Gloria Botero, a Globalization and International Development masters' student under the supervision of Nadia Abu-Zahra questions the changes put in place to “fix” the refugee system thought to be broken.
Area of research
Two legislative changes began taking place to the Canadian immigration system in 2005. These changes were put in place to “fix” a refugee system thought to be broken, by limiting the intake of asylum seekers. According to Gloria Botero’s research, the Ministerial justification labelled many asylum seekers “bogus” and not needing refugee protection. It felt they are responsible for overusing state resources and preventing the government from increasing the intake of “in queue” refugees awaiting to be resettled into Canada.
Motivation
When she was young, she wanted to be an Architect just like her father. However, a set of circumstances steered her to a different direction towards the study of refugees. As Colombians in exile due to the Colombian civil war, Gloria and her family were forced to leave Colombia in the summer of 2000.
Now in Canada, as a refugee herself, she wanted to have a deeper understanding on all other people’s stories around the world whose hope of one day, being recognized as refugees, keeps them going. For that reason, she left Montreal at the age of 19 to study Human Rights and Law at Carleton University so that later, she could pursue higher studies at the University of Ottawa with the M.A. program of Globalization and International Development.
Importance
Gloria aims to join the debate on international refugee protection efforts by introducing a ‘sufficiency framework’ that clarifies the level of adequacy of Canada’s efforts to fulfil its international responsibilities on sharing the burden of refugee protection.
View additional student research on issues pertaining to refugees.
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