Law Education
UNHCR initiates awareness programme on Refugee Law for students
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bangladesh initiated an awareness raising programme on Refugee Law and refugees' rights for law students. The aim of the activity is to have a pool of law graduates sensitized on Refugee Law, an emerging branch of International Law.
To start this, UNHCR organized a session on “Refugees' Rights and Mandate of UNHCR” at the Department of Law, Northern University Bangladesh (NUB) in the city on 26 April 2006. Issues relating to definitions of asylum seekers, refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons, international protection of refugees, re-foulement, rights and obligations of refugees, basis of refugee law, mandate of UNHCR, Bangladesh's obligation to refugees' rights and UNHCR's operations in Bangladesh etc were discussed. A documentary projecting activities of UNHCR globally was also screened. Latter on, there was a question and answer session.
The sessions were conducted by Francis Teoh, Deputy Representative (Protection) and Uttam Kumar Das, National Protection Officer of UNHCR Bangladesh. It was also addressd among others by the Barrister M. Ashrafuzzaman, Head of the Department of Law, NUB and Eric Paulsen, Protection Officer of UNHCR in Dhaka.
Barrister M. Ashrafuzzaman appreciated the initiative of UNHCR in creating awareness of the students on Refugee Law and related issues in Bangladesh. He informed that his Department will take initiative immediately to introduce Refugee Law course. UNHCR's Deputy Representative (Protection) assured him of providing necessary technical support in this regard.
Around 200 students and faculty members attended the two-hour long programme. UNHCR will be organizing similar sessions in some other law schools this year.
Although Bangladesh has been hosting refugees for more than a decade, however, it is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention on the Status of the Refugees or to it's 1967 Protocol.
Presently, there are around 21,000 refugees in two camps in Cox's Bazar. UNHCR has been providing care and maintenance assistances to the refugees through the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management and other partners since 1993. So far, 236,600 refugees have been repatriated to Myanmar facilitated by UNHCR and the Government of Bangladesh.
In addition to the camp refugees, there are 159 urban refugees in Bangladesh under UNHCR's protection. The national NGO, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) is the new implementing partner of UNHCR for the project, Assistance to Urban Refugees.
There is a consensus among the jurists, experts, academicians, and right activists that Bangladesh should accede to the 1951 Refugee Convention and it's 1967 Protocol and adopt a national legislation on asylum and refugee issues.
Source: UNHCR.
