Jacqueline Bhabha is Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, USA. On September 22, 2017, she will give a guest lecture in Aula Magna at Stockholm University on the theme:

Non-Discrimination in Practice: The Child Migrant Challenge to Migration and Child Rights Experts

Twenty years of advocacy attention to the circumstances of refugee and migrant children have yielded significant strides in the application of child rights principles to this field.  Despite enduring challenges and lacunae in many jurisdictions, rates of child migrant detention and abusive age determination processes have decreased, and the incorporation of best interests considerations into decision making has increased.  

These improvements are welcome. They reflect the child protection priorities of immigration and child rights activists and policy makers.  But to what extent do they incorporate the views of refugee and migrant children themselves, including their medium and long-term aspirations as young adults?  How should we address the growing range of situations where professional notions of best interest conflict with adolescent plans for self-advancement, autonomy and sustainable solutions arising out of their migration?   

Drawing on work informing the ongoing Global Compact and SDG processes, I will question some of our current research strategies.  I will also reflect on the non-discrimination imperatives that arise if we are resolved to take seriously the views and agency of adolescent refugee and migrant constituencies themselves.

Read more about professor Jacqueline Bhabha.

The seminar will be held in English.

Welcome!