“We can not avert our eyes or turn our backs”.
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“To slam the door in the face of these families would betray our deepest values”, he said. Their participation was conditional on making new commitments to address the global crisis.
World leaders at the NY summit agreed to resettle twice as many refugees in the coming year, increase funding for humanitarian aid, provide education to a million refugee children and help one million refugees work legally.
For the president today, a moment on the world stage at the United Nations one last time, his message no less than an urgent plea to make a better world.
All told, the pledges will allow more than 350,000 refugees to flee their war-torn homes in 2017 and seek a fresh start elsewhere.
Countries also boosted financial contributions to United Nations appeals and worldwide humanitarian organizations by about $4.5 billion over 2015 levels.
Power said there were also pledges to increase the number of refugees in schools by some 1 million globally. While the summit produced a number of welcome concrete commitments, Human Rights First notes that these steps fall far short of addressing the current and acutely pressing global need.
As the world faces the largest refugee crisis since World War II, an astonishing 3.7 million refugee children around the globe are now out of school. As President Obama himself acknowledged, governments must build on the momentum achieved at this summit to finish the job of meeting the needs of all 21.3 million refugees who have been forced to flee in search of safety.
The millions of refugees leaving war-torn Syria and other countries wracked by conflict have led to a backlash in some countries, including in the US, where Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested banning Muslim immigrants.
In a subtle reference to her opponent, Donald Trump, Mr Obama bemoaned how terrorist networks had spread their ideology on social media, spurring anger toward “innocent immigrants and Muslims”. “That’s our Syrian refugee problem”.
“And so these are real problems, and as leaders of democratic governments make the case for democracy overseas, we better strive harder to set a better example at home”.
“It speaks volumes that one individual has pledged more than more than China, the world’s most populous and second wealthiest country, which pledged US$300 million”, said Salil Shetty. This is the same strategy as is employed in countries neighbouring Syria, namely Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, to deter refugees from travelling on to Europe.
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Six of the world’s richest countries – the United States, China, Japan, Britain, Germany and France – hosted only 1.8 million refugees past year, just seven percent of the world total, according to research by the British charity Oxfam.
