facilitate their integration.
This can involve help on how to acquire appropriate lodging, language training, guidance on cultural expectations, locating employment opportunities, regularization of status with local authorities, enrolment of children in schools, rehabilitation for handicapped persons etc.
Depending on employment conditions in the country of resettle- ment, retraining may also be necessary. Such measures are usually financed by the government or the private sector in the resettlement country. Ethnic community groups also assist new arrivals in adjusting to their new country.
III.
Resettlement Opportunities:
The Problem of Supply and Demand
The humanitarian problem of refugee resettlement requires solutions based upon humanitarian considerations. Persons of concern to UNHCR who seek resettlement have no place to go. Sometimes their lives are threatened; sometimes they become handicapped because of idleness or fear or long waiting periods void of any definite perspective for their future. Countries wishing to contribute towards resolving the dramatic situation of those awaiting resettlement could do so by liberalizing the criteria for admission of persons of concern to UNHCR. Special immigration criteria applicable to refugees are already incorporated in some national legislations, but more provisions of this type are needed. An increase in the number of countries ready to manifest their humanitarian concern by adopting clearly defined special liberalized criteria for refugee admissions can result in diminishing this problem appreciably. If countries of traditional immigration can earmark an adequate percentage in their targets of admissions for persons of concern to UNHCR needing resettlement, and particularly those who do not qualify for immigration under the normal criteria, excessive backlogs could be avoided. Situations resulting in increased demands for resettlement could then be handled as they occur, and special appeals could be launched only when demand is heavier than planned provisions could absorb.
Persons of concern to UNHCR who need to be resettled have no choice but to move out of countries where they have been granted only temporary refuge. For this reason, economic considerations such as the employment situation in countries of potential resettlement, which play an important role in the targets set for normal immigration to these countries, if allowed to loom over-large in decisions regarding the number and type of refugees to be admitted, could cause much hardship to refugees who, in contrast to immigrants, must resettle out of need not out of choice. Thus, restricting refugee admissions to countries of potential resettlement in times of economic stress can cause much hardship to disadvantaged persons whose motivations in seeking resettlement are not economic but arise from their need to lead a safe and dignified existence without having to sacrifice their beliefs.
Refugees needing resettlement are a varied group. There are the highly qualified, whose training may represent an investment of tens of thousands of dollars, who bring their readily employable skills to the country of immigration. There are those who need retraining if their skills are to be capitalized upon. There are the unskilled who are ready to take jobs
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