Why

Every year, millions of people risk their lives and leave their homes to seek a better life—to escape violence, persecution or natural disasters, to access economic opportunities, and to reunite with family. Because migrants are often among those most marginalized and disadvantaged in their communities, HealthRight works to ensure access to the highest available standard of health is a basic human right for all, with a focus on those most vulnerable, including refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Objectives

  • Improve access to comprehensive care for vulnerable migrant populations
  • Document the impacts of migration on health outcomes
  • Strengthen the response of healthcare systems to meet the specific needs of vulnerable migrants

Projects

Human Rights Clinic (HRC)
United States

Each year, thousands of survivors of torture and other severe human rights abuses flee persecution in their home countries, seeking asylum and other protections in the United States. Since 1993, HealthRight’s Human Rights Clinic (HRC) has trained, deployed and supported healthcare workers to provide critical forensic evaluations and case management services to immigrant survivors who have experienced torture, gender-based violence (GBV), LGBT-based persecution, female genital cutting (FGC), and human trafficking. The HRC has provided more than 5,500 forensic evaluations to over 4,800 survivors of torture and abuse from 130 countries.

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Responding to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
Ukrainian

Since 2014, HealthRight and our local partner the Ukraine Foundation for Public Health (UFPH) have worked to support the health and uphold the rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing violence in the Eastern Ukraine. HealthRight trains and supports healthcare workers to address issues including gender-based violence (GBV) and torture among internally displaced men, women and children. HealthRight is also conducting critical research to document the substance use and sexual HIV risk behavior of displaced young adults from Kiev and Donetsk regions of Ukraine in pre-conflict, transitional, and camp settings, with the goal of identifying risk factors encountered in each setting.

Assisting Unaccompanied Migrant Children (UMCs)
United States

Unaccompanied migrant children (UMCs) face many challenges navigating the immigration, health, and social service systems in the U.S. alone. Drawing on years of experience through our Human Rights Clinic (HRC), HealthRight is recruiting and training medical and mental health providers who specialize in pediatrics and child development to provide child-friendly and trauma-informed forensic evaluations and needs assessments for UMCs who have fled torture, abuse, and neglect in their home countries.

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