[UNHCR] Shifts in Main Topics in Council

Written by IRNA

During the past day, delegates of the UNHCR have been debating on the issue of refugee abuse and exploitation, despite the council seeming drifting off into the subtopic of human trafficking and child labour. However, the solutions to these problems might still address the main issue of abuse and exploitation of refugees. It is almost as if they used the wrong method to get a possibly right solution that addresses the issue.

With the rising amounts of cases in human trafficking and child labour increasing, the UNCHR has recognised that there must be something done to stop such perpetrators of such actions. The debate is spiced up as different delegates are able to come up with various different yet interesting and effective ideas that help combat such issues, but have trouble with them attempting to prove to other delegates that their idea is most efficient and should be implemented internationally to deal with the exploitation and abuse of refugees.

However, a quote by Sun Tzu in his book, The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

In this case, the enemy would be the human traffickers and child labourers. To truly combat this issue, the UNHCR delegates must be clear on why the human traffickers and child labourers are doing what they are doing, and what their respective countries are able to do to help countries with the issue.

The UNHCR calls for international collaboration, to help all countries to effectively deal with the issue. One such instance is the fact that Croatia, Greece and France who are seeming coming to a common agreement on the idea that a separate entity to help mandate the movement of refugees and facilitate the investigation of such crimes, would be the best solution to combat this issue both in the short and long term, despite the differences in the implementation of such a system, they seem to have proven to the rest of the delegates in the UNHCR that their idea is clearly superior and have much lesser drawbacks compared to others, such as changing laws or having standardized tests.

This point, however, can be improved on further by adding on points from other delegates, such as from Uganda, who believes that countries can use the experience from refugees who have experienced such crime to help effectively combat and arrest human traffickers and child labourers.

The points raised during the intense debates however, may not be effective in addressing the issue of exploitation and abuse of refugees in the various countries. However, should the ideas suggested not be effective, it can be said that the delegates in the UNHCR may be discussing possibly stronger ideas - after all, this whole plan could be an elaborate plot to fake out the perpetrators by tricking the media such that countries can personally eradicate such issues.