Refugee right(s) to health and education

Problem Statement: Refugees women and children have limited rights to health and education owing to the lack of legal policies specific to their needs.
 Summary: The number of people affected by wars and natural disasters has increased considerably in the last decades and no continent has been significantly affected than the African continent.  Despite the reasons for migration - war, conflict, or political violence, the outcome of these events produces the same results of poverty, starvation, disease, brutality, lack of access to education and psychological degradation. Critical analysis of articles 25 & 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Right shows two major problems as it relates to refugees:
1.      Most refugees do not live in regular homes and so do not have parents/mothers to ensure that their health and educational needs are met.
2.      Refugees flee their homes due mainly to political unrest. Therefore, societal structures put in place to ensure that elementary education is free and compulsory are non-existent.

 Aim: to identify barriers to legal policies on health and education rights for refugees.
 Theoretical Framework: Using a critical legal inquiry paradigm, this research will exploit and integrate both empirical-analytical inquiry and interpretive inquiry to tease out categorical phenomenon and/or causal explanations in examining how displaced/refugee women and children experience their world and interact together in it. NB: This research is part of the researcher’s current master in law thesis.

 Design: a cross sectional study will be carried out using a simple semi-structured questionnaire.

 Expected Outcomes:
·        Identification of various international policies that affect refugees’ rights to health and education; Critical dissection of the challenges these policies pose;
·        Initiation of on-going dialogue on improving policies to accomplish the health and education for all agenda for refugees; and
·        Provide recommendations for improving laws and policies