Day: December 18, 2022

The Impacts of Displacement and Food Insecurity on Displaced Populations

A food insecurity crisis is a health crisis, with a last- ing impact on the health of the displaced community. Health risks increase while access to healthcare is restricted. A significant increase in global and severe acute malnutrition among children in many internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugee settings has been recorded. Communicable diseases, including cholera, measles, yellow fever, and COVID-19 are a major public health concern, especially with the further displacements and disruption of living conditions and sanitation.

There are several threats that cause IDPs and refugees to flee their homes. Some reasons for fleeing are to escape violence, conflict(s), human right violations, and other man-made or natural threats. States must protect the rights of IDPs, however, some states are unable or unwilling to do so, leaving IDPs and refugees facing food insecurity as well as threats to their health and well-being. Additionally, there is an evident inversed relationship as well, where food insecurity by itself can be a major contributing factor to becoming displaced.

Refugees and IDPs are among the groups most vulnerable to acute food insecurity and malnutrition as well as other health risks resulting from the loss of assets and means of subsistence, disruptions to community-based safety nets, and disruptions to national social protection systems. At the same time, barriers to healthcare access also increase, reducing the coverage of affordable, available, and accessible healthcare services, threatening the effectiveness of health programs.

Displacement not only affects people’s health but also their self-reliance, and physical, mental, and socio-economic well-being. In response to desperate situations, many people, especially women and girls, resort to coping strategies that are nutritionally harmful, such as skipping or reducing meals or opting for less nutritious food. According to literature these negative health effects are worse for women who are pregnant or lactating. Self-reliance is reduced when community support systems or assets are lost resulting in increased household indebtedness. Self-reliance can be compromised by the selling of assets or taking interest- bearing loans. The threat of marginalization, abuse and exploitation, gender-based violence, and intercommunal tensions arises when those displaced cope by begging, engaging children in labor, interrupting education, resorting to child marriage to obtain alternative sources of income, or engaging in the sale of sex in exchange for food for instance.

Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Every year, tens of thousands of children – many of them unaccompanied – attempt to make a hazardous journey from East Africa and the Horn of Africa to Europe along the Central Mediterranean Route, driven by factors such as conflict, climate crisis, persecution, economic hardship or shortage of opportunities in their home country. Children’s vulnerabilities and inadequate protection at high-risk points on the route such as border-crossings, leave them highly vulnerable to trafficking – which becomes increasingly likely as risk factors accumulate and compound on their journey.

Samuel Hall was commissioned by Save The Children to conduct research to understand how practitioners and policymakers can reduce the risk of child trafficking and exploitation. The research was conducted across the East Africa Central Mediterranean route, through Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt as part of Save the Children’s work on the East African Migration Routes project, mandated by the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation (SDC). Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and Tunisia were among the top ten countries of origin of migrants reaching European shores in the first half of 2021. More than 200 individuals, including children, community members, practitioners and experts participated in the research.

The aim of the study is to support practitioners to develop more tailored risk prevention and protection interventions for child migrants at each stage of their journey and to influence the development of national and global policies that will strengthen the protection of child migrants in Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and other transit and destination countries on the CMR.

Source: Save the Children

The United Nations Sunday marks International Migrants Day, to commemorate the contributions of hundreds of millions of migrants who have faced challenges to leave home for a better life.

This year’s celebrations occur as increasing numbers of European countries close their doors to refugees and economic migrants from Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa. They are taking place as a growing number of migrants from Central America try to cross the southern U.S. border.

The United Nations says people do not willingly leave home. It says most of the world’s 280 million international migrants have been forced to move by conflict, persecution, desperate poverty, and, increasingly, climate change.

Many migrants, who lack legal pathways, take dangerous routes to countries of asylum. Many are exploited, abused, and die along the way. The International Organization for Migration estimates more than 50,000 migrants have died, and thousands more have disappeared over the past eight years.

IOM Director-General Antonio Vitorino says the world is failing to protect the most vulnerable people.

“Indeed, the world over, migrants move, often at great risks, for the most fundamental of reasons — to seek a better future for themselves and their families. Behind every journey there is a person, there is a story no less valid than our own. This year to mark International Migrants Day, I want to pay tribute to all those who have died or disappeared on the threshold of their dreams.”

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoes these sentiments. He says countries have a legal and moral duty to assist those in distress and provide health services and protection for vulnerable people.

“In seeking a better life, many migrants are in vulnerable situations, suffer from poor health and cannot access health services. We can prevent suffering and save lives by supporting countries to build resilient health and care systems that are sensitive to the needs of migrants,” he said.

The United Nations says migrants’ rights are human rights and must be respected without discrimination. These rights, it adds, pertain regardless of whether people are forced to flee or move voluntarily.

Source: Voice of America