Forced migration in Brazil: the predominance of African refugees

The flow of African immigrants to Brazil raises questions about the reasons for migrating. There is a new flow of Africans to Brazil by the means of multilateral agreements, but there is also still continuous refugee immigration to the country. The paper aims to understand the reality of migration and living conditions of African refugees nowadays in Brazil, as origin and destination locations are punished by poverty, exclusion and inequality. The methods used for the research include literature review, documents study, laws, international treaties, and surveys. The main data sources used were UNHCR and the survey about Living Conditions of Refugee Population (CVPR) in Brazil, coordinated by Professor Rosana Baeninger (NEPO/Unicamp). In 2011, Brazil had 4477 refugees, of whom 63.7% were from Africa. Thus, it is relevant to differentiate both flows – new migrants and refugees - discussing the concept of forced migration (Aydos, 2010) and glancing over Brazilian political and institutional context (Moreira, 2012).

Keywords: forced migration; refugees; Brazil