ABSTRACT
According to Article 1 of the 1951 United Nations Geneva Convention, a refugee is someone who ‘owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’ has left his or her country and is unable to return there. The majority of international refugees is from developing countries and is forced to relocate in developing countries. Leopold and Harrell-Bond, citing information from the 1991 International Council for Voluntary Agencies, suggest that a third of the world’s international refugees and half the internally displaced people may be in Africa. A much smaller number of refugees, less than 5 per cent of the number worldwide, come to Europe. The Refugee Council estimates there may be about 360,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, with about 80 per cent living in London. This group includes about 65,000 children, some of them unaccompanied minors.
