World Refugee Day

Current Figures on Global Refugee Movements

In 2025, the number of refugees declined slightly for the first time since 2016. Nevertheless, many people are still displaced (bpb, 2026). According to the UNHCR, 1.5% of the world’s population is now considered displaced. Compared to 2010, the absolute number of people has even doubled (UNHCR, 2025). Among the displaced persons in 2025 were approximately 67.2 million internally displaced persons who had to flee conflict and violence within their own country, and approximately 50 million refugees who had to leave their country and now live in another country. Under the Geneva Convention on Refugees, they are entitled to special rights and protection. They are under the protection of the UNHCR, which operates under a mandate from the UN General Assembly. In 2025, an additional 9 million people were asylum seekers who had filed an asylum application in their country of arrival but whose asylum proceedings had not yet been concluded (UNHCR, 2025).

The causes for migration and the countries of origin of refugees are diverse. For example, climate change and the resulting natural disasters are becoming increasingly significant (Aktion Deutschland Hilft, n.d.). However, most people flee from wars or political and social crises. Both long-standing and newly flared-up conflicts play a role in this. Venezuela (6.4 million), Ukraine (5.2 million), Syria (4.9 million), Afghanistan (3.7 million) and Sudan (2.8 million) are the five largest countries of origin for refugees—many of whom have been fleeing for many years (UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe, n.d.a).

In 2025, there were also 5.9 million Palestinians displaced (UNHCR, 2025). For Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, responsibility falls under the UNRWA mandate of the UN General Assembly, rather than the UNHCR mandate, which is responsible for the protection of all other international refugees. These differing areas of responsibility mean that while Palestinians are included in the overall statistics for all refugees, they do not appear in the lists of the most common countries of origin (UNHCR, 2024).

Women and Children on the Run

Women and children are particularly vulnerable when fleeing. According to UNHCR, 39% of refugees are children—a group that is especially defenseless and therefore highly vulnerable to violence and abuse (UNHCR, 2025). Half of all people fleeing are women and girls. They flee for the same reasons as men: war, political persecution, poverty, human rights violations, hunger, or climate disasters. But women and girls are also at risk of gender-based violence (UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe, n.d.b). These include, for example, female genital mutilation, forced sterilization or marriage, human trafficking, sexism, and discrimination— such as the denial of the right to education or work (Krämer & Scherschel, 2018). Rape and sexual violence are also forms of gender-based violence that are used as strategic tools of warfare in many conflicts and that, in most cases, affect women and girls (ibid.).

In addition, women — often due to a lack of employment opportunities in their home countries — frequently lack basic financial resources, which is why many choose to flee within their own country rather than undertake long and risky journeys (ibid.). Even during or after their flight, women in particular are especially vulnerable to ongoing discrimination, oppression, and threats (ibid.). The lack of access to medical care during pregnancy also poses a particular health risk for women on the run (UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe, n.d.b).

Current Tightening of Asylum Policy

To better combat gender-based violence and ensure the protection of refugee women worldwide, refugee policies would need to incorporate more gender-sensitive perspectives. Furthermore, existing guidelines, such as the Istanbul Convention, must be enforced more consistently, and new guidelines must be drafted. This is not currently happening.

As sociologists Anna Krämer and Karin Scherschel wrote as early as 2018: “Current European asylum policy focuses on deterring migration flows and, in its current form, contributes to worsening the situation of women.”

This occurs, for example, through deportations to unsafe countries, the closure of legal escape routes — which forces women to take risky routes — and mandatory placement in initial reception centers, which often offer little to no gender-sensitive infrastructure (Krämer & Scherschel, 2018).

With the CEAS reform (reform of the Common European Asylum System) adopted in May 2024, the situation for all refugees at Europe’s borders has worsened further: Among other things, the CEAS is intended to speed up asylum procedures and expand border security at the EU’s external borders as well as asylum centers. Although the latter are built on EU territory, refugees are considered not to have entered the EU (bpb, 2024). Several human rights organizations have criticized the CEAS reform as inhumane and as an expansion of “Fortress Europe” (Pro Asyl, 2024).

Since 1993, the network UNITED for Intercultural Action has documented and published an annual list of “documented deaths of refugees and migrants due to the restrictive policies of ‘Fortress Europe’”. By mid-2026, the network had counted more than 72,800 people who, as a result of asylum policies, had drowned, been murdered, or taken their own lives during or after their flight (UNITED, 2026).

Last updated: June 2026

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