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A refugee, according to the Geneva Convention on Refugees is a person who is outside their country of citizenship because they have well-founded grounds for fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, and is unable to obtain sanctuary from their home country or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country;〔〔 or in the case of not having a nationality and being outside their country of former habitual residence as a result of such event, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to their country of former habitual residence.〔〔 Such a person may be called an "asylum seeker" until considered with the status of "refugee" by the Contracting State〔 where they formally make a claim for sanctuary or right of asylum.〔 In UN parlance, the definition of the word has been expanded to include descendants of refugees, in the case of two specific groups: Palestinian refugees and Sahrawi refugees. Currently, the UN does not consider refugee status to be hereditary for any other groups. At the end of 2014, there were 19.5 million refugees worldwide 14.4 million under UNHCR's mandate, plus 5.1 million Palestinian refugees under UNRWA's mandate). The 14.4 million refugees under UNHCR's mandate were around 2.7 million more than at the end of 2013 (+23%), the highest level since 1995. Among them, Syrian refugees became the largest refugee group in 2014 (3.9 million, 1.55 million more than the previous year), overtaking Afghan refugees (2.6 million), who had been the largest refugee group for three decades.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=UNHCR – Global Trends –Forced Displacement in 2014 )〕 As of February 2015, Turkey has become world's biggest refugee hosting country having 2.2 million Syrian and 300.000 Iraqi refugees and had spent more than US$7.6 billion on direct assistance to refugees. Pakistan is second, hosting 1.6 million Afghan refugees.〔http://www.unhcr.org.uk/about-us/key-facts-and-figures.html, UNHCR, Facts and Figures about Refugees〕 According to the UNHCR there are 200,000 to 500,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and only 32,355 of them are registered.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.thedailystar.net/bangladeshs-rohingya-camps-promise-or-peril-52913 )〕 The religious, sectarian and denominational affiliation has been an important feature of debate in refugee-hosting nations. ==Definition== The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees has adopted the following term "refugee" to apply to any person who (in Article 1.A.2):〔 "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it."〔 This original definition with all its legacies has been criticized as based on three political framings: # "refugees have been defined in terms of those moving across nation-state borders, as if national identity excludes all other displacements of equal consequence ..."; # "the neat definition of Article 1 glides over the fine print a little further down the page that allows state signatories to choose to restrict the definition of refugees to only those who have come from Europe, and during a very particular time-period ..."; # "it gives credence to the notion that personal individualized ‘fear of being persecuted’ is the core reason for needing support. War, upheaval, famine and pestilence do not in the conventional definition make for refugee status. It does not matter that civilian deaths as a proportion of deaths in war escalated to 10% in World War I, and to more than 90% of the 40 million killed since 1945. It only matters that persons fear the persecution of their state." The concept of a refugee was expanded by the Convention's 1967 Protocol and by regional conventions in Africa and Latin America to include persons who had fled war or other violence in their home country. European Union's minimum standards definition of refugee, underlined by Art. 2 (c) of Directive No. 2004/83/EC, essentially reproduces the narrow definition of refugee offered by the UN 1951 Convention; nevertheless, by virtue of articles 2 (e) and 15 of the same Directive, persons who have fled a war-caused generalized violence are, at certain conditions, eligible for a complementary form of protection, called subsidiary protection. The same form of protection is foreseen for people who, without being refugees, are nevertheless exposed, if returned to their countries of origin, to death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatments. The term refugee is often used to include displaced persons who may fall outside the legal definition in the Convention, either because they have left their home countries because of war and not because of a fear of persecution, or because they have been forced to migrate within their home countries.〔 The Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, adopted by the Organization of African Unity in 1969, accepted the definition of the 1951 Refugee Convention and expanded it to include people who left their countries of origin not only because of persecution but also due to acts of external aggression, occupation, domination by foreign powers or serious disturbances of public order.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Refugees and Displaced Persons )〕 Refugees were defined as a legal group in response to the large numbers of people fleeing Eastern Europe following World War II. The lead international agency coordinating refugee protection is the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which counted 8,400,000 refugees worldwide at the beginning of 2006. This was the lowest number since 1980.〔(Refugees by Numbers 2006 edition ), UNHCR〕 The major exception is the 4,600,000 Palestinian refugees under the authority of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Who is a Palestine refugee? )〕 By the end of 2014, the UNHCR estimated the number of refugees to 19.5 million. The majority of refugees who leave their country seek asylum in countries neighboring their country of nationality. The "durable solutions" to refugee populations, as defined by UNHCR and governments, are: voluntary repatriation to the country of origin; local integration into the country of asylum; and resettlement to a third country.〔(Framework for Durable Solutions for Refugees and Other Persons of Concern ), UNHCR Core Group on Durable Solutions, May 2003, p. 5.〕 Although similar and frequently confused with refugees, internally displaced persons have a different legal definition and are essentially refugees who have not crossed any international border. At the end of 2012, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations' refugee agency, reported that there were 15.4 million refugees worldwide.〔 By contrast there were 38.2 million (about twice as many) IDPs at the end of 2014.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Refugee」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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