A Brief Explainer On The Refugee Crisis For The Man Who Needs It The Most, Donald Trump

Thousands of people are protesting across America including Washington DC and New York against the ban imposed by President Donald Trump after he signed an executive order on Friday, which temporarily stops people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering America and indefinitely bans Syrians.

People are chanting ¡°no walls¡± ¡°no Muslim ban¡± with their arms punching the air, and hands holding posters with slogans ¡°no hate, no fear, refugees are welcome¡±.

Reuters

This nefarious ban is an exemplification of power in its cruellest form. There are millions of displaced refugees fleeing war and/or persecution in their home country, who were forced to look at international waters and borders for support. Placing a blanket ban on certain people because of the supposed ¡°threat¡± they might hold, President Donald Trump is disrupting the life of common people just looking to start afresh.

We have collated a few simple facts for Donald Trump in case they exited his memory while he sat in the Oval Office, pen in hand and signed that piece of paper that led to hundreds of lives to hang in limbo.

Number of displaced people in the world

Reuters

Forced displacement reached the highest level recorded in 2015 as a result of global conflicts and persecution, according to the UN Refugee agency, UNHCR. At the end of that year, for the first time the world surpassed the 60 million displaced people mark with 65.3 million people displaced globally.

UNHCR contrasted this figure against the total population of Earth and found that one in every 113 people is either an asylum seeker, a refugee or internally displaced. The impact of displacement runs deep from the education of children being halted to malnutrition because of a steady access to food. The people who are knocking on America¡¯s door are doing so because they have run out of options in their home country.

Children make up more than half of the world's refugees

Reuters

According to a report released by UNICEF in September 2016, children constitute more than half of the world¡¯s refugees even though they account for less than a third of the world¡¯s population. Displaced children are at the risk of a number of abuses that includes human smuggling and trafficking.

The report also says that worldwide 50 million children have either migrated to another country or been internally displaced, and 28 million of these have been forced to flee because of conflict in their home state. As is often said, today¡¯s children are tomorrow¡¯s future and by denying them the opportunity to live a life without conflict, then we are also denying them the opportunity to be educated and shape their being that will, in turn, contribute to shaping the world.

Persecuted Yazidis

Reuters

One of hundreds of those affected by the blanket ban on people from majority Muslim countries was a Yazidi woman from Iraq. UN officials have said that so-called Islamic State is committing acts of genocide against Yazidis, a religious minority group, in Iraq and Syria. The UN report also said that IS is trying to ¡°erase the identity¡± of this group and no other cohort has suffered such violent atrocities.

Strengthening Islamic State's propaganda

euroculturer

The lens through which so-called Islamic State sells its propaganda is that America is war with Islam ¨C at war with Muslims. President Donald Trump, by placing a ban on Syria, Somalia and Iraq, among others, is helping IS strengthen their propaganda. And by showing a bias towards Christians fleeing from the list of banned countries, Trump is subtly spreading the message that he, and by extension, America doesn¡¯t care for Muslims as much as it does for people of other religions.

If we are to step into the realm of conjecture, then Trump¡¯s ban can be used by IS in the future, near of far, to recruit more people who might be feeling disillusioned.

America waged or supported war in some countries from where people are fleeing

Reuters

Ironically America, whose head has barred people fleeing either war or persecution from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Sudan from entering, is the very country that has either instigated or supported war or violence in some of those nations. Iraq¡¯s status quo is a result of the war led by America in 2003 in their quest to find so-called weapons of mass destruction, which since then has been proved false.

In the case of Yemen, a war that has largely gone unreported in the country is inconspicuously supported by America because it sells weapons to Saudi Arabia and is not in the interest of the nation to bring the plight of Yemeni people to notice because it would place them in a contradictory position.

Reuters

The protests across America against this ban provide solace and hope that the people do not believe in the ideals that President Trump is propagating. A democracy, after all, can only work if people actively participate in politics. American people must continue to uphold the values they stand for, which includes equality for all no matter their gender, sexuality, race or religion.