VATICAN (CNS): “People in situations of protracted displacement may be forced to live away from their homes for many years, or even decades, and lack access to education, property, employment and the support they need for sustainable livelihoods and hope for their future,” said a new document from the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
Titled Pastoral Orientations on Internally Displaced People and released on May 5 at an online news conference, it underscored that internally displaced people (IDPs) often still need protection and special assistance, including from the Church.
According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, at the end of 2018 there were 41.3 million people internally displaced worldwide, “the highest number in recorded history,” the document noted.
Michael Cardinal Czerny and Scalabrinian Father Fabio Baggio, the undersecretaries of the Migrants and Refugees Section, told reporters that while many people are rightly focused on the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, long-standing emergencies like forced displacement still require the Church’s attention.
“In this time of pandemic, the virus does not distinguish between those who are important and those who are invisible, those who are settled and those who are displaced. Everyone is vulnerable and each infection is a danger to everyone,” Cardinal Czerny said.
Father Baggio said he hoped people would not overlook problems that existed long before the virus and will exist long after it is over.
“Multitasking is not optional,” he said. He pointed out that virus has shown society that systemic weaknesses are “real weaknesses, the vulnerabilities are real vulnerabilities and that the fragilities are real fragilities, and that sometimes living our secure and peaceful lives, we overlook those near us who are suffering or are not well or are generally overlooked.”
Cardinal Czerny also said he hoped the Covid-19 pandemic would stop the “hollow and shallow attacks of a xenophobic nature” and political positioning against “foreigners” now that people have discovered just how essential migrants and refugees are for “essential services,” including healthcare, agriculture and food production, and home care.
“Far from being intruders, they are very much needed” and the pandemic has demonstrated that, he said, adding, “My hope is that experience will help people become resistant to these cheap and most regrettable attacks.”
Because internally displaced people have not crossed a national border, the document noted, they are not considered migrants or refugees and do not enjoy international protection but must rely on their national governments.
The triggers that force people to suddenly leave their homes and move include natural disasters and even large infrastructure projects like new dams, but also the same threats that force migrants and refugees to seek safety outside their countries: violence and human rights violations, the document noted.
And, unfortunately, it said, “increasingly, most IDPs live in situations of protracted displacement or face chronic displacement risk.”
The document noted that “communities that host IDPs are often underprivileged and living in precarious situations themselves. They often do not have the resources and infrastructure necessary to welcome large numbers of newcomers.” It added that if the displaced people receive special government assistance, but poor members of the host community do not, “unnecessary tensions” often follow.
In response, the Migrants and Refugees Section asked local Churches and Catholic relief and development agencies to work both with the displaced people and members of the host community to survey real needs, bring people together, educate newcomers about local customs and advocate for assistance that helps both groups live better.
The document also asked bishops’ conferences, dioceses, parishes and Catholic charities to prioritise protecting and assisting “people who have escaped from armed conflicts, unaccompanied or separated children, child soldiers, abused women and children, disabled persons and members of discriminated ethnic groups.”
One area where the Church and its agencies can offer special support, it said, is in outreach to children “affected by psychological trauma and physical injury during armed conflicts, in particular, through access to school as a form of protection and in order to structure their lives and that of their families.”
Amaya Valcarcel, international advocacy coordinator for Jesuit Refugee Service, remarked that running schools for displaced people and offering literacy classes for them was a key component in protecting them.
Education is a protection against “abuse, the abuse of trafficking, the abuse of recruiting children and adolescents in armed groups, precocious forced marriages,” she said, but it also gives them a sense of normalcy and prepares them for the future.
