Refugee Rights: Ethics, Advocacy, and Africa - Softcover

This is a challenging, illuminating, and ground-breaking collection, representing the best of contemporary Christian ethical endeavor. Theological Studies

There are over 33 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world today, and a disproportionate number of those are in Africa. Most have been driven from their homes by the armed strife of both interstate and intratstate conflicts. Such coerced migration violates people's freedom; many have been displaced into settings which call into question standards of basic human dignity. Such displacement violates people's most basic human rights in multiple ways. This book, stemming from David Hollenbach's work as founder and director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, provides an analytic framework for vigorous and effective advocacy on behalf of refugees and internally displaced persons, with the aim of generating more effective responses to their suffering. While Hollenbach's work and center reflect a Catholic natural law context, contributors represent both religious and secular perspectives from ethics, human rights, and migration studies. This is a wide-ranging yet integrated collection of chapters from scholars and practitioners and refugee advocates--all of whom have spent time in Africa "on the ground." Part I deals with rights in the face of pluralism, and features a poignant narrative by an Ethiopian refugee, Abebe Feyissa, who has spent the past 15 years living in a refugee camp from hell. Part II addresses the right to the freedom of movement that is denied many refugees. Part III explores gender and the rights of women as criteria for a more adequate response to the struggles of refugees and the internally displaced. Part IV analyzes war as the principal cause of displacement, and how a human rights perspective can help frame a response to it. Part V, the conclusion, identifies key ethical issues in the practices and policies of refugee-serving NGOs and churches.