When seeking asylum in another country, gaining status as a religious refugee could, in some cases, be a life-or-death situation. But what makes a person a religious refugee? Determining that may not be so clear. The legal questions used to test for refugee status are complex, and historically the process has lacked consistency.
To complicate matters even more, a common understanding of what religion is in a refugee鈥檚 life and how it impacts their survival under persecution is difficult to characterize.
Assistant professor of business Dr. Raymond Chiu calls this conceptualization. It includes all the ways religion can be described and measured, including the ways religious people become mature and live out their beliefs in their work and life. This underpins much of Chiu鈥檚 research, which has also included work on religious diversity in the workplace and the role of religion in the tax-exempt status of charities.
鈥淚 find this kind of research to be very fulfilling,鈥 says Chiu. 鈥淚t helps me to understand my own faith better.鈥
But he has found throughout his various research projects that the ways people think about their faith at work and in society are not always the same as what is taught in Sunday school. Clearly articulating one鈥檚 faith experience becomes particularly important when it becomes part of a legal process determining whether someone in danger is truly of the faith that they claim is theirs. Christians are considered the most persecuted group in the world, but Muslims, Jews, and other faiths are not far behind.
鈥淚f the refugee determination system is not fair, if it鈥檚 not assessing people鈥檚 faith in a way that鈥檚 true to their lived experience, then they are mistreated and they have no place to go,鈥 says Chiu. 鈥淔air legal processes also affect Canada鈥檚 ability to defend religious freedoms and hence our moral legitimacy in the world,鈥 he adds. 鈥淲e want to act compassionately toward migrants, but we鈥檝e all seen what happens when refugee systems break down and become blunt instruments of power.鈥
With the assistance of a $60,000 federal grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, six faculty and eight student research assistants from 小猪视频and university partners have participated in the analysis of over 70 articles and more than 320 cases from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
In order to be granted asylum, the claimants must be assessed to determine if they are indeed religious and if the mistreatment they have experienced is because of that religiosity. The project will bring better understanding of the thought processes of refugees as well as how they apply their faith in the face of serious mistreatment. This includes the tremendous hope and strength that faith brings in times of trauma and loss.
鈥淚t really comes down to understanding the difference that your faith makes,鈥 says Chiu. This is something he became passionate about while he was studying at Tyndale Seminary.
鈥淲e can鈥檛 really have a witness and talk about our faith if we can鈥檛 talk about what the effect is,鈥 said Chiu. He also points out that this is not just a personal or internal matter, but has significant implications for the public sphere. 鈥淧eople of faith can鈥檛 have a safe and productive role in the world鈥攚here they work to survive, in the charitable sector, or as religious minorities鈥攊f we can鈥檛 explain how religion is a unique type of identity that has a special role in society.鈥
I find this kind of research to be very fulfilling … It helps me to understand my own faith better.
Chiu hopes that his research can eventually be used practically to improve fairness for claimants and help them prepare for hearings, by providing guidance to board adjudicators and the claimants鈥 counsel.
鈥淚n those hearings, it becomes critically important to make correct assumptions about religion. What is genuine religiosity, and what are the correct inferences that you can make about the relationships between their faith, thoughts and actions? There has been a history of adjudicators focusing mainly on doctrinal and historical questions that are oftentimes not based on how people think of their faith and lean on it when they go through suffering.鈥
In the future, Chiu has aspirations to take his research international, disseminating his findings among the other countries that abide by the UN Convention.
鈥淩efugee claimants face many barriers despite being 鈥榮afely鈥 within Canadian borders and I cannot imagine successfully navigating Canada鈥檚 refugee claim system without help,鈥 says Rev. Scott Jones, executive director of a refugee settlement home in Hamilton. Micah House generously participated in Redeemer鈥檚 interdisciplinary capstone course, involving students in a nationwide initiative to support claimants through the hearing process.
Chiu and the team have culminated the work to date with the launch of their website, which contains resources for claimants in the application process. Interested parties are invited to sign up on the website for research and training updates.