Colombian child rights defender wins UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award
This year’s laureate of the Nansen Refugee Award – a humanitarian prize given annually by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency – is an educator who has spent more than 20 years rescuing sexually exploited and trafficked children, many of them refugees. Mayerlín...
Hardships multiply for older refugees amid COVID-19 pandemic
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Despite suffering knee problems and hypertension, 69-year-old Nicaraguan asylum-seeker Esperanza* used to get up at dawn every day to pick coffee to support her family in Costa Rica. “Being old makes it hard to do the kinds of jobs we have to do...
Colombian woman devotes life to helping sexually exploited children heal
Mayerlín Vergara Pérez wins Nansen Refugee Award for her work helping young survivors of sexual violence, many of them refugees, rebuild their lives. By Jenny Barchfield Mayerlín Vergara Pérez sleeps with her phone on the pillow. As the director of a home for dozens...
UN agencies hail milestone as over 1000 asylum seekers relocated from Greece so far this year through EU initiative
Athens, Brussels, Geneva – The Government of Greece, together with IOM, the International Organization for Migration, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund today (30-09) welcomed the relocation of 139 asylum seekers to Germany, which...
UNHCR and some 100 NGOs urge world not to leave refugees behind in COVID-19 responses
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), today called on global leaders to ensure that refugees are included in social safety nets and support services for COVID-19 and stressed the need for stronger integration of refugees...
Nansen Refugee Award laureate responds to COVID-19 in South Sudan
Dr. Evan Atar Adaha, the 2018 Nansen Refugee Award winner, is helping refugees and their hosts in a remote region of South Sudan curb the spread of COVID-19. By Mary-Sanyu Osire in Bunj, South Sudan and Catherine Wachiaya in Nairobi, Kenya The Bunj hospital in South...
UNHCR urges more support for refugee higher education to withstand impact of COVID-19 pandemic
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today’s press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. With only three per cent of refugees accessing higher education, UNHCR, the UN Refugee...
For survivors of childhood sexual violence, a second chance in Colombia
Since it opened its doors 32 years ago, Fundación Renacer has worked to give children and teens who have endured sexual violence the tools they need to rebuild their lives. By Jenny Barchfield Jessica* does not talk about her childhood often because, on the rare...