The right to migrate as a component of the human right to peace

As the world stands today, we have a refugee and immigrant crisis of apocalyptic proportions. Men, women, and children are fleeing the only place they have ever known, the home of their ancestors, the place that most have called home from birth until the moment they have to flee to save their lives. Refugees worldwide flee war, persecution, and violence with just the clothes on their backs, their children in tow, and whatever little they are able to carry on a joumey of thousands of miles, of inhospitable deserts, of treacherous roads or dangerous waters. The world is inclined to forget and therefore, history repeats itself. Tyrants rise to power and the cycle of injustice and oppression begins, time after time. The geographical places change, the faces of the oppressors change, but the faces of the victims appear to be the same. What never appears to change are the fear, the suffering, the sadness in the eyes of men, women and children, who do not comprehend why they are in such a horrific situation, why they are unable to live in a peaceful place, why there is no safety, no food, no lifesaving medical care for them. The now powerful countries and populations, those who were once oppressed, either become the oppressors, collaborate with the oppressors or tum their backs to the victims of violence and oppression. The most powerful countries, in their quest for wealth and power, interfere in developing countries, and they arm and train individuals and groups that later become the aggressors and executioners of their own people. In countless cases, they sell arms to both sides of the conflict. From the Middle East, Africa, Central America, Mexico, just to name a few, civil wars, guerrillas, subversive, gang, and cartel violence break out, claiming tens of thousands of victims, forcing millions to take flight. The danger and violence are of such proportion that for most they only option is to escape. As mothers moum for their murdered husbands, they must put their grief aside, take their children and embark on a joumey that will put them at risk of death. Knowing that they might die and knowing that their children might die along with them, many refugees get on flimsy rafts, they ride on top of cargo trains, walk without food or water for miles in the buming heat of a desert. Many of these refugees know that there is a high risk of getting robbed, kidnapped, raped, and beaten along the way. For many others the attacks come as a surprising, inhumane shock. Astonishingly, despite being aware of what awaits them in their joumey, refugees still choose to leave because at least there is a possibility, however small, of survival at the end of that flight. Most leave because they know that if they stay, they will die. Every person has a fundamental right to bis or her dignity and worth as a human being, as the Preamble of the United Nations mandates. The right to peace should be acknowledged as a basic human right because without peace there can be no meaningful life. For every human person, safety and security in the place they reside is the basic foundation of life. Peace is as necessary for survival as food, oxygen, and water. The absence of peace represents danger, bullets, bombs, landrnines, poisonous gas attacks, hunger, terror, torture, aggression, and for countless people, ultimate death. Therefore, peace shall be a basic human right. If peace is unattainable, then every human being shall have the right to flee any and all dangerous conditions that threaten his or her life. In conclusion, when we, as humanity are unable to grant a group their basic human right to peace in their city, village, town or country, at the very least, we shall grant the people the right to migrate to a place where their basic human right to peace and life will not be violated