Distress Migration

The Program has an established research portfolio covering a wide range of topics and geographies, which generates data on the plight of specific distress migration populations such as children, women, victims of trafficking and pregnant women across the world: from the US-Mexico borders, to West and Central Africa, Sudan, Greece, Poland, Lebanon, India and Bangladesh.

The goal of 2023-24 is to expand this agenda by adding critical regions of distress migration, additional vulnerable populations and more nuanced questions of interest. For example, among others, our program is one of the few distress migration programs currently focusing on the impact of migration flows on frontline host communities and the factors that generate or dissipate communities’ solidarity to distress migrants. Our program has identified this gap and is taking action to facilitate research and scientific dialogue around this unexplored topic.

The Summer Course on Migration and Refugee Studies is a three-week, intensive, interdisciplinary course on migration and refugee studies and one of the latest additions to the Harvard FXB Center’s pedagogical agenda. Born from the Center’s longstanding commitment to the advocacy of refugee’s rights, as well as a research agenda that spans continents and regions, it offers a multidisciplinary space for participants to study all aspects of migration with a specific focus on the very real and extensive human, social and political consequences of migration.

The course is the first product of a very promising collaboration between Harvard University and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, a synergy that opens the door for auspicious prospects for research, pedagogy and advocacy on a global and complex phenomenon. Held in Greece, a country with a rich migration history that in 2015 became the epicenter of Europe’s migration crisis, the course offers participants the unique opportunity to engage conceptually but also practically with key contemporary migration issues. From simulations of rescues at sea, to meetings with national and local governmental Greek actors and European Union representatives, from lectures by more than 90 experts from across the world, to discussions with refugees and locals at the frontlines, from visits to migrant camps, to an opportunity to participate in an NGO Fair, students become fully immersed on issues of migration through perspectives that are hard to find in traditional academic settings. Read the 2022-2023 course report here and visit the course webpage here.

The program has established scholarly collaborations between institutions at both international and domestic levels on questions of distress migration. Some of the most important, official collaborations have been established with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, a thought leader in distress migration research in the Mediterranean Basin, and the University of Strathclyde’s Center of Excellence for Looked after Children in Scotland, as well as with international leading organizations like BRAC, IOM (5 years), UNICEF, ICRC, UNHCR & ISS.

The ultimate purpose of these collaborations is the establishment of a broad, extended network of high-level experts that work together to create a uniquely collaborative approach to distress migration research and targeted policy development, while establishing a framework for systematic evaluations, policy assessment, and targeted policy interventions.

The Program’s research and work on distress migration studies grows directly out of the FXB Center’s long-standing aim to bring a human rights based approach to treatment of vulnerable populations. For the past 10 years, the program faculty are shaping and influencing policy development through the broad dissemination of findings and recommendations across diverse media, including expert panels at the United Nations, EU level meetings, panel discussions at local Universities and public conferences in the US and Europe.

Migration policy has direct and dramatic impacts on refugees. It affects refugees’ route to safety and the quality of protection refugees receive. But migration policy also affects the frontline host communities that refugees depend on. State failures to anticipate predictable refugee needs burden host communities with unsustainable responsibilities, vitiating the possibility of sustaining the initial solidarity that they so often exhibit. While a considerable body of scholarship examines the drivers of xenophobia across host communities over time, no comparable effort engages with the key variable of host community solidarity, its diffusion, intensity and dissipation. This lacuna is highly consequential because host community solidarity is a critical democratic resource that merits sustenance by state policy.

Frontline empathic solidarity, is both critical and fragile. In such settings, the cost of inaction is high and potentially irreversible. Once allowed to take root, the dissipation of solidarity, and its replacement by hostility, from frontline hosts sets in motion negative and foreseeable outcomes widely documented in policy analyses across comparative contexts. If sustained, it enhances the political viability of rights-respecting and non-discriminatory public policies that generate inclusive and diverse societies.  Proactive state and international policies that anticipate and strengthen the empathic solidarity of border communities, policies could, by contrast, foster generative win-win outcomes.

The program on distress migration received a generous grant from the Harvard Weatherhead Center to establish a 3-year Research Cluster that seeks to understand both the processes and mechanisms by which empathic solidarity towards distress migrants is built and sustained, as well as the triggers of attitudinal change among frontline host. By bringing together Harvard University scholars and students from different disciplines, and further connecting them with scholars and practitioners from different frontline contexts, the cluster fosters a new and potentially impactful intellectual constituency that addresses the issue of front-line solidarity and government actions to sustain solidarity over time as a crucial resource for democratic robustness.

After completing the project in Poland, our program aims to conduct a similar study in Greece, a country that has seen more than 1,5 million distress migrants entering its premises during the last 5 years but in contrary to Poland, these migrants do not just flee war, they are not all eligible for a refugee status and they come from at least 24 different countries. Greece has also been chosen as a critical case study as a country whose once emblematic example of host community compassion has slowly started to collapse.

This study aims to provide an answer to the following questions:

1. What factors generated initial humanitarian compassion in Greece;
2. What are the sustainers of local compassion in these relatively small frontline communities towards new arrivals – the personal, social, ethical and what benefits this empathic solidarity generates not just for distress migrant arrivals but for local hosts themselves;
3. How has compassion shifted over time?
4. What are the drivers behind this shift?
5. How can we replenish and incentivize compassion within these communities?

We anticipate that the findings from both studies in Poland and Greece will lay the ground for a broader set of comparative studies and will have important policy implications for migration policy and preparedness in Europe and beyond. The goal is to contribute to social cohesion and democratic politics within the context of the global migration phenomenon.

Access to timely antenatal care is considered an effective method to ensure successful pregnancy outcomes, as well as a lifelong health of the mothers and their children. However, in the context of humanitarian crisis, asylum seeking women face significant barriers in accessing antenatal care leading to a series of poor perinatal outcomes and risks to the health of both the young mothers and the babies, furthering health inequalities for this vulnerable population. Recent reports on asylum seeking and

refugee pregnant women in Europe found that 65% did not have access to antenatal care during pregnancy. This differentially influences several perinatal health outcomes including mental health, mortality of both mother and child, mode of delivery, birth weight, preterm birth, congenital anomalies, and other morbidities. This exploratory study seeks to make visible the diverse lived experiences of Central- American asylum seeking pregnant women stranded at three critical transit cities at the US- Mexican borders: Monterrey, Tijuana and Matamoros.  Given the significant number of pregnant women stranded in these cities in perilous and often informal settings for prolonged periods of time, the study aims to explore this group’s current access to antenatal care, and the impact of current deterrent US migration policies on them in these three specific geographic areas.

A team of researchers from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, Australia, the Justice Health Group at Curtin University, and the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University collaborated on identifying, critiquing, and synthesizing current standards for healthcare for children deprived of their liberty in order to shine a light on one of the most neglected areas in the protection of children.

Children who experience deprivation of liberty are distinguished by complex health problems that typically precede and contribute to their detention, and that may be further compounded by experiences of detention, particularly when the quality of healthcare in detention is suboptimal. With more than seven million children experiencing deprivation of liberty globally each year, the health of these children is important to global health and to efforts to reduce health inequalities. Despite this, remarkably little is known about either the health status of children deprived of liberty, or the health services available to them in these settings. Similarly, very little is known about children’s health outcomes after being deprived of liberty. The available evidence suggests that health services in places of detention are often inadequate, although the bulk of the evidence comes from a handful of high income, mostly Western countries.

The aim of this report is to identify gaps in the system and assist the United Nations Task Force (UNTF) in its efforts to support the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and ensure that all children, including those deprived of their liberty in all settings, achieve the highest attainable standard of health. Setting and implementing minimum standards for healthcare in detention can help to drive improvements in the quality of care, and thereby improve health outcomes for children who experience deprivation of liberty.

Kelly, T., Campbell A., Young, J., McLeod, K., Bhabha, J., Pearce, L., Southalan, L., Borschmann, R., Ratnam Raman, V., Kinner, S. (2024). Ensuring the Highest Attainable Standard of Health for Children Deprived of their Liberty. Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Justice Health Group at Curtin University, François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University.

The availability and persistence of local community solidarity are crucial resources for distress migrants, as they cope with the consequences of ruptured lives. However, this solidarity is neither inherent nor permanent. It is rather a fragile and finite resource that can erode if not properly sustained and reinforced. Anecdotal data from the field shows that when states fail to accompany and support their citizens in their spontaneous expression of solidarity toward distress migrants, solidarity rapidly dissipates and is replaced by fatigue, resentment and eventually outright hostility.

This preliminary empirical study’s goals are to document the factors that generate local solidarity and examine whether generous, well implemented state policies fueled by state actors’ preemptive attention to predictable needs can protect local communities from fatigue, and instead sustain solidarity and social inclusion of distress migrants over time.

To achieve this goal, the FXB Center conducted exploratory, qualitative research in 5 frontline local communities in Poland. Poland was chosen because of its state-driven vigorous and welcoming response to the very sizeable numbers of fleeing Ukrainians crossing into Poland after the Russian invasion in February, 2022. The dramatic asymmetry in the Polish response to Ukrainians arriving at Poland’s eastern border (with Ukraine) compared to all other recent refugee arrivals provides an additional lens for examining the impact of the different types of state engagement on local responses to distress migrants, responses that range from solidarity to virulent anti-migrant sentiment.

Digidiki, V., Bhabha, J. Markowska-Manista, U. & Dobkowska, J. (2024). Building Inclusion, Sustaining Solidarity towards migrants in frontline local communities: The case of Poland during the Ukrainian Refugee Crisis. Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Boston, USA.

Between 2017 and 2021, more than half a million children were detained in immigration detention, with more than 200,000 of these children being held for more than 72 hours. Violating basic children’s rights, the US continues to detain children for lengthy and arbitrary periods of time, placing them in detention facilities unsuitable for child health and safety. Furthermore, reporting and oversight from governmental and non-governmental agencies has documented devastatingly harmful conditions for children in family immigration detention including separation from parents, the use of prison facilities inappropriate for housing children, and limited access to qualified medical professionals leading to grave physical and mental health consequences. Medical studies have documented long-term consequences of detention on children in the US and around the world; however, to our knowledge there are no systematic studies describing the quality of pediatric health care based on primary medical documentation within the US family immigration detention system.   

The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), the Child Health Immigration Research Team based out of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Asylum Clinic at the MGH Center for Global Health, and the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, collaborated to analyze the medical records of 165 children, between 6 months and 18 years old, detained at Karnes County Family Residential Center (KCFRC) ​​between June 2018 and October 2020. 

Broadly, we found that existing health issues and care needs relating to physical and mental health were under-identified due to poor screening and minimal documentation of medical care, resulting in fragmentated and inadequate medical care. During prolonged detention the children in the study had limited access to basic healthcare, including key screenings and management of acute medical and mental health issues.

Sridhar, S., Digidiki, V., Kunichoff D., Bhabha, J., Sullivan, M., Gartland, MG., 2024. Child Migrants in Family Immigration Detention in the US: An examination of current pediatric care standards and practices. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, Boston and MGH Asylum Clinic at the Center for Global Health.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been devastated by a brutal and prolonged civil war for decades. Pervasive gender- based violence has been a particularly salient feature of this conflict, and has led to the forced international migration of large numbers of women and girls in search of safety.  Since 2015, a significant number of  these at risk DRC citizens have sought refuge in Europe, many of them by entering Greece. As of November 2020, forced migrants from the DRC make up the third largest national group entering and seeking asylum in Greece, following forced migrants from Afghanistan and Syria. Based on anecdotal evidence, despite their vulnerability as victims of abuse, trafficking and torture prior and during their migration journeys,  recognized refugee women from the DRC, lag far behind the Greek population across a broad swath of quality of life indicators.  This exploratory study aims to document the diverse lived experiences of refugee and asylum seeking women from the DRC in Greece, a European country, aiming to investigate the obstacles that make sources of support unavailable to these vulnerable women and document what, if any, state services are provided to them and their children.

This study assessed the factors that drive vulnerability to trafficking, and revealed trends for the trafficking were mostly gendered, informed by education and income levels of the victims (and their families). For instance, boys were almost twice as likely to be trafficked as children than girls and had 39 per cent less likelihood of being trafficked internationally than domestically, as compared to girls. Victims with little or no education were more than 20 times more likely to be trafficked than victims who had attended high school while children from low-income countries were five times more likely to be trafficked as a child (rather than as an adult) when compared to victims from high-income countries.

Digidiki, V., J. Bhabha, K. Connors, H. Cook, C. Galez-Davis, C. Hansen, M. Lane, S. Laursen, and L. Wong, 2023. From Evidence to Action: Twenty years of IOM child trafficking data to inform policy and programming. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, Boston and International Organization for Migration (IOM), Geneva.

This research collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) aimed to analyze migration flows and patterns, and migrants’ vulnerabilities along their journeys within and from West and Central Africa. The study analyzed data from IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) flow monitoring survey, a survey consisting of over 110,000 migrants across 38 transit points in 7 countries in West and Central Africa. In addition, qualitative data gathered from expert interviews conducted by the main author in 2020 shed light on the impact of COVID-19 on migrants’ journeys and well-being. Watch a video re-cap of this project here.

Digidiki, V., Bhabha, J., Bhatia, A.,Peisch, S, Sattler, V., Cordaro, B. and H. Cook (2021). “See Migration Like Water”: An Analysis of IOM Flow Monitoring Survey Data on Migration Flows in West and Central Africa. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, Boston, and International Organization for Migration, Geneva.

In early 2017, 19,371 migrants of all ages opted for return from Libya to their countries of origin. Taking stock of the lack of accessible legal migration opportunities and the grave hardships associated with the stay in Libya, these migrants elected to receive assistance and safely return home. Between 2017 and late October 2018, 10,674 children returned safely from Libya to their home African countries under the Voluntary Humanitarian Return Program (VHR), operated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in collaboration with governments in the countries of origin. However, little is known about the many challenges returnees face post-return, a considerable concern given the vulnerability of migrant returnees, and of child migrant returnees in particular. To address this concern, a pilot study was conducted in Nigeria, one of the main countries of origin for many young migrants, and the site of a substantial number of recent voluntary returns of male and female children and young people from Libya. This study was conducted in July 2018 in the four States of Nigeria with the highest number of VHR children and youth: Delta, Edo, Lagos and Ondo. Primary data were collected through a quantitative survey administered to 119 VHR beneficiaries aged 17 to 24. Secondary data were gathered through an extensive desk review of literature on issues of return, sustainable reintegration, child and youth aspirations and conditions in Nigeria. A central goal of the pilot study was to collect empirical data on the challenges, needs, aspirations and long-term prospects of returnees, as well as the architecture of assistance available during the process of reintegration. The objective of this data collection was to learn from the young migrants’ experiences in order to generate an evidence base for a series of rights-respecting recommendations to promote sustainable reintegration and capacity building of government agencies involved in supporting returnees.

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (2019). Leaving and returning “home”: The Elusive quest for Belonging and Adulthood among African adolescents on the move. Culture and Education, 2 (124), 143–156.

Digidiki, V., Bhabha, J. /IOM (November, 2019). Returning Home? The reintegration challenges facing child and youth returnees from Libya to Nigeria FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Harvard University.

This study analyzed the risk factors responsible for the exposure of migrant and refugee children to physical, psychological, and sexual violence and exploitation in Greece in the context of the ongoing migrant humanitarian crisis. It documented sexual and physical abuse of children inside migrant camps and reported new information about the commercial sexual exploitation of migrant children in the main cities of Greece. This research also explored the existing gaps and challenges in intervention efforts that contribute to victimization of migrant children. The study was conducted using rapid assessment methodology, combining qualitative research with in situ observation. Data collection was completed in late November 2016 in four sites in Greece—namely, the islands of Lesvos and Chios and the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki. These areas were chosen because they host large migrant populations, facilities, and camps. The conclusions are based on 24 key informant and stakeholder interviews with on-site participants who work closely with migrant children and are thus qualified to comment on the conditions inside migrant facilities and camps.

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (2018). Sexual abuse and exploitation of unaccompanied migrant children in Greece: Identifying risk facts and gaps in services during the European migration crisis. Children and Youth Service Review, 92(C), 114-121.

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (2017). Emergency within an Emergency: The growing epidemic of sexual exploitation and abuse of migrant children in Greece. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Harvard University.

Since April 2015, our groundbreaking study “Emergency within an Emergency” received massive media exposure, mobilizing discussions across countries, continents and societal levels, essentially mainstreaming a previously “taboo” topic for policy makers and highlighting that the current situation is evidence not of a migration crisis per se, but of a crisis in child protection. The results and the recommendations of the report were published and discussed in more than 60 news outlets, in more than 15 countries around the world and 10 languages initiating a continuous dialogue around the phenomenon and increasing the pressure for effective measures against it.

Additionally, the main authors were interviewed and hosted by different media platforms in US, UK, Greece and Germany, including NBC, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Harvard Gazette, Greek mainstream news shows and Greek socio-political newspapers. Leveraging this exposure, the authors were able to initiate a discussion away from the mere exploitation of children toward the need for a child protection approach centered around the agency, aspirations and desires of the children themselves.

The impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on the basic rights of vulnerable children has been extensive. This review presents evidence of the pandemic’s impact drawn from several different constituencies with whom the FXB Center has an active research engagement: (1) Roma children in Europe, (2) Migrant children in Mexico and Central America(3) Vulnerable children in India, including Rohingya refugees (5) Child victims of domestic abuse in the US. States’ response to the pandemic have exacerbated the vulnerability of many groups of children, leaving them without access to basic rights and exposing them to increased exploitation, abuse, discrimination, and community isolation. The review concludes by advocating for non-negotiable child protection obligations to be enforced as a necessary element in all public health policies instituted to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bhabha, J., Chakraborty, R., Digidiki, V., Matache, M., Peisch, S. & Sedas, A. C. (June, 2020). Protecting Human Rights During and After COVID-19: A Child Rights’ Perspective. Harvard University. Commissioned by the Office of the High Commissioner. Available here.

This education needs assessment was conducted in order to evaluate the BRAC’s education response strategies within Cox Bazar and inform future strategies.

The assessment had five main objectives:

• From a profiling perspective, to identify profiles of BRAC students, including literacy and numeracy rates, psycho-social needs, as well as, their desires and wishes for the educational future, and profiles of out-of- BRAC Learning Centers young people, including the psychosocial challenges, as well as their needs and aspirations for their educational and work futures.
• From an analytical perspective, to document the challenges in accessing and delivering education in the context of the Rohingya crisis, assess conditions inside the BRAC Learning Centers, identify the protection challenges that interface with the provision of education and understand the role of the community and parents in the education of children and young people.
• From a theoretical perspective, to understand what is being offered under the label of education (a pedagogical assessment) in the BRAC Learning Centers, map the educational services that are being offered in the centers and document the competences and training of the learning instructors responsible for providing education to children.
• From a practical perspective, to generate actionable recommendations to improve the ongoing education response of BRAC, generate rich data that can inform planning and coordination of future educational interventions, provide a foundation to guide funding priorities on education, and strengthen BRAC’s capacity and accountability in how to respond to the needs of children and young people in Cox’s Bazar.

The overarching aim of this assessment was to provide useful background to inform the development of a life-skills component for children aged 10-14 that addresses “the mix of vulnerability and resilience of young migrants in its full complexity”. This new component would enrich the curriculum that children attended in BRAC learning centers with topics of their immediate interest, adhering at the same time to the community’s priorities and current needs. A secondary aim was to generate evidence-based rich data that would allow organizations to better advocate on behalf of young people’s educational needs and establish common indicators for effectively monitoring and assessing the new curriculum.

Digidiki, V & Bhabha, J. (2021). Gendered Correlates of Distress Migration: Taking Note of Rohingya Voices. Journal of Diversity and Gender studies, 8(2), 23-39.

This large-scale study focused on the multi-layered challenges and difficulties that migrant children face while on the move. Two comprehensive reviews were undertaken for the needs of the study: a framing review to capture current legal and policy approaches to CoM, and a learning review dealing with sexual abuse and exploitation of CoM.  These desk reviews were informed and supplemented by seven case studies that illustrated the risks faced by CoM in different contexts and the need for additional comprehensive policies and programs to protect this population. Most of the case studies relied on qualitative data collected for the purposes of this study.

Bhabha, J., Bohne, C., Digidiki, V. et al. (2016). Children on the Move: An Urgent Human Rights and Child Protection Priority. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Harvard University.

The objective of the study is to improve migrant’s assistance, return and reintegration support to children, youth and their communities, as well as readiness and adequacy of child protection and reintegration systems to respond to child and youth returnees’ reintegration needs. The study used a mixed method approach, employing both structured surveys with returnees aged 15-24 from Libya to Sudan, their parents and their non-migrant peers, and semi structured interviews with relevant stakeholders and community leaders.  The findings of the study aimed to inform IOM programming and advocacy. With regards to children, the study also aimed at contributing with evidence to the IOM development of the annex on child reintegration to the IOM reintegration handbook.

Books

Bhabha, J., J. Kanics, and D. Senovilla Hernández, eds. (2018). Research Handbook on Child Migration. Chetlanham: Elgar Press.

Bhabha J. (2018). Can We Solve The Migration Crisis? Cambridge: Polity Books.

Chapters

Bhabha, J. (2021). “Zero Humanity: The Reality of Current US Immigration policy toward Central American Refugee Children and their Families”. In Beyond Borders: The Human Rights of Non-Citizens at Home and Abroad, Cambridge University Press. 35-52.

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J.  (2021). Against the Best Interests of the Child: the global injustice of migrant externalization (pp.99-117). In L. Weber & C. Tazreiter (Eds). Handbook of Migration and Global Justice, UK: Edward Elgar Publications.

Bhabha J., “What it means for a child to be a refugee or a distress migrant” in ed. Harlow T. Freedom from Flight: Refugee Children, Trauma, Strategies & Best Practices, University of Arizona e-Books.

Bhabha, J. (2019).  Children on the move in the Twenty-First Century: Developing a Rights-Based Plan of Action. In Humanitarian and Mass Migration, ed. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco. Berkeley: University of California Press, 83-98.

Bissell S. & Bhabha J., (2019). The Health Challenges facing Children on the Move”, Ed. Allotey P. and Reidpath D., The Health of Refugees: Public Health Perspective from Crisis to Settlement, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 169-178.

Bhabha J. (2018). “The Best Mankind Has to Offer?” In Illegal Encounters: Migration, Detention, and Deportation in the Lives of Young People, ed. Deborah A. Boehm and Susan J. Terrio, New York, NY: NYU Press.

Bhabha J. (2018). “The Migrant Tax – How Children and Young People Pay to Exercise Mobility Rights.” In Global Labour and the Migrant Premium, ed. Tugba Basaran and Elspeth Guild. New York: Routledge.

Bhabha, J. (2018) “Children on the move in the Twenty-First Century: Developing a Rights-Based Plan of Action.” In Humanitarian and Mass Migration, ed. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Digidiki, V. (2018). “The experience of distress: Child migration on Lesvos, Greece”. In J. Bhabha, J. Kanics & D. Senovilla. (Eds). Research Handbook on Child Migration, E. Elgar Publishing.

Reports

MMC and UNHCR (Eds.). (2021). A Roadmap for Advocacy, Policy Development, and Programming: Protection in Mixed Movements along the Central and Western Mediterranean Routes 2021. Mixed Migration Centre and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Digidiki, V., Bhabha, J., Bhatia, A., Peisch, S, Sattler, V., Cordaro, B. and H. Cook (2021). “See Migration Like Water”: An Analysis of IOM Flow Monitoring Survey Data on Migration Flows in West and Central Africa. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, Boston, and International Organization for Migration, Geneva.

Bhabha, J., Chakraborty, R., Digidiki, V., Matache, M., Peisch, S. & Sedas, A. C. (June, 2020). Protecting Human Rights During and After COVID-19: A Child Rights’ Perspective. Harvard University. Commissioned by the Office of the High Commissioner.

Digidiki, V., Bhabha, J. /IOM (November 2019). Returning Home? The reintegration challenges facing child and youth returnees from Libya to Nigeria. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Harvard University.

Donger E, Fuller A, Bhabha J, and Leaning J. Protecting Refugee Youth in Ecuador: An Evaluation of Health and Wellbeing.

Donger E, Leigh J, Fuller A, Bhabha J, and Leaning J. Protecting Refugee Youth in Lusaka: An Evaluation of Health and Wellbeing. FXB Center and UNHCR.

Digidiki V and Bhabha J. (2017). Emergency Within an Emergency: The Growing Epidemic of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Children in Greece. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Harvard University.

Bhabha, J., Bohne, C., Digidiki, V. et al. (2016). Children on the Move: An Urgent Human Rights and Child Protection Priority. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Harvard University.

Digidiki, V. (2016). Lesvos, Greece: Humanitarianism at risk. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Harvard University.

Articles

Bhabha, J. & Digidiki, V. (2022). Child Repatriation in the Time of COVID-19. Rethinking Refuge.

Digidiki, V & Bhabha, J. (2021). Gendered Correlates of Distress Migration: Taking Note of Rohingya Voices. Journal of Diversity and Gender studies, 8(2), 23-39.

Maioli, S., Bhabha, J., Wickramage, K., Wood, L., Erragne, L., Garcia, O., Burgess, R., Digidiki, V., Aldridge, R., Devakumar, D., (2021).  International migration of unaccompanied minors: trends, health risks, and legal protection. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 5, 882-895.

Mishra, D., Digidiki, V. & Winch, P. (2021). “The boys from the land don’t get anything”: Unaccompanied minors’ experience of child protection environments and the humanitarian border in Greece. Children’s Geographies.

Bhabha J & Abel G. (2020).  “8 Children and unsafe migration.” World Migration Report. 2020-04, Vol.(1).

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (2020). EU Migration Pact Fails to Address Human Rights Concerns in Lesvos, Greece. Health and Human Rights Journal, 22(2), 291-296.

Digidiki, V. & Baka, A. (2020). Who’s to Blame in the Sex Trafficking of Women: Situational factors that construct a “deserving victim”. Journal of Human Trafficking

Mishra, D., Digidiki, V. & Winch, P. (2020). The endings of journeys: A qualitative study of how Greece’s child protection system shapes unaccompanied migrant children’s futures. Children and Youth Service Review, 116 (C).

Bhabha, J. & Digidiki, V. (2020). Rethinking child repatriation amidst COVID-19. Rethinking Refuge. Center for Refugee studies. Oxford University.

Mishra, D., Spiegel, P., Digidiki, V., & Winch, P. (2020). Interpretation of vulnerability and cumulative disadvantage among unaccompanied adolescent migrants in Greece: A qualitative study. PLoS Med 17 (3): e1003087.

Bhabha, J. (2019). Governing adolescent mobility: The elusive role of children’s rights principles in contemporary migration practice, Childhood, 26(3), 369-385.

Bhabha, J. (2019).  Toleration deficits: The perilous state of refugee protection today, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 45(4), 503-510. 

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (2019). Leaving and returning “home”:  The Elusive quest for Belonging and Adulthood among African adolescents on the move. Culture and Education: Special Issue on Childhood and Youth Studies in the Era of Migration, 2(124) 143-156.  

Bhabha J. (2018). “#UsToo: Children on the Move and Belated Public Attention.” International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family. 32.(2): 250-258.

Bhabha J. (2018). Contemporary Human Right Protections for Child Migrants. German Federal Agency for Civic Education, (www.bpb.de).

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (2018).  Sexual abuse and exploitation of unaccompanied migrant children in Greece: Identifying risk factors and gaps in services during the European migration crisis. Children and Youth Service Review, 92(C): 114-121.

Bhabha, J. (2018). Human Mobility and the Longue Durée: The Prehistory of Global Migration Law. AJIL Unbound 111: 136-141.

Bhabha, J. (2018). A Progressive Development, Children’s Rights and the ILC Draft Articles on the Expulsion of Aliens. Harvard Human Rights Journal 30: 15-28.

Bhabha, J. (2017). Borders and the Displacements They Create are Human Artefacts. ReVista 16.2 :2-6.

Digidiki, V. & Baka, A. (2017). Attitudes towards Prostitution: The impact of JWT and previous experience as a client of prostitution. Hellenic Journal of Psychology, 14, 260-279.

Digidiki, V., Dikaiou, M. & Baka, A. (2016). Attitudes towards the victim and the client of sex trafficking in Greece: The influence of structural beliefs, beliefs towards prostitution and belief in a just world. Journal of Human trafficking, 2(4), 297-315.

Op-Eds

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (2021, December 7). Against the Best Interests of the Child: the global injustice of migrant externalization. Border Criminologies. University of Oxford.

Bhabha J. (July, 2020). Europe shows a Janus face to migrants. Financial Times.

Bhabha, J. & Digidiki, V. (April 2020). The urgent need to transfer vulnerable migrants from Europe’s largest migrant hotspot. BMJ Opinion.

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (February 2020). Greece’s proposed ‘floating wall’ shows the failure of EU migration policies. The Guardian.

Bhabha J. (June 29, 2018). “Opinion: America’s treatment of migrants is sending the country back to the dark ages, “Globe and Mail (Toronto).

Bhabha, J. & Digidiki, V. (March 2018). Two years on: Time to reconsider EU refugee and migration management policy. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health. Harvard University.

Digidiki. V. (November 2018). Blaming the victim: When society chooses to ignore female migrant victims of violence. (In Greek)

Digidiki, V. & Bhabha, J. (January 2017). A Chilling Environment: Icy Conditions Threaten Migrants’ Health. Harvard University.

Digidiki, V. (December 2016). A harsh new reality: Transactional sex among refugee minors as a means of survival in Greece. Harvard University.

Bhabha J. & Digidiki V. (April 2016). The Mean Bargain: The EU/Turkey Refugee and Migrant Deal. Harvard University.