Human Rights and Refugees

The production of evidence on interventions for reducing violence against children (VAC) has steadily increased over the years. Yet gaps exist that need to be addressed when it comes to research investment priorities and future studies. An Evidence Gap Map provides an overview of available evidence on the topic and eight briefs summarize the findings. This brief focuses on ‘Laws crime and justice’ interventions to reduce violence against children in low- and middle-income countries.

The production of evidence on interventions for reducing violence against children (VAC) has steadily increased over the years. Yet gaps exist that need to be addressed when it comes to research investment priorities and future studies. This brief summarizes the key findings from the Evidence Gap Map on interventions to reduce violence against children in low- and middle-income countries.

By the end of 2016 an estimated 6.5 million Syrian citizens were internally displaced and more than 4.8 million Syrians had fled to neighbouring countries. While roughly half of all displaced and refugee Syrians are female around three quarters of the estimated 550000 Syrian asylum seekers who have arrived in Germany since the outbreak of the conflict are male. This gender imbalance is mainly due to the dangerous flight routes to Germany and the high costs of smugglers. Due to changing German asylum policies and practices lengthy procedures and bureaucratic obstacles a growing number of Syrian families who had intended to reunite in Germany now remain separated for two to three years or even longer. Others were even forced apart post-arrival. This paper examines the impacts of shifting policies in relation to family reunification and internal dispersal on the experiences of female Syrian asylum seekers in Germany. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Germany in 2012–2016. Through the analysis of women’s accounts and of policy measures it sheds light on how female Syrian asylum seekers and recognized refugees have coped with diverse challenges before arriving during long-lasting separations after subsequent reunifications in Germany or after arriving alone.

This paper investigates how women’s right to live free from violence operates in the context of insecure immigration status. It is based on qualitative research addressing intimate partner violence against women with insecure immigration status in England and Sweden analysed within a human rights theoretical framework. Empirical data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 31 survivors from 14 different non–European Union countries and 57 professional stakeholders from local national and international organizations. The paper identifies a tension between human rights and immigration control that is present in theory policy frameworks and migrant women’s lived experiences. It contends that this tension has led to a proliferation of rights’ statuses for migrant women who are exposed to intimate partner violence. A solution is offered in the form of an expansionist model of human rights whereby presence in a territory is the basis for recognition as a rights-bearing subject.

On 14 March 2022 UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced the establishment of a Global Crisis Response Group on Food Energy and Finance (GCRG) to coordinate the global response to the widespread impacts of the war in Ukraine. The GCRG will ensure high-level political leadership to get ahead of the immense inter-connected challenges of food security energy and financing and put in place a coordinated global response to the ongoing crises. This brief is the result of the coordinated work of the Global Crisis Response Task Team reporting to the Steering Committee of the GCRG. It proposes a series of immediate to longer-term recommendations to avert and respond to the triple crisis including the need to keep markets and trade open to ensure the availability of food agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and energy. It also calls for international financial institutions to urgently release funding for the most at-risk countries while making sure there are enough resources to build long-term resilience to such shocks.

Since the issuance of the second brief by the Global Crisis Response Group (GCRG) on 8 June 2022 the impacts of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis have been felt more deeply and widely across the world. Disruptions to the global energy market are putting Governments worldwide under enormous pressure. Rising energy prices are accelerating the cost-of-living crisis and sustaining the vicious cycle of constrained household budgets; increasing food and energy poverty; and increasing social unrest. In this context safeguarding countries’ commitments to the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will require significant efforts from all involved stakeholders. Policies that address the short-term emergency while ensuring countries’ climate-related and other sustainable development commitments must be pursued. Such policies are available to both developed and developing countries although the mix varies depending on geography income level and commodity status.

The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in significant output contractions deteriorating social conditions and worsened debt sustainability. Some countries that had previously attained higher income status and deemed no longer to need grants and concessional finance in the form of Official Development Assistance (ODA) are once again in need of heightened international support. This includes countries that slid back to a lower income category as well as higher income vulnerable countries such as numerous small island developing States (SIDS) who have found it difficult to respond and recover from the pandemic without support. Access to ODA including through concessional finance windows at multilateral development banks (MDBs) is generally linked to gross national income (GNI) per capita. As developing countries attain higher income per capita status access to grants and concessional windows declines. As a result countries’ average cost of borrowing generally becomes more expensive with shorter maturities which can widen financing gaps in normal times. In times of crises these gaps are magnified underscoring countries’ need for support. Recognition that the need for support is often linked to factors that are not measured by income has led to MDBs in particular to include important exceptions in eligibility criteria including incorporating vulnerability. However it has often been ad hoc and not based on a full analysis of risk factors. This policy brief outlines the criteria to access ODA why it needs to improve and suggests a way forward.

Paid domestic work employs many women in developing countries. Paraguay where 94 percent of domestic workers are women and more than 90 percent of these jobs are informal represents an extreme case of a problem that is common throughout the globe. These workers lack access to social security and generally endure precarious working conditions. What are the different legal institutional social and gender barriers that prevent domestic workers from having greater access to social security? Drawing on different sources of data from Paraguay including the voices of both domestic workers and their employers this study shows how persistently low levels of social security coverage in this sector are a product of complex interlocking factors: discriminatory cultural and gender beliefs lack of accurate information and knowledge about social security the low bargaining power of informal domestic workers and the low capacity for labour inspection that prevail in the sector. Based on these observations the conclusions lay out guidelines to design integrated public policies for the sector’s formalization.