{"id":557,"date":"2021-02-28T21:49:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T21:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/?p=557"},"modified":"2021-02-28T21:49:36","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T21:49:36","slug":"refugee-and-migrant-yes-they-are-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/?p=557","title":{"rendered":"Refugee and Migrant … yes they are different"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes we may think of refugees as being people from a country far far away who have voluntarily left their home country because they are looking for a better way of life.\u00a0 Many of us, including me, would at some point even mistakenly use the terms “refugees” and “migrants” interchangeably.\u00a0 These terms are totally different with distinct legal and\/or practical meaning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick read of the term \u201crefugee\u201d in the 1951 Refugee Convention <\/a>and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees<\/a> show that the term “refugee” has a specific definition in international law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term “refugee” is defined in the mentioned documents and applies to any person who: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026 owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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United Nations, Geneva Photo by Mat Reding<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM)<\/a>, there is no universally accepted definition for “migrant” at the international level. However, for its own purposes, the IOM defines the term “migrant” as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“An umbrella term, not defined under international law, reflecting the common lay understanding of a person who moves away from his or her place of usual residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons. The term includes a number of well-defined legal categories of people, such as migrant workers; persons whose particular types of movements are legally-defined, such as smuggled migrants; as well as those whose status or means of movement are not specifically defined under international law, such as international students.” <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Antoine Merour<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I believe that using the appropriate terms will allow us to better understand the magnitude and issues surrounding refugees and migrants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, according to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)<\/a>, there are more than 80 million forcibly displaced people worldwide of which 45.7 million are internally displaced people; 26.3 million are refugees and 4.2 million are asylum seekers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the current global estimate is that in 2019 there were around 272 million international migrants, which equates to 3.5% of the global population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please feel free to direct any questions or comments to Kean Smith at\u00a0kean@smithkas.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes we may think of refugees as being people from a country far far away who have voluntarily left their home country because they are looking for a better way of life.\u00a0 Many of us, including me, would at some point even mistakenly use the terms “refugees” and “migrants” interchangeably.\u00a0 These terms are totally different … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Refugee and Migrant … yes they are different”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[51,52,50,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1951-refugee-convention","category-1967-protocol-relating-to-the-status-of-refugees","category-migrants","category-refugees"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smithkas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}