Forced Migration in the OIC Member Countries:
Policy Framework Adopted by Host Countries
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oppression, discrimination, and persecution also drive refugee movements both from OIC
states as well as from non-OIC countries—such as Eritrea, Burundi, and Myanmar—to OIC
members. Each of these drivers frequently overlaps and interacts with drivers not recognized
under the 1951 Convention or other protection frameworks including environmental
degradation and an acute lack of economic opportunity. Individual reasons for seeking
protection, whether within or outside of one’s home country, are thus complex and generally
reflect a mix of motivations.
Data collection on forced migration remains a challenge both globally as well as throughout
OIC countries. Accurate assessments of the actual numbers of forced migrants in a particular
country as well as their demographic characteristics can be difficult to come by, particularly
where refugees have chosen not to register with UNHCR. And detailed information on the
living conditions or socioeconomic challenges of forced migrant communities can be even
more difficult to obtain. Many countries lack robust national systems to gather such data even
on their national populations, and where such systems do exist, they may not include
displaced populations.
UNHCR statistics show that over half of refugees in the world today are children. In Uganda,
almost eight out of ten refugees are women or children. There has also been a huge shift in the
demographics of asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean, with women and children
coming to make up almost half of the flows (which had in 2014 and the first half of 2015 been
predominantly young and male). An unprecedented number of unaccompanied minors has
reached Europe, with schools and infrastructure overwhelmed even in wealthy countries like
Sweden. And as refugee situations become protracted, the risk of generations of children born
into displacement—many without access to education during their formative years—has been
particularly pressing for countries like Turkey, and looms as one of the most critical issues for
the international community to address.
A diversity of legal approaches to providing protection
While respect for nonrefoulement guarantees that refugees will not be sent back to a country
where their lives are in danger, more nuanced forms of protection—as well as the rights,
benefits, and level of autonomy available to forced migrants—depend on the specific
provisions within the host country’s national legal framework.
International conventions have deeply influenced the asylum laws and practices in most of the
study countries examined in this report. All but five OIC members are signatories to the
Convention Against Torture, which commits states to respecting the principle of
nonrefoulement even for non-refugees. Yet fewer than two-thirds of OIC Member States have
ratified the 1951 Convention, and only 29 OIC states have developed comprehensive asylum
legislation to implement the Convention, limiting the obligations these states have taken on to
provide assistance and rights to refugees beyond basic protection from refoulement. There is
also a very wide range in terms of the extent to which national governments have the
resources to fully implement their commitments. Without national implementation,
international norms and commitments remain unfulfilled.
Of our case study countries, Sweden, Turkey, Morocco, and Uganda have all developed
comprehensive national asylum or refugee legislation within the last decade, or are currently
in the process of doing so. While Jordan has no national asylum policy, its memorandum of
understanding with UNHCR commits it to the same principles of respect for nonrefoulement
stipulated in the 1951 Convention. The close partnerships that many OIC countries (like
Morocco and Jordan) have with UNHCR to manage refugee status determinations ensure a