By Jeff Crisp
The negative characteristics and consequences of refugee camps are well known, and yet they continue to be used as the primary form of settlement for exiled populations in many countries. This blog explains why.
Defining refugee camps
There is a need to be cautious when generalizing about refugee camps, as they vary considerably in terms of their size, age, demographic composition, administrative status and the rights which their residents are able to exercise. They also go under a number of different names, the notion of ‘camp’ often used interchangeably with those of ‘organized settlement’, ‘transit centre’, ‘humanitarian centre’ and ‘protection of civilians centre’.
For the purpose of this blog, refugee camps will be defined as discreet geographical areas used to accommodate substantial numbers of foreign nationals who are considered to be in need of international protection by UNHCR and/or the authorities of the host country, and whose basic needs are largely met by means of systems and services that are separate to those used by the local population.
Negative characteristics
A great deal of evidence has been collected about the negative characteristics and consequences of refugee camps, especially when they remain in place for years or even decades on end.
In simple terms, camps provide refugees with an unnatural way of life. Refugees who are accommodated in camps are often deprived of freedom of movement, as well as access to land, the labour market and capital. Camps experience high levels of violence, are prone to become militarized and as a result are vulnerable to armed attacks. The judicial systems of refugee camps are usually weak, with the effect that their residents lack access to effective justice. They often come under the control of powerful groups and individuals who lack democratic accountability.
Camps limit the degree of interaction that refugees have with the host community and thereby obstruct the process of local integration. They can generate resentment amongst host state local citizens, especially when refugees are perceived to receive greater support than surrounding communities, and when the presence of a camp places important strains on scarce resources such as water, firewood, arable and grazing land.
Recognizing these and other difficulties, some 25 years ago UNHCR began to reconsider the wisdom of obliging refugees to reside in camps and in 2009 introduced a new policy that underlined the right of refugees to take up residence in the place of their choice, especially urban areas.
Five years later, in 2014, the organization went a step further, making a formal commitment to find alternatives to refugee camps whenever possible. This policy, UNHCR said, “applies in all operations for refugees and in all phases of displacement from contingency planning and preparedness to emergency response to stable and protracted refugee situations and the pursuit of durable solutions.”
The persistent paradox referred to in the title of this blog is to be found in the fact that refugee camps are still to be found in many parts of the world, despite all of the evidence pertaining to their problematic nature, and in contradiction to UNHCR’s stated intention to address the issue of refugee settlement in other ways.
According to the latest estimates, up to 10 million of the world’s refugees live in camps. While some important host states, Colombia, Egypt and Lebanon, for example, have chosen to avoid the establishment of camps for their respective populations of Venezuelan, Sudanese and Syrian refugees, others have responded to recent refugee influxes by the creation of organized settlements.
Bangladesh, for example, requires all of its one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to live in camps, while the same approach to settlement has been taken in relation to the 900,000 Sudanese refugees who have fled to Chad.
Despite repeated statements to the effect that they intend to move away from camp-based approaches, the vast majority of the one million refugees in Ethiopia and 800,000 in Kenya continue to live in organized settlements. In Malawi, the government has taken a backward step in relation to this issue, forcing refugees who had settled outside the country’s already overcrowded refugee camp at Dzaleka to take up residence there.
In order to explain the persistence of refugee camps, despite the evidence of their negative characteristics and in contradiction to UNHCR’s official settlement policy, it is necessary to examine the following considerations that have resulted in this outcome. They are summarized in the following sections of this blog.
Logistics
In a typical refugee influx, large numbers of people flee from their country of origin at short notice and with little time for preparation. While motorized refugee movements have become more common in recent years, many flee on foot and are limited in the amount of goods and personal possessions that they can take with them. When they arrive in a country of asylum, they are usually in urgent need of basic items such as shelter, food, water, cooking equipment and fuel.
In such circumstances, there is a logistical rationale for keeping the new arrivals together in one place, thereby facilitating the tasks of aid delivery and distribution. At the same time, steps have to be taken to cater for longer-term needs, such as healthcare, education and sanitation, not to mention the establishment of offices, warehouses and other facilities for humanitarian agencies that are responding to the influx.
Once these systems and services have been put in place, dismantling a camp and dispersing its residents becomes a complex and expensive undertaking. It also requires alternative forms of settlement to be found for the refugees – not an easy task when they number in the hundreds of thousands.
In short, once a refugee camp has been established it is usually there to stay. While some residents may choose of their own accord to move on to other locations, UNHCR, its humanitarian partners and host states rarely make any attempt to close a camp once it is up and running.
Visibility
All of the actors involved in refugee situations have an interest in keeping them highly visible.
The ministries of donor states that provide funding to humanitarian agencies have to compete for resources with other government departments and demonstrate to the public that their tax contributions are being well spent. Refugee-hosting states are usually eager to demonstrate their hospitality and generosity to the world so as to retain the financial and diplomatic support of more prosperous countries.
UNHCR and other aid agencies also have to mobilize resources, whether from governments, private sector companies, philanthropic foundations or the public. In the increasingly competitive humanitarian marketplace, brand recognition and reputation are central to institutional survival and growth. Refugee camps play an important part in meeting these imperatives and add to the logic of accommodating refugees in organized settlements.
In terms of marketing and fundraising, camps provide a wealth of photo and video opportunities, usually depicting their residents as the vulnerable and grateful recipients of international largesse. Images of refugees at work and living in urban areas simply do not have the same appeal and do not chime with the public’s belief that tented camps are their natural home.
Camps facilitate the task of arranging whistle-stop tours for visiting dignitaries and celebrities who want to gain an impression of refugee life ‘in the field’. They also enable UNHCR and other aid agencies to project their ownership of the humanitarian enterprise, ensuring that their logos are prominently featured on every tent, latrine, blanket and bucket to be found in a camp.
Many of these opportunities would be lost if refugees were encouraged to disperse and to melt into local communities where their distinctiveness and particular needs would be much less apparent. No better example of this consideration can be found than in Jordan, where the Zaatari refugee camp, with a population of some 80,000 in the early years of the Syrian emergency, received inordinately more publicity than the 700,000 refugees living amongst the country’s citizens.
Control
Refugees are often regarded as a security threat by host states in the developing world, especially when they come from countries that are convulsed by complex civil wars, and when the governments of the country of origin and asylum have a poor relationship with each other.
Such perceptions are reinforced in situations where refugees have strong political, ethnic or religious affiliations, heightening the fear that they will become embroiled in national and regional armed conflicts, as seen in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Even in less fractious contexts, the sudden arrival of a large refugee population can generate discontent amongst local communities and stoke tension between the two populations.
Such issues are of evident concern to refugee-hosting states, many of which are politically fragile and governed by authoritarian regimes. Security and control are amongst their primary concerns, and these interests are not seen to be served by allowing large numbers of foreign nationals to roam freely across the country, adding to the number of the urban poor.
From their perspective, it is far better to confine refugees to camps, where their activities can be monitored, policed and disciplined, and at the same time to ensure that the costs of sustaining such organized settlements are met largely by the international donor community.
Despite its formal commitment to alternative models of refugee settlement, UNHCR rarely challenges such policy decisions on the part of host governments. Indeed, as the author of this blog has explained elsewhere, the organization is only too willing to act as a ‘surrogate state’ in refugee camps, exercising a delegated authority over their residents, the territory they occupy, the services they receive and the systems used to maintain the rule of law.
Protection and solutions
UNHCR’s attachment to camps derives in part from its mandate to safeguard refugee protection and promote solutions to their plight. To fulfil the former of these functions, the organization must, at the very least, have regular access to refugees, so as to assess their safety, identify any risks relating to their wellbeing and take corrective action in relation to such threats.
With data collection and analysis becoming an increasingly important part of the humanitarian enterprise, UNHCR and its aid agency partners must be able to demonstrate to donors that the impact of their programmes is closely and statistically monitored.
Experience has demonstrated that all of these activities can be undertaken more effectively and efficiently when refugees are congregated in camps, rather than being dispersed across large swaths of territory and mingled with local communities. Indeed, one obstacle that has been encountered in the implementation of UNHCR’s policy on refugees in urban areas has been the difficulty of gaining access to and monitoring the situation of refugees in large cities such as Cairo, Nairobi and New Delhi.
In such contexts, the UNHCR office is normally to be found in the central business district, whereas the refugees served by the organization live in outlying suburban and peri-urban areas where the cost of living is much lower. As a result, only the most healthy, wealthy and enterprising refugees can afford the time and money that it takes to visit UNHCR in person. The poorest and most vulnerable are more likely to be isolated in their homes, their protection and assistance needs unknown to the organization.
Camps are also considered to support the search for solutions. Voluntary repatriation has for several decades been UNHCR’s preferred means of bringing refugee situations to a close, a position dictated in part by the firm resistance of most host states to the solution of local integration and naturalization.
Bangladesh, for example, has always felt that the best way of ensuring the early return of its Rohingya refugee population has been to keep them in under-serviced camps where they would not become too comfortable, and whose proximity to the Myanmar border facilitates the task of encouraging and organizing large-scale returns Some academics have added legitimacy to this position, arguing that refugees are more likely to repatriate if they remain close to their country of origin and are able to live in their own cultural environment.
Opportunities
While refugee camps are often portrayed as spaces of dispossession and hardship, they also offer opportunities that have reinforced the case for them to be established, perpetuated and expanded.
In many refugee situations, local businessmen and elites are able to benefit from the new trading, construction and service-provision opportunities that inevitably arise when a camp is established, especially when it provides them with ready access to a new pool of cheap and exploitable foreign labour.
Politicians and government officials in the areas where large refugee camps are located often benefit from a boost in their prestige, influence and public profile, not to mention new moneymaking opportunities and access to resources provided by the humanitarian system, such as vehicles, communications equipment and international travel. In the author’s experience, a good number of these people succeed in joining that system once they have been exposed to the benefits it offers.
Finally, while UNHCR’s official settlement policy might be predicated on the assumption that camps have negative consequences for their residents and that their establishment should be avoided whenever possible, that perspective is not necessarily shared by refugees themselves.
Camps are an important resource for refugees. They are places where food and other relief items can be accessed, and where services such as healthcare and education are provided, often free of charge and of a reasonable quality. As such, they provide a supportive environment where the more vulnerable members of a household can be placed, leaving those with greater physical and mental ability to look for work elsewhere in the country of asylum, to move on to other states, or to go back home and determine whether conditions there are right for return.
In this respect, camps must not be viewed in isolation. While they are often associated with a sedentarist approach to refugee settlement, they are often an important component of social, economic and cultural networks that facilitate refugee mobility and transnationalism.
Dr. Jeff Crisp is a research fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, and an affiliate of the Refugee Law Initiative.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author/s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Refugee Law Initiative. We welcome comments and contributions to this blog – please comment below and see here for contribution guidelines.