Making up about two-thirds of the planets 12 million refugees, these so called "warehoused" refugees mostly lack the basic right of freedom of movement and the right to work guaranteed under the UN Refugee Convention, the survey said.

They are languishing in refugee camps or segregated settlements in remote, desolate, and dangerous border areas, according to the World Refugee Survey 2004 conducted by the US Committee for Refugees (USCR).

Some of them were denied access to education "or the right to step into a courtroom and seek justice when they are wronged," said the USCR, which launched a campaign Monday to end warehousing of refugees.

These refugees, it said, were subject to aggression, sexual exploitation, and risk of attack and murder by militias and armies.

"Briefly put, condemning people who fled persecution to stagnate in confinement for much of the remainder of their lives is unnecessary, wasteful, hypocritical, counterproductive, unlawful and morally unacceptable," said Survey's editor Merrill Smith.

"We have observed that more and more refugees worldwide are spending longer periods of time in such situations -- to the point that there are currently more than seven million refugees who have been warehoused for 10 years or more," said Gregory Chen, USCR's director of policy analysis and research.