A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence, and currently, there are approximately 70 million refugees all around the world. In the last decade due to war and persecution in Syria, the number of Syrian who flee their house is growing significantly, based on Statista, from 2015, the highest figure for refugees has been from Syria, and in 2018 this number reached almost 7 million Syrian. This number of refugees not only makes many problems for host countries but also refugee themselves are in an unsuitable and dangerous situation and their chooses because of wrong rules are limited to only two alternatives: camps, going to neighbour countries and risking their lives on a perilous journey.
Refugee camps are temporary facilities built to supply immediate protection and aid to people who have been forced to leave their houses. A. Betts mentions that about 9% of Syrian refugees chose to stay in camps and unfortunately because of many issues like fear of being persecuted cannot go back to their countries and, the researches show that most of them should stay in camps for more than five years and even nearly one decade.
Totally camps are located far from the cities and in an arid location, for instance, currently, Zaatari in Jordan is the largest camp for Syrian refugees which is placed in a dessert and like other camps confront the vast majority of problems like poor quality of education, insecurity, and lake of some fundamental needs. In addition, he says that 'Camp life is almost always unstable and insecure and contains no hope for the future'.
Most of the refugees prefer to migrate to other countries, technically they do not have essential documents for settle down legally via airplane; as a result, they entrust smugglers and risk their lives on a dangerous journey by land or sea. According to Statista, from 2015, almost 13,000 refugees have died in the Mediterranean. When they arrive at their destination, they confront some severe problems, for example, they do not have the right to work, and most host countries do not open up their economies to refugees also they do not have significant access to assistance, therefore, they face urban destitution.
On the other hand, a large number of refugees can cause many fundamental difficulties for host countries. BBC news in 2013 reported that a large number of refugees from Syrian had had negative impacts on local economies of Lebanon, furthermore, totally infrastructure of host countries are not prepared for this extra number of people; consequently, space issues like lack of teacher and health centres become more serious which will lead to several social matters.
There are some fundamental ways which can almost eradicate all these problems. Betts claims, firstly, humanitarian VISA can be provided by policymakers which can lead to refugees to travel safely, and it would undercut the entire market for smugglers and will save many lives. The second idea is enabling environment, enabling environment can provide the opportunities for refugees in order to use their abilities and gives them right to work. In terms of enabling environment Betts mentions that Uganda is one of the countries where is using this approach and the outcome was remarkable, around 21% of refugees run their own business and employ many of citizens of host countries.
The next fundamental solution is economic zones, many of camp issues can be solved through establishing economic zones near the camps which could potentially integrate the employment of refugees, and they will be able to work there rather than being stuck in camps. The last method is the preference matching. Preference matching is matching between states and refugees, in other words, ask refugees to rank their preferred destinations and also allow states to rate the kinds of refugees they require and let those to match to give refugees more excellent choices.
All these approaches mentioned above can change our idea about a wrong belief that refugees are extra cost for citizens and only can cause an economic crisis. In other words, we need a new vision not based on the logic of charity but building on opportunities. Otherwise, these wrong rules can cause many problems not only for host countries but also for refugees themselves which can be prevented by these approaches.
