Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The expulsion of refugees from a place where they can rightfully claim refugee status to a place where they may face persecution or other threats, such as the country or disaster area from which they originally fled.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Refugee Convention that prohibits "refoulement" -- sending asylum seekers back to their countries where they will face torture and death.
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Refugee Convention that prohibits "refoulement" -- sending asylum seekers back to their countries where they will face torture and death.
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Where refugees are forced or coerced to return to their country of origin to fight, this is tantamount to refoulement, which is prohibited in all circumstances.
2. Protection 1999
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Secondly and closely interrelated is the principle of non-refoulement, that is to say, that a refugee must not be forcibly returned to his country or to any other country where he has well-founded reasons to fear persecution.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees - Nobel Lecture 1981
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Irrespective of the terms of any agreement, the Dutch authorities have a binding obligation under international law not to subject anyone seeking protection to refoulement, that is, they are prohibited from forcibly returning anyone to a territory where they would face persecution, or their life would be in danger.
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China signed the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention that prohibits "refoulement"
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In 2006 UNHCR expressed concern at the "refoulement" (sending back) of some of these refugees or asylum-seekers by Syria.
Spero News author unknown 2010
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China signed the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention that prohibits "refoulement"
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It condemns "refoulement" and mass expulsions to countries where human rights are not respected.
unknown title 2009
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It condemns "refoulement" and mass expulsions to countries where human rights are not respected.
unknown title 2009
MaryW commented on the word refoulement
Refoulement
Refoulement means the expulsion of persons who have the right to be recognised as refugees. The principle of non-refoulement has first been laid out in 1954 in the UN-Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which, in Article 33(1) provides that:
"No Contracting State shall expel or return ('refouler') a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."
It is important to note, that the principle of non-refoulement does not only forbid the expulsion of refugees to their country of origin but to any country in which they might be subject to persecution. The only possible exception provided for by the UN Convention is the case that the person to be expelled constitutes a danger to national security (Art 33(2)).1
Although the principle of non-refoulement is universally accepted, problems with refoulement frequently arise through the fact, that its application requires a recognised refugee status. However, not all countries are members to the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees or may not have established formal procedures for determining refugee status.
1Note on Non-Refoulement (Submitted by the High Commissioner on Human Rights), (EC/SCP/2), 23rd August 1977
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/refoulement/
November 24, 2015