This online handbook is for United Church members who want to sponsor a refugee or a refugee family. It discusses some of the benefits and some of the problems of sponsoring refugees. The handbook provides an introduction to the subject. For more information, see the list of sources . According to international law, refugees are people who fear persecution if they stay in their country or return to it.
Refugees are different from immigrants.
They have experienced persecution and possibly torture. Women and girls, in particular, are vulnerable to various forms of abuse. Over half of the world's refugees are female. They may have stayed for a long time in another country, the country of first asylum, while their future was being decided. They are exiles from their homeland, and they have to work through the trauma of exile.