A Land to Call Home

I am the last of the five that you've not yet heard from! My name is Stephanie and I am volunteering at the Regional Human Security Centre as a researcher. Human security is an emerging paradigm that places the individual, not the State, at the center of the security issue. "To protect the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfillment" lies at the heart of human security.

As this is a relatively new area of study for me, I've spent the last month or so reading everything I can get my hands on regarding human security and forced migration. Forced migration is the area in which I will be conducting my research, specifically looking at what the repercussions of displacement have been on the family lives of Iraqi children displaced in Jordan. I am looking forward to being able to have conversations with Iraqi children and families and hear their stories.

I was invited by one of my colleagues at the Centre to join her on a trip to the Gaza Refugee Camp, north of Amman near Jerash. I jumped at the opportunity to go, welcoming the chance to move from behind my desk to see and encounter the reality of what refugees experience every day. It's one thing to read about the issues, it's another to see the effects.

As we drove out to the camp, I learned some of the history of this particular refugee camp. In the words of my fellow researcher… "During the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, Palestinians flooded into Gaza to escape the fighting. Gaza came under Egyptian control but the inhabitants were not granted Egyptian citizenship.

In 1967-68, it was time to move again. As the Gaza Strip was their last place of residence prior to their arrival in Jordan, and “people who lived in Gaza” were not, in political terms, a part of Palestine, this population was eligible for 'temporary' resident status." These refugees hold neither Palestinian citizenship nor Jordanian citizenship and barring a political miracle, never will.

The camp's conditions were pretty bad. The narrow streets are lined with housing, mostly consisting of one-room units with shared kitchen and bathroom space. There are often families of up to 10-13 people living in one of these units. Open drains carry waste and sewage through the dusty streets. These "temporary" settlements of cinderblock walls and corrugated metal roofs are now over 40 years old.

What struck me most, though, was not the condition of the camp. It was the fact that these people do not have any citizenship. Their identity does not lie with any State or nation. They have no land to call their own.

What began as a temporary solution has become a protracted situation. As my time here in Jordan continues, I am beginning to see first-hand how "people have been deprived of effective solutions to a wide range of issues”…how much we really do need God’s kingdom to come.