Ambassador supports call for Global Compact on Refugees

Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan, delivered Fiji’s statement at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Executive Committee Meeting in Geneva this week.

She said that Fiji supported the call of the High Commissioner for support for a Global Compact on Refugees which was based on humane, comprehensive and solutions-oriented engagement in relation to those who were forcibly displaced.

Ambassador Khan added that migration involved a close interdependent relationship between development and human rights.

She said that the Pacific region was facing the emerging issue of climate displaced people and the situation needed to consider how to offer adequate protection to those whose land and sea resources could no longer sustain human habitation and life.

She also told the UNHCR of the experience of the displacement of the Vunidogaloa Village in Fiji and of the fears of the community of the loss of spiritual and cultural identity as assault of the displacement. She spoke of the relevance of the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and of Fiji’s commitment to ensuring that this would provide the framework of Fiji’s own draft Relocation Guidelines, as they focus on community participation, human rights and inclusiveness.