ISTANBUL May 8, 2006 - Presentation of John K. Bingham - Head of Advocacy, International Catholic Migration Commission to the Police Training Program, ICMC Turkey.

Introduction

A few words about the International Catholic Migration Commission. ICMC was created by the Catholic Church after Second World War to help millions of refugees in Europe, who had been forced from their homes and countries either during the war or because of their national origin or religion, and in many cases, for both reasons. In fact, ICMC began its work the very same year that the world adopted the Geneva Convention on Refugees, just a few months after UNHCR (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) was created.

Since then, ICMC has developed a commitment, expertise and recognition for operations that serve refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants in nine core program areas: refugee resettlement, return and reintegration, local integration, work with extremely vulnerable individuals, counter-trafficking and rescue, NGO capacity-building, technical cooperation with governments, responding to emergencies, and advocacy. The mission of ICMC is to serve the needs of uprooted people regardless of creed, race, nationality or ethnic origin. ICMC works with refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants in more than thirty countries, giving priority to the most vulnerable and marginalized among them.
Many of ICMC's biggest programs for refugees are based here in Turkey, where we work with several thousand refugees who are able to leave each year to resettle in other countries, and where we have been working in training programs like this with the Ministry of Interior for the last three years.
In fact, ICMC has been working with Ministries of Interior and police in many countries, including not only Turkey but Albania, Indonesia and Lebanon, especially on refugee issues in programs for counter-trafficking and on the identification, rescue, protection, and return of victims of trafficking.

A word about me. I am a lawyer, born in the United States one of 8 kids. My grandparents and great-grandparents were immigrants. Now I'm an immigrant: married to a French-woman, with 4 boys. I worked 8 years in a bank in New York, then 8 years with Cambodians, teaching law and human rights first in a refugee camp of 240,000 on the border between Thailand and Cambodia (UNHCR was there!), and then at the University in the capital of Cambodia. I then worked another 8 years with Catholic Charities (Caritas) in New York, mostly with immigrants and refugees. 8 must be my lucky number!

My family and I live in France, but I work with ICMC in Switzerland, which means that I cross a border every day for work. I see border guards and police at the border crossing every morning and every night, and they often ask to see my identity and working papers.

I am happy to follow the expert presentation of Mr. Wojciech Trojan of the UNHCR office in Ankara. Mr. Trojan has discussed various international standards regarding refugees thoroughly, including the Global Consultations, the Agenda for Protection and Convention Plus.

As he indicated, some 156 countries participated in those consultations, plus a number of inter-government and non-government groups too, including ICMC, and with Turkey joining a Convention Plus working group in 2004.

I applaud but do not want to repeat what has been covered already. I know that you have been paying quite a good bit of attention to many of these areas in other parts of this program also. And I see in the excellent program that several others will speak today and over the next two weeks on international, European and regional standards and procedures.

So I am going to take a slightly different approach. Though I'm a lawyer, I'm not going to offer so much law detail as a thinking process. I am going to try to suggest to you more from my own background working on a border: so it will be not so much information as experience.

I will invite your participation in two ways.

First, I will distribute to each of you right now a folded piece of paper. If each of you would take one piece of paper, and pass the rest around, and open your piece of paper without showing anyone. Most of the pieces of paper are actually blank-they have no writing on them. But two of them-only two of them-have something written on them. If you would just keep your piece of paper secret until I ask you later. Don't tell me or anyone yet if your paper has anything written on it or not.
Often during this presentation, I will suggest to you three proposals for discussion, to see what your thoughts are about those proposals and to see if we might agree on them.

In fact, here are the first three proposals. I've been asked to give an "NGO perspective" on International refugee law and processing. As we begin, let's consider: What is an "NGO perspective"??
Let me suggest three proposals about NGOs, and see if we can agree:

Though we call them "non-government organizations," NGOs often have the same general values, and even similar positions and objectives government. That is, NGO interests are not always different from government interests; "NGO" is not the "opposite" or the "enemy" of government.
NGOs can help governments see what they don't, or do what they can't. NGOs work directly with lots of people, and for various reasons are sometimes more trusted. NGOs sometimes have more time, or a special focus on specific people or problems; sometimes they have a better capacity to help So it's good for NGOs and governments to work together.
Of course NGOs also sometimes challenge governments-to improve the government's response or laws.
But the one perspective that most NGOs would share, is that all human beings have rights, no matter what their religion, race, nationality or the country they are in, and those rights are described in internationally recognized human rights conventions, including:

The right to life
The right not to be tortured
To right not to be a slave
The right not to be arbitrarily detained
The right to freedom of movement
The right to leave any country, including one's own, and to return to one's own country
The right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum (protection) from persecution<
Not just NGOs, but many countries, national constitutions and governments have a fundamental respect for such rights.

And this is what NGOs are talking about when they push for a "rights-based approach" in policy-making. There will be five parts to our discussion this morning, and then four brief recommendations:

Part 1. Why do people migrate?
Part 2. Who are refugees and who are not?
Part 3. The urgency of individualized process.
Part 4. Who is involved in protection of refugees and asylum seekers?
Part 5. Even non-refugees and non-asylum seekers have rights, too.
Close: Recommendations.

Part 1. WHY DO PEOPLE MIGRATE, IN THE WORLD, AND ACROSS TURKEY'S BORDERS?

People migrate for one (or several) of four main reasons:

To escape either conflict, persecution, or disaster. That is, to save their lives; often in desperate flight from war, genocide and other conflict, from personal or group persecution because of their politics, race, religion, nationality or social grouping, or from the effects of some natural or man-made disaster.

Because there is no work or no jobs at home. That is, to support themselves or their families, with livelihoods not possible at home for any number of reasons (chronic unemployment and poverty, discrimination, a lack of development, management or mismanagement of resources, etc.)

For better opportunities, either for employment, education or even personal rights and dignity, especially where there are political or social limits or oppression on the freedoms and rights of a nation or of a particular class, race, religion, ethnic group or gender.

To unite with family members. In many cases, the decision to join family can be seen as derivative of what motivated the predecessors in their families to migrate (i.e., other root causes.) However, this group includes increasing numbers that migrate by choice rather than necessity.

Part 2. WHO ARE REFUGEES AND WHO ARE NOT?

So we need to consider two questions:Question 1. Who are the refugees among in these four groups?And how are they different? Why does world notice and create special laws and organizations like UNHCR that focus on that difference?

The refugees are the ones that migrate across borders to escape persecution, and cannot return because they will not be protected from that persecution in their home country.

What is different or special about this particular kind of migrant?

They have a believable fear of persecution;
Their governments can not protect (or are even persecuting) them;
The only one who might protect them is international community or other nations;
The rule not to force them back was one of the first principles that nations agreed when borders started to be created in the Near East 4,000 years ago. Already at that time, rulers signed treaties that included provisions for protection. For example, a Hittite king in the area of Egypt made a treaty with the ruler of another country, in which he declared, "Concerning a refugee, I swear that when a refugee comes from your land into mine he will not be returned to you. To return a refugee from the land of the Hittites is not right."
The traditions of many nations and religions also recognize the need to offer asylum (protection) to people persecuted or forced into exile.
-> That's also an NGO perspective.

I'd like to tell the stories of three refugees with whom I have worked.

A story from Kosovo. This is a woman named Qefsere, whose two kids were seven and nine when the civil war in the former Yugoslavia came to their village area. For some reason, her husband (though he was not involved in the war) left and did not come back. With the government soldiers looking for Kosovars and many of the boys being taken and never seen again, Qefsere stayed in a basement with her sister, two sisters-in-law and all of their kids nineteen days. One day the soldiers came, screaming, put guns to the heads of the boys and almost two of them, right in front of their mothers. That night they all escaped, running to the mountains. Later they found out that their houses were all burned behind them. One of the saddest stories they tell is of what happened one night when a patrol of soldiers passed near where a group of the villagers was hiding on the mountain. At just that moment, a baby that one of the women was holding began to cry. The woman put a towel over the baby's mouth and held the baby tightly to keep him quiet. When the patrol finally passed far enough away, the woman realized that the baby had suffocated in her arms. Qefsere and her family were processed by UNHCR, given formal refugee status and then resettled.

The second story is from Ethiopia. It's a story of a man who was actually born in Eritrea, which for many years had been part of Ethiopia. The man was forced to fight against his own people when Eritrea was fighting to separate from Ethiopia. He escaped from the army but was recaptured. When the army, found out that he was Eritrean, they tortured him-even tying him to stake in the ground for three days in the sun. Once again, he was able to escape, but this time he flew secretly out of the country. When his plane landed in a different country, he asked the government directly for asylum (refugee status.) After checking his story again and again, the government finally agreed to give him that status.

The third story is from a country in which the US military has intervened in recent years, and involves a man, his wife and their two small kids. The man was a social worker in programs for poor children and orphans. One of the programs he worked with was supposed to be a new orphanage that the government was opening, using something like a million dollars of aid money for a new building and staff. But nothing happened: no new construction, no new orphanage. The man started asking questions. One night a group of men related to the government came to his house with guns looking for him. When his wife told them that he was not there, they started shooting. No one was killed-but the man left the country right away. He arrived in another country with false papers and asked for asylum (refugee status.) After a long process, the court agreed to accept him as a refugee.
Considering stories like these (and there are at least 9 million of them in the world today ) I wonder if I might offer three proposals to about refugees, for our discussion and to see if we can reach agreement together?

Refugees are not the same as other migrants: they are fleeing persecution. Refugees are special migrants who need protection or they will be persecuted or die. The only way to know is ask & listen. Can we agree on that? > That's an NGO perspective-the same as many governments and I believe Turkey.

PART 3. LET'S TALK ABOUT THE URGENCY OF AN INDIVIDUALIZED PROCESS

Two weeks ago, at a conference in Europe, met a Ministry of Interior police official from an east European Country. I asked him: "What do you do when you train?" He said, "We train a lot on the law, but what we need is structures."

In Turkey, the National Action Plan is a big step. These trainings are big, big steps. The planned creation of an independent Asylum Authority is another step. But: all structures will depend on the guy who is at the border-the soldier, police officer, Ministry of Interior official or guard-when an individual or family approaches.

So: when people come to border, how is it possible to know who is a refugee and who not? When someone says, "I want asylum", or "I need protection!" how can we know it's true?

Remember the pieces of paper we passed around a few minutes ago? Why did we give them out?Suppose this is a border here, and everyone in this room had just crossed the border from the country on the other side. You aren't necessarily from the same area or group, but you happened to arrive here all at the same time. You all have your own reasons for making the decision to cross the border. But none of you has a visa. None of you has any paper authorizing you to be in this country. And if the border police just looks at you, or just considers you all as a group rather than one by one, the border police may just send you to back. But-two of you have a special situation. Two of you have the word "HELP" marked on your paper. I wrote that on the two papers to indicate that whoever held that paper really needed to be considered for asylum, for protection as a refugee. But WHO? It's impossible to know unless the two of you tell us.

And the border police would never know unless they asked you. The border police would never know unless they checked you all, one by one. And if they didn't-if the border police sent you back without checking first-you two might be persecuted or die back in your country.

So three proposals, and let's see if we agree:We always need to interview individually each person crossing the border.Of course, we need to check (verify) what they say. This requires a careful process and often a good amount of time.> That's an NGO perspective-the same as many governments and I believe Turkey.

What happens if we don't take the time to stop, interview and verify?

On one level: we violate various international laws and treaties-most of all, the international prohibition against refoulement (sending someone back across the border despite the fact that they have a claim to asylum). This no-refoulement rule is a fundamental principle of international customary law-binding on all nations, without any need for a country to have signed a treaty.
On another level: what happens to refugees who are pushed back or not given a chance to ask for asylum when they need it?
NGO perspective and conclusion: taking the time to stop, interview and verify the claim someone is making for asylum is worth it. Not just because international or national law says so, but because the human heart and understanding of life says so. Who wants to send someone back to be persecuted or die? Would we want own brother, parents or children sent back?> That's an "NGO perspective"-the same as many governments and Turkey.

But all this has to be individualized, done one-by-one, and it takes time and wisdom. Three proposals then about interviewing refugees, and let's discuss them.

Many refugees do not have proper papers, or have false papers,
Many refugees are desperate-- and desperate people sometimes lie.
Even someone who lies may still be a refugee: DON'T JUST DISMISS.
Can we agree on those?

> That's an "NGO perspective"-the same as many governments and I believe Turkey.

Finally even with this process, trying to distinguish between who is and who is not really a refugee can be very difficult in some cases, like when it is not clear how serious the threat of persecution may really be, or when the search for evidence is slow or inconsistent. But it is often a matter of life and death to patiently examine and verify a person's claim for asylum/refugee status.

PART 4. WHO IS INVOLVED IN THE PROTECTION OF REFUGEES AND PEOPLE SEEKING ASYLUM?

The world, in international conventions, human rights treaties and the strong commitment to the UNHCR.
Why? Since 1951, the world has formally recognized that protection of refugees is a profound international obligation. The refugee's own country will not or cannot protect them, no one else will or can unless UNHCR steps in, and refugees are human beings with the right to protection of life.

UNHCR, which was created for the very purpose of providing actual protection, and providing global leadership in the protection of refugees. At the same time, UNHCR's responsibility and mandate are not exclusive, either globally or regionally.

Regions and Nations, which have obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees and international law as well as a growing number of regional conventions, agreements and organizations.

NGOs also partner in refugee protection with governments and UNHCR.NGO's perform a role of burden-sharing with governments and international organizations (like the UN) and with one another. NGOs both complement and relieve governments with some of their efforts at protecting refugees. Among the most common areas of NGO work with refugees: 

a. help with refugees and asylum seekersHumanitarian & protection assistance, including reception, life support, individualized casework (especially for women and children, who comprise some 80% of the world's refugees), psychosocial counselling, medical care, legal advice, language training and integration, employment services. ICMC's program in Turkey helps refugees and asylum seekers in many of these ways;Local presence and capacity;Emergency response. Probably the best example of NGOs helping the government to respond to needs was after the big earthquake in Turkey a few years ago. 

b. help with funding, for example, this program with funding from the British government, and others with UN or EU funding.

c. help with registration and processing of refugees and asylum-seekers (also a major part of ICMC's program in Turkey.)

d. help with specialized training (and maybe even the new Academy/Institute that Turkey's National Action Plan describes.

e. help with new legislation, policies and institutions.

And who are the NGOs that offer and welcome positive partnerships for the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers?

a. Individual NGOs that build responsible relationships and contact with the government and police, e.g., ICMC in Turkey, Albania, Indonesia and Lebanon, and hundreds of others in so many countries;

b. NGO networks, in particular the Refugee Councils in many countries;

c. Regional associations, such as the European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).

And perhaps most important of all, the NGOs but be honest, transparent and well-managed-with resources, with staff, with beneficiaries and with the government. That does not mean that NGOs will always be perfect-any more than governments are always perfect. Some NGOs will make mistakes, and some governments also. Governments and NGOs should not hold onto only the mistakes of the other side!

PART 5. OF COURSE, EVEN NON-REFUGEES AND NON-ASYLUM SEEKERS HAVE RIGHTS, TOO.

Whether they are refugees or seeking asylum or not, all migrants and travellers have basic human rights. Refugees and asylum seekers just have more protection.So, whoever it is at the border, or inside the country, and whatever their immigration status: documented or undocumented, they have fundamental rights, including:

The right to be paid for work they've actually done.
The right to be compensated for human rights and labor violations
The right to emergency health care
The right to basic education for children
The right to fair process of law and courts
> That's an "NGO perspective"-the same as many governments.

In fact, Turkey has ratified a number of the international conventions in these areas. Turkey was one of the first 34 countries to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. That Convention lists rights that belong to migrant workers, men and women, documented and undocumented, and members of their families, and created an international committee to help monitor the implementation of those rights in the countries that ratified the Convention.

Turkey has also ratified all of the six other "core" international human rights treaties:
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
The Convention against Torture
The Convention on the Rights of the Child

Turkey has also ratified the European Convention on Human Rights. But like all other countries that have ratified these human rights conventions, the real question-and the key-is for the national laws and practice to match the international standards and obligations.

TO CLOSE : FOUR RECOMMENDATIONS FROM AN NGO PERSPECTIVE

Just about everything we said is important for refugees is also important for victims of trafficking. That is, it is essential to stop, interview, verify and protect people who may be controlled by traffickers. Just like the need to distinguish refugees from other migrants, we need to distinguish victims of trafficking from others. Victims of trafficking are either tricked or trapped in trafficking schemes-exploited even after arrival by the ones who brought them, usually for sex or for labor. Like slaves, the victims can't get out unless they are helped.

Governments should take a rights-based approach to the decisions they make regarding individual asylum-seekers, refugees and other migrants, both individually and in related processes and structures. That is, all decision-making, processes and structures should recognize and respect the fundamental human rights of migrant people.

Governments have to balance the need to control borders (which is their right) with the obligation to look for and protect refugees and asylum seekers-no matter how slow, complicated, or politically difficult that is. In particular, great care must be taken with respect to interviewing migrants and polices and practices regarding detention and return. Regular training of border and immigration personnel is essential.

NGOs are often great partners of government, working with Ministries of Interior and police especially to identify, care for and protect refugees, asylum-seekers and victims of trafficking. In cases of trafficking in particular, victims are often more comfortable speaking with NGOs first, and then cooperating with the government to catch the traffickers.

All governments have a choice: to look at NGOs either as enemies or partners. NGOs have the same choice. There is a lot of good that can be accomplished in partnership-especially for refugees and asylum-seekers.

> And that's all an NGO perspective.

Thank you.