Refugees returning ‘home’ are seen by the international community as the ultimate proof of peace and return to ‘normalcy’. Somewhat paradoxically, however, they are also seen as agents of change who can contribute to development and peace building. Returnees from…
Violence against women (VAW) is endemic in Afghanistan: from early and forced marriages to domestic violence, so-called honour killings, rape and dispossession. Although obtaining reliable data on violence against women remains difficult in the Afghan context, the findings of an…
Women in Afghanistan have been raped and sexually targeted during decades of conflict. Reports from national and international human rights and women’s rights organisations show that women and girls of every age, ethnic group and class have experienced sexual violence:…
The results of a recent survey of urban displaced youth (15-24 years of age) in Kabul[1] suggest that displaced youth in Kabul want the opportunity to play a fuller role at home as economic and social actors but that they…
Common assumptions would support a belief that urban women and girls should generally be more able to access services and social opportunities compared to their pre-displacement rural place of origin, owing to more progressive urban attitudes and the wider availability…
Some 630,000 Afghans are internally displaced due to conflict and the country still struggles with the reintegration of over 5.7 million former refugees. Up to 30% of Afghans currently live in urban settings, the majority in informal settlements in or…
Over a decade after the fall of the Taliban and following massive international development and military intervention in Afghanistan, all the evidence suggests that we are likely to witness yet another major displacement crisis. The main differences this time around…
In predicting prospects for Afghanistan during and after 2014, international attention has mainly focused on the impact of the withdrawal of international military forces from Afghanistan by the end of this year. However, the political transition of 2014, starting with…
Discriminatory nationality laws disrupt people’s lives in many ways. Women choosing not to have children for fear of the problems those children will face. Young, eligible men unable to find a wife because their statelessness would affect the whole family,…
In the Dominican Republic (DR) enjoyment of nationality and its attendant rights has become all but impossible for persons of Haitian descent – a population that numbers between 250,000 and 500,000 in a population of about ten million.[1] Recent changes…