UNHCR in Georgia
By Mariam Chanishvili
Tuesday, December 11
By the end of last year, according to a recent report published by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were 68.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world, including 25.4 million refugees.
The number includes also about 40 million internally displaced people (IDPs) — people who were forced to leave their homes but are still in their home countries - and 3.1 million asylum seekers — people who have applied for refugee status but are waiting for the decision.
In Georgia, the Government has registered close to 280,000 IDPs originating from Abkhazia and South Ossetia/Tskhinvali region. These include those who fled during the conflicts in 1992- 1993 and again in 2008 and include their offspring born in displacement in Georgia. The country also has recognized over the last few years over 1,400 asylum-seekers as refugees and humanitarian status holders. During the last two years, the country has received close to 1,000 asylum applications per year of which however only a smaller portion (for the first half of 2018 6.8%) has been accepted as refugees or humanitarian status holders.
UNHCR’s overall strategy in Georgia aims to support the Government in protecting refugees and other displaced persons and achieve durable solutions to end their displacement in accordance with its committed international standards.
The Messenger had a chance to interview the UNHCR Regional Representative in the South Caucasus, Johannes Van Der Klaauw.
- What are your goals as the UNHCR Regional Representative in the South Caucasus?
UNHCR works in Georgia for various groups who are displaced or without status and who need legal and social protection as well as a durable solution to their plight. First of all, these are refugees from third countries. They come from Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, but other countries as well; they had to flee their countries of origin because of the war and because they were persecuted for various reasons, like political, race, religious, nationality… and they have come here to find a safe home.
UNHCR helps these people during the asylum procedure and later, after being granted the refugee status, also help them to integrate into the Georgian society. We do all these in close cooperation with the government because the government has established a system, by which they can determine who is a refugee and who is not. It has invested a lot of effort in this, with the support of UNHCR and funding from the international community, and we can say today, that Georgia has a largely fair and functioning asylum system. It also has its challenges, but it has the system in place.
Once a person is recognized as a refugee, then we help him or her to integrate and become self-reliant. We cooperate with the government ministries, but also local authorities, public health and education institutes, legal and social assistance providers, employer associations and the business sector. We also try to provide them with Georgian language classes, civic education, etc in close cooperation with the government. So this is the first group of people we work here for.
Of course, we work here with the internally displaced people. UNHCR came to Georgian in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, there were conflicts and many people suffer even today due to these conflicts since they have been displaced.
Over the years, we have supported Georgia to find solutions for the IDPs. The ideal solution would be that they could all go back to the places of origin – Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Pending the realization of the right to return, we have supported the Government over many years in finding durable housing solutions and employment and livelihood opportunities for the many IDPs in the country.
So we have been very much involved in these processes. Georgia was one of the first countries to adopt a national law on IDPs (back in 1996, amended few times) and also a State Strategy in 2009 and subsequent Action Plans on IDPs. Over these 25 years, Georgia’s search for at least temporary solutions for IDPs has been quite noteworthy, but it still needs considerable support as less than half of the IDP population has found a durable solution.
We are also supporting the about 45 to 50 thousand ethnic Georgians living in Eastern Abkhazia mostly. For us, these people are returned IDPs but they are still of our concern because they have not reintegrated in Abkhazia in the way that one can call it sustainable. We are still involved with this population; we try to advocate that they have full freedom of movement so that they can cross the dividing line from Gali to Zugdidi. We also advocate that these people have proper documentation and full access to services, etc. – in other words – access to the entire set of human rights as every human being should have. But unfortunately, it is not the case, they can’t exercise their political or property rights to the full as they are considered foreigners by the authorities in control.
The language of instruction in ethnic Georgian schools in Abkhazia is another concern. It is more and more replaced by Russian. Our line is that you need to teach your child in his or her mother tongue because that’s how you acquire your knowledge and your life skills for later.
The third group that we work for are the stateless people. There are various reasons why these people never got the nationality. With the demise of the Soviet Union, some people were unable to acquire a new nationality including here in Georgia. For most people, we have found a solution over the years. However, we nowadays see a number of other people with undetermined nationality presenting themselves in Georgia and who are registered as stateless.. in 2014 UNHCR launched a campaign globally, that by 2024 we would like to see statelessness to be unthinkable, to be eradicated everywhere in the world because it is a man-made problem. Georgia has made significant progress in the area of statelessness. It has acceded to the relevant international instruments on statelessness and has also put in place laws and procedures to prevent statelessness. It has identified many hundreds of stateless persons and granted them citizenship over the years. However, prior to being declared a stateless person in Georgia, one has no access to any rights. One can’t get one’s child to school, one has no access to medical care, and one cannot open a bank account … So this is something we want to change: while people are in the procedure to be declared a stateless person, one should have access to basic rights.
- How would you assess the level of cooperation between UNHCR and Georgia and what are the challenges?
The UNHCR has always had good cooperation with the government. There is a functioning asylum system, a functioning stateless procedure and we have had a very good cooperation in providing protection and services and at least temporary solutions for the IDP population.
We did so mainly with the Ministry of IDPs, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia, but as you know, that Ministry has been abolished last summer, so we have gone through a period full of change and related challenges, because the competences of that Ministry have now been distributed among different ministries. The asylum system and responsibilities have gone to the Ministry of Interior. We have incorporated the asylum team within that Ministry so we could avoid a loss of capacity.
The IDP responsibility went to the Ministry of IDPs from the Occupied Territories, Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia. This ministry needs to find durable solutions for IDPs because out of all the IDPs registered today, which are about 280 000, 50 % is still without a durable housing solution and also lacks livelihood opportunities living in old collapsing buildings such as factories and other settlements. The government also intends to reform the social assistance for IDPs to ensure that this assistance is based on vulnerabilities and needs rather than registered status - reform which we, as UNHCR fully supports.
As for the stateless people, it is the Public Service Development Agency under the Ministry of Justice which determines the status as a stateless person as a prelude to obtaining citizenship. Yet we have issues about those in the procedure not having rights, and following the change in citizenship this summer it has become more challenging to get citizenship for stateless persons and refugees.
We should also mention the responsibility to integrate third-country nationals, legally residing refugees and migrants. That responsibility has also gone to the Ministry of IDPs from the Occupied Territories, Labor, Health and Social Affairs. Integrating refugees is a challenge here. Even though the society knows very well what it is to flee civil war, ethnic conflict. In principle, it is a welcoming society; however, the presence of refugees and migrants for many people is somehow new. If you don’t integrate people properly and you don’t communicate with the people who are, as a host community, there to help them to feel welcomed, then you get frictions, and even populist and extremist movements, like the Georgian March.
We have tasks as UNHCR, with our partners and the civil society, along with the government to explain why the refugees are here, why it was not by their choice that they had to flee. They are victims of violence and persecution and are often traumatized and in need of extra care. This is very important for obtaining an understanding of the challenges in their integration.
The Government has established an Integration Centre where refugees can follow language classes, and obtain information and support for accessing services and finding employment. We also have an Open House, which is run by one of our partners, where the refugees can gather and discuss their issues and problems. They can also do art activities and organize some other events to make themselves known to society, why they are here.
In our communication in society and with the media, we need to explain the difference between refugees and migrants. A migrant comes to find a better life economically, but a refugee has not come by his or her choice. For the latter, we have a moral and legal obligation to help, although migrants are often also in a very vulnerable situation and deserve support.
- What is the situation like regarding refugees and asylum seekers that enter our country?
Georgia watches what’s happening everywhere else in Europe, where European countries have become more and more restrictive in admitting people in their asylum process and decide who is a refugee and who is not.
85% of the global refugee population lives in often poor or less developed countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, so a minority is seeking refuge in the industrialized world and here in Europe. However, they find the doors increasingly shut as we have seen a lot of restrictive asylum measures taken on the part of the United States and some of the EU member states.
As I already mentioned, Georgia has a functioning asylum system, and no significant backlogs exist, but once the Ministry comes to a decision to determine a person as a refugee, to issue a document and provide access to rights, the State Security Service may intervene denying a status and documentation out of concern that national security interests are compromised.
While Georgia like any other state may indeed have concerns about some individuals presenting legitimate security concerns, such should be assessed individually on a case-by-case basis, and a proper application of the asylum law and procedures can identify such security cases and exclude them from refugee status. Yet currently the intervention by the State Security Services risks undermining the great progress made by Georgia in the asylum field by invalidating a number of positive decisions. Doing so is also not in the interests of Georgia, because these people cannot be returned, so they stay in the country without the legal status they deserve as per the international and national legislation, in a very difficult situation, and also may fall prey to smugglers and traffickers for onward movement. Yet if they have been declared to be genuine refugees, they should have access to rights while we can jointly support and monitor their integration.
This is an issue which we have been discussing with the relevant authorities and we hope to make progress. It should be recognized however that the situation has become more complicated as in the last year we have seen many more nationalities seeking asylum who all deserve an individual examination of their application.
- What can be done in terms of repatriation of the refugees generally and in our country?
If it comes to repatriating refugees, you can only do so when in the home country the situation has improved, that people are safe and can access basic human rights. We need to work towards creating conditions in countries of origin which are conducive to return. But return needs to be voluntary and it needs to take place in safety and dignity with full respect for returnees’ human rights.
That is a long shot for many of the refugees here in Georgia because many of them cannot go back at this moment. But it is always something we need to keep in mind, as we do with the IDP population here. Allowing people to exercise their right to return remains a priority for us, but as long as conditions are not conducive to return, we need to find other solutions and that means here in Georgia support their local integration.
- As we know, you are going to attend the 46th round of the Geneva International Discussions (GID). What would you say in terms of the progress?
We have had Geneva International Discussions now for 10 years. All of us are a little frustrated by the lack of progress, but all of us say that we can’t do without this framework. We are very aware that we need to do something in order to reinvigorate this system because we are going up to the 46th round in 10 years and many things have been discussed, but we still see too little progress towards the solution, peace and return of the refugees and IDPs.
UNHCR has been tasked by the international community when the GID was set up to co-moderate one of the two working parties of the GID in humanitarian affairs. I serve in this working group as an expert on behalf of UNHCR.
We try in that working group together with the partners to make progress on a number of humanitarian and development issues, including access to healthcare, education, environmental protection, but also improving livelihood opportunities and most importantly freedom of movement and access to, documentation.
In the GID we have an opportunity to discuss with parties the need for unfettered access to rights and services by the ethnic Georgian population and improve their living conditions.
The Geneva International Discussions (GID) are international talks, launched in Geneva, Switzerland, in October 2008, to address the consequences of the 2008 conflict in Georgia. Co-chaired by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union (EU), and the United Nations (UN), the Geneva process brings together representatives of the participants of the conflict—Georgia, Russia, and Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia—as well as the United States.
Johannes was the Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen and has served as UNHCR Representative in Canada, Yemen and Morocco. He has also served as Senior Resettlement Coordinator at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva.
UNHCR established its presence in Georgia in 1993, to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had fled armed conflict in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 1992-93 and then again after the 2008 war. Since then, UNHCR Georgia has been operational in protecting rights of persons of concern – asylum-seekers, refugees, the internally displaced and stateless persons - and has been gradually extending its program to address their needs as they arose over time.
