Never before have so many people fled political persecution and war as today.– German 10-point plan

The biggest refugee crisis is history is unfolding and our government refuses to increase our (already low) quota of refugees. Our population has almost doubled since 1987, yet our quota has fallen. Globally, 59.5 million people are forcibly displaced (up from 33 million in 2010).  The crisis in Europe mirrors the period before WW2 when the flood of Jewish refugees were blocked by unyileding refugee quota systems in the US, UK, France, Canada, South Africa, Australia and NZ.

In the late 1930s Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany were particularly keen to migrate to New Zealand. However, New Zealand restricted their entry. –Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ

Currently the largest refugee-hosting countries are Turkey, Pakistan, and Lebanon. The crisis is massive but that’s no excuse for NZ not to make a start by increasing our refugee quota.

Tags: Peace, political change

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 29th, 2015 at 10:36 am and is filed under Peace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.