Catholic Consultation on Protection – October 2009
Academics, policy makers and advocates met at a CRS-sponsored consultation from October 23-25, 2009, in Baltimore, to create public policy recommendations — particularly for the United Nations and the United States government — aimed at improving the protection of refugees and other displaced populations.
Titled “For Whom There is No Room — A Catholic Consultation on Protection,” the meeting gathered participants from around the world who had direct experience working with, or on behalf of, displaced people.
The Consultation debated trends such as conflicts, climate-based movements and disasters, scarcity-induced displacements and flows to urban centers — all of which were increasingly impacting the protection of displaced populations. It examined what opportunities the current process of revising protection standards presented for addressing such trends.
CRS Technical Resources
Session 2: Crisis generators: situations impacting protection/protection solutions
The goals of this session were to discuss the situations that impact protection and protection solutions, including:
- conflicts and disasters
- scarcity, climate change and displacement
- urbanization and urban refugees (increasing human flows to urban sites – challenge of service provision given mixed populations of refugees, IDPs, migrants, local residents)
Presenter: Susan Martin, Georgetown University
Chair: Mark Schnellbaecher, Catholic Relief Services
Question: Given these and other issues, do we need to re-frame our approach to the protection of refugees and displaced people? If yes, what needs to change and how? If not, why not?
PDF of Session 2 Crisis Generators Discussion Notes
SUMMARY
Overall, participants felt there was a need to reframe our approach. Some participants recommended that a sensitivity to protection issues be reinforced much earlier on. Others stressed the need to work with communities to help them understand their own responsibility to protect themselves in addition to understanding our responsibility. The discussions about reframing our approach led to questions about rights, specifically:
- What are the rights of families in refugee resettlement?
- Who decides which groups qualify?
- Who decides what family members can “follow to join”?
- Do they have the right to return? Or should it be the right to decide to return?
Coordination between faith-based and secular NGOs was one theme that came out of the question, “What needs to change and how?” Participants talked about the need to:
- Increase coordination and collaboration.
- Recognize the differentiation in roles and strengths.
- Identify our strengths and, based on this, provide what we are best at, whether it be humanitarian assistance, advocacy for social justice, research, connection to local communities, or whatever we can best contribute.
Participants also looked at an issue raised in the presentation around the three contexts in which crises arise: states willing and able to provide protection and assistance, states willing but unable, and states unwilling to provide protection. Participants made the following points:
- Responses that come from states that are able and willing should be differentiated from those which are unable or unwilling.
- There is another category of “conditionally willing” states that accept aid and allow international presence, but on their own terms.
- Other contexts include statelessness and persons affected by climate change.
- The dispersal of displaced persons creates different challenges for international and state roles. There is no mechanism to prevent states from shirking responsibilities related to both the refugee convention and IDP guidelines.
CRS Technical Resources
Session 3: Issues on the horizon
Projecting into the next 10-15 years
What’s happening [economically, politically, etc] that will impact protection responses in the next 10-15 years? Are current protection mandates/systems adequate for these future challenges? The international system is premised on consensus of governments/nations; what if they are not in the driver seat any longer?
Dialogue Partners: Mark Schnellbaecher & Daisy Francis, Catholic Relief Services
Questions: Are there other things happening — economically, politically, etc. – that might impact protection responses? Are there new issues not addressed by the current protection system? (For example, climate induced flights across borders – submerged Pacific nations – don’t meet current definitions of a ‘refugee’; yet, they will necessarily cross a border. So, who is responsible for ensuring their protection as they seek refuge on some continent?)
CRS Technical Resources
Session 4: “Canary in the coal mine”?
Decreasing humanitarian space, increasing targeting of humanitarian aid workers, unwillingness of states to grant access to humanitarian crises: are these warning signs of a larger problem, namely the beginning of a breakdown in international consensus on the Protection regime which is founded on international law (IHL, refugee law, human rights law)?
Question: Protection is premised on the assumption that everyone agrees to the “rules” and the legal framework inside which “protection operates”. Is this assumption still valid and do we really have a global consensus? If this assumption is no longer valid, what should the new “protection architecture” look like?
Panelists:
Anne Edgerton, ChildFund International (view Talking Points: Protection, Access, and R2P)
Mitzi Schroeder, Jesuit Refugee Service
PDF of Session 4 Canary in a Coal Mine Discussion Notes
SUMMARY
Many themes emerged during this session, including relationships and values, a local framework, the risk of speaking out, an increasing number of so-called humanitarian players and a decreasing humanitarian space. The question of impunity was also discussed, with one participant noting that “the gap in the architecture is that which provides impunity to offenders.” Here are a few other questions and views expressed in the discussion groups:
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Is there a shared understanding of the word “humanitarian” with the emergence or expansion of new players on the international protection scene?
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Should we be skeptical of aid provided from an “unworthy” source?
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In many of the places we are going to, protection is more about relationships and not about values.
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If military and others are taking up humanitarian and protection space, our new space may be at the community level building local capacities for protection.
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Perhaps we need to focus more on the use of national legislation and regional treaties rather the broader international treaties. Rely on the power of local pressure, arm twisting.
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There are more players who don’t buy into the protection regime or even the entire system upon which it is built. These are nonstate actors such as the Lord’s Resistance Army or the Taliban and it’s a completely incompatible discourse with no way to find common ground.
CRS Technical Resources
Session 5: Protection in practice – the reality on the ground
Issues being addressed:
- review of existing mechanisms for strengthening the response (e.g. ‘clusters’)
Panelists:
Najla Chahda, Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre (Lebanon)
Suzanna Tkalec, Catholic Relief Services (DR of Congo)
Margaret Green-Rauenhorst, Independent Consultant (Pakistan)
Question: What do the realities on the ground, in many parts of the world, tell us about the state of protection? Is protection “possible”?
PDF of Session 5 Protection in Practice Discussion Notes
SUMMARY
Protection is possible, but we must be realistic about how much humanitarian organizations can accomplish—we are limited in the extent to which protection can be achieved. We must recognize the theory of protection vs. the reality, and not let the pursuit of perfection be the enemy of the good.
The role of government in protection is complicated. A primary role of states is protecting their residents. This does not mean, however, that the government is necessarily able to provide protection in our context. If the government is a party to conflict, there will be a problem delivering aid. Some governments may feel threatened by foreign humanitarian actors and NGOs. Even when they are not causing the problem, government or military involvement in managing registration and coordinating return can cause protection to become politicized.
In some places there is active civil society but no interest in migrant issues. In such places, the Church is often well situated and can be instrumental while other protection actors are not viable. How can we maximize the role of the Church – make most of long-term local presence locally and use its position to influence government. Relationships with governments are usually key to ensuring protection, how can we influence this?
Our relationship with local partners also key to whether or not we can provide protection – we need to strengthen coordination with Caritas partners and between Caritas and non-Caritas partners
There was much discussion of the UN cluster approach. It can be useful and seems in general a good framework because it encourages enhanced communication and coordination. The cluster approach has extraordinary capacity to coordinate and inspire; move humanitarian actors to a uniform approach; and has the capacity for facilitating/allowing groups to flourish and work in concert. However, coordination could be improved, collection and use of data is inconsistent, and cluster monitoring is a major issue. We need to refine our recommendations regarding protection clusters so we do not offer just a simple blanket endorsement but also define aspects of good cluster behavior.
CRS Technical Resources
Session 6: Common standards for practice
ICRC Protection Standards work; the Australian NGOs standards initiative; the insertion of Protection into the Sphere review process. What do these various efforts share in common? What unmet needs are driving these parallel processes? How do or will these intersect and how is all of this useful for the global protection community?
Panelists:
Michael Gallagher, SJ, Jesuit Refugee Service
Sandya Manickam, Caritas Australia
Manisha Thomas, International Council of Voluntary Agencies
Question: What does the standard setting exercises mean, in practical terms, for those most in need of protection?
PDF of Session 6 Common Standards for Protection Notes
SUMMARY
Overall, standards are very useful in several ways:
- Offer practical ways in which field staff can implement often abstract concepts of protection rights
- Provide a starting point of working with communities to focus on affected populations and their needs/priorities
- Offer benchmarks to monitor and measure what is happening, how well it is happening, and how it can be strengthened
- Are tools for advocating with host governments regarding protection issues
Sphere standards, applied over 12 years, have led to good practice. They already incorporate protection in many ways and are practical as minimum for guidance to people who have not learned much about protection, though these standards tend to be camp oriented when more and more, the reality for protection issues is urban centered. Sphere could/should have specific protection standards, perhaps by incorporating ICRC standards. Perhaps a parallel process that INEE took would replicate their success in developing education-related standards. At the same time, there may be a greater likelihood of implementation/acceptability with broader (perhaps more vague) standards relating to protection. There are challenges in applying Sphere, such as the fact that they are not binding or obligatory and they are difficult to introduce in the context of governments opposed or hostile to protection work. Another potential risk is the military looking at and using standards to give activities patina of legitimacy.
While Sphere is recognized as one of the major set of standards that incorporate protection, there are other useful standards emerging (ICRC, Australian NGOs’ effort, Sphere revision). While each offer their strengths, there was some concern over the proliferation of standards would result in confusion and end up with no standards being incorporated. The fact that Sphere is making an effort to better incorporate protection will hopefully create a common point of reference which might help overcome this challenge.
Ultimately, standards won’t mean much without adoption and implementation. Training, incorporation into work, monitoring this incorporation, developing guidance for reporting and referral of protection-related abuses/violations, and advocacy on protection issues are all important areas to tackle. For protection to have durability, it needs a minimum of 3-5 years to be nurtured. Faith-based institutions need to put their private funding to support this long term learning to make it instinctual practice for staff. Advocacy with funders (especially government agencies) is also critical so that they invest resources to implement protection work. As humanitarian actors seek to meet these standards, it is critical to dialogue/negotiate with each affected community about critical protection needs (specific to their context and more globally recognized ones).
CRS Technical Resources
Session 7: Challenges to finding “solutions”
- protracted situations
- statelessness
- erosion of durable solutions – challenges to third country resettlement, local integration or even return
Panelists:
Jane Bloom, International Catholic Migration Commission (view notes on Challenges to Finding Solutions to Statelessness)
Dawn Calabia, Refugees International
Sara Feldman, Migration and Refugee Services, USCCB
Question: What does it mean to speak about “protection,” given that we have protracted refugee situations, vast groups of people who are stateless and the “durable solutions” seem to be less than durable? How do we speak meaningfully about protection given these realities?
PDF of Session 7 Challenges to Finding Solutions Notes
SUMMARY
Four major challenges for protecting stateless are: money, political will, direction, and visibility. In terms of durable solutions, a favorable protection environment is starting point, including a legal framework (stateless conventions, state law, and enforcement) and birth registration (51M children per year not registered at birth). As single biggest cause and effect of trafficking is statelessness, the issues of statelessness and trafficking prevention/protection should be interwoven. Registration for refugees/displaced people is challenging in terms of scale – 56% of children are born in camps, for instance. There is campaign in Thailand to register any baby born in Thailand—document issued doesn’t confer nationality, but this could be better than nothing. The Church has important role to play in promoting birth registration – linking to baptism and encouraging registration via Catholic health services.
For long term impact on protracted situations, underlying aspects of what caused and sustained displacement needs to be addressed, with the inclusion/input of those most impacted by the conflict (generally the IDPs and refugees). Underlying issues include:
- Land rights often central to conflict/displacement without effective mechanisms to address this in peace processes/ durable solution approaches.
- Issues left unaddressed in formal peace processes, as these can become drivers for subsequent displacement (e.g. El Salvador has higher rates of homicide now than during the armed conflict, widespread cross border migration).
As protracted situations are extremely complex and may be overwhelming in scale, it is important to be realistic of what is possible after years have passed and context has changed. For instance, refugees may have unrealistic expectations of what is possible in their home country. It may be possible to narrow the focus to durable solutions for individuals/groups most in need of protection even if a robust protection system is not in place. While it seems important to increase advocacy on durable solutions, there may be challenges to this, namely setting unrealistic standards (i.e. people should have a perfect life) that governments and other bodies will not/cannot achieve.
Integration into host communities and repatriation raise challenging questions:
- What ought to be our response towards refugees preferring/choosing to remain in their country of residence despite complete lack of support from any government or organization for them?
- Is there a continuing standard after a refugee’s situation has gone from intolerable to something less than intolerable? For instance, Afghani refugee going back to Afghanistan and merely “surviving” as an IDP in Afghanistan.
- Voluntary repatriation often the most desired solution in a lot of ways – can we improve our advocacy around root causes of conflict to pave the way for people to return? But are there circumstances under which there are good reasons for displaced people to resist repatriation? Is funding affecting the choice between asylum and repatriation?
Some ideas on assisting displaced people are to make aid to host countries conditional to opening access to jobs, education, health, etc. for refugee populations; providing skills training for displaced people to assist in host country integration or finding new opportunities upon return. Ultimately, a more thorough understanding on how to address challenges may result if we unpack what the host population and government (e.g. in Iran, Thailand, Pakistan) are resistant to in terms of local integration (as well as what the refugee population is resistant to in local integration) and use that as basis for advocacy and action.
CRS Technical Resources
Session 8: Protection challenges: “vulnerable” populations – the case of children
Some would argue that there is a gap between ‘protection in theory’ and protection in practice, especially as it relates to protection of specific vulnerable groups. This then begs the question — what do we mean by ‘protection’?
Unaccompanied children/children in general
Session Chair and Panelist:
Anastasia Brown, Migration and Refugee Services, USCCB
Panelists:
Nathalie Lummert, Migration and Refugee Services, USCCB
Another panelist to be confirmed
Question: Vulnerable groups and the wider, affected population: how do we calibrate our response to meet the protection needs of both? What are other groups that also need specialized concern/attention?
PDF of Session 8 Vulnerable Populations Notes
SUMMARY
How do we better understand and meet the needs of vulnerable populations?
- Have people in the vulnerable group themselves identify their needs and possibly the solutions.
- Identification of problems needs to be addressed by linking those people in position to identify vulnerable populations with those providing services.
- Create better information management systems such as:
- A matrix of protection risks/vulnerabilities/needs, providing guidelines for what information to gather during the assessment phase, recognizing that vulnerability changes with time and is not only determined pre-displacement; (UNHCR has a good instrument based on basic human needs and things that happen to people)
- More systematic way to collect and store information so info can be updated and accessed/acted upon by several different people at different times; coordinate information sharing and follow up action between organizations, especially as expertise comes in and out
- Overall analysis of information of macro issues of this population as well
It’s important to differentiate needs and vulnerabilities within groups such as children or the elderly (for instance for groups such as unaccompanied children, children with disabilities, older people with disabilities, etc.).
For serving vulnerable populations, there’s a need to depart the language of equal access to services and to move towards meaningful access or entitlements. The language of equality can initiate a conversation about quantity, whereas the language of meaningful services can initiate a conversation about quality and nature of humanitarian assistance.
How do we think differently about child protection? How can be better listen to them and give them voice in risk mapping and vulnerability assessments? Several organizations are increasing their focus on protection issues for children, such as the promising UN guidelines for determining best interests of the child and the Catholic Organization for Overseas Development increasing its focus on child participation and accountability. Emergency response related to child protection is often lacking, despite fact that it’s “obvious” that such a response is needed. For instance, 2-5% of any refugee population is unaccompanied children, therefore identifying them is of paramount importance. Again, the repatriation/return issue is challenging in terms of children: should the standard that prioritizes permanency/long-term stability for the child be adhered to in situations where return (and thus permanency) would also mean a lower quality of life than life in a camp, for example?
CRS Technical Resources
What did we miss?
Please use this “parking lot” page to answer the following questions:
- What are the critical issues that were not addressed during the consultation?
- How can we continue the conversation about these issues?
CRS Technical Resources
Final discussion
The following was refined as COMMON THEMES emerging from the past two days that can be used to influence the global protection agenda:
Reframing Protection
1. Prevention as priority focus of spectrum of activities: “stop it before it starts”
2. Responsibility to Protect (R2P) meets international legal regime (IHL; HR; refugee law)
a) ‘willing and able’
b) ‘willing and unable’
c) ‘unwilling and unable’
d) ‘unwilling and able’
e) ‘conditionally willing and able,’ for some populations but not others
3. Framing “prevention” as prevention of the compounding of protection issues rather than preventing causes of conflict, etc. (things that create need for protection)
Strategy
3. Language:
a) Use existing standards (and the language therein) and seek ways to better operationalize them.
e.g. 1 – not blanket endorsement of protection clusters but more precise language about what aspects of clusters are actually working and worthy of replication
b) Definition of protection = safety, dignity, human rights
4. Strengthen coordination, leverage, and linkage for increased effect: a ‘tactical arranged marriage’ [marriage of convenience approach rather than ‘romantic union’] – we don’t have to love each other; we need to find a way to collaborate, playing on mutual strengths to ensure/create protection outcomes we seek
5. Address ‘community engagement’ by learning from successful models of beneficiary engagement [i.e. no longer enough to say this is not always possible but need to see how others are actually managing it and doing so with success]
6. Improve planning and preparation (find and apply examples of good practice) related to:
a) micro planning: in early phases of emergency response, build into initial needs assessments and identification of potential/future protection threats and vulnerable populations and design responses
b) macro planning: how to anticipate events that could trigger protection issues (e.g. an upcoming election) and be proactive about response planning
7. How to engage with the military? Whether or not to engage, whether or not to put restrictions on their role in humanitarian assistance (and the associated protection issues)
The discussion then turned to how Catholic organizations can move forward with a common “voice” on issues of protection. Participants representing Catholic organizations and those working with non-Catholic entities raised the following points:
- Choose 2-3 priority areas of protection (risk reduction, local referrals, etc.) to focus on where we think Church can engage more effectively. In setting priorities, to look at what Vatican says, as well as Vatican representatives in NY or Geneva.
- There is a need to map other Catholic actors and what they are doing, especially those with capacity at international level, to bring in the broader Catholic community.
- Tap into and build on local church networks/capacities:
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- Parishes or other local entities can be the early warning systems on issues such as violence against women, and have others within Church (with perceived power and credibility) be the ‘voice’ if this helps to shield those on the ground.
- Educated local partners (including parishes) and public about what Church’s mandate and activities (especially working with all faiths). Refer them to possible responses and to existing resources. Deepen engagement of individual Catholics in parishes to become more active and to give money for protection efforts: preaching on justice issues, tapping into sister parish relationships.
- A “faith voice” on protection – whether Catholic, ecumenical, or Muslim – would be a very powerful force. Start with areas where there is greater consensus/likelihood for success (child protection, violence against women). Element of this voice include:
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- Facilitated conversations between Bishops and statements of principles from Conferences of Bishops around the world, serving as moral statements to remind people about their roles and duties as Catholic individuals.
- Catholic institutions coordinating in advance of major protection events in order to raise a common voice.
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- Improve Catholic institutions’ engagement through Caritas Internationalis – magnifying work already being done by members, raising need for more concentration within CI, etc.