WACC Workshop on Refugee Rights

The workshop brought together about thirty communicators representing the government, inter-governmental agencies, the media, and the church. Participants hailed from 13 countries in Africa. People with experience working with refugees - some from the religious community, others from organisations like the Red Cross - spoke to participants and presented papers, emphasising the issue of the right to information and communication. For example, one presentation analysed media representation of refugees in Botswana through the lens of the politics of the complex process "belonging" in Botswana.

The working groups that met dealt with refugee rights issues in the contexts of broadcasting, the press, and training.

The workshop was preceded by a similar event that was held in June, 2001 that covered refugee issues in the Horn of Africa. The region plans to organise two more workshops covering issues in the Great Lakes region and West Africa.

Rights.

According to the WACC, Africa hosts close to 15 million refugees, 400,000 of them in Southern Africa. Their figures indicate that adding other uprooted peoples - the internally displaced, street children, landless squatters, political exiles, and economic migrants - would raise this figure to 50 million or more. Given the continuing political instability in the Great Lakes region, civil conflicts in West Africa, the economic and political situation in Zimbabwe, and a generalised recession in the Southern African region, the WACC expects large-scale migrations into this region to continue for the foreseeable future.

Workshop participants noted that the lives of refugees, who are often isolated in camps, are rarely written about. Furthermore, they claim, the image of refugees as portrayed in the media is often negative, even xenophobic. They stressed that refugees should have the right to access information in their own language, and to have access to community media. To them, this right is important because the lack of information - about, for instance, national laws and international treaties to protect refugees - can exacerbate the problem of abuse. Workshop recommendations include the African Region office of the WACC directing its efforts toward the strengthening of refugees' capacities as communicators as well as their rights to information and communication. One specific suggestion was that WACC identify existing refugee media resources and broadcasting initiatives in the Southern Africa region with a view toward organising a meeting between broadcasters involved in refugee concerns.