Brazil has already recognized more than 60,000 people as refugees, according to data recorded since 1997, when the country started to have specific legislation on the subject.
Last year, more than 3,000 people were recognized as refugees. Of this total, 77% are Venezuelan and 11% Cuban. Of the number, 50.4% are children and adolescents.
Most cases are justified as persecution for political opinion and violation of human rights.
“Brazil actually recognizes far fewer people as refugees than those who apply for this recognition. This happens for a number of reasons, including the fact that there are very strict criteria to determine whether or not a person is a refugee. It is important for us to note that because she is not a refugee, she comes from a peaceful migration situation”, explained Victor Del Vecchio, a lawyer and researcher at the University of São Paulo (USP).
“There are many people who come from a vulnerable migration situation, who come from contexts of very poor and social destabilization, which will not necessarily have the recognition of refuge”, he continued.
For Cleita Fernandes, vice-director of the Adus Institute, “a part of the government is lacking to show not only the general population and civil society, but also to companies who these people are that arrive in Brazil”.
According to Acunur –the refugee agency of the United Nations (UN)–, this year, for the first time in history, the world reached the mark of 100 million refugees, about eleven million more than recorded. in the year 2021.
They are people forced to leave everything behind – their homes and memories – to try life in other countries, often in a very vulnerable situation.
The war in Ukraine was the main factor that boosted this number and resulted in the largest influx of displacement since the Second World War.
There were seven million refugees and another seven million displaced within their own country.
Complaints of human rights abuse, persecution and violence in other armed conflicts around the world, such as Afghanistan, Syria and Venezuela, also leave thousands homeless.
Not to mention that most of the people in refugee situations in the world are children, who have their studies and training impaired, in addition to traumas that will possibly accompany them for the rest of their lives.
UNHCR calls for greater mobilization of the international community to respond to what it classified as a human tragedy.
And, for 2022, it launched the theme: “whoever, whenever, wherever: all people have the right to seek protection”, as a way of guaranteeing respect and dignity to those forced to flee.
Source: CNN Brasil
