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Human Rights Quarterly 24.1 (2002) 51-85



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Can Humanitarian Work with Refugees be Humane?

Barbara Harrell-Bond


Exile is the eruption whose lava stream carries you away
Exile is the warning example to those who
Still have their homes, who belong.
But will you take heed of the warning?
Exile is the escape that is often worse than the prison 1

I. Introduction

This article highlights one dimension of the provision of humanitarian aid, the interactions between "helpers" and refugees in contexts where refugees [End Page 51] are dependent for their survival on assistance distributed by humanitarian organizations. 2 There is much evidence that the treatment meted out to refugees by too many of those delegated to help them is such that it can only be described as "inhuman." 3 This topic is not usually talked about, but the awareness of its ubiquity causes serious personal disquiet and uneasy consciences amongst many who work for these organizations.

This paper will review a number of attempts to explain such behavior and review some solutions that have been proposed. It will be argued that until refugees have access to effective legal remedies, humanitarian assistance will continue to be inhumanely delivered to refugees. In short, what is needed is a "rights-based humanitarianism" that goes beyond "private charity or governmental largess." This approach is not about discretionary assistance when the mood for benevolence takes us. It is about defending, advocating and securing enjoyment of human rights. It also implies a shift from seeing beneficiaries of humanitarian aid as "victims" to be pitied, to survivors of adversity--who often demonstrate unimaginable strength and dignity in the most adverse circumstance. 4

Daring to raise the question, "Can humanitarian work with refugees be humane?," is much like "sending mother's apple pie to the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for chemical analysis or turning the family dog over to medical research." 5 However, as we shall see, assistance to refugees is [End Page 52] conceived of in terms of charity rather than as a means of enabling refugees to enjoy their rights. There are insufficient resources to meet needs, with the power to decide their allocation placed in the hands of humanitarian workers who have no responsibility to consider the views of those for whom they are intended. As a consequence, both humanitarian workers and refugees are "trapped" in asymmetrical relationships in a structure in which accountability is skewed in the direction of the donors who pay for the assistance, 6 rather than the refugees. As one United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) management consultant acknowledged, "We work for no other organization in the political, governmental, or commercial world which has such an absence of mechanisms for determining citizen or consumer satisfaction." 7

The purpose of this paper is to examine these and other "political" forces at work that lead some humanitarians to take actions which, in the particular context, may appear completely reasonable to them, but which not only fail to uphold the dignity of the people they purport to serve, but positively violate their rights. 8 As Foucault put it, "the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticize them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight them." 9 After all, what happens in these personal interactions between humanitarians and refugees at the micro-level can be a "microcosm for the ill-starred relations between (western) humanitarian 'charity' and its target populations. What goes wrong at this level both reflects and affects (infects) what is wrong at the macro level." 10

The post-flight refugee experience typically includes a series of events and encounters with many different actors and institutions that are uniquely stressful and take place in a variety of contexts. They begin with the challenge of getting in--past border patrols and immigration officers. In these situations refugees may also be subjected to cruel and inhuman...

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