The current refugee crisis is the largest since World War II, with 1,865 people killed in the past six months trying to cross the Mediterranean. Because of the scale of the crisis, people in unaffected areas have linked the term "refugees" to destitute migrants fleeing their homes and making high-risk journeys to cross into Europe.
Refugees are often presented in the media and by a group of political parties as vulnerable, poor, benefit-dependent and potentially socially and economicly threatening to the receiving community. They cite in media reports using phrases such as "influx of new immigrants on the way", "illegal immigrants" and "increasing numbers of refugees", which can affect how communities receive refugees and hinder their social integration in the future country.
A refugee is a person who has been forced out of his homeland or unable to return because of fear of persecution. Many refugees have traumatic experiences in their countries of origin and on their journeys to their new country of residence. The basic rights of refugees are included in the 1951 Refugee Convention. However, when refugees arrive in the host country, they can face barriers to their integration, such as unsafe legal status, poor housing conditions, lack of access to education, employment opportunities and prejudice.
In accordance with international law, most Council of Europe member states grant the right to work for refugees. Many refugees in Europe have a wide variety of skills, expertise and disciplines that can make tangible contributions to the EU workforce. They are doctors, dentists, engineers, teachers, lawyers and IT specialists with the hope of rebuilding the jobs they had in their countries of origin before they were forced to leave because of persecution, civil unrest, war or occupation.
My first experience working with refugees was at the Refugee Council in London, which provides practical support and advice to refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. While working as a teacher and high school principal, She volunteered on the Refugee Council to provide refugee training courses on the British education system. Most of the participants who attended the courses were teachers in their countries of origin. They were a diverse group of people who studied in a range of circumstances and wanted information on how to get into the British education system and their expectations as soon as they found themselves working in a British school.
In those training courses, I began to think about how valuable it was to have refugee teachers in secondary schools in the UK. It can bring a growing diversity of school staff and new perspectives, facilitate the integration of students of immigrant origin and help improve attitudes toward immigrants. This experience made me aware of the many challenges refugees face in returning to their careers in the UK. This experience includes recognizing their qualifications, improving their language and communication skills and gaining work experience in UK schools. It is clear that entering the teaching sector will be a long process. However, most participants were determined to make this decision.
Barriers and skills
Although refugees have a legal permit to work in Europe, many are unable to exercise this right in practice because they face a number of obstacles to joining as a working force. Many arrive without professional documentation and few have business relationships or knowledge of the host labour market. Those with professional documents usually have to undergo lengthy, costly and bureaucratic procedures to recognize their qualifications, and often have less chance of returning to work the longer they stay in the host country on the assumption that they become unskilled and lose confidence and self-esteem.
Employment is crucial for the effective integration of refugees because it allows for economic and social participation as well as personal gratification. However, many skilled refugees suffer from high levels of unemployment and highly untapped skills because they suffer from skill slackening and are often directed to low-skilled or paid career paths, and are more likely to find work in areas accessible to their community networks. In general, refugees have more easy access to the retail, restaurant, security and cleaning sectors. Some succeed in entering non-key roles such as teachers who serve as teaching assistants or doctors who work as laboratory technicians. In some cases, these jobs can help them return to their original profession, while others find their way into the voluntary sector. Here refugees can gain confidence and knowledge about the workplace culture of their host country and, above all, experience and knowledge.
Refugee women: additional difficulties
This year in our ongoing research program at the Women's Agency, Mobility and Social and Cultural Change. The programme examines areas such as social and cultural reconstruction in the family and work and policy responses to female refugees.
Refugee women often face a range of individual and structural factors that affect their participation in the labour market. They face many of the same barriers as male refugees trying to enter the labour market, including language barriers, knowledge of the labour market and recognition of qualifications and work experience sought abroad. However, refugee women often have additional responsibilities of providing care within families with the possibility of lack of access to childcare facilities or social networks to facilitate childcare, which may limit their access to the labour market. In addition, they may be exposed to institutionalized forms of gender-based discrimination that cause inequality.
Refugee women are generally subject to high levels of lack of mobility between jobs or lack of utilization of their skills, as professionally qualified female teachers, doctors and nurses often lack the opportunities to employ their experience in the host country. They often face gender barriers in employment and are more likely to be employed in "female roles." Low levels of their participation in the labour market can lead to long-term office work. To facilitate their social and economic integration into the host community, refugee women need more opportunities to access training services, employment counselling and language courses.
Positive contribution
There is a common misconception that refugees in general are a financial burden on European societies, although in many cases refugees bring valuable knowledge and experience to the receiving country with their dedication to learning new skills. Refugees can therefore be a positive force for economic and human development if employment barriers are reduced. Employment provides an opportunity to achieve personal aspirations, financial independence, build social relationships and contribute to the economy and society in empowerment.
Allowing refugees to obtain legal employment can benefit host communities in a number of ways where they can help to tap the knowledge, skills and training they bring with them to fill gaps in the labour market. If refugees are officially employed, they are able to contribute to social security and the revenues of the host country. They can also offer new perspectives to the workplace and work as mediators in intercultural exchanges so that Europe's social and cultural diversity can be more positively promoted.
Research findings of the 2013 UNRefugee Agency conference, "A New Beginning: The Integration of Refugees in Europe," found that most studies or integration assessments do not take into account refugee integration and that there is a lack of understanding of barriers that particularly affect the integration of refugees.
Some progress has been made in overcoming some of the obstacles that refugees suffer in joining the labour force. In the UK, the Bridge Building Partnership has been established to support the rehabilitation of refugee health professionals in the UK. As part of this programme, the Refugee Council runs free six-week preparatory courses to help doctors demonstrate that they have the basic skills and knowledge needed to practice medicine in the UK. There is also a database established by the British Medical Association and the Refugee Council in 2008 that currently has more than 1,300 registered refugees as doctors. Other organizations include Transit, a social organization that provides advice and helps refugees find vacancies based on their qualifications and skills. The Foundation recently organized a seminar on the reality of refugee women in the UK labour market. The Council of Academics at Risk also awards prizes to refugee academics from the early to advanced stages of their careers to re-qualify, as one in three academics apply for funding is female.
The most important thing is to continue to remove barriers to refugees wishing to work and to empower those with the skills and qualifications to use them. Refugees are a diverse group and have the ability to make a positive contribution to communities in a variety of ways. A growing understanding of the diverse backgrounds of refugees and how they develop host communities can contribute to a more open and often accurate humanitarian discourse to simplify the discourses in everyday life.