AMMAN — Over 80,000 refugees have left Jordan through resettlement opportunities to
23 countries since 2003, however Jordan is still the second-largest
refugee-hosting country in the world relative to its population, according to
the
UNHCR.
اضافة اعلان
There are at least 600,000
Syrian refugees
registered with the UN in addition to about 2 million from Palestine and a few
thousand from other countries.
The UNHCR’s latest update, posted on its website,
clarified the three reasons for refugees to seek resettlement places in third
countries were: educational scholarships, labor mobility schemes, and family
reunification.
Lilly Carlisle, the UNHCR Jordan spokesperson, told
Jordan
News that the resettlement procedure happens annually with third countries
offering openings and criteria to the UNHCR, followed by negotiations over whether
the criteria are hard to meet or if capacity can be increased.
Carlisle said that there are 5,000 resettlement
opportunities in 2022, with placements in 11 countries, and that the refugees
are chosen based on eligibility for the criteria of the third country and the
vulnerability of each case separately.
... every year only 1 percent of refugees globally have the opportunity to resettle elsewhere.
“Usually, any refugee has three solutions globally:
resettlement, return, or integration. Sadly in Jordan the integration solution
is not valid since the rules for granting citizenship don’t apply for refugees
in many cases,” Carlisle said.
UNHCR Jordan Representative Dominik Bartsch, in
comments to local media outlets, said that every year only 1 percent of
refugees globally have the opportunity to resettle elsewhere. While this makes
it harder to offer such pathways to refugees, they often contribute to sharing
the international responsibility of supporting refugees.
Ala’a Alkurdi, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee who came
to Jordan in 2013 with her family from
Daraa, expressed anger at the fact that
she might lose the opportunity of coming back to Jordan if she decided to
return to Syria, as she would only be able to come back on a tourist visa but
not as a refugee.
“We can’t even go on a holiday, which doesn’t make
any sense even if you consider refugees temporary residents,” Alkurdi said.
Carlisle told
Jordan News that any refugee
around the world who decides to leave the asylum country is no longer
considered a refugee. However, she added, that if it can be established that
that there is still an ongoing persecution of the person in his or her original
country then they can “definitely reapply” to the UNHCR to be granted
permission to return to Jordan.
She added that the UNHCR can consult on a refugees
case if they decide to return home but confirmed that upon departing Jordan
they would no longer be considered refugees.
Former minister and economist
Jawad Anani told
Jordan
News that the return or resettlement of refugees has an effect on the
Jordanian economy, but he emphasized that the effect might be minimal since
refugees who resettle in a third country were probably not included in the
local labor pool, either due to the low employment rate or intense competition
in labor market.
“As for refugee investors in Jordan, they are less likely to
consider going back to their original country, especially since Jordan offers
citizenship for those who meet the requirements,” he added.
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