Bangladesh, Oct. 6 -- Refugees today stand at the uneasy intersection of desperation and economic necessity – indispensable to the functioning of global markets yet treated as disposable in both policy and practice. In every corner of the world, from the garment factories of Turkey to the domestic work sectors of Poland, from demolition sites in Japan to informal markets in Bangladesh, refugees have become structural components of national labor systems. They are absorbed into the global economy not as rights-bearing workers, but as a reserve army of low-cost laborer whose vulnerability ensures their compliance.

This growing dependency between refugees and markets is not the result of benevolent inclusion, but of a systemic failure...