Source: www.theglobeandmail.com
CANADA, October 16, 2009: About 5,000 Bhutanese refugees are expected to arrive in Canada over the next five years in one of the largest government-sponsored refugee programs in recent memory.
Unlike most immigrants, the government-sponsored Bhutanese don’t have the safety net of an already established community to ease their culture shock and offer support. That lack of a support group has prompted questions about how they will assimilate in their new country. Their backgrounds don’t lend themselves to easy adaptation. They have spent 17 years in refugee camps and most of the adults have never held full-time jobs.
And, in the future, far more of these high-need refugees are expected to arrive in the country. Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was amended seven years ago to give a higher priority to refugees in need of immediate protection. That group tends to include people fleeing war, famine and displacement. Many arrive in Canada with post-traumatic stress disorder and other medical needs. In short, they aren’t people in a position to apply for jobs tomorrow.
For many Bhutanese, the journey to Canada actually began in the early 1990s when the former king of Bhutan expelled more than 100,000 Nepali-speaking Bhutanese from the small Himalayan country. The expelled Bhutanese fled to Nepal, where they were corralled into refugee camps on the eastern border with India. After years of talks between Bhutan and Nepal ended in stalemate, seven Western nations agreed to accept the Bhutanese. Most — about 60,000 — will go to the United States.
For the full article, see source above.