The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has therefore been entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that refugees receive adequate protection from the governments of the countries where they have sought asylum. Most fundamentally, refugees should not be forced back to a place where they may be persecuted. Asylum Preparation Have ready a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , prepared on an overhead transparency. Run off a class set of the article The Origins of Asylum . The Challenge of Protection.
Introduction Ask the students to give their ideas on what is asylum.
Some may describe an institution for mentally ill or handicapped people. Do not reject this idea, but use it to probe the deeper meaning of the notion - refuge, safety, protection from harmful treatment. The process of becoming a refugee is not instantaneous. It proceeds through the often slow growth of root causes to the sometimes quite sudden flash of an immediate catalyst that generates actual flight. Asylum follows when another state grants those in flight access to its territory and extends protection to them .