A new home...

The photo exhibition “Ukraine, a New Home” opened in the Ver­khovna Rada of Ukraine’s build­ing on June 20, marking the World Refugee Day. The exhibition will last for a fortnight, having been or­ga­ni­zed by the Office of United Na­tions High Commissioner for Re­fugees (UNHCR) and the Ver­khov­na Rada’s Committee on Human Rights, Ethnic Minorities, and Interethnic Relations.

Ukrainian parliament adopted the Law of Ukraine “On Refugees and Persons in Need of Additional or Temporary Protection” in July 2011, committing the nation to helping refugees (these are, under Ukrainian law, persons who are seeking asylum owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, creed, ethnicity, nationality, etc.) Ukraine hosted over 2,500 officially recognized refugees as of early 2013, including 107 citizens of Russia.

The Office of the UNHCR marks the World Refugee Day annually on June 20 throughout the world, aiming to raise public awareness of the plight of refugees around the world and ce­le­brate their achievements. This year’s event is dedicated to refugees who have received support under the EU Local Integration project and successfully integrated into the Ukrai­nian society. Local integration in the asylum country is one of the solutions that UNHCR provides for refugees around the world. The photo project “Ukraine, a New Home” was created to illustrate the possibility of re­fu­gees’ local integration into the Uk­rainian society. All subjects of the exhibited works were born in diffe­rent countries, differ in age and gender, creed and trade, but they share a common dream, desiring to live in peace and dignity in the country they have chosen for a new home. It is estimated that refugees who have successfully integrated into the Ukrai­nian society are contributing more than three million hryvnias per year to the state budget.

The State Migration Service of Ukraine received 1,573 applications for protection in 2012, and 152 persons were recognized as refugees or persons in need of additional protection, 53 of them coming from Afgha­nistan, 45 from Somalia, 18 from Syria, and 10 from Iraq. No other source country has more than 10 persons on this list. Looking into the CIS countries in particular, Ukraine provided protection in 2012 to six persons from Azerbaijan, one from Russia, one from Belarus, one from Kyrgyz­stan, and one more from Armenia.

The exhibition will be partly devoted to the achievements of Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian public figure who played a prominent role in helping refugees in the early 20th century. Researcher, diplomat, humanitarian, and the first High Commissioner for Refugees of the League of Nations, Fridtjof Nansen introduced international identity card, so-called “Nansen Passport,” to address the lack of identity documents, the most pressing problem for the refugees at the time. This invention allowed them not only to travel, but also to start new lives.