The number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world has skyrocketed to 82.4 million, a new all-time record, recent United Nations estimates show.
This is roughly 1% of the global population and includes people escaping wars, extreme poverty, and political crackdowns in the most difficult corners of the globe.
Ukraine, which suffered the internal displacement of 1.5 million people due to Russia’s war in the Donbas in 2014, currently hosts just about 5,000 foreign asylum seekers and refugees, mostly coming from Syria, Afghanistan, the Caucasian region, and Central Asia.
According to Karolina Lindholm Billing, the representative of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, known as the UNHCR or the UN Refugee Agency, Ukraine can do a lot more to help the people running for their lives.
Firstly, the admission rate is quite low: only 20% of applicants get the green light. Secondly, the process is painfully slow and complicated, taking between six months and three years on average, even though the country is not even close to facing a refugee surplus.
But most importantly, asylum seekers can’t get legal jobs.
Asylum seekers in Ukraine want to stand on their own rather than rely on charities and UN aid. They want to work legally and join the community that they could call their new home. However, Ukraine’s policies make that hard to do.
“We’re advocating the possibility for asylum seekers to work,” Billing told the Kyiv Post.
“There could be even more opportunities for people to find a job in Ukraine than in some European countries where there may be more competition. Especially in sectors where refugees are looking for work.”
“What we have seen in Ukraine is that when people are given a chance… they will contribute (into the economy),” she added.
Syrians prepare to leave the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, which holds relatives of alleged Islamic State (IS) group fighters, in the Syrian northeastern al-Hasakeh governorate on Dec. 10, 2020. (AFP)
Shelter seekers
Billing, a Swedish national, took charge of the UNHCR office in early June.
Before being deployed to Ukraine, she spent years as a UN humanitarian official in hotspots like Lebanon, Zambia, and North Macedonia.
From her perspective, it’s a complex question why in the past decade, Ukraine remained on the sidelines of the greatest European refugee crisis since World War II.
Amid the raging wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, hundreds of thousands of people tried to escape and settle in European countries. But only an average of 1,500 people per year used to apply for asylum in Ukraine before 2014. In the following years, this has dropped to just 656 registered arrivals in 2016 and 597 in 2020.
This includes legitimate entries only — no one knows how many cross the border illegally.
As of Jan. 1, 2021, there have been 822 Afghan nationals, 165 Russians, 491 Syrians, 220 citizens of Central Asian countries, 81 Somalians, 79 Iraqis, 72 Iranians, and 26 Belarusians living in Ukraine as refugees.
Even so, it hardly compares to the refugee populations in some of the countries near Ukraine. According to UNHCR’s latest global contingency report issued by the June 20 World Refugee Day, Turkey currently hosts 3.7 million (mostly Syrians), and Germany hosts 1.2 million.
As Billing says, in many ways, Ukraine has not become a destination for many shelter seekers not specifically due to the Donbas war or economic troubles but rather because many refugees seek to make it to European countries with huge Middle Eastern diasporas where they have relatives to welcome them.
Unlike many other European countries, the few legal refugees in Ukraine mostly live in a handful of state-sponsored dormitories in Yahotyn, Odesa, and other cities, or simply prefer to rent accommodation and try to get by on their own, which is uncommon.
Over the last few years, the Ukrainian procedure to determine refugees has somewhat improved, the UNHCR admits. Still, getting residency takes years, especially for Syrians — and some people are still eventually rejected.
Moreover, as UNHCR reports say, the Ukrainian state does not provide asylum seekers with free emergency medical care, social assistance, and the most important thing — employment.
Billing says this is one of the worst problems. While most able-bodied arrivals want to honestly earn their living, the local rules don’t give them a chance.
“Currently in Ukraine, refugees are allowed to work,” says Billing. “But if you’re an asylum seeker, you’re not. And because the procedure takes a long time — these are years when they could be working, supporting themselves. But not allowed to — they become dependent on assistance.”
Asylum seekers would rather get a real job, Billings says.
As UNHCR’s June 2019 report says, many asylum seekers are ready for Ukraine’s labor market — 49% of people under the agency’s protection have secondary school education, and 38% graduated from universities. Fifty-nine percent speak Russian or Ukrainian and 54% speak English. Their top three areas of professional experience include sales and business, housekeeping, and office management.
Yet, they still need a more enabling legal environment from Ukrainian authorities.
“When you are welcomed and included in the community… your potential to contribute to the economy and innovation with your skills is so much bigger than when you’re not,” Billing says.
Syrian women walk by as smoke billows in the area of the Syrian village of az-Ziyarah, in the agricultural al-Ghab plain of the Hama province, on June 6, 2021, following reported pro-government bombardment. (AFP)
Dark future
Fresh UN figures suggest that the refugee situation in the world continues to deteriorate.
The UNHCR reports a record number of refugees worldwide. This number is likely to keep skyrocketing in the years to come. The refugee crisis will be one of the globe’s top problems in the coming decades.
In 2013, during the peak of the Syrian Civil War, the UN had registered as many as 45 million refugees globally, and this was a shocking figure to many, as Billing recalls.
“It was the highest number since World War II,” she says.
“Now it is pretty much twice the size of Ukraine’s population. It’s mind-boggling. And now it is probably a question of time when it reaches and exceeds 100 million.”
Protracted conflicts that last for many years, as in Syria, make the situation worse. In the meantime, millions of refugees wait fruitlessly for the day they get to go back home.
“In Lebanon, I met families who had been refugees for 10 years since they fled Syria,” Billing says.
“They had one to several children born in Lebanon. These children are now 10 years old… And maybe their children will grow up to be adults as refugees in Lebanon.”
“And that is all individual stories of people who, for 10 years, have had to keep up with their hope. To get up in the morning, try and find a job, put on clean clothes, prepare breakfast — all the daily chores we all do — but in a situation when you have no visibility of how long you will stay in this poor, temporary condition.”
