COMMITTEE GUIDE COMMITTEE: GA2 Economical and Financial CHAIR: Imogen Sparks DEPUTY CHAIR: Finn Hetzler 1
Table of Contents Committee Guide 1 Introduction 3 Topic: Preventing the exploitation of refugees by criminal 4 organisations Regards to the issue 4 Explanation and description of key terms 4 Issue Explanation 5 Historical Background of the issue 6 Involved Parties 8 Media contribution 9 Previous attempts to resolve conflict 9 Bibliography 10 Further Reading 11 2
Introduction Honorable Delegates, My name is Finn Hetzler and I am 15 years old. I currently attend 10th grade at the International School of Stuttgart. I was born near Frankfurt and lived there for the majority of my life until 7th grade when I moved to Stuttgart. My MUN career started when I was in 7th grade as an admin at MUNISS 2015. Two years later, I became a delegate at MUNISS 2017 as well as LmunA 2017 in Arnhem. Therefore, the upcoming MUNISS conference will be my fourth overall MUN and my first chairing experience as I will be a deputy chair in GA2 alongside my chair Imogen. I am very excited to meet all delegates in my committee and will do my best to make MUNISS 2018 one of the best conferences you have attended. I hope this chair report will help you make excellent position papers. Kind Regards, Finn Hetzler 3
Topic: Preventing the exploitation of refugees by criminal organizations Regards to the issue This topic focuses on the integration of refugees into society in a way in which we can assure they do not come in contact with criminal organizations and are exploited or used by these organizations to cause harm. By preventing exploitation of refugees, challenges such as increasing crime rates and terrorist attacks should be improved. Explanation and description of key terms Exploitation: Refugee: Criminal Organisations: organised Crime: Perpetrator: UNHCR: The action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. 1 A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. 2 Group that carries out organised crime more than one time. Crime perpetrated by criminals with the intent of engaging in Illegal activity for mostly financial or political reasons. A person or group that carries out a harmful, illegal, or immoral act. 3 The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, tasked with ensuring protection of refugees. 4 1 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/exploitation 2 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/refugee 3 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/perpetrator 4 http://www.unhcr.org/ 4
Issue Explanation: The European Refugee Crisis is a term given to the period of time starting in 2015 in which there was a sudden increase in refugees arriving into the European Union from predominantly Middle-Eastern countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. It is estimated that alone in 2015, when the crisis started, there were over 1,300,000 asylum applicants in the EU. The UNHCR estimates there are currently 22.5 million refugees worldwide which is the highest figure ever recorded. 5 With this enormous wave of refugees entering Europe, security has become a more severe issue as criminal organisations use the situation to their advantage and engage in increased illegal activity by recruiting the often easily influenceable refugees. Crime abundance ranging in severity from theft to assault to murder have all been influenced by the increase in refugees flooding countries often without papers needed for an asylum. Some statistics from the BKA (German Federal Criminal Police Office) regarding crime in relation to immigration in Germany: 6 - Between January and June 2017 there were a total of 133 800 cases of attempted and completed offenses in which a minimum of one suspect was an immigrant (down from 139 600 cases in the six months prior) - Out of these cases - 30% were counterfeiting - 24% were assaults - 22% were theft - 0.14% were murders (237 cases) - In the same six month period there were also 46 100 cases in which an immigrant was the victim of a crime This topic seeks to prevent the exploitation of refugees by criminal organisations. The measures currently undertaken are not sufficient to ensure the safety of both refugees who are being exploited and the victims of crimes involving exploited refugees. Therefore, we will aim to come up with a resolution sophisticated enough to be able to minimize this issue. 5 http://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html 6 https://www.bka.de/de/home/home_node.html 5
Historical Background of the Issue History of Refugees The first international attempt at managing refugee affairs was made when the League of Nations created the High Commission for Refugees (now UNHCR) in 1921 shortly following the end of the First World War. It was created to assist over 1.5 million people fleeing from Russia after their revolution in 1917. Throughout history, large groups of refugees tend to form either after a large scale political change such as the population exchange between Greece and Turkey or a war or period of violence such as the one million refugees leaving Armenia between 1915 and 1923 who fled from a series of events known as the Armenian Genocides. The most infamous example of refugees was a combination of both when over a period of six years almost 300 000 Jews escaped from Nazi Germany and 117 000 more from Austria. 7 By the end of World War II there were approximately 40 million refugees in Europe, which was the highest figure ever recorded until now. To combat this enormous amount the Allies created the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) which managed to return over seven million refugees. For all the refugees refusing to return to their country of origin the UNRRA created so-called displaced persons camps. After Germany had been split, the single largest population transfer in history occurred as 15 million Germans were deported mostly into East Germany under the rule of the Soviet Union. However, seeing as conditions were substantially better in West Germany under the rule of the France, America and Britain, between the end of the war and the erection of the Berlin Wall over 500 000 Germans migrated to West Germany in the hopes of getting asylum. 8 Finally, on December 14th 1950 the UNRRA, which had changed its name to the International Refugee Organization (IRO) in the years prior became the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which is still in charge of all issue to do with refugees to this day. It started off with an annual budget of $300 000 back in 1950, which has since risen all the way to $7.7 billion in 2017. 9 7 https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?moduleid=10005468 8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/refugee#history 9 http://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html 6
History of Violence by Refugees Sicily, a island in southern Italy is one of the regions most affected by waves of refugees who arrive by boat. Alone in 2015 and 2016 it is estimated over 400 000 migrants came to Sicily, which is a region well-known for its history of organized crime especially through the Italian mafia Cosa Nostra. The mafia uses the large amount of refugees to enrich themselves by bribing officials to secure contracts with which they are permitted to accommodate refugees. For each refugee that stays in one of the many refugee camps near Sicily they then earn $37.50 from government subsidies. To ensure maximum profit is achieved they build as many camps as they can and keep the refugees in the camps as long as possible so they continually receive funding in the millions from the government. Additionally, they exploit refugees (especially Nigerians with previous gang-affiliations) and give them incentives for engaging in illegal activity such as drug-dealing or even prostitution. 10 The second problem which has become more prevalent as single-children and mothers flee to Europe is trafficking, which has affected 10 000 out of 96 000 single children that claimed asylum in Europe in 2015. These children have dropped off the radar of official agencies meaning they most likely either died or have fallen to criminal gangs and child trafficking. The benefit of trafficking children specifically for these gangs include that they are both easy manipulated and can be replaced if they were to get prosecuted or die. Once the children are recruited by criminal organizations the most common way in which they are misused is either forced labor or sex-trafficking. Even though in 2015 there were 250 traffickers arrested the majority of crimes involving refugees ends not with the trafficker getting punished but rather the refugee under the influence of the criminal organization. 11 10 https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2017/08/01/the-real-migrant-crime-wave-mafiaexploitation-of-migrants-in-sicily 11 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/19/human-traffickers-using-migration-crisis-to-forcemore-people-into-slavery 7
Involved Parties Organizations and Bodies of the UN - UNICEF They continue to advocate for governments to do more to prevent child trafficking and want child protection to be introduced or established systems to be strengthened - UNHCR The body of the UN responsible for everything to do with Refugees including their protection and voluntary repatriation. - Save the Children Focus on ensuring children including refugees are able to grow up healthy, get education and stay safe. - RefugeeOne They resettle hundreds of refugees fleeing war, persecution, violence, and genocide from around the world. Countries - Syria The country with the most refugees having fled with a total of over 5 million refugees. - Afghanistan Country with the second most refugees having fled at around 3 million. - Turkey Country that currently holds most total refugees at approximately 2.8 million which accounts for 3.5% of the total population. - Germany The country with most asylum-applications by refugees at around 1.8 million since 2008, more than three times as many as France who are second within the EU at just over 500 000. 8
Media Contribution The media has been offering mostly biased accounts on the events within the refugee crisis and have reported on crime involving refugees more than crime against refugees. Statistics on refugees found in reports are often unreliable due to them being produced only for the sake of becoming a headline story, however there are also articles which simply portray the facts as they are. It is difficult not to give a biased account on an issue as controversial as the refugee crisis, however articles often condemn any violence they write about involving refugees no matter if a refugee was on the receiving end or if he was the perpetrator. Previous Attempts to resolve conflict To resolve issues involving large waves of refugees after the Second World War, the UN created an official branch dealing specifically with refugees which is the UNHCR. Therefore a large waves of refugees is something that has occurred before even with similar numbers, however, the problem of criminal organizations exploiting refugees is an issue not present in the previous crises and therefore has been combated only in the past few years as it has become more and more prevalent. UNICEF has put forth an advocacy brief outlining some of the possible things that can be done to limit the amount of refugees affected by criminal exploitation. At the end of this brief they list recommendations such as speeding up family reunification, extending commitments towards resettling for refugee children, increasing transnational collaboration with regards to refugee protection, offering long term support for those in need of assistance and not prosecuting children who become victims of the system of trafficking. 12 12 https://www.unicef.org/eca/exploitation_trafficking_advocacy_2.pdf 9
Bibliography BKA. Startseite. BKA - Startseite, www.bka.de/de/home/home_node.html. English Dictionary, Thesaurus, & Grammar Help Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford Dictionaries English, Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/. Ford, Hayden. The Real Migrant Crime Wave: Mafia Exploitation of Migrants in Sicily. Refugees, News Deeply, 1 Aug. 2017, www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2017/08/01/the-real-migrant-crime-wavemafia-exploitation-of-migrants-in-sicily. German Jewish Refugees, 1933 1939. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?moduleid=10005468. Rankin, Jennifer. Human Traffickers 'Using Migration Crisis' to Force More People into Slavery. The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 May 2016, www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/19/human-traffickers-using-migration-crisis-toforce-more-people-into-slavery. Refugee. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Jan. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/refugee. UNICEF. Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe. UNICEF, UN, www.unicef.org/eca/exploitation_trafficking_advocacy_2.pdf+. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. From Refugee to Friend: Hosting Refugees a 'Win-Win' for Some in UK. UNHCR News, www.unhcr.org/. 10
Further Reading https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/01/unaccompanied-young-refugeeseurope-traffickers http://www.unhcr.org/protection/operations/4ae1a1099/human-trafficking-refugeeprotection-unhcrs-perspective.html https://www.cfr.org/blog/sex-trafficking-and-refugee-crisis-exploiting-vulnerable 11