(Aceh was at the epicenter of the tsunami that struck the region on December26, 2004.)

Thirteen-year-old Sri has fond memories of her home village in North Aceh in Indonesia. Though she has lived in a camp for the internally displaced in the neighboring region of North Sumatra for three years, such a long time for someone so young, she still misses her old friends. "I had many friends back home, and very nice teachers," she remembers.

"I was very sad the day we were forced to leave because of the conflict. The whole village was chaotic. The schools closed, and my teachers fled in fear of their lives. Our neighbors and friends, who stayed behind, cried and told us that they would help protect us, but my parents were too afraid. We left our belongings behind, and traveled to North Sumatra," Sri quietly recounts.

Formal education is often unavailable for refugee children, especially for those who have already passed through primary level. If local schools do exist they are often too expensive for destitute refugee families to afford. Sri is one of the lucky ones. She is in the second year of a local junior secondary school near the refugee camp in Sei Lepan, about three hours from Medan. A humanitarian organization has been able to provide her with a scholarship, as her family could not afford the school fees. “I love to study because it will make me smart!” Sri says with great hope. In the camp, education is still only available for elementary schoolchildren, and only a few young people have the opportunity to take their studies further.

"We will never return to Aceh,", Sri says suddenly, anticipating the question on the lips of the JRS worker, unspoken for fear of upsetting her. "I know that more people are fleeing from Aceh now that the problems there are getting worse," she says. "I heard that on the radio."

Despite being only 13, she works hard to understand what is happening to her by piecing together the fragments of information that she picks up. Knowing this, it seems apparent that giving the youth the possibility to go to school is vital for peace-building efforts in the future.

On March 20, 2002 five soldiers came to my house in Burma looking for my husband. Without any explanation, they handcuffed him while others searched the house. I shouted to my husband but was told not to make any noise. A soldier pushed me down and hit me with the butt of his gun. Then he handcuffed me and put me in the car. I was taken to a military camp. I did not see my husband alive again.

At the camp, I was taken to a small, dark room where soldiers began interrogating me about my husband's alleged involvement with a rebel group. When I could not give them information, they beat, slapped, punched, and kicked me. Eventually I lost consciousness. I was released only when I signed an agreement not to leave the area without permission and not to accept guests into my home.

When I returned home, soldiers came to inform me that my husband was in the hospital. When I got there, he was already dead. They told me he had died from sickness but his face was completely black. Afterwards soldiers came nightly to my house to terrorize my family, threatening me with imprisonment if they found any visitors in my home. I could not continue to live in fear so I fled to some relatives who advised me to go to Malaysia.

In Malaysia I eventually got a job in a restaurant. Late hours required that I take a taxi home. One night I realized that the driver was not taking me home. He stopped at an area where two other people stood under a grove of trees. They grabbed me, kicked and slapped me and then raped me. Since that time I have often been threatened with arrest for being in Malaysia illegally and forced to pay bribes.

What about women fleeing domestic violence? Should they be accorded refugee status?

Rodi was 16 when she married Francisco in Guatemala. Her husband brutally beat her and vowed to kill her. "Francisco raped and sodomized Rodi, broke windows and mirrors with her head, dislocated her jaw, and tried to abort her child by kicking her violently in the spine. Besides using his hands and his feet against her, he also resorted to weapons —pistol-whipping her and terrorizing her with his machete."

Rodi’s repeated attempts to obtain protection failed. The police and the courts refused to intervene because it was a "domestic matter" and because her husband was a former army soldier. Rodi fled to the United States, where her case has been unresolved for the past ten years. Under the Clinton administration she was granted asylum, and the government "issued proposed regulations clarifying that victims of domestic violence and other gender-related persecution are eligible for asylum. However, these proposed regulations never became final." Bush Administration Attorney General John Ashcroft considered deporting Ms. Alverado back to Guatemala, but Justice Department attorneys prevailed and the case still awaits decision. (Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, Beyond Sovereignty, Thomson-Wadsworth, p. 190)

Women seek asylum for different reasons than do men. According to Dr. Maryann Cusimano-Love, the international definition of "refugee" has been interpreted primarily in the context of male asylum-seekers, to the prejudice of women refugees. Many times women are victims of gender-specific crimes, such as genital mutilation, forced abortions, "honor killings" and governmentally-protected spousal abuse. All of these crimes are likely to occur in societies that espouse male domination of the family unit at the expense of equality between the sexes.

For example, the Taliban in Afghanistan force women to be completely subservient to their husbands. "Honor killings" of women who have been deemed to have offended their families have been reported not only in Afghanistan, but also Ecuador, Egypt, India, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey and the U.K.

For reasons such as these, women have fled their homelands seeking refugee status in a new country, sometimes with little success. Sometimes pursued by family members and murdered in their new locations.

As a Somali refugee, Abdul Sheikh is able to reflect on a childhood full of tragedy and life-threatening experiences.  Having found asylum within the United States, Abdul feels it is important to share his life experiences with others:

I was born in 1984 in Somalia, a land of great beauty and promise that attracted tourists from around the world, who came to enjoy the friendly people and peaceful country.  Now, however, Somalia is overwhelmed by famine, war, and violence; leaving no person unaffected. 

When I was seven years old, my father and mother divorced.  As a result, my three siblings and I lived with my father, while two of my other siblings lived with my mother.  I have not seen them in more than 10 years, and have no knowledge as to their whereabouts or if they are still alive.  My father, a religious leader in Mogadishu, the capital, was shot and killed during the civil war (1992), due to his association with a specific tribe. My father was a great man who loved his children – I miss him dearly. 

After his death, I lived with my father's immediate family for a few years, then moved with some of my friends to Ague, a small rural town outside Mogadishu. Here, my friends and I lived a "dark life," a term in Somalia usually associated with a life of a nomad. Due to the tribal warfare that had overtaken the country at the time, I was afraid that a rival tribe would try to kill me, like my father. Therefore, it was essential that I keep on the move, constantly running away from people that I thought would do me harm. 

Everyday I prayed that my life would change for the better, and one day soon it did. My friends and I fled across the Somalia/Kenya border in the town of Mandera, Kenya. Thanks to the generosity of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, we were provided with food and assistance in Mandera for two and a half years. Several months later, we moved to the Eastleigh section of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.  Shortly after our arrival in Nairobi, the friends that I was traveling with were reunited with their family in the United States, while I on the other hand, had become desperate and homeless, scavenging for food to survive. 

Fortunately, while I was in Mandera, I was befriended by a gentle old man from Kenya who helped me significantly. People called him “Mzee,” though I do not know his formal name I will always remember his generosity. He provided me with food, shelter, clothing, and hope. He enrolled me in a school that was operated by a Canadian and American church, and always encouraged me to study hard. He pushed me to get an education and not to waste time doing things that would distract me from my studies. I studied English at the school until November of 2000. Shortly thereafter, the refugee coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, along with two other U.S. citizens, helped me move to the United States in December of 2000. 

Because I was an unaccompanied minor and had no immediate family members, I was granted asylum by the United States government. I will never forget their compassion and help. Living in the United States is very different than Somalia. I currently live in Virginia, and enjoy the everyday freedom, free public education, abundance of food, religious toleration, and security that the United States provides.

I recently graduated from high school and have begun to pursue a degree in international studies and political science. With my education, I intend to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than me.  Although I will never forget the hardships I once faced as a refugee, I also feel that it is essential that I return to Somalia, my homeland.

Ultimately, I believe that it is important to reach out and provide support to others who have had similar life experiences and to share my story so that Americans, will become aware of the persecution and injustices that I and other refugees have experienced. 

(This reflection appears originally on the USA for UNHCR website.)

While the 2004 tsunami drew the eyes of the world to Sri Lanka as well as other nations bordering the Indian Ocean, three years later other events have claimed our attention. The tragedy of Sri Lanka, however, transcends the tsunami, causing JRS presence as part of its mission to serve, accompany and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people. Sri Lanka abounds with forcibly displaced people, primarily because of civil conflict which began decades after Britain surrendered its colonial mandate for Ceylon as it was known in 1948.

The visit to this tiny island nation, located off the southeast coast of India in December 2007, nearly three years after the tsunami devastated much of its eastern and northern coasts, indicated that financial support from JRS/USA helped to rebuild homes and lives of the victims.

Most of the people served by JRS in Sri Lanka are Tamils, although the dominant Sinhalese group also receives JRS services. Since the British departed in 1948, the Sinhalese majority has run the government and enacted laws, which the Tamils have felt to be discriminatory. Such feelings by the Tamil minority have led to bloodshed as they formed several paramilitary groups to defend themselves, most notably the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Thousands of people, mostly Tamils but Muslims as well, have been driven from their homes during the conflict. Many fled to avoid having children conscripted into the LTTE and similar rebel groups. JRS stepped into this situation in 1994, although a Jesuit presence existed far longer than that time. JRS worked with these displaced people and thus was on hand when the tsunami struck in 2004. Yet, JRS has also paid a price for its involvement. In September 2007 a diocesan priest, who served as a district coordinator for JRS in northern Sri Lanka, was killed by a remotely-detonated Claymore mine.

JRS has helped to construct more than 300 homes in various parts of the island, acting alone or in conjunction with Catholic Relief Services, both along the northwest coast and on the east coast where Fr. Gavin inaugurated and blessed a new housing development funded with JRS/USA support.

We also interviewed people who have been displaced due to the conflict. Several of those with whom we spoke had been displaced as many as seven or eight times within a five-year period. One man, presently working for JRS, saw his uncle and two brothers murdered before his eyes when he was thirteen years old, prompting him to join a rebel group in retaliation. Another man related that he and his family fled their home because the Tigers approached their town, forcing young boys to become child soldiers. In order to protect their sons, they fled their home and took up residence in a small village in Mannar District. While they await a JRS house (three rooms plus a kitchen area and toilet facility) they are living in a ramshackle hut with their children and grandchildren.

Certainly their children and all of the children in Sri Lanka concern JRS. In its mission to accompany and serve the victims of civil unrest, JRS believes, as do the parents of these children, that education plays the greatest role in freeing them from a life of second class citizenship. The English Academy, which educates adolescents in Mannar, serves as a case in point. During his comments at the dedication of the Academy, Fr. PS Amalraj, S.J., Regional Director of JRS South Asia, emphasized the importance of speaking and understanding English for their future careers.

JRS-sponsored education, however, occurs at every level, except college.   Nearly 380 pre-school and elementary education programs exist throughout the country. In the eastern districts as well as Mannar we visited several of these facilities. Yet, vocational training may be the most important service that JRS offers, particularly to young women who frequently must fend for themselves. They are trained, therefore, as tailors, bakers and cooks, marketable skills in Sri Lanka. JRS has also provided start-up funds for income generating activities, like raising poultry for the market place.

Since this article was written in early 2008, much has changed in Sri Lanka. Government forces (Sinhalese majority) overcame the resistance of the “Tamil Tigers,” or LTTE, finally defeating them in June 2009. In the interim tens of thousands of people were killed, and more than 300,000 have been left homeless and internally displaced in the country.

by Mitzi Schroeder, Director of Policy for JRS/USA

The obligations of states toward refugees are generally set out in the 1951 Convention and Protocol. Other forms of "complementary protection" are provided by other sources of international law, such as the human rights treaty and the more recent treaty protecting torture victims. Most of this treaty law is binding only on those nations who have acceded to the various instruments. However, it is argued that certain provisions, such as the obligation of "non-refoulement" have gained such wide acceptance as to have become customary international law, applying to all nations.

1. Refugee law limits the obligations of states by making the refugee definition so narrow that it applies only to people who are victims of persecution or who have a "well founded fear" of persecution. This means that people who are simply displaced by situations, even life threatening ones that cause them to flee involuntarily are not refugees and states have no obligation under refugee law to protect them. It furthermore was long held that in order to be considered persecution, the harm suffered or feared must have been inflicted by the state, rather than by other forces.
2. The grounds for the persecution suffered must be one or more of the five named in the refugee definition: race, nationality, membership in a social group, political opinion or religion. This "nexus" between persecution and the reason behind it is an important limiting factor.
3.  The person must be outside his/her country of origin and be unable or unwilling to return.

In all of these ways, the refugee definition, as has been noted by legal scholars, serves not only to protect a narrow class of individuals but to limit the liabilities of states. The underlying assumption is that an individual's  state of nationality or habitual residence bears the primary obligation to protect him; only when the individual can demonstrate that the state has failed in this responsibility do other states assume a limited obligation.

Limitations on Valid Claims

While nations may be obligated not to expel a refugee:

1. They are not obligated to give the refugee permanent residence, or a path to citizenship.
2. They are not obligated to give the children of refugees born on their soil nationality. They can under some circumstances argue that the conditions that caused a person to become a refugee no longer exist, justifying the withdrawal of refuge. 
3. They may arbitrarily interpret the refugee definition in a narrow way, justifying the denial of asylum to those who would be protected under a more generous interpretation.
4. They may ignore many "rights" that are granted to refugees under the refugee convention, such as the right to work and practice professions. Refugees are therefore relegated to a lower rung of society as tolerated rather than welcomed guests. 

Trends Affecting Persecuted People

1. Persecution by non-state actors:  In the past decade or so the international community has become more aware of and willing to recognize persecution by entities other than the state as grounds for refugee status, in situations where the state itself s unwilling or unable to provide protection. For example, people who have suffered persecution by terrorist groups, by warlords or clan groups in failed states, and who have suffered serous harm from groups participating in ethnic cleansing can be considered refugees if the state did not or could not come to their aid. Many Bosnian, Iraqi Colombian and Somali refugees would fall in this category.
2. Membership in a social group: is being defined more broadly. For example, it has been argued that women in traditional societies who are subject to abuse because they are women constitute a "social group" meeting the refugee definition, if they cannot successfully appeal to their government for protection. Likewise, homosexuals have been recognized as a persecuted social group.
3. Internally Displaced Persons are increasingly becoming the subject of refugee-like rights based interventions. The responsibility of UNHCR and other UN bodies to seek to assist IDPs has been recognized. New inter–agency efforts to protect IDPs, such as the "Cluster Approach" have been put in place. European governments speak increasingly of the "duty to protect" in arguing for international intervention on behalf of IDPs. This is partially legitimate humanitarian concern, and partially motivated by the desire to prevent IDPs from becoming refugees and seeking asylum in the developed world.
4. Mixed Migrant Flows:  It is increasingly recognized that irregular migrant flows contain people who are both convention refugees as well as economic migrants, and indeed, people who are both at the same time. On the one hand, this has led to efforts to identify and offer asylum to convention refugees within these flows, and on the other to meet the human needs of what the UN High Commissioner has called "Externally Displaced Persons" who, while not entitled to the rights of refugees nonetheless require humanitarian assistance.

Forced Migrants: Persons who leave their place of habitual residence involuntarily, due to persecution, economic hardship, war or civil conflict, or natural or manmade disaster. Among the kinds of forced migrants are asylum seekers and victims of human trafficking, convention refugees, economic migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons.

Convention Refugee: (definition was updated in 1967) a person who is outside the country of their nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his or her race, religion, nationality membership of a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

Refugees as defined by Catholic Social Teaching: In addition to convention refugees, Catholic teaching suggests that de facto refugees (who are victims of armed conflicts, misguided economic policy or natural disasters), and internally displaced persons (who are uprooted from their homes without having crossed an international frontier) should also be recognized as refugees and accorded international protection.

Asylum Seekers: People who have moved across an international border in search of the protection guaranteed to Convention refugees, but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined.

Forced Economic Migrants: Persons who seek to live and work in a country other than their country of origin due to a lack of economic opportunity there or better opportunities in another country. Those who become migrants due to necessity due to significant economic hardship are called forced economic migrants. When such hardships are imposed selectively by a government as a form or persecution forced economic migrants may also be convention refugees.

IDPs: Internally displaced persons are "persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border." (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Introduction, para. 2)