Refugees in a meeting

UNHCR is mandated by the United Nations to lead and co-ordinate international action for the worldwide protection of refugees and the resolution of refugee problems.

It's primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another state, and to return home voluntarily. By assisting refugees to return to their own country or to settle in another country, UNHCR also seeks lasting solutions to their plight.

By virtue of its activities on behalf of refugees and displaced people, UNHCR also promotes the purpose and principles of the United Nations Charter: maintaining international peace and security; developing friendly relations among nations, and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. [download complete global mission statement here]

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Botswana is the principal advocate for displaced persons that seek asylum within the nation's borders. The agency works within a comprehensive, humanistic policy comprised of the following tenets:

• UNHCR seeks to ensure that refugees' right to asylum is respected and that they are not forcibly returned to their country of origin and conflict.
• Refugees should not be penalized or unfavourably treated solely on the grounds that their presence in the country is considered unlawful.
• Refugees should not be subjected to restrictions on their movements other than those which are necessary in the interest of public health and public order.
• Refugees should enjoy the fundamental civil rights internationally recognized, particularly those promulgated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Refugees should receive all necessary assistance and be provided with the basic necessities of life, including food, shelter and basic sanitary and health facilities.
• Refugees should, above all, be considered as persons before the law, enjoying unhindered access to courts of law and other competent administrative authorities.

Women from the refugee camp, presenting their products at the Botswana National Trade Fair 2001 in Gaborone

In its efforts to protect refugees and to promote solutions to their problems, UNHCR works in partnership with governments, regional organizations, international and non-governmental organizations. UNHCR is committed to the principle of participation by consulting refugees on decisions that affect their lives.

As its activities have increased and diversified, UNHCR's relations with other organs and agencies of the United Nations system, as well as with intergovernmental organizations and NGOs, have become increasingly important. From the outset, UNHCR's work in Botswana was to be undertaken jointly in cooperation with the Government of Botswana and co-ordinated by the Office of the President. In addition, and to ensure speedy service delivery, UNHCR has also entered into partnership with organizations that share similar visions. These implementing partners ensure service delivery to the benefit of individual refugees, a system that allows UNHCR to focus on the core areas of international refugee protection and broad policy matters. In this regard UNHCR enjoys healthy partnership with three non-governmental organizations in Botswana: Botswana Council for Refugees, Botswana Red Cross Society, and Botswana Council of Churches.

In order to promote and safeguard the rights of refugees, UNHCR tries particularly

• to encourage Governments to subscribe to international and regional conventions and arrangements concerning refugees, returnees and displaced people, and to ensure that the standards they set out are effectively put into practice;
• to promote the granting of asylum to refugees, i.e. to ensure that they are admitted to safety and protected against forcible return to a country where they have reason to fear persecution or other serious harm;
• to ensure that applications for asylum are examined fairly and that asylum-seekers are protected while their requests are being examined, against forcible return to a country where their freedom or lives would be endangered;
• to ensure that refugees are treated in accordance with recognized international standards and receive an appropriate legal status, including, wherever possible, the same economic and social rights as nationals of the country in which they have been given asylum;
• to secure lasting solutions for refugees either through voluntary repatriation to their countries of origin, or, if this is not feasible, through the eventual acquisition of the nationality of their country of residence;
• to help reintegrate refugees returning to their home country in close consultation with Governments concerned and to monitor amnesties, guarantees or assurances on the basis of which they have returned home;
• to promote the physical security of refugees, asylum-seekers and returnees, particularly their safety from military attacks and other acts of violence; and
• to promote the reunification of refugee families.

[or download UNHCR's Global History here]

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) decided as early as 1963 that a regional refugee treaty was needed to take account of the special characteristics of the situation in Africa. The resulting 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa expanded the definition of a refugee to people who are compelled to leave their country not only as a result of persecution but also "owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality".

The extended refugee definition of the OAU Convention has brought international protection to a large number of people who may not be covered by the 1951 Convention but who are forced to move for a complex range of reasons including persecution, widespread human rights abuses, armed conflict and generalized violence. The extended definitions have particular importance in situations of massive influx where it is generally impractical to examine individual claims for refugee status. The broadening of the refugee definition in response to regional considerations has provided much needed flexibility to international action on behalf of people forced to flee their countries. However, it has also introduced a new complexity in that a person recognized as a refugee in one region may not necessarily be considered one elsewhere.

[or download UNHCR's Global History here]

In 1967 Botswana promulgated the Refugee Recognition and Control Act. This Act is either wholly silent on certain important aspects of international refugee protection; that is to say, the Act is complete only when read together with other legislations, notably the Immigration Act. The Immigration Act makes it possible for the Government to declare a refugee (being an alien) a prohibited immigrant, thereby ensuring his / her resultant deportation or refoulment. Almost since its adoption, discussions have been ongoing between the UNHCR and the Botswana Government on the need to promulgate what has generally been referred to as comprehensive refugee legislation. It is hoped that the new Refugee Act, whenever it comes into effect, will be able to streamline Botswana laws relating to refugees with the aspirations and provisions of international law. In drafting the new Refugee Act, the United Nations 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the Organization of African Unity 1969 Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee problems in Africa, the 1967 Protocol and the resolutions of the 1979 Arusha Conference as adopted by the OAU/UNHCR Working Group of 1980, were taken into account.