Why do we treat refugees differently?

By: Anahita Biswas

In today’s world, the refugee crisis becomes more prominent every day. With more people getting internally displaced or being forced to leave their homes and flee around the world to find a place of shelter and safety. What is causing people to leave their homes? The leaving of homes is a result of increased conflict, food insecurity, etc. However, the way media outlets and political leaders depict and portray this situation is one that is very dehumanizing and controversial. In this article, I will be discussing some of the controversial ways refugees are being depicted in today's society.

Firstly, a lot of the time in school when we are discussing refugee crises, we often learn about them being from either African or middle eastern countries. This can lead us to believe that this is only an issue in Western countries and that refugees are a burden to these countries, however, this is not the case. As we have been seeing for the past year now, Ukraine has dealt with a very serious conflict and one that has led to many Ukrainians fleeing the country and seeking asylum in neighboring countries such as Poland. The thing is we often hear in the news a lot about how these Western countries are finding it difficult to accommodate refugees, which could be true. Still, we don’t seem to be hearing the Ukrainian refugees coming into Poland be that big of an issue. Why is that? All refugees are struggling with similar problems, so why is it that we are hearing that countries are finding it difficult to accommodate African or middle eastern refugees but not so much Ukrainian refugees?

Another issue surrounding refugees nowadays is the way they are constantly depicted in the media as inhumane. The media often depicts these people as objects rather than actual people by using derogatory language such as “waves”, or “floods.” This type of language not only dehumanizes them but creates the idea that they are burdens to society rather than people who are fleeing danger, violence, and suffering each family and individual with their own story to tell.

We often choose to forget that refugees are also people just like us, who lived a life just like us and have experienced something that any one of us could face any second of any day. They aren’t burdens to society, they aren’t inhumane, they are just people who have been placed in an unfortunate situation and need help. When it comes to refugees, the media needs to stop treating them like outcasts or providing them help only based on their country of origin because at the end of the day no matter where a person is from they are still human beings who have been forced to leave their homes for the sake of themselves and their families.