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Refugee Research Online

Spreading knowledge, not fear. While our contributors’ fields of interests converge, their knowledge, experience and perspectives vary.

Refugee Research Online is an independent website offering a platform for academic and non-academic discussion on issues surrounding people seeking asylum and refugees. It is edited by Ashleigh Haw and Mark Justin Rainey with support from the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, The University of Melbourne. We believe it’s vitally important for knowledge sharing across the entire sector and discipli

nes throughout Australia and beyond to better inform and empower people seeking asylum and refugees, and their advocates. The primary audience is people working with people seeking asylum and refugee issues in academia, the non-government sector, the wider sector community, and the various levels of government, as well as advocates of people seeking asylum and refugees, consultants, and, importantly, the general public.

09/06/2026

"Awareness is slowly dawning as to how the U.S. government utilized Religious Resettlement Agencies and affiliate religious communities to perpetuate what Karl Marx called a “reserve army” of the unemployed in an unjust replacement cycle of relocation and deportation of vulnerable workers. In Spring 2025, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Church World Service, and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to end their government partnerships by the end of the year in response to the Trump administration freezing current resettlements and ending multiple refugee aid programs while fast-tracking a group of South African farmers to skip the line. The belief that American workers will fill the jobs left by blocked migration and mass deportation of TPS workers while the government also eliminates collective bargaining power and slaughterhouse inspectors is a fiction with which many states are coming to terms, since it will likely lead to corporate automation and the continued death of small- and medium-size farming operations."

Starting in the 1980s U.S. religious organizations began to take over the government’s role in resettling refugees, often in dangerous and underpaid slaughterhouse and meatpacking jobs. The Refugee Act of 1980 reshaped U.S. policy toward refugees by aligning it with international standards, creati...

28/05/2026

"Cooperation between local police agencies and federal immigration enforcement has increasingly blurred the lines between immigration enforcement and policing, and added to confusion and fear among survivors."

Heightened immigration enforcement across the United States has created a dangerous environment for immigrant survivors of gender-based violence whose fear of deportation or arrest by immigration enforcement prevents them from reporting abuse. This threatens the well-being of victims while contribut...

22/05/2026

"What we were living through was not unique. Across Pakistan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that Afghan refugee children in Pakistan are deprived of essential services such as food, clean water, shelter, and protection. The IOM reports that since 2023, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been forced to return, pushing already vulnerable families deeper into poverty. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch emphasizes that many refugees live under constant fear of arrest, with limited access to work, housing, and basic safety."

The walls of exile echo with silence, but inside that silence, hunger, fear, and survival scream loudly. In refugee settlements across Pakistan, hunger gnaws at bellies, shelters are makeshift, and work is a privilege. For Afghan refugees, food, shelter, and dignity are not rights, but distant dream...

14/05/2026

"It can be argued that Türkiye’s relatively open legal frameworks compared to other Middle Eastern or European Union countries, and its investments in refugee access to employment, health care, and education enabled greater economic participation and resilience among Syrian refugees, albeit imperfectly. Jordan’s approach, by contrast, prioritized containment and short-term humanitarian relief over integration, resulting in widespread poverty, informal labor, and systemic dependency among refugee populations. This poses the question: how can host states design refugee policies that promote long-term economic self-sufficiency rather than entrenching poverty, informality, and dependence on humanitarian aid?"

In a world where an increasing number of people are displaced for longer periods, safety from violence is only the first step toward a life of dignity. When refugees are denied meaningful access to work, education, and social services, they remain trapped in cycles of dependency that undermine both....

22/04/2026

"These cases reveal more than isolated incidents of misconduct. They point to common practices of extraterritorial repression. Security agencies operate through informal networks, bilateral arrangements, and intelligence-sharing mechanisms that blur the line between lawful extradition and clandestine rendition. Transnational repression in the Horn of Africa thus functions more as a shared regional security norm—one that prioritizes regime survival over due process, undermines asylum protections, and weakens the integrity of international human rights law."

Domestic repression and human rights abuses are well documented across the Horn of Africa, yet cross-border repression remains underexamined despite growing evidence of systematic transnational operations—including abductions, enforced disappearances, and refoulements—that violate international ...

21/04/2026

"China historically has enjoyed significant influence in Myanmar’s domestic affairs, including during the recent civil war. While China has repeatedly pushed for repatriating refugees, its efforts to repatriate Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh back to Myanmar have largely failed to culminate in significant refugee returns; China’s refusal to denounce Myanmar’s cruelty ironically undermines repatriation efforts, preventing concessions that would allow Rohingya refugees to return under safe and voluntary conditions."

Introduction How do China’s geopolitical actions and aspirations impact Myanmar’s domestic politics, particularly regarding the Rohingya refugee crisis? Taking a closer look at China’s historical and present-day relations with Myanmar, including the actions it has taken geopolitically, and the...

17/04/2026

"The truth is cruel to Afghan refugee families. Murtaza Ahmadi is an Afghan educator in Pakistan who estimates that close to 60 percent of the refugee children do not go to school, not because they are not interested, but because survival comes first. Human Rights Watch cautions that the deportation policies in Pakistan increase the vulnerability of the population as many children end up being unable attend schools. Even worse, girls have additional difficulties because they are often restricted to their homes due to safety issues. However, there is still hope and the volunteers from The Tree of knowledge are educating children in small rooms, under tin roofs and in courtyards."

In August 2021, my family had to leave our Kabul home, and all that was familiar to us, when Taliban came back to power. At this time, I was a student at high school, and I wanted to follow my dream of becoming a doctor, because I thought that education would protect me within a

13/04/2026

"Internally Displaced Persons' [IDP] protection under international law is minimal at best. Instead, the protection of IDPs “is the sole responsibility of national governments, which brings additional challenges because they are facing war, conflict, or intense violence”. Therefore, the government of Colombia has an obligation to protect the welfare and safety of IDPs throughout the State. The government of Colombia needs to institute policies to combat the structural violence that initiated and perpetuates the internal displacement crisis."

Housing as a Human Right Housing is recognized as an essential element of human dignity. Article 25 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights affirms that everyone has the right to “a standard of living adequate for health and well-being,” including housing. The International Covenant on...

05/02/2026

"As a society, we must focus on actionable items we can do currently to help prevent more vulnerabilities for an already vulnerable population. We must add protections for refugees in the Palermo Protocol and expand the definition of persecution in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Most importantly, we must humanize these issues as no one should be forced into suffering while looking for security."

This blog piece from, M.A student Meaghan Phillips, is calling for the expansion of the definition of persecution within the 1951 Refugee Convention and for protections to be added to the Palermo Protocol. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------...

21/01/2026

Refugee Research Online is proud to announce our partnership with Refugee Education Australia. REA is a national charity dedicated to transforming educational outcomes for people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds across all levels of learning—from early childhood through to higher education. Their support is helping RRO grow as a trusted, global reference point for forced migration research.

We are looking forward to the year ahead with REA and more content, comment and discussion on Refugee Research Online.

Refugee Research Online (RRO) exists to make critical scholarship accessible—connecting researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and community advocates working in forced migration and refugee education. As an open platform, we share research-informed insights and diverse voices that deepen under...

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