Religious Leaders Statement from the GRF 2023

Reinforcing the traditional role of faith communities in offering sanctuary and, indeed hospitality 
to refugees, faith-based leaders today committed to offering their continued and additional 
support to refugees, including children, on their journey to safety, including in reception and 
admission, meeting protection or service delivery needs and supporting communities to find 
solutions such as private sponsorship or scholarship programmes. 
Religious Leaders Statement 
We recognise that while our commitments are important contributions, there are more 
humanitarian needs than humanitarian resources available for the 36.4 million refugees worldwide 
today.  The consequences are stark, affecting displaced people and the communities hosting them. 
By doing so, we recommit to the “Welcoming the Stranger: Affirmations for Faith Leaders” 2012.  
We have come to the Global Refugee Forum, held in Geneva this week from 13-15 December 2023, 
to pledge our collective support to refugees, share the responsibility with those who host them and 
work together and inter-religiously where possible to improve the lives of refugees regardless of 
their nationality, race, religious beliefs, class, or political opinions.  
We challenge the representations of refugees in our media, reminding ourselves and our 
communities that seeking asylum is a basic human right and that attitudes and policies can create 
real-life harm, marginalizing and dehumanizing people who are escaping war, disaster and 
persecution. 
We commit to uniting around our common values, goals and activities and establishing effective and 
long-lasting partnerships to protect and support refugees, those displaced by climate change and 
their host countries, magnifying the impact of everyone’s efforts.  
In our work, we will continue speaking up and defending the individual right to seek asylum, 
currently under threat in many countries. We will advocate for safe passage, humanitarian corridors, 
and facilitation of humanitarian visas. 
We recognize the contribution of refugees. They bring their skills, ambitions, courage, and dreams 
for peace to their communities through forgiveness and reconciliation. 
We welcome the opportunity the Global Refugee Forum provides to work inter-religiously and with 
other sectors– states, the private sector and charitable foundations, international financial 
© UNHCR / Claire Roberts Lamont 
institutions, UN agencies, humanitarian and development organisations of all sizes, cities and local 
authorities, refugee-led organisations, academics, individual citizens and others. 
We pledge concrete action to support refugees.  We commit to using our voices to show that change 
is possible and that there is a path from despair to hope and from hope to action.  
We call on religious leaders everywhere to join us. 
Anglican Communion 
Baha’i International Community  
Episcopal Church  
Ecumenical Patriarchate 
Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha 
Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities  
Interfaith Mediation Centre  
Japan Buddhist Federation 
Lutheran World Federation (LWF) 
New York Board of Rabbis 
Plateforme Interreligieuse De Genève 
Religions For Peace 
Rissho Kosei-Kai  
Soka Gakkai International 
South African Conference of Bishops 
United Methodist Committee on Relief 
World Council of Churches 
World Evangelical Alliance 
The Church of Latter-Day Saints  
Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society