EVERYBODY'S CHALLENGE - Jesuit Refugee Service | USA

2. A changed world for refugees
While the needs of refugees and opportunities to work with them
explain much of the growth of JRS, the political and social changes
in the world need also to be taken into account.
Until 1989, the world of refugees was shaped by the Cold War.
While there were many local conflicts, the parties were mostly
armed and, to some extent, controlled by the large patrons. When
refugees were forced from their countries, the influence of the patrons
or their cause ensured that they received shelter and were
sometimes resettled. This situation ensured that the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees was relatively well funded. The
early work of JRS developed within this framework.
The world of the nineties, however, is far different. The developed
nations have less interest or leverage in local conflicts. When these
conflicts are extended, civil society can collapse so that violence and
poverty become endemic. The result is often massive internal displacement,
as civilians flee war, ethnic persecution, famine and insecurity.
It becomes more difficult for outside people to accompany them
in these situations. This is a world which produces more refugees
but in which it is harder to accompany them.
When refugees try to flee from their countries they face more
obstacles. Increasingly neighbouring countries refuse to accept them
and try to send them back even when it is unsafe for them to return.
Immigration policies throughout the world have become more oriented
to exclude people, than to welcome them. UNHCR is under
pressure to represent the interests, not of the refugees, but of the
nations which fund it, and so to repatriate them as quickly as possible
to the countries from which they came, with the result that
the experience and interests of refugees themselves can easily be
neglected. This has been the context of the work of JRS since 1990,
when Mark Raper replaced Dieter Scholz as International Director.
Increasingly, too, the fate of refugees is decided internationally.
A climate of hostility to refugees means that their sufferings are
ignored, that detention of asylum seekers becomes an accepted form
of treatment, and that there is little hesitation to send them back. The
voice of refugees must be represented in developed countries and in
the organisations which help shape international policy. Writing
about the growth of JRS in Asia Pacific, Fr Hamilton said: The
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