified and appropriate diplomacy measured taken on them to stop other people with the same intention repeating the same thing. (Dennis, 2005) Lack of Enough Medical Facilities There is shortage of medical facilities to adequately cater for refugee’s medical needs. This consists of lack of enough medical personnel to give medical attention to the refugees. This has been contributed due to the high rate of turn of refugees as a result of an increase of insecurity in their home countries. Most countries lacking a good plan to attend to such unpredicted occurrences have worsened this situation. The medical facilities such as hospitals in most of these countries that host the refugees are in shortage. The ones that are available are not well equipped to cater effectively to the refugees. There is a need to build more hospitals to offer enough services to the high number of refugees in these countries. Those hospitals should also be well equipped and enough doctors, nurses and other personnel should be made available for these hospitals to sufficiently meet their needs to the refugees. The government in collaboration with the non government organization and international organization should try to provide the refugees with sleeping nets to prevent the infection of refugees from malaria which is a deadly disease and mostly in places highly inhibited by mosquitoes. Medical personnel should also educate the refugees on the need to maintain a high standard of cleanliness to stop a break out of diseases like cholera or dysentery at the refugee’s camps. (Dennis, 2005) Exploitation of refugees In some cases the local people who pretend at first to help them but later turn against them and exploit them. These can be the cases where women .are offered accommodation by some people but these people turns against them and harass them sexually. Other exploited in their work place. These refugees due to the desperate situation are given jobs but later these people do not pay them their dues this leaves the refugees in a bad situation since they cannot do much as they don’t know the procedure to use to fight for there right as there are in a new in these places which they don’t know so much about. (Dennis, 2005) Conclusion As we have seen, the issue of refugee is a major global issue that needs to be addressed better. The cases of refugee discrimination in some states should stop .The refugees should be given better services than what they have been receiving from many countries this can be done by the international organization such as UN formulating better policies that governs the rights of refugees so that they are not subjected to discrimination and exploitation when they land in a certain states. The landing fee and fee for permanent residential should be withdrawn. The refugees should be given proper support to be able to assist them cope well with their life after. The refugee children’s and parents who have applied to enter or leave a state for the aim of family reunification should be granted the permission and assisted to reunite with the their families. The international organization should ensure that refugees are not discriminate against education job and financial facilities access such that they can be able to cope well with their like in their new environment. Formulating an international policy, which grants every individual equal right to protection and benefit regardless of their race or nationality? This will be a positive move to help the refugees, as they will live better in these countries awaiting things to settle at home to go back. Reference Dennis, K. (2005): Urgent Relief for the Homeless Act Of 1987: New York, University of Michigan. Howard, A. and John, S. (1994): African Refugees Development, Aid and Repatriation, Boulder, Perseus Peter, B. (2000): Global Migrants, Global Refugees: Problems and Solutions, New York, Prentice hall Richard, H. (1998): Global problems and Culture of Capitalism, New York, Prentice Hall Stimpson, N. (1988): Homelessness in America—1988, New York, McGraw-Hill. United States Congress (1996): Rehabilitation of Allen Parkway Village, Houston, TX: New York, Stanford University press Read More