The past 30 years have seen an unprecedented rise in attention towards the mental health of conflict-affected populations. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the burden of mental disorder among conflict-affected individuals may be as high as 22% and…
When the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2030 were adopted in New York in September 2015, their ambition to “leave no-one behind and “reach the furthest behind first” reflected a renewed global solidarity around further poverty reduction. While the…
When the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics published labour force statistics from its 2015–16 integrated household survey, it found that 72% of working-age Kenyans were employed.[1] In Turkana County, the rate was 62%. However, this national survey excluded refugee camps.…
In March 2020, days before COVID-19 put New York into lockdown, the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) unanimously endorsed the world’s first International Recommendations on IDP Statistics.[1] These recommendations provide a framework to help countries to better define IDPs and to…
The COVID-19 pandemic has torn through lives and livelihoods across the globe. Forcibly displaced people are among the most vulnerable but there is little robust data to provide insights into how their needs are evolving through the pandemic.[1] Health considerations…
People trying to migrate to other countries drown in sewage canals; they freeze to death in remote forests; they die of dehydration and starvation after their vehicles break down in the middle of the desert. Documenting migrant deaths and disappearances…
Inherited and unchanging throughout life, DNA is a powerful metric for identifying human remains. Technical improvements in using it have advanced over the decades; however, ethical, administrative and bureaucratic barriers restrict its use, particularly for transnational identification. This is apparent…
Families of people who go missing on a migration journey either do not know how to seek government support or are sceptical of doing so, and States have done almost nothing to address this issue. There appears to be little…
Bereaved families have the right to truth, to justice and to closure. These fundamental rights are recognised under international human rights law, including under the right to dignity, the right to life and the right to family and private life.[1]…
The search for missing migrants is a transnational, even transcontinental, undertaking requiring cooperation among a broad range of actors.[1] A global intergovernmental framework for such cooperation had been lacking, but this changed with the inclusion (at ICRC’s instigation) of Objective…