Why has the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive not been applied during the migration crisis in order to receive Syrians and other asylum seekers?

Clara Burbano-HerreraAuthor: Clara Burbano-Herrera
Fulbright Fellow, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University; Visiting researcher, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg); and FWO Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Human Rights Centre, Ghent University

The EU Border Agency Frontex indicates that a total of 1.83 million irregular border crossings were detected at the EU’s external borders in 2015, compared to 283 500 in 2014. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 1 015 078 people reached Europe irregularly in 2015 by crossing the Mediterranean, while a further 3 771 are believed to have drowned attempting the same journey. The main country of origin of applicants in EU+ countries (the 28 EU Member States as well as Norway and Switzerland) was Syria.

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It is time to take maternal mortality in Kenya seriously

Clara Burbano-HerreraAuthor: Clara Burbano-Herrera
Fulbright Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University (USA)

Maternal mortality rates reflect disparities between wealthy and poor women, and between developed and developing countries. [i] Frequently, whether women survive pregnancy and childbirth is related to their social, economic and cultural status. The poorer and more marginalized a woman is, the greater her risk of death. [ii] Ninetynine per cent (99%) of maternal deaths occur in developing countries, and most of these deaths are preventable. [iii]

While worldwide maternal mortality has declined – in 2013, the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) was 210 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, down from 380 maternal deaths in 1990 (a 45 per cent reduction) [iv] – unfortunately in Kenya maternal mortality has decreased very little, i.e., from 490 to 400[v] in the period between 1990 and 2013, compared to the Millennium Development Goal No. 5 (MDG) target [vi] of 147 per 100,000 births. [vii]

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