Strangers in A Strange Land

By Vivian Manneh

My family and I aren't refugees the way most Americans think of them; we never slept in tents or stood in line for soup. But like all refugees, we rarely felt secure about where we could call home. We're Palestinian, and because of that we understand what refugees confront every day as they try to build lives outside their home countries.

I'm now a program manager for Catholic Relief Services, which provides food, shelter, education and job opportunities to people uprooted by war and natural disasters. Over the years, I've seen a pattern in the realities that refugees across the world face:

Lack of Legal Status

So often, refugees don't belong anywhere; no one will take them in as regular citizens. Even if they manage to start a life in a new country, they usually aren't allowed to have the permits or papers needed to be part of society. Imagine trying to register at a college without a driver's license, get a job without a birth certificate, or travel abroad to visit relatives without a passport. Refugees rarely have any ID that can help them accomplish simple human goals.

I'm relatively lucky in this regard. I'm a refugee myself; in 1948, when my dad was 13, he had to flee Haifa with his parents and siblings. They went to Jerusalem, and my dad starting working right away because his parents couldn't find jobs.

Growing up, my family and I had Jerusalem identity cards. If you didn't have a card, you couldn't enter Jerusalem without a permit.

After I finished high school, I was able to get a temporary Jordanian passport, which allowed me to travel but meant I couldn't vote and was not a citizen. Then I got a regular Jordanian passport using my brother's address in Jordan. I'm far luckier than most Palestinians.

In most of the world, even being born in a country doesn't guarantee that you're legally a citizen. Recently in Syria and Lebanon, I met Iraqi refugee mothers who had just given birth. Their babies are just as homeless as they are when it comes to legal status.

Unemployment or Underemployment

Without ID cards or work permits, refugees usually have to take "shadow economy" work—bottom-of-the-barrel jobs with longer hours and lower pay than regular citizens. For example, Sudanese refugees in Egypt can often find work, but aren't paid at the same level as Egyptians. They also don't get health insurance and other benefits.

Right now, well-educated Iraqi refugees with skills and experience are sitting idle in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon because those countries won't allow them to work. There are people with master's degrees unable to pay rent or feed their families. And, of course, throughout the world there are less well educated refugees who are desperate to work. But the host countries don't want their own citizens to lose their jobs. It's hard to know how to address this.

Child Exploitation

In many refugee families, the parents can't find jobs, so they send their kids out to work. In Syria, for example, refugee kids sell gum on the streets or work as auto mechanics. Children don't know their rights and will work for less.

Refugee girls can be especially vulnerable to trafficking and prostitution. That's what's happening with some Iraqi teenagers in Syria right now; in some cases, the mother is desperate and encourages her daughter to "work" at a nightclub, for example. In Eastern Europe, refugees who fled the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s are returning to their villages, but often the local economy is so weak that their daughters may be targeted by traffickers for the sex trade.

Lack of Health Care

Many illegal refugees either aren't allowed to use public health services that legal citizens can use, or are afraid to go to regular hospitals for fear of getting caught and deported. If they do use health services, they can end up spending huge amounts of the family's income, especially on chronic diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes. They have to choose between sending their kids to school and paying for a parent's medication.

Lack of Education

Some host countries allow noncitizen children to attend public schools. But even when they do, other factors may keep refugee children from getting an education. For example, Sudanese children from tribes like the Dinga know a dialect of Arabic, but not the dialect spoken in Egyptian schools. In Lebanon, Palestinian children aren't allowed in the public schools, which continues the cycle of poverty. Often, refugee children are a year or two behind, so you get a tall refugee child in a class filled with shorter kids; some children are embarrassed and drop out. CRS often provides what we call "informal," or catch-up, education tailored to refugee children.

Prejudice

Sometimes refugee children won't go to school because they're afraid of being teased about their ethnicity. And in certain Middle Eastern countries, refugees are more accepted if they're Sunni Muslim as opposed to Shia Muslim.

Broken Family Ties

People who flee their countries can be separated for years from their parents, siblings and even spouses. In many cases, one part of a family might get lucky and be accepted as immigrants in one country while other close family members are stuck in a transitional situation.

I met an older teenage girl in Damascus, Syria; she was about 19. Her parents were accepted by a European country, but since she and her brother are both over 18, they're still in Damascus.

Another young Iraqi man, around 18, was threatened with being kidnapped. He and his mother, who is sick, left Iraq for Damascus. But his father is back in Baghdad, working to support them. Refugees are already incredibly vulnerable, and being cut off from loved ones makes their lives that much harder.

Trauma, Fear and Insecurity

People don't pick up and flee their countries without a good reason. Some refugees have seen horrible things. I visited an Iraqi refugee in Syria who has five children—the youngest is 3, the oldest around 13. In July 2007, she and her husband and kids were traveling in the car from Baghdad to the Iraqi city of Mosul. They were hoping it would be a safer place, and wanted to reunite with the husband's family. The car was stopped and the husband was shot and killed on the spot in front of his kids. The mother fled with her children to Syria.

Many charities are trying to meet refugees' physical needs, like shelter and food. But it's so important to address their psychological needs too. CRS ran a trauma counseling service for Palestinian kids in Gaza who had seen atrocities, and we fund programs like peer counseling and group sessions in Syria and Lebanon.

Uncertainty About the Future

Probably the worst part of being a refugee is never knowing what's going to happen to you. Millions of refugees around the globe are waiting for another country—usually a rich one like Canada—to take them in. But the "resettlement" process, as it's called, can take years—and sometimes countries reject applicants. Refugees can be stuck in a place they hoped would be temporary.

What Americans Can Do

The problem of refugees won't stop until there is peace, employment and food in troubled countries like Iraq and Sudan. Preventing war and quickly responding to famine are key.

Americans can advocate with U.S. policymakers to uphold our nation's commitments to refugees and to provide resources that will help feed, clothe and educate refugees in other countries.

And finally, Americans can treat the strangers in their midst with compassion. Ask yourself: What would I do if I could no longer live in my home country?

Vivian Manneh is Catholic Relief Services' regional program manager for the Middle East. She runs programs that provide shelter, health services, education and legal assistance to refugees and domestic migrant workers. A Palestinian by birth, she has a Jordanian passport and lives in Cairo.