Are refugee camps good for children?

Today, camps have become almost synonymous with the refugee experience. The
most essential feature of a camp is the authoritarian character of their administration;
they are like ‘total institutions’, places where, as in prisons or mental hospitals,
everything is highly organized, where the inhabitants are depersonalized and where
people become numbers without names.
Another characteristic of camps, especially those where people have no access to
land, is the persistent shortage of food. For example, the normal prevalence of acute
malnutrition in various African countries is said to be between three per cent and five
per cent. In nine camps in Sudan, the Centres for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia,
found the acute malnutrition of children under five varied between 20 per cent and 70
per cent!
There is now much evidence that refugee camps are not good for anyone. No-one
freely chooses to move into a refugee camp to stay. Everyone who can gets out of
them as quickly as possible. This is why there are almost always more refugees living
among their hosts outside of camps. One way or another, and wherever possible,
these refugees have become ‘integrated’ into the host society. We also know that
where refugees can get land, or are not restricted in movement and are able to find
employment, they are better off than those living in camps. Moreover, they are not
just using the resources of host institutions, they are also contributing to their host’s
economy.