Mr. Jim Clarken:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for inviting Oxfam and Dóchas to come before the committee. I congratulate all members on their appointment to this important committee. We are grateful the committee has prioritised this issue at its first meeting. This is important and is much appreciated. I will give a global perspective on the situation throughout the world and some of the key issues on which I believe the committee should focus, and Ms Keatinge and colleagues will speak specifically on Ireland's role and the summit that will take place in September.

As the Chairman mentioned, more than 65 million people throughout the world today have been forcibly displaced, which is the highest number in recorded history. To give a sense of what this means, last year 24 people every minute were displaced somewhere in the world. If this is measured against the world's population, one person has been displaced for every 113 people in the world, so almost 1% of the entire global population is either an asylum seeker, internally displaced or a refugee, putting them at a risk which is unprecedented in history. Of the 65.3 million people forced to flee their homes, 40.8 million are internally displaced in their own countries and 21 million people are actual refugees. Three countries, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, produce half of this entire refugee population. The spotlight over the past year has been on Europe's challenge to manage approximately 1 million refugees and migrants arriving via the Mediterranean. The majority of refugees throughout the world are actually hosted in neighbouring countries, the majority of which are middle or lower income countries.

Committee members may be aware of a little known conflict in Burundi, which does not grab media attention. I recently returned from Tanzania, where more than 200,000 people have fled from neighbouring Burundi and are being hosted by the Tanzanian Government. When we look at such vast numbers it sometimes becomes difficult to put a human face on it. I met 28 year old Niyibize Aisha from Burundi who is in a camp in Tanzania. En route to there, her husband and four of her children were killed. She is there with her last remaining child, on her own with no family and very little support. Her child is ill and in need of medical attention which is not forthcoming. Her biggest fear is that any day she could be forcibly returned home. This is to give a sense of the uncertainty and fear so many refugees face every day, and the extreme situations which led them to flee. This is similar to the people we see in Europe and why they have fled. They have fled for the most drastic reasons. Nobody would get in a boat with an infant in the Mediterranean unless he or she was absolutely desperate. It is very important that we remember this, because sometimes in all of the information people get labelled as statistics or there is a suggestion as to why people might be travelling. This is why people are leaving. They are in desperate situations and their lives are threatened.

Oxfam works in nine of the ten countries where the vast majority of displacement happens. These are the three I mentioned, as well as South Sudan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo, the Central African Republic, Myanmar and Colombia. We work there and in surrounding countries to provide essential services where needed, reduce inequality and poverty and support civil society. As mentioned, the countries hosting people are those such as Lebanon, where there are 1.2 million refugees in a country smaller than Ireland, Jordan, Tanzania and many others which are not spoken about. We also work in Italy and Greece to provide life-saving support, with clean water, food, clothes and hygiene, to those who have fled the worst of the crisis. We also supply psychological and legal support, in particular protection for women and girls.

We also have a programme in Serbia and another in Macedonia.

As well as humanitarian activities, which concern saving lives and protection, we have been active in lobbying governments and institutions, including the EU and the UN, to manage this crisis humanely. We are calling for governments to respect and uphold the rights of refugees and migrants and have been urging the UN Security Council and UN member states to act urgently to address the root causes of conflict and agree durable solutions for people displaced, not just by war and persecution but also by climate change and natural disasters. A number of factors are feeding into the global crisis.

The international system for the protection of refugees is one of the great accomplishments of the post-Second World War era. Throughout history, neighbouring countries have offered protection to refugees in the context of political interests or for co-religionist, co-ethnic and economic reasons. Since the mass murders of the 20th century, this has changed into a global solidarity around protection linked with human rights and grounded in notions of empathy and humanitarianism. The 1951 convention and optional protocol were founded on principles that are essential today, and we are worried about their erosion. The principles are: persons forced from their homes because of violence and conflicts should not be returned to a risk of serious harm and violation of human rights; persons recognised as refugees have rights under international law and those rights, if respected, will help refugees to build their lives and permit them to benefit states that have granted them protection; refugee status should not continue indefinitely; the international community has a collective responsibility to seek and provide durable solutions to displacement; international burden-sharing includes a commitment to assist countries of first asylum, which are those countries that I have mentioned; and refugee protection will not and cannot thrive in societies whose populations do not support it. Affirmation of these principles and support for the refugee cause require conscientious advocacy and political commitment and leadership.

Despite the fact that these protections have been in existence for more than 65 years, to our shame we are seeing ever-increasing situations in which the rights of refugees are eroded and jeopardised. Too many states are failing to uphold international law and are instead attempting to deter migration through closed borders, large-scale deportation, arbitrary detention and push-backs. Brutality by state agents, including police and border security guards, is rife and our partners are reporting an increased incidence of sexual abuse and exploitation of women, in particular, who are attempting to seek sanctuary in Europe. This is an indelible stain on our collective values.

The border closures and restrictions implemented by the EU have dramatically worsened the humanitarian crisis for refugees and migrants living in desperate conditions in Europe. Vulnerable people seeking safety and dignity remain at risk of death, torture and exploitation as they try to reach and cross the Mediterranean, where they face a legal limbo. In 2016 so far, nearly 3,000 people have perished in the Mediterranean. It is in danger of becoming a mass graveyard. We cannot accept this.

As channels for safe and legal migration are closed off, desperate people are forced into the hands of human traffickers and people smugglers from the Sahara all the way to the western Balkans. Oxfam's humanitarian programme in Italy recently highlighted the fact that many children are going missing while the Italian Mafia has been reported as saying that migrants are now more valuable than drugs. We are essentially allowing the criminal element to make significant amounts of money on the backs of desperate people. Politicians worldwide have responded to increased migration by stoking public fears of migrants of particular origins, playing on national and racial stereotypes and inflaming tensions for their own needs. For example, the Brexit campaign was marked by vitriolic and racist rhetoric in some quarters and a 40% increase in hate crimes has been recorded in the UK. The fact that the majority of people who are displaced are not in Europe at all has been ignored or forgotten.

Europe is failing to deal effectively with the migration crisis. The EU has turned what should have been a manageable surge in the number of people arriving at the borders into a humanitarian disaster. We need a saner and more humane system for managing migration, one that creates opportunities for people rather than for criminal networks of smugglers.

To juxtapose the European position with that of Tanzania, I met a woman called Ms Ruth Msafiri, the district commissioner of the Kibondo district in western Tanzania. Bear in mind that Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world. I asked her how it was managing with the refugees and how it was giving the same warm welcome.

She said: "A neighbour is a relative; we live in friendship; the boundaries are all in our imagination." As I said, they are supporting more than 200,000 people. We are calling on all states to reaffirm the rights enshrined in international refugee law, particularly the right to seek asylum, both through international processes such as the UN summit and through domestic platforms. These rights have been eroded recently by the EU-Turkey deal and subsequently the EU partnership framework agreement, which sees the EU using overseas aid as a bargaining tool with repressive regimes in an attempt to deter migration.

We are asking politicians, as leaders in their parties and communities, including at constituency level, to support our call for all countries, particularly rich countries, to offer a safe haven to some of the world's most vulnerable people. The six richest countries in the world are hosting only 9% of the entire world refugee population. We believe that rich countries need to welcome significantly higher numbers of refugees in the spirit of solidarity and responsibility sharing. This can be done in Ireland by increasing resettlement and relocation places and humanitarian visas, expanding opportunities for family reunification and initiating work and study visa programmes. The Irish refugee protection programme, which commits to welcome 4,000 refugees, is not sufficient. As only a couple of hundred people have been accepted so far, we have a long way to go.

We want politicians in Ireland and elsewhere to take a strong stand against xenophobia and racism by committing to institute a public debate on migration, founded on the basis of human rights, compassion and a rational approach to maintaining public safety. The false narrative regarding good refugee and bad economic migrant must be combatted with sound research and data regarding the benefits of migration. Elected representatives also have a responsibility to remind Irish people that increased development leads to increased mobility and vice versa. We have our own experience of the benefits of migration, inward and outwards.

We believe that governments need to do more to address the root causes of forced displacement, including war, violence, persecution and poverty, as well as to limit the impact of climate change. As Ireland is vying for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for 2021, we are well placed to use our own historic experience as a conflict-affected country and a country of mass emigration. Ireland should actively seek out opportunities at the UN to broker and contribute to lasting and peaceful solutions in line with the commitments we made in our Constitution and the successes we have forged through initiatives such as the Irish-led international agreement to ban cluster munitions. Ireland has tremendous credibility in this space and it is time for us to leverage it.

We are at a watershed in our history. The time between now and 2018 is vital for Ireland and the EU to show the political commitment necessary to forge a comprehensive approach based on human rights principles which can provide lasting solutions to displacement. My colleague, Ms Suzanne Keatinge, will comment further on the UN summit and the implications of Ireland's engagement.

Ireland cannot continue to look away and pretend that this is a problem for others. We should not see refugees or migrants; we should see people, ordinary people from whom everything has been taken and who now find themselves in very desperate situations. Saving lives and protecting people must be the ultimate priority. Ireland has an important role to play in this regard. The committee can be part of leading the way. We look forward to working with the committee in the coming months on this issue.