Who Is A Refugee?
Is this a refugee?
It seems obvious to us: a refugee is someone who is fleeing serious danger back home – and we usually do not think about what kind of danger that might be. It could be war, political persecution, famine, economic crisis or natural disasters.
Under international law, however, the word refugee has a very precise meaning: someone who is forced to flee their home and country; who escapes to another country and is given refugee status by the government of the new country. Only the government of a country can decide whether a person should be granted refugee status and they use the 1951 United Nations Convention on refugees. According to the convention, a refugee is anyone who: owing to a 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.
Someone who has fled from his or her home country and has applied for refugee status in another country is called an asylum seeker.
Someone who has left their home but not the borders of their country is known as an internally displaced person (IDP).
For more detailed information on the definition of refugees visit the websites of the Refugee Council or UNHCR.
