Georeferencing launched at the Immigration Museum shows that refugees are more dispersed throughout the territory and seek to settle near urban spaces that guarantee their displacement and means of living in the cities.
11 Jul 2022
São Paulo, July 11, 2022 - A survey on the profile and location of the refugee population and those applying for refugee status assisted by Caritas Arquidiocesana de São Paulo (CASP) was launched last Tuesday (5) in São Paulo. Counting on the support of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in its data collection, the georeferencing maps provide data from 2018 to 2020, allowing analysis of the transition of this population.
Although the capital of São Paulo continues to be the main city of residence for refugees, there has been a decentralization of this population over the three years analyzed. In 2020, the register of residences in the city of São Paulo showed that 67% of the population analyzed lived in the capital, while in 2018 this percentage was 78%.
The population served by CASP in 2020 totaled 66 municipalities, covering the various regions of the state. Looking specifically at the capital, although there is an almost complete occupation of the national territory, in the period surveyed there is a greater incidence of this population that extends from the center to the east of the city, following to the south and its extremes.
The data shows that these communities seek to establish themselves on the route of important public transport corridors such as the metro and trains, near shelter facilities - such as the Temporary Reception Center (CTA) in São Mateus; and next to previously established refugee communities, such as the Syrian and Congolese.
"Mapping is a fundamental way of understanding the reality of refugees. From this territory, we can think up public policies in a wide variety of spheres, such as housing, health, education and job placement, so that they can go beyond welcoming people and actually lead to social integration," said Father Marcelo Maróstica, director of Caritas Archdiocesan of São Paulo.
Regarding the profile of the refugee population assisted by CASP in 2020, Venezuelans represent the highest percentage of the assistance provided, with 56% of the total. This community is made up of practically the same percentage of men and women, and is more concentrated in the capital's Cidade Dutra (south zone) and São Mateus and Sapopemba (east zone) neighborhoods. The Syrian population, the second most representative, is made up mostly of men (68%) and is more concentrated in the central region of the capital (in the neighborhoods of Brás and Belém).
For Maria Beatriz Nogueira, head of the UNHCR office in São Paulo, the mapping of refugees in the state, in addition to provoking and mobilizing for the adaptation of protocols and the creation of public policies, is a fundamental instrument for making decisions on how to improve the integration of these populations. "It's an important exercise to guide our actions and to monitor trends over the years," he said.
Victor Ayres, geographer and agent of CASP's Refugee Reception and Orientation Service, concludes that the spatial distribution of the communities served has varied more according to nationality. He stresses the importance of decentralizing the network of services to better serve this population, of involving these communities more and more in order to get to know their needs and respond to them.
The president of the Municipal Council for Migrants, Hortense Mbuyi, was also present at the event to launch the data and stressed that in order to strengthen public policies it is necessary to "promote the role of immigrants and strengthen their participatory spaces", thus reinforcing the relevance of the study for a broader understanding of the urban reality of the refugee population in the state.
Source: acnur.org
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