THE figures on forced migration released recently by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) show alarming trends that the global community should pay attention for a better perspective of their implications on state and people’s security.

The UNHCR’s 2015 Global Trends Report stated that the number of people displaced from their countries because of conflict and persecution has reached 65 million.

This is five million more than the 2014 figure of 59.5 million. According to UNHCR, this record displacement is unprecedented in human history, and exceeded the number of people displaced during World War 2.

The International Migration Organisation (IOM) puts displacement under the category of irregular/forced migration, broadly defined as cases that occur outside the regulatory norms of the countries of origin, transit and destination.

… The writer is associate professor and head of the Centre of Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.