UNB :
A major survey on attitudes towards refugeesLink is external across the Global North and South showed that three-quarters of adults continue to believe that those fleeing war or persecution should be able to seek safety in other countries.
The findings of the survey conducted by Ipsos – one of the world’s leading market research companies – with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, were released just ahead of World Refugee Day on 20 June.
They paint a complex picture of perceptions of refugees, with significant differences in opinion based on the question and the location of those surveyed.
More than 120 million people were forcibly displaced globally by May 2024, according to UNHCR.
The sample consisted of approximately 1,000 individuals each in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, and the U.S., and 500 individuals each in Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Finland, Ghana, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Türkiye, and Uganda.
The sample in India consisted of approximately 2,200 individuals, of whom approximately 1,800 were interviewed face-to-face and 400 were interviewed online.
Overall, 73 per cent of people across the 52 countries surveyed agreed that people should be able to take refuge in other countries, including their own, according to the survey report released from Geneva.
However, support for providing refuge has dampened in a number of countries from the high levels in 2022 in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.