Abstract
This chapter focuses on the various legal and policy tools available to promote refugee human rights, particularly for children. Based on the author’s observations while working as a human rights lawyer with Asylum Access, it emphasizes that durable solutions for refugee children should include local integration and tailored solutions that close the gap between rights on paper and rights in reality. This chapter argues that refugee-hosting countries can create an environment of respect and allow for integration through the use of five tools: legal aid, community legal empowerment, policy advocacy, strategic litigation, and movement-building. Three case studies are used to illustrate how these tools can be effective durable solutions for challenges facing child refugees in Ecuador, Thailand, and Tanzania. The chapter concludes that these tools and solutions, even if they lack permanence, may enable refugee children to actively live a fulfilling life within the country they reside.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Asylum Access’s arguments to host governments also are pragmatic in another sense: We frequently employ arguments centered not on refugees’ human rights under international law, but on the economic, social, and political interests of the host government. For example, in urging governments to allow refugees to work, we may point to research that shows permitting refugees to work lawfully offers economic benefits, while prohibiting refugees from working forces them into informal arrangements that tend to drive down wages and working conditions for all workers.
Works Cited
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC). 1999. OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/24.9/49, November 29. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: African Union.
Asylum Access. 2014. Global Refugee Work Rights Report: Taking the Movement from Theory to Practice. Oakland: Asylum Access.
Cartagena Declaration on Refugees. 1998. November1984 Annual Report of the Iinter-American Commissison on Human Rights, OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.66/doc.10, rev.1. Available from University of Minnesota Human Rights Library.
COBURWAS International Youth Organisation to Transform Africa (CIYOTA). 2015. Our History. Uganda: CIYOTA. www.coburwas.org/our-history
Constitución PolÃtica de la República del Ecuador [Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador]. 2008. Adopted September 28; in force October 20.
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). 1989. U.N.T.S. vo.l 1577, p. 3, in force September 2, 1990. New York: UN General Assembly.
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. 1951. U.N.T.S. vol. 189, p. 137; in force April 22, 1954. New York: UN General Assembly.
Hathaway, James C. 2005. The Rights of Refugees under International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). 1966. U.N.T.S. 999, p. 171; in force March 23, 1976. New York: UN Human Rights, UNHCR.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). 1966. 993 U.N.T.S. 994, p. 3; in force December 16, 1966. New York: UN Human Rights.
Refugee Studies Centre (RSC). 2011. Responding to Protracted Refugee Situations: Lessons from a Decade of Discussion. Forced Migration Policy Briefing, 6.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 2006. Protracted Refugee Situations: The Search for Practical Solutions. Chapter 5 of The State of the World’s Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium, pp. 105–197. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2012. Guidelines on the Applicable Criteria and Standards Relating to the Detention of Asylum-Seekers and Alternatives to Detention. Geneva: UNHCR.
———. 2014. Mid-Year Trends 2014. Geneva: UNHCR.
US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). 2009. World Refugee Survey 2009, Warehoused Refugee Populations. Arlington: USCRI.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Arnold-Fernández, E. (2016). Making Human Rights a Reality for Refugee Children: A Prerequisite to Local Integration as a Durable Solution. In: Ensor, M., Goździak, E. (eds) Children and Forced Migration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40691-6_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40691-6_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40690-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40691-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)