On the occasion of World Refugee Day, Defend International (DI) Principal Founder and President Dr. Widad Akreyi gave a comprehensive broadcast interview to Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), recently named the nation’s most trusted news brand.
Observed annually, World Refugee Day is a global milestone dedicated to raising international awareness about the plight of forcibly displaced populations. While protecting the fundamental health, security, and human rights of displaced individuals is a daily institutional mandate, this global day serves to concentrate multilateral attention on those fleeing systemic persecution, environmental degradation, and active armed conflicts. It sheds critical light on the legal rights and vulnerabilities of refugees, while underscoring the collective responsibility of the international community to move beyond temporary survival metrics toward sustainable, dignified futures.
🌍 Global Disproportion: The Reality of Displacement
Reflecting on the staggering modern scale of global displacement, Dr. Widad provided a sobering mathematical breakdown to contextualize the crisis for international audiences:
“Globally, more than 120 million people are currently displaced, including 43.5 million refugees—a record-breaking figure propelled by wars, state breakdown, and persecution. To put these figures into perspective, the global refugee population alone is now as large as the entire population of Afghanistan, or equivalent to the combined populations of eight nations the size of Denmark.
If you look at it through another lens, even if you combined every single citizen of Finland, Lebanon, New Zealand, Ireland, Costa Rica, Liberia, and Slovakia, their total population would still fall short of the number of refugees worldwide. Beyond these refugee figures sit an additional 76 million economic and climate migrants who are forced to move due to systemic financial collapse or environmental crises.”
🕊️ Solidarity, Education, and Permanent Peace
During the broadcast, Dr. Widad emphasized that regional stability and structural opportunities are the true keys to systemic change:
“The core theme of World Refugee Day is solidarity, driven by a vision to build a world where refugees can achieve their full academic, social, and emotional potential. Displaced populations, like all human beings, possess an inherent right to be treated with absolute dignity and respect.
Governments must implement effective institutional regulations that increase equal employment access based entirely on merit. Simultaneously, young refugees must be granted unhindered educational provisions—the ultimate enabler of positive health and societal outcomes. When given structural opportunities, refugees consistently make profound contributions to their host societies.
However, without comprehensive peace, the global refugee crisis cannot be resolved. The absolute priority for global leaders must be the implementation of permanent geopolitical solutions—specifically, ending active armed conflicts so that families can ultimately return to their sovereign homes in safety.”
🎧 Broadcast Access & Media Archive
The broadcast interview was conducted natively in Kurdish by SBS, Australia’s premier multilingual and multicultural broadcaster.
To access the complete audio file and review the full broadcast discussion directly on the network’s servers, use the repository link below:
- Official Media Access: Listen to the Full Interview via the SBS Audio Portal