Currently, the world is witnessing unprecedented forced displacement due to conflict, persecution, and human rights violations. As of today, there are 22.5 million refugees. The sheer scale of the refugee crisis poses unparalleled humanitarian, economic, and political challenges in an already fragile region. The refugee crisis has been a part of our earth for multiple decades. However, the number of refugees fleeing war-torn or oppressive dictatorships is rapidly increasing. Due to the military crackdown on innocent Rohingya citizens and the Syrian civil war, many countries are now faced with a pressing moral obligation to take in these refugees. This influx of helpless refugees begs the controversial question-should neighbouring countries accept these refugees?
Refugees face myriad of problems such as limited access to food, education, and safety-most of which will be solved if another country were to open their borders to them. Thus, many claim that neighbouring countries should always be willing to host refugees. Proponents of this claim argue that governments, being in a position of power, have a moral obligation to allow innocent and helpless refugees to enter their country to help relieve them of their suffering. Moreover, they believe that a government should do everything in its power to ensure that the lives of refugees who made it to their country are safe and relatively comfortable. Those who believe that it is only humane to accept refugees into one’s country in a humanitarian crisis site the Rohingya refugees as their prime example. In recent months, brutal campaigns of widespread indiscriminate killing of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar, has led to 500,000 Rohingya pouring into neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh. After news of innocent and helpless Rohingya being killed spread worldwide, members of the international community urged neighbouring countries to temporary shelter these refugees. They also condemned the violence unleashed on Rohingya civilians and voiced sharp criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate and de-facto Burmese leader for not doing enough to protect the Rohingya. Many believe that the world’s most persecuted minority lead a better and more peaceful life as refugees in Indonesia or Bangladesh as compared to when they were living in Myanmar. Some people feel that every country should respond to a humanitarian crisis in accordance to their ability to handle refugees. Furthermore, countries ought to host refugees and temporarily sideline problems such as socio-economic integration of refugees and lack of financial resources.
Moreover, it has become increasingly clear that humanitarian assistance must be paired with development interventions that can begin to respond to the scope, long-term nature, and socio-economic impacts of the refugee crisis, which is now a serious global matter. In fact, ssuccessful economic integration can help fiscal sustainability for the host country. ...
