Forced Migration in the OIC Member Countries:
Policy Framework Adopted by Host Countries
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certain level of harmonization with international standards and norms (at least within the
asylum process itself), even in the absence of fully independent national asylum systems.
Regional conventions have also played an important role in setting protection standards in
some countries affected by OIC forced migration, some of which serve to expand the
protections available in the 1951 Convention. This is particularly important at a time when
there is a growing mismatch between the static definition of a refugee in international law and
the complex, overlapping motivations that drive individuals and families to move. Morocco
and Uganda have signed the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention Governing
the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, which expands upon the 1951 Convention’s
definition of a refugee. In the European Union, the EU Directives that make up the Common
European Asylum System provide another set of standards to which Member States like
Sweden must comply, and also expand the grounds for protection to cover situations of
generalized violence. Perhaps of most importance, the EU court system provides individual
migrants an opportunity to appeal should they feel their rights under EU law have been
violated, a level of enforcement lacking from most other regional or international rights
conventions.
None of the case study countries, with the exception of Sweden, provides refugees or forced
migrants with access to long-term residency or citizenship. In Turkey, Syrians began receiving
protected status in 2011 with the express condition that their status would not lead to
permanent residency, although the government recently signaled that it may consider
allowing Syrians to naturalize in the future. Jordan, similarly, explicitly refers to refugees as
temporary and follows a policy of non-integration. And even in Sweden, a July 2016 policy
change has temporarily limited the possibility for protection beneficiaries to receive
permanent residence permits.
Limited access to legal residency status in many countries has been a major driver of poverty
among forced migrant populations. Temporary permits, which must be renewed regularly
(typically after one year, as is the case in Jordan and Morocco, and for beneficiaries of
subsidiary protection under the current regime in Sweden) are inherently less stable. In
Morocco, for example, NGOs have complained that certain migrants have been unable to
renew their permits. Such policies also reflect an underlying belief that the conditions
precipitating these flows are in fact temporary, and refugees will eventually be able to return
home. Old rules prioritizing permanent residency in Sweden, for example, were predicated on
a belief that keeping people on temporary status for prolonged periods of time proved a
significant barrier to integration as well as an acknowledgement that most refugees would not
have the opportunity to return home.
These examples illustrate that, despite the very different national contexts, in many ways the
challenges experienced by the least developed countries have mirrored those experienced by
wealthier countries with highly developed asylum systems.
Strategies to alleviate poverty among forced migrants
Forced migrants face particular vulnerabilities in host countries: many arrive with debt and
scarce financial resources (as a result of expensive journeys and limited networks upon
arrival) and have interrupted school and work trajectories—in addition to the psychosocial
trauma they have faced. For these and other reasons, their risk of falling into poverty is
greater than for other migrants.