How to alleviate the refugee crisis

“Our response will be the measure of our humanity”

A refugee can be any person who has left their home because they are afraid for
their safety if they stay. Once refugees leave home, they have to find asylum in another
country until they can resettle into a new home. When refugees flee, their lives twist and
turn inside out because of all the changes they go through and everything they leave
behind or lose. This is very challenging for many people to go through; as soon as
refugees resettle, their lives start to turn back again when they move past the changes and
their host community works with them as peers and equals.

In my opinion, we must find ways to lower the number of displaced people

worldwide, by preventing and solving the conflicts that drive them from their homes. We
must try to rally people and nations to act together based on common interests and
universal aspirations for security, dignity and equality.

First, 85% of all refugees and displaced people live in low and middle-income
countries. Most people who are displaced by violence remain within the borders of their
own countries. Those who are forced out tend to stay as close as they can to home, in
neighbouring nations. Only a tiny fraction of all refugees – less than 1% globally—are
resettled, including in Western nations. The world’s poorer nations are bearing the brunt
of the burden. We cannot simply blindly assume that they will continue to do this
irrespective of policies in wealthier nations.

Second, as many as two-thirds of all the refugees come from just five countries:
Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia. Peace in any one of those five
countries, creating the conditions for people to return home, would bring the numbers of
refugees worldwide down by millions. That is what we should be pressing our politicians
on as voters: challenging them to answer how their policies address the root of the
problem.

To sum up, a refugee is a man, woman or child at their most vulnerable: forced from
their home, living without the protection of their state, and in many cases without the
bare means of survival. It is the human condition that tests our belief that all human
beings have equal rights and deserve protection.I therefore believe that European
countries still have to offer protection under international and regional human rights
treaties and make people feel "at home", and we are to be tolerant with those who stillshe
finds a refuge and one better life