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Preferred State:
Access to adequate housing, the
right to nationality, and special protection for mothers
and children for 100% of humanity
Problem State: 53
million refugees and displaced people in the world
Strategy 16: Relief for refugees/displaced people
Wars, economic and environmental disasters cause people to
flee their homes. There are an estimated 24 million refugees
living in countries other than those of their birth in the
world today. An additional 29 million people are "internally
displaced"-seeking refuge within their own country. Roughly
80% of all refugees are women and children. Refugees face
the common hardships of unemployment, inability to speak the
dominant language or understand the culture of their hosts,
residing in their new homes as illegal or undefined aliens
with no political power, and prejudice and resentment from
local citizens who may be experiencing difficulties meeting
their own needs. This situation makes these populations easy
targets for exploitation.
A Global Conference on Refugees that resulted in the signing
of an international agreement guaranteeing the basic human
rights and basic needs of all refugees in the world would
be the first step of a program that would bring lasting relief
and eventual elimination of the global refugee problem. The
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees would be charged
with the responsibility and given the authority and funding
for implementing an international Refugee Relief Agency that
would guarantee the safety and coordinate the delivery of
food, shelter, health care and other refugee needs. Education
programs will be started that will teach the language(s) of
the new region refugees are located in and train them for
possible job opportunities. Along with providing security
for refugees, a Refugee Security Force will gradually expand
its territory of influence until it includes the areas the
refugees came from and then progressively allow the refugees
to return to their homelands.
In an effort to halt or prevent violence or discrimination
against, and/or exploitation of refugee populations, the Refugee
Relief Agency would implement a teaching campaign aimed at
the native population to raise the awareness level of the
problems refugees are facing and fleeing from. Educating how
lifting the quality of life for the refugee population will
positively affect the public at large, whether the refugees
end up settling in their new homes or not will be one of the
educational goals.
Costs/Benefits
Benefits from the Refugee Relief Program would include stable
homes and lives for millions of people, refugees transformed
from marginalized populations to integral parts of a country,
preferably back in the ancestral homes in which they would
prefer to reside. Secondary benefits for host nations include
the elimination of a drain on the country's economy, a possible
reduction in smuggling and other organized crime operations
which often rely upon refugees, and a better job and wage
market without the downward effects of an exploited labor
source.
The costs of the Refugee Relief Program would be $5 billion
per year for ten years. This is about 2% of what US teenagers
spend each year, or 20% of the amount of arms sales to the
developing countries of the world (37% of just US arms sales
to non-democratic states), or 0.06% of the world's annual
military expenditures.
Next Strategy >
What the World Wants Chart >
Eighteen Strategies...
...for tackling the major problems confronting humanity:
1. Eliminate Starvation and Malnourishment >
2. Provide Health Care & AIDS Control >
3. Provide Shelter >
4. Provide Clean Safe Water >
5. Eliminate Illiteracy >
6. Provide Clean, Safe Energy: Efficiency >
7. Provide Clean, Safe Energy: Renewables >
8. Retire Developing Nations Debt >
9. Stabilize Population >
10. Prevent Soil Erosion >
11. Stop Deforestation >
12. Stop Ozone Depletion >
13. Prevent Acid Rain >
14. Prevent Global Warming >
15. Remove Landmines >
16. Refugee Relief (current page)
17. Eliminating Nuclear Weapons >
18. Build Democracy >
*Sources:
The What the World Wants Project
is by Medard Gabel and the research staff of the World Game
Institute. The material in this section of Media Hell is quoted
directly from that research. Credits, Major References & Footnotes > |
