Evidence of meeting #124 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was countries.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Bilak, I'd like to ask you some questions with respect to sovereignty. With respect to IDPs, there could be questions of sovereignty involved. These are, in general, citizens within their own countries. The degrees of displacement vary widely, as do the causes.
Are there particular diplomatic concerns to be taken into account when assessing IDPs for assistance?
Director, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
I think this is probably the most crucial question. The crux, really, of the issue around internal displacement is, as you said, national sovereignty. National sovereignty has been a barrier to making progress on this agenda ever since the UN guiding principles on internal displacement were developed 20 years ago. This is also the reason that, as I was saying earlier, no single UN agency formally has the mandate to deal with the issue of internal displacement. Because it is so quintessentially politically sensitive and because it touches on the sovereignty of states, we see it playing out in many different ways, not least every other year when the IDP resolution has to be readopted at the General Assembly. We always have a lot of resistance on the part of certain states for pushing the boundaries of that resolution.
For a number of years, the main arguments that were being made to address internal displacement were human rights arguments, as I was saying earlier, which typically were met with a lot of resistance on the part of a number of countries, particularly those experiencing conflict, where the political sensitivities were much higher.
Now, having said that, even though the issue of sovereignty is and will probably remain a massive obstacle in finding solutions to this issue, there are some promising opportunities on the horizon. We have noticed that conversations with national governments about internal displacement are, for example, far more palatable when the entry point is not conflict or violence but is more disasters or climate change. Then we can have a conversation not so much about human rights and a country's human rights track record but about sustainable development. Talking about reconstruction, development and longer-term planning and couching the issue of internal displacement within a broader conversation about a country's commitments under the SDGs, for example, is far more constructive, I would say, than presenting it as a more forceful human rights issue.
We have made some progress. I was talking about the high-level panel on internal displacement, a proposal that was put forward to the Secretary-General by a number of member states. We're hoping this proposal will see the light of day perhaps early next year. We hope it can create a forum where a constructive conversation about internal displacement and sustainable development can take place.
It is absolutely essential that countries affected by internal displacement are part of that conversation and that they're not sidelined in policy debates that up until now, if I'm honest, have mostly been led by donor governments and western governments that are not directly experiencing this phenomenon in the same way as these other countries are. Some of these countries—not all, of course—have expressed an interest and an openness to discuss the issue constructively. They really should be in the driver's seat of any future policy-making on this topic.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I wonder if you can give some examples of problems. If there are human rights issues or serious conflicts, what can a country do? What can a country such as Canada do?
Director, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
I think continuously make the case that not addressing internal displacement will have a number of knock-on effects that will slow down a country's development trajectory. As well, try to convince these national governments that it is actually in their own self-interest to both prevent and reduce internal displacement risk.
Of course, there will always be sensitivities. There will always be human rights issues that have to be discussed, perhaps separately and in very specific forums, but I think starting the conversation with a development angle and using an economic or financial argument is definitely the way forward.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
I want to thank both of you for taking time for us on this important study.
My first question is to you, Ms. Bilak. You've obviously done a lot of work on IDPs.
We get UN intervention in terms of helping the IDPs when they're in a state, but when in camps, as the Yazidis or others have been, they are not considered refugees until they've actually been moved over.
Are there any ways to change this so that they are considered refugees even if they are within the state, or can we create a new category so that the UN will assist?
Director, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
As I was saying, I don't think there's any kind of political appetite for expanding the definition of IDPs or developing some kind of international framework for IDPs.
As we were saying earlier, it is quintessentially a domestic issue. That will never change. We need to recognize that these people are displaced inside their countries and therefore fall within the jurisdiction of their state. There is no other alternative legal framework within which this can be addressed—sorry.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Okay. Thank you.
Ms. Atak, the designated country of origin I think has been struck down, and as of July 2015, it hasn't been in effect. I think the court of appeal has.... It's kind of like a ghost law. It will probably be taken off the books or be amended, but currently I believe it's not considered constitutional.
Ms. Atak, you've studied refugees across Canada over three different provinces. Can you say how their settlement has been? For example, are they working, integrating, contributing to Canadian society? In comparison to, say, economic immigrants and family reunification immigrants, are they at par and similar and pretty close to them?
You've studied it, I assume, over the three provinces and over a length of time.
Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
Both refugee claimants and refugees work and contribute to our society. This is a well-documented fact. With regard to refugees especially, there has been research conducted—not by me, but by many of my colleagues—that shows that refugees very quickly become productive members of our society.
In terms of integration, there is this will, but depending on the availability and resources held by service providers in different provinces, their integration is more or less successful.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
It's more or less at par with other sources of immigration, I would say. Am I right?
Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
That's correct, yes.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Second, I understand your sympathy with refugee rights and refugee settlement. However, we also see that when refugee claimants are processed efficiently and quickly and genuine refugees are put on a path to citizenship or settlement, those who don't satisfy the requirement are not sent back swiftly.
This is a very difficult situation. As people live in the country for so long, they may end up having roots. They have a child born here. They start working here. They have fewer roots in the country they came from.
I'm talking about somebody who is not considered a refugee, and therefore it becomes very difficult to send them back. There are a lot of different applications on H and C grounds, humanitarian and compassionate grounds, and it becomes very difficult.
How would you suggest that we revamp or tweak our refugee system so we maintain its integrity and allow those who are genuine refugees to stay in Canada, and have those who are not deemed to be refugees sent back swiftly? Both of those processes have to be done in a swift manner. If you lengthen it and we have access to justice and we allow them a lot of time, then it's very hard to remove them and it becomes a very difficult situation. That's where Canadians get into an issue.
Are there any suggestions you have about how we can maintain a robust system that is efficient and equitable?
Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, Ryerson University, As an Individual
That's one of the questions I asked my research participants. I interviewed almost 70 research participants in three provinces. That was one of the questions I was interested in.
Many of those participants told us there should be a balance. The timeline before the adoption of the refugee reform in 2012 was almost 18 months for a refugee claim to have a final decision. That was obviously too long. Now it is too fast. It's 60 days for most claimants, but for some claimants, because the system is punitive, it is sometimes only 30 days.
There should be a balance, and some of the participants said three months would be ideal. This would allow claimants to receive legal counsel, an interpreter and legal aid, and to gather evidence they need to make a claim and make their case before the Immigration and Refugee Board.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you. I'm afraid I need to end here for the first hour.
Thank you to our witnesses. You might think it's odd that we had the two of you on the same panel. That's simply the way scheduling on this study works. Thank you for understanding that we're dealing with quite different topics, but all of this will work out over a number of weeks.
I know Ms. Bilak has submitted a couple of documents for our committee. Thank you for that. If either of you has documents or helpful information that you think would be useful for the committee, be sure to send them to us.
We'll suspend for a moment.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
We're going to begin.
Our witness from Denmark is available and we do have the connection with Mr. Bach, but we're having a problem with the connection with respect to Cambridge. We're still missing one of the three witnesses from Cambridge. We're going to begin with Mr. Bach as soon as we see him.
While we're waiting for that, I'll do a little piece of business.
Mr. Tilson and I talked yesterday, and at his suggestion, we're looking at the meeting on Thursday, November 8. As you probably know, the House won't be sitting on Friday, November 9. The small number of people who have to be here on Friday will not be coming at all. I don't know whether Thursday will have Friday timing. I don't think so; it will be a regular Thursday. However, the suggestion from Mr. Tilson is that we not meet that Thursday, which will give us a chance to take one meeting off. I think it's a good idea, but I wanted to check to make sure there was agreement generally in the room with his suggestion.
I'm hearing no argument.
It appears that we have all of our witnesses here now. We're going to begin with Mr. Bach, because it is quite late in Copenhagen.
We thank you for joining us. We'll give you about 10 minutes to make an opening statement. Then we will hear from the Aleph Policy Initiative and then from Nadia's Initiative.
Mr. Bach, welcome.
Christian Friis Bach Secretary General, Danish Refugee Council
Thank you very much.
It's an honour to be able to address the committee. Thank you for this opportunity.
I might not even use my 10 minutes, but I will say a few remarks on mixed migration and durable solutions.
Let me first say that I was on the board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development for six years and visited Canada—Ottawa and Winnipeg—many times and used the opportunity to also study the Canadian resettlement, refugee and volunteer integration activities. I pay a lot of respect to the quality of those programs and the commitment of the Canadian government and people in welcoming refugees. I think we can learn more from you than you can learn from us.
I am the secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council. It's one of the five largest organizations in the world working on displacement and humanitarian assistance to people who have been displaced. We have 7,500 staff in 40 countries—all displacement situations, we are there—with a budget of around $600 million Canadian dollars.
We work all around the displacement cycle, from internally displaced to near areas, to programs in Greece, to supporting asylum, to a volunteer program in Denmark, to integration activities from language to family support, to diaspora programs supporting the diaspora to work and create projects back home, and to return to repatriation. We are, in a sense, a unique organization working all around the displacement cycle.
The current migration refugee crisis, I believe, is primarily a protection crisis. It's a crisis in our core values of human dignity and human rights. That is very much how it is playing out in Europe and in the routes connecting people to Europe. We see this with a lot of clarity in the DRC because we have created the Mixed Migration Centre—which runs from my program—where we conduct, and have conducted, 20,000 interviews with migrants and refugees on all major routes going to Europe. We have not yet established a similar program in the Americas, but it is definitely on the horizon.
We do these in-depth interviews—around 1,200 a month—on all major routes towards Europe. They are in-depth interviews asking refugees and migrants where they come from, why they have left, where they want to go, and what they have experienced on the route. This data is now showing us is a very concerning picture.
Around 80% of those walking on the route face protection concerns and violations. Thirty per cent experience people dying on the routes where they move. If you go to the website you can draw the data. For instance, if you select Eritrea, sexual abuse, and women, you will see how the border between Sudan and Eritrea is now turning red and yellow, signalling that women trying to escape out of Eritrea are now captured on that border, where the European Union worked with the Sudanese government in order to strengthen border control. This is where the women are caught and they are facing sexual abuse and violations.
If you go to the website, you can also see what the conditions are in Libya and its detention centres. Through this dataset, we have been able to show how there are many more women and girls captured in the detention centres in Libya who are facing severe violations there. You can go to the Afghan border. You can see how the border between Afghanistan and Iran is increasingly being closed, and how Afghan refugees are stuck on that border where they are facing brutal violations and beatings from a coalition of militias and border police who are also taking them hostage and claiming ransoms from the families.
This is a very disturbing picture. Our main message is that when countries are increasingly trying to protect their borders, we must do a lot more to protect the people who are stuck on the route and stuck on these borders at the same time.
It is very much a protection crisis that we are facing, more than it's a migration-refugee crisis. The number of people who are crossing the Mediterranean has dropped by 95% to 96% since it peaked in 2015. Asylum numbers in a country like Denmark are now at a historical low. The main crisis we have to focus on is the protection crisis.
To solve this, the solution is to engage much more forcefully to protect people on the routes and, first and foremost, to create durable solutions that allow people to stay where they are and where we can find durable solutions in the near areas. This is, of course, about ensuring that refugees and vulnerable migrants have access to basic health care and services to ensure that in the protracted crisis, refugees have access to education, health and livelihood opportunities. This is something that we have said for years, but not yet delivered on.
If you go to Lebanon, 80% of the refugees there are living below the poverty line, and still 30% to 50% of the kids are not in school. Of course, many of these families turn desperate and wish to move on, just as the women who are facing violations on the routes have often no other option than to keep moving on to seek protection and some kind of dignity. These are very much the issues that we have to handle.
In creating durable solutions—and this is the objective of the global compact on refugees and of the comprehensive refugee response framework that we must now hopefully agree on and thereby seek to implement—these solutions will depend on a number of issues. First and foremost is the ability and the willingness of host countries to engage and provide the access to health, education and livelihood opportunities, but they will need an increased financing scheme. They will need to see an increased commitment in resettlement schemes to take out some of the most vulnerable refugees. This has to be part of a joint solution, a common solution, framed and formed under the new global compact and the CRRF.
In creating these solutions, we also need to tackle the humanitarian development divide, which is very much present in the funding modalities of so many countries. On the ground, it is often not as complicated. When we operate inside of Somalia, where we run a very large program, we help communities in Somalia prepare for the return of IDPs. When the IDPs return, we stand ready with cash assistance. We give them shelter. We ensure that they have water and a start-up package.
We, at the same time, work with the local community on its development plan. We work with the police to make sure that they can provide security for the girls and women who may return home and be engaged in livelihood activities for both the host community and the IDPs who may come back.
In this, there's no humanitarian development split, but there is very much so in the funding modalities: in the humanitarian funding, in the development funding. A lot more needs to be done in order to build a nexus approach, as you would say in the fancy new world, but simply creating funding modalities can support durable solutions.
We do water trucking for almost $20,000 U.S. a day to the refugees in northern Uganda. This is because we have a three-month humanitarian grant to provide water solutions and water trucking. With such a short time horizon, it's the only option. If funding in such a situation were given a two-year horizon, we could easily provide durable solutions in terms of proper wells, water pumps and solar panels that can provide water solutions both for the community and for the refugees, primarily from South Sudan, who are walking into northern Uganda.
These are just examples of how we really need to work on our funding modalities to ensure that we can protect people where they are and that we can provide durable solutions. Then we must increase and expand the protection space and not limit it as we see right now in Europe, where more and more countries are limiting their asylum space. This must be protected and expanded to more and more countries so that refugees can seek protection in more and more countries, seek access to asylum, seek access to durable solutions and be protected where they are.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you very much.
We're going to turn to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and we're going to begin with the two from the Aleph Policy Initiative.
I'm not sure who is going to speak first, but you're going to share the time.
Go ahead, Ms. Baum and Mr. Shadarevian.
Vartan Shadarevian Executive Director, Aleph Policy Initiative
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a fantastic opportunity to appear before the committee and offer some comments and thoughts. I'll present some comments and thoughts on policy, and then my colleague Rosa Baum will touch also on some implications for Canadian policy.
Let me open by saying that we recognize that there's a legitimate political debate as to the number of immigrants and refugees that Canada should accept. What we say today should not be taken to be a comment on that debate. Our present concern is looking more at the general causes of immigration and determining whether the procedures in place are fair and efficient, and whether they sufficiently cover the most vulnerable groups. I'll be speaking somewhat from some of our experience working in the Middle East and particularly Iraq, although some of the expertise of our members extends to Latin America and other regions.
The facts are as follows. Syrian and Iraqi refugees, particularly religious minorities, hesitate or refuse to register with UNHCR and other agencies for fear of reprisals. Less than 1% of each minority community in Syria has registered with refugee agencies in Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, which means either they are not migrating despite the particular dangers to them, or they are not registering once they leave.
At a general level, what the research shows is that for a person in a developing country, when their income goes up, so does their likelihood of immigrating. Migration to some degree is something you need to buy, and some of the most vulnerable individuals may be unable to afford it.
What does this tell us? Immigration is at least partly an access problem. These problems are more acute and they're worse for some of the most marginalized communities—small ethno-religious groups, women and LGBTQ individuals.
Broadly we think any perspective needs to distinguish between predisposing factors, which are longer-term issues and divisions, on the one hand and triggering factors on the other hand, such as wars and natural disasters, which combine with these pre-existing factors to instigate migration.
We think we can predict these predisposing factors, but it is not an easy task. For example, in both Iraq and Syria, there is a large level of ethno-religious diversity. Minorities include not just the Kurds and Christians on the one hand, but also Yazidis, Shabak, Turkmen and many others.
Some of the work by our organization focuses on passive versus active sectarianism, which is something we've coined to help us understand these distinctions. Divisions might exist, but they might be passive background characteristics, or they might be the driver of active political divisions and strife. Usually sectarianism becoming active is a good precursor of migration. Likewise, problems faced by women and LGBTQ groups often predate conflicts but flare up in times of turmoil. Data gathering and methodologies to help identify these factors in advance have come a long way, and we've used some of our own tools to identify problems in communities, sometimes at the village or even the neighbourhood level.
What we put today before the committee is that beyond these drivers, there is a question of how accessible immigration structures are to those facing these problems. The question of whether a person migrates and where they migrate to is much more complex than figuring out how vulnerable they are or the particular danger that they're in. Many things affect the decision and many things affect the access that they have, such as the penetration of international bodies such as UNHCR, their individual information and their beliefs, or their closeness to a community in a target country, which we think has actually been a big factor in Canada, where if you have individual members of the community who are willing to sponsor you or otherwise fund you or welcome you to the community, you're that much more likely to want to immigrate or to apply to immigrate. We think these factors are also predictable, and there's space for improving access but also predicting where we think there might be problems with access.
This implies we have a problem, at least in part, of information. We think concerted research can indicate where sectarianism has become active, for example, or where LGBTQ individuals or women might be threatened. Concerted research, we believe, in 2012 or 2013, could probably have revealed that Yazidis were a group in danger because the ISIS threat to them was an offshoot of pre-existing tensions and problems. But these groups often also lack the access and organization to make the most of their migration services so they are the least likely to pop up on the radar of their own accord until it is too late. It is, therefore, for these groups that additional research and proactive looking for information will most ensure visibility, attention and a sufficiently expeditious immigration process.
For Canada, what does this mean? It means, we think, that Canada should ensure that the IRCC has fully developed data analysis and prediction capabilities. We think that they might benefit from working with other branches of government, such as the stabilization and reconstruction task force within Global Affairs. They may be able to help identify immigration needs in vulnerable populations well in advance, if they do this.
We also think that the IRCC should follow stricter data recording requirements. This analysis should be transparent while also safeguarding the privacy of the individuals involved. Ultimately, if there's an impending crisis or potential biases in the way cases are treated within the IRCC, the government and Parliament should be the first to learn about it.
My colleague, Rosa, will now provide some additional comments.
Rosa Baum Senior Research Fellow, Aleph Policy Initiative
Thank you, Vartan.
Good afternoon.
As an additional focus, the safe third country agreement merits consideration. The systems protecting the rights of migrants in the United States have been deteriorating. This stretches back to the start before the current administration, a longevity that is important to note.
In fiscal year 2014, 77%, or 44,228 individuals, were detained while seeking asylum, and 73% of those were held in privately run prisons. Many of these facilities have been criticized for their human rights violations, including inadequate medical attention and sexual abuse.
Article 31(1) of the refugee convention prohibits this widespread detention of asylum seekers and penalization based on irregular entry or presence. Similarly, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's Judge Pregerson wrote:
...the deportation process can begin and end with a CBP officer untrained in the law. ...There is no hearing, no neutral decision-maker, no evidentiary findings, and no opportunity for administrative or judicial review. This lack of procedural safeguards in expedited removal proceedings creates a substantial risk that noncitizens subjected to expedited removal will suffer an erroneous removal.
Recent actions by President Trump and his Attorney General have exacerbated these practices of large-scale detention, expedited removal without concern to due process, and prosecution of unauthorized entry, which is a recognized means for seeking asylum under article 31 of the refugee convention.
Executive orders have further criminalized migrant behaviour and sweeping statements have tried to rule out the possibility of protection for large groups of those forced to leave their countries of origin.
Attorney General Sessions disregarded international refugee law and consensus among many states, Canada included, in his interpretation of persecution committed by non-state actors. These recognized protections have been critical for vulnerable groups, especially women, who classically suffer human rights abuses at the hands of non-state actors. Tightening border security has not proved to decrease irregular border crossings. Instead, it tends to interrupt circular migration and increase criminalization.
Immigration in the 21st century presents unprecedented challenges. Successful policy will require concerted efforts by governments in dealing with these crises and gathering information, but also the courage of policy-makers to chart their own course when the moment demands it.
Thank you.
Abid Shamdeen Director, Nadia's Initiative
My name is Abid Shamdeen and I'm part of Nadia Murad's initiative. I was born and raised in Sinjar, the Yazidi homeland. I would like to thank the committee for giving me a chance to clarify some points about the Yazidi situation.
First, I want to just point out a few things before I get into the Yazidi situation. I want to mention that Canada was part of the coalition that toppled the Saddam regime, and some Canadian nationals were also part of the ISIS group that committed crimes against Yazidis and others.
Since 2014, we all know the Yazidis, a specific minority group, have been the target of al Qaeda, ISIS and other terrorist groups. Al Qaeda killed thousands of Yazidis in the 2007 attack on Yazidi villages south of Sinjar Mountain, and since then attacks have continued against Yazidis. The recent and most cruel one, as we all know, was by ISIS in 2014.
The current situation of the Yazidis in Iraq is that they remain shattered. They are in IDP camps, refugee camps and some of them are in unfinished buildings in northern Iraq—Kurdistan, specifically—and they have been in these IDP camps since 2014. Some of them have been under the same tent.
Today, the future of Yazidis is in danger more than ever. The Canadian Parliament pledged to take 1,200 Yazidi ISIS survivors. I believe up until now, they have taken about 600 to 700 individuals, and we hope that the Canadian government will keep its promise and take the rest of the Yazidi survivors. I hope the committee can follow up with the Minister of Immigration and ask them to take more Yazidis, as they pledged to take 1,200 by the end of 2017.
Today, about 350,000 Yazidis remain in the IDP camps in northern Iraq, and about 67,000 in Greece and Turkey. Of those Yazidis who were taken into captivity by ISIS in 2014—mostly women and some children—1,200 to 1,300 remain in captivity, mostly in Syria. We believe some of them are also in Turkey.
We believe that, even though ISIS has been defeated militarily in Iraq, Yazidis are still a target of ISIS. Both the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government have imposed a blockade on Yazidi areas in Sinjar. Some of the roads that lead to Sinjar have been blocked for over a year. Even those who would like to return to their homes and try to rebuild their lives are not able to go back due to the restrictions put on the Sinjar area.
Likewise, international NGOs, such as UN agencies—UNDP and others—are not able to implement some of their projects because of those access issues. We believe that taking more Yazidis, especially the women who survived ISIS captivity, is very necessary. For those who have been taken, we have contact with them and their lives have been changed for the better. They are able to restart their lives in Canada. We hope that the remainder of that number—the 1,200 Yazidis—will be taken to Canada.
We will be here for questions if you have questions. Thank you.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Jenny Kwan
Thank you very much to our presenters.
The first seven minutes go to Mr. Sarai.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Thank you.
If Mr. Bach is still on the line, I'll maybe ask him the first question.
The committee has heard that one of the reasons refugee flows continue to grow is the international communities' inability to broker peace. Do you agree with that perspective, and if so, can you explain?
Secretary General, Danish Refugee Council
I do agree. We can see that the major refugee-producing countries are all engaged in protracted crisis situations. Take South Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen as examples. The lack of the ability of the Security Council and world leaders to resolve and stop these conflicts is something that will be judged hard by history.
Displacement, however, is often not for only one reason, which is what the large dataset from the 22,000 interviews we did shows. We are working now with IBM and the supercomputer Watson to use this dataset, combined with around 30 to 40 other data sources, to develop a predictive capacity in order to see if we can, first and foremost, be better at preventing displacement, if we can do more to protect people who are displaced, and if we can do more to predict where people will leave from and where they will go. The first algorithms will be developed using the IBM Watson supercomputer.
The dataset already shows us that people move for a variety of reasons, be they migrants or refugees. They can move because of conflict. They can move because of drought. They can move because of the loss of a family member. They can move because of job aspirations. Often it is not only one factor that drives displacement. It's often a complexity of multiple factors that will drive people to move.
It also shows the complexities of mixed migration or mixed movement, where you may have refugees and migrants walking side by side. You may also have vulnerable migrants who, en route, will shift status from migrant to refugee because of the violations they face or their inability to return home. It is a complex picture, but definitely conflict is the main driver. The inability of the international community to resolve these conflicts will be judged very hard by history.