When policy isn’t enough: Examining accessibility of sexual and reproductive health rights for displaced populations in South Africa
Posted: 21 December, 2020 Filed under: Lidya Stamper | Tags: abortion, CEDAW, clinic, discrimination, displaced, Displaced Populations, gender inequality, IDP, IDPs, International Organization for Migration, IOM, Johannesburg, migrant populations, policy, poverty, public health, public health system, reproductive health, sexual and reproductive health rights, sexual health, South Africa, SRHS, UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 2 Comments
Author: Lidya Stamper
Research Fellow, Centre of Human Rights, University of Pretoria
The right to sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS) is a fundamental human right for all, guaranteed under international human rights law. Legal protections outlining these rights have been recognised in South Africa through international, regional and domestic instruments. More specifically, these protections are highlighted and specified in documents such as the ‘Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women’ (CEDAW), the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), and the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Despite the presence of these legal frameworks, outlining equality and non-discrimination, persistent inequalities continue to act as barriers to exercising SRHS. Legislative and policy advances in SRH have been undermined by a lack of successful implementation and improvements in service delivery, service accessibility, and service availability. Implementation challenges combined with a fragmented health sector have resulted in various obstacles including a lack of standardised care, gaps in the dissemination of information, overburdened health facilities, and provider opposition. Social conditions such as gender inequality, poor access to health services, and provider attitudes continue to reinforce these barriers, undermining many of the intended outcomes of the existing legislative and policy advances in the SRH realm.
The National Migration Policy and its implementation framework: A precursor for a more effective migration governance in Nigeria
Posted: 30 October, 2015 Filed under: Uche Hilary-Ogbonna | Tags: access to education, disapora, health, human trafficking, IDP, implementation framework, international migration, legal frameworks, Mediterranean, migrant smuggling, migrants, Migrants and IDPs, migration, National Commission for Refugees, National Migration Policy, Nigeria, policy, refugees, rural-urban migration flows Leave a comment
Author: Uche Hilary-Ogbonna
Humanitarian Affairs Officer, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (UN OCHA) Abuja
Legal frameworks are the bedrock for any effective management system. They underscore the importance of articulating a set of aspirations in concise directives and regulations, offering guidance to the myriad of field operatives and interventions in the varied sectors of migration management, development or the society at large. For the migration sector in Nigeria, it has been a long, tough journey to the adoption of the National Migration Policy and its implementation framework. The Policy is widely considered a breakthrough piece of legal document which came to fruition on account of years of toil by a host of government functionaries, development actors, the academia and civil society organizations.
The Policy comes at a very important time in the global migratory scene with the rise in international migration across the Mediterranean resulting in multiple deaths. With over 170 million citizens, Nigeria is important in migration management as a country of origin, transit and destination for migrants. Nigeria faces challenges such as effective diaspora engagement and remittances, inter-regional, rural-urban migration flows, migration of highly skilled and unskilled labour, data generation, as well as trafficking in persons to mention a few.
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