Throughout the past year, I was constantly reminded of physical distancing, staying indoors, and avoiding travel due to COVID-19. Education, socialization, and practically every aspect of our lives turned virtual. However, the multitude of challenges that the pandemic and the online nature of the year posed were exponentially worse for refugees and migrant families. At its core, this year forced people to stay home and assumed a stable home work environment for education and jobs, but what happened to those still finding a home?

The main challenges refugee families face are two-fold: a higher risk of contracting the virus and finding a new place to call home after the hardships they faced. Refugees and displaced people are among the most marginalized groups with limited access to health facilities, insurance, or proper care. In addition, lack of resources and poor economic situations make it impossible for families in refugee camps to practice social distancing. 

Refugee camps are not a self-sufficient environment, they are dependent on an inflow of supplies, services, and resources as well as external job opportunities that residents of the camp seek to support themselves and their families. Therefore, restricting movement in and out of camps is difficult and even harmful to the families’ access to work. Creating a safe environment for refugees - from a physical health perspective - requires significant support from organizations and host countries, a goal that was already challenging before a global pandemic. 

Given the ongoing challenges posed by COVID-19 and remembering the + 4 million lives claimed by the pandemic, we need to think carefully about our next steps and returning to our “normal” lives. While the United States might be witnessing a decrease in deaths and infections nationally, there are refugee communities within the country and around the world that are still experiencing hardships due to the virus we might never understand. Even actions as simple as the luxury of social distancing are unavailable to countless communities so we must still stand together, even if we are no longer experiencing the direct effects of the pandemic, to defeat it as a global community. 

Sources:

https://covid19.who.int

https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/coronavirus-covid-19.html

https://www.unicef.org/migrant-refugee-internally-displaced-children#migration-covid-pandemic

https://www.rescue.org/article/refugees-do-not-have-luxury-social-distancing