A/HRC/37/51 36. Becoming a forced migrant is a choice embraced by few, including human rights defenders at risk. As one defender consulted by the Special Rapporteur noted, “I do not like the idea of being a refugee. I do not want to leave the country because I wanted to make it better.” Defenders, like others, often see displacement as a last resort, and unfortunately as a pathway to poverty, insecurity and irrelevance. Human rights movements struggle to find a place for the voices of the displaced, and colleagues who remain too often view those who seek refuge abroad with disdain and suspicion. Even in exile, threats may persist from home governments and other agents of persecution; family, friends and colleagues who remain can all come under pressure. 37. Protection regimes for people on the move, including the protection offered by the international refugee regime, are often too uncertain and individualized, afflicting defenders with lengthy periods of insecurity and failing to accommodate the broader needs of their communities. Defenders in exile often take on low-skill jobs in an effort to reconstruct their lives; often this also has the consequence of forcing them to abandon their human rights. When such circumstances unfold, it is not only a personal defeat for defenders but for the entire human rights movement, given that their valuable knowledge, resources and advocacy are lost. Although national and regional guidelines on the protection of human rights defenders often offer the facilitation of international protection abroad for defenders at risk, in practice these promises are slow and overly discretionary. State visa regimes also pose obstacles to civil society temporary international relocation initiatives. States may impose blanket bans on visas for particular nationalities or discourage civil society institutions from participating in such initiatives, by, for example, requiring lengthy processes that make relocation through such an initiative an impractical response to an immediate threat, or charging high application costs for visas. Visa policies may also discriminate against women human rights defenders seeking temporary relocation with their families. 38. Too often, human rights defenders who flee into exile are denied registration by UNHCR and States for months, years or even indefinitely, and face decision-makers who are unfamiliar with the basis of their claim as a human rights defender at risk. Decisionmakers almost invariably lack specific guidance and training on how to respond to requests for protection from human rights defenders at risk. Only a handful of reported asylum decisions mention defenders; reference to the situation of human rights defenders in country of origin material used in asylum decisions is haphazard, and UNHCR has not issued any global guidance on protection by the international refugee regime of human rights defenders at risk. The uncertainty created by both the lack of status and the process of refugee status determination can be mitigated by a commitment by UNHCR and States to prompt registration followed up by fair and accurate decision-making with respect to status. B. Continuing human rights activities after displacement 39. Human rights defenders who become people on the move face challenges and threats to their continued agency and ability to do human rights work. These include heightened vulnerability, restrictions on their rights as human rights defenders and, in some cases, heightened risks even in exile. 1. Vulnerability as people on the move 40. People on the move face many restrictions. They often only possess temporary status or are forced to live with an irregular status, under constant threat of arrest, detention and deportation. They also frequently face restrictions in the employment they may seek and the locations where they may live and to which they may travel. Cultural and linguistic differences may separate them from the host community, and they may lack social capital and networks in their new home. All of these factors make continuing to work as a defender in exile extremely difficult; for example, defenders who have fled from Central Africa to Uganda have reported feeling isolated from both human rights defenders and refugee protection mechanisms because they are from a different country or region of origin, and because of their lack of fluency in the local language. 11