Refugee Pathways to Peace : Escaping the Chaos of War

In Refugee Pathways to Peace: Escaping the Chaos of War, Janet Mancini Billson provides perspectives of Vietnamese, Syrian, Congolese, Liberian, and Ukrainian refugees, and the resettlement agencies that smooth their transition into a new life context. Despite welcoming refugee policies, challenges arise in Canada’s uniquely positive context. Participants discuss how they overcome displacement and cope with the trauma of leaving home and family behind. As they craft viable new lives, refugees remain vulnerable to marginality and delays in economic independence.

Following Refugee Pathways to Freedom, Billson details how refugees are double victims of conflict and a glacially slow resettlement process, and places the refugee experience into a human rights framework. She offers recommendations for improving a global refugee system that is creaking as displacement escalates. She calls for limiting the sojourn in refugee camps to two years to help reduce negative impacts and maximize newcomer well-being. She concludes that the true “epidemic” is conflict (displacing 100,000,000 persons annually). Shifting the focus toward diplomacy and peacebuilding before minor conflicts become “hot spots” is crucial, as is streamlining refugee selection processes to reduce despair and lost years. Participants make specific policy suggestions that would enhance rather than degrade refugee well-being during resettlement.