International migration, particularly to Europe, has increased in the last few decades, making research on aspects of this phenomenon, including numbers, challenges, and successes, particularly ...vital. This Special Issue highlights this necessary and relevant area of research. It presents 37 articles including studies on diverse topics relating to the health of refugees and migrants. Most articles (28) present studies focusing on European host countries. The focus on Europe is justified if we take into consideration the increased number of refugees and migrants who have come to Europe in recent years. However, there are also articles which present studies from countries in other continents. The topics discussed in the Issue include healthcare utilization, infectious diseases, mother and child health, mental health, and chronic diseases. Finding from the included articles indicate that further development of guidelines and policies at both local and international levels is needed. Priorities must be set by encouraging and funding in-depth research that aims to evaluate the impact of existing policies and interventions. Such research will help us formulate recommendations for the development of strategies and approaches that improve and strengthen the integration of migrants and refugees into the host countries.
Asylum has become a highly charged political issue across developed countries, raising a host of difficult ethical and political questions. What responsibilities do the world's richest countries have ...to refugees arriving at their borders? Are states justified in implementing measures to prevent the arrival of economic migrants if they also block entry for refugees? Is it legitimate to curtail the rights of asylum seekers to maximize the number of refugees receiving protection overall? This book draws upon political and ethical theory and an examination of the experiences of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia to consider how to respond to the challenges of asylum. In addition to explaining why asylum has emerged as such a key political issue in recent years, it provides a compelling account of how states could move towards implementing morally defensible responses to refugees.
Background: Due to their experiences of major stressful life events, including post-displacement stressors, refugees and asylum seekers are vulnerable to developing mental health problems. Yet, ...despite the availability of specialized mental health services in Western European host countries, refugees and asylum seekers display low mental healthcare utilization.
Objective: The aim of this study was to explore structural and socio-cultural barriers to accessing mental healthcare among Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in Switzerland.
Method: In this qualitative study, key-informant (KI) interviews with Syrian refugees and asylum seekers, Swiss healthcare providers and other stakeholders (e.g. refugee coordinators or leaders) were conducted in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Participants were recruited using snowball sampling. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed, and then analysed using thematic analysis, combining deductive and inductive coding.
Results: Findings show that Syrian refugees and asylum seekers face multiple structural and socio-cultural barriers, with socio-cultural barriers being perceived as more pronounced. Syrian key informants, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders identified language, gatekeeper-associated problems, lack of resources, lack of awareness, fear of stigma and a mismatch between the local health system and perceived needs of Syrian refugees and asylum seekers as key barriers to accessing care.
Conclusions: The results show that for Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in Switzerland several barriers exist. This is in line with previous findings. A possible solution for the current situation might be to increase the agility of the service system in general and to improve the willingness to embrace innovative paths, rather than adapting mental healthcare services regarding single barriers and needs of a new target population.
Timely and profound collection of high-quality contributions, written by experts from across Europe, on the ongoing policy debate on the reform of Common European Asylum System. Contributions combine ...an in-depth presentation with a style of argument that addresses a broader audience: fellow academics, students and PhD researchers, practitioners, and political actors. Attention to the legislative detail coincides with an awareness of the broader picture in terms of policy developments, human rights computability, and practical implementation on the ground. The edited volume allows readers to understand the complex rules and to identify overarching challenges defining European asylum policy at this juncture. With contributions by Dr. Ulrike Brandl, Dr. Galina Cornelisse, Prof. Philippe De Bruycker, Jean-Baptiste Farcy, Prof. Paula García Andrade, Prof. Dr. Iris Goldner Lang, Prof. Elspeth Guild, Dr. Meltem İneli Ciğer, Dr. Lyra Jakuleviciene, Prof. Francesco Maiani, Dr. Madalina Bianca Moraru, Prof. Violeta Moreno-Lax, Prof. Sylvie Sarolea, Dr. Lieneke Slingenberg, Prof. Dr. Daniel Thym, Prof. Lilian Tsourdi and Prof. Jens Vedsted-Hansen.
This book focuses on three European asylum procedures and the evidentiary assessment carried out in these. The interrelationship between these procedures and legal systems influencing them is ...explored and questions in relation to the harmonizing strivings of EU are posed.
This article sheds light on the waiting period experienced by asylum‐seeking children in Austria. We argue that this period can be defined as a ‘phase of liminality’ in which ‘precarity’ of asylum ...seekers is produced. The article analyses how children experience institutional settings that produce precarity in relation to their well‐being. The aim is to contribute to a sound understanding of children's experiences while waiting for an asylum decision and to a child‐centred perspective on children that focuses on their needs, wishes and agency. The article draws on 27 interviews with asylum‐seeking children living in a basic services accommodation in Vienna, conducted in 2020 and 2021. The findings demonstrate the importance of listening to asylum‐seeking children to support their well‐being during this phase of liminality and implementing child‐centred asylum policies that are responsive to children's well‐being.
This multidisciplinary volume brings together experienced expert witnesses and immigration attorneys to highlight best practices and strategies for giving expert testimony in asylum cases. As the ...scale and severity of violence in Latin America has grown in the last decade, scholars and attorneys have collaborated to defend the rights of immigrant women, children, and LGBTQ+ persons who are threatened by gender-based, sexual, and gang violence in their home countries. Researchers in anthropology, history, political science, and sociology have regularly supported the work of immigration lawyers and contributed to public debates on immigration reform, but the academy contains untapped scholarly expertise that, guided by the resources provided in this handbook, can aid asylum seekers and refugees and promote the fair adjudication of asylum claims in US courts. As the recent refugee crisis of immigrant mothers and children and unaccompanied minors has made clear, there is an urgent need for academics to work with other professionals to build a legal framework and national network that can respond effectively to this human rights crisis. “Practicing Asylum is nothing short of groundbreaking. Asylum cases increasingly rest on the quality of country-condition experts’ work.” — HAYDEN RODARTE, immigrant rights attorney “It is rare to read a book that has been written with so much heart and so many insights for academics, attorneys, and advocates alike.” — S. DEBORAH KANG, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia “Practicing Asylum is a call to action that comes amid an unfolding humanitarian disaster met by a system cruelly stacked against asylum seekers.” — J. T. WAY, Associate Professor of Latin American History, Georgia State University
The article examines the intertextuality of asylum documents by analysing the links between the documents in various stages of the process. The paper argues that the asylum process materialises in ...asylum documents and that these documents are inherently intertextual. Thus, they create intertextual chains, that is, they are based on previous documents, which in turn become sources of subsequent documents, thereby creating new links to the chain. The article traces two asylum cases in Finland from the asylum interview to the appeal process while paying special attention to recontextualisation, inclusion and exclusion, assumptions, and absences. The analysis also shows how the inclusions and exclusions can be used in recontextualisation, how the assumptions and absences intertwine with one another, and what kind of consequences these may have for an asylum process. The paper provides an opening in discussing how asylum documents are formed as intertextual chains and how they can be reformed in the process.
Despite long-standing recognition that variations exist between people's experiences of time, and that time is central to the framing of social life and bureaucratic systems, migration scholars have ...tended to neglect the temporal dimension in their exploration of mobility. This continues to be the case today despite it being over a decade since Saulo Cwerner, in this journal, called for migration researchers to give greater attention to time. This article seeks to reinvigorate the debate, drawing on ethnographic research with refused asylum seekers and immigration detainees in the UK to question how an appreciation of time provides insights into understandings of mobility and deportability. It argues that deportable migrants suffer from the instability and precarity created by living with a dual uncertainty of time, one that simultaneously threatens imminent and absent change. The article distinguishes between four experiential temporalities (sticky, suspended, frenzied and ruptured), and considers how the re-appropriation of time might aid individual resilience.
On 6 November 2023, the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama announced the signing of the Agreement for Strengthening of Collaboration in the Field of ...Migration. The agreement proposes a relocation of asylum seekers who are rescued at sea by Italian vessels to two centres that would be built in Albania and could host up to 3’000 people. This is part of a broader trend whereby European governments seek to move asylum procedures outside of their territory. At the same time, the agreement contains some innovations compared to previous proposals. Indeed, this move has been hailed as a “model and example for other collaboration agreements of this kind” by the Italian Prime Minister. This article contends that this is unlikely to be the case: the legality and feasibility of offshoring asylum procedures remain dubious at best.
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