Refugees and the right to communicate

Pradip Thomas

The workshop, which brought together thirty communicators from 13 countries, addressed refugee’s right to information and communication.

In his opening address, the Deputy Minister for Information and Communication, Mr Webby Chipili, while acknowledging the validity of this right, told participants that Zambia did not have any mechanisms in place to protect refugees right to information and communication.
Africa hosts 13.5 million refugees, a staggering figure by any count. They have been the victims of civil and political conflicts, of genocide, of apartheid, of conflicts over land.

Refugees, along with internally displaced people, rank among the most vulnerable and marginalised people in our world today.
Resettlement is a fraught process and there are few countries that welcome new arrivals. This often leads to refugees taking desperate measures including hazardous journeys. Their vulnerability is exploited by traffickers, and women and children in particular are often the targets for sexual abuse. Refugees are located in isolated camps in remote areas. Their stories are rarely, if ever, told.

Media representations of refugees are routinely negative, even xenophobic. Refugees are denied basic rights to their freedom of expression, access to information in a language of their choice, and to community media.

We believe that the right to information and communication is a prior right, a prerequisite in the struggles for other essential human rights. Yet, in the case of refugees, this right has been ignored in national laws and international treaties. The freedom of expression of refugees is often seen as a threat to the stability of host nations. And it would seem that there are tacit agreements between nations prohibiting the substantive exercise of this right.

The silencing of a people is an altogether familiar strain in the history of nations. And it is therefore not surprising that stories of exile figure in the great stories of faith. Christ lived as a refugee and his freedom to express was often curtailed by those who wielded ecclesiastical and political power in his time.

The story of humanity is a story of wanderings and today, given the many conflicts in this region, we are reminded that the line between rootedness and rootlessness is tenuous. Stability is by no means a
permanent feature of life.

As Christian communicators we are called upon to make a response that is grounded in a ‘theology of exile’. We believe that it is important to enable the information/communication rights of refugees and their freedom of expression and strengthen their capacities as communicators.

Participants recommended that WACC-AR take on key media responsibilities linked to the strengthening of the information/communication rights of refugees.
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It was apt that the workshop was held in Zambia, a country that has been a host to refugees for centuries. The current crisis in Zimbabwe, particularly its human cost, was a reminder to participants that the refugee crisis is a constant factor of life in Southern Africa. The workshop was sponsored by the World Association for Christian
Communication ( WACC) – Africa Region, the Africa Literature Center, Kitwe, and the WACC.

The workshop was preceded by an event that was held in Nairobi in June 2001 that dealt with the information rights of refugees in the Horn of Africa. There are plans for two more workshops on the theme – covering the Great Lakes region and West Africa.

WACC-AR calls upon all faith based and concerned communicators in this region to join hands in the task of empowering refugees to tell their stories.