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11921. Reaching Stateless, Undocumented and Migrant Communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author:
Mary Anne K. Baltazar and Amanda R. Cheong
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
In May 2020, the United Nations Refugee Agency issued a statement emphasising the particular vulnerabilities faced by stateless populations during the global COVID-19 crisis. In stating that ‘nobody can be protected unless everybody is included, and that means including often invisible, stateless populations’,1 UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi highlighted two issues: 1) COVID-19 has not only exposed, but has moreover exacerbated existing inequalities, including those operating along the dimension of legal status; and 2) the protracted exclusion of stateless peoples may undermine governments’ efforts to protect the health of their populations’ recognisedcitizens. Grandi’s commentsecho recommendations from the World Health Organization and other international bodies that governments ‘leave no one behind’ in their responses to COVID-19.2 Yet, in many contexts, stateless persons and others who are legally marginalised have not adequately been factored into policies for managing COVID-19.Such realities are all too apparent in Malaysia, which is home to a significant, albeit unknown, number of stateless persons, irregular migrants and their descendants. Statelessness impacts a diverse cross-section of the Malaysian population and is a status not exclusive to migrants. Rather, statelessness is ‘homegrown’ in Malaysia, affecting generations of people who were born and raised in the country, but for various reasons are nevertheless denied political membership.3 The majority of stateless and undocumented persons in Malaysia live in the state of Sabah, East Malaysia, and are predominantly composed of people of Indonesian and Filipino descent who are excluded from a range of basic rights and protections, including freedom from arbitrary detention and deportation, education and healthcare.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, Stateless Population, and Migrants
Political Geography:
Malaysia and Asia

11922. Access to Abortion for Undocumented Persons during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author:
Frederique Chabot
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Abstract:
COMMENTARYACCESS TO ABORTION FOR UNDOCUMENTED PERSONS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMICFRÉDÉRIQUE CHABOT*Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights (‘Action Canada’) is a national organisation committed to advancing and upholding sexual and reproductive health and rights in Canada and globally. Building on the 50-year legacy of the organisations that formed Action Canada, we work to promote health, equity, wellbeing and rights related to sexuality and reproductive health to advance progressive policies on access to abortion, stigma-free healthcare, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights and inclusive sex-ed, among other issues that intersect with bodily autonomy, gender, sexuality and reproduction.In March 2020, as the world quickly pivoted towards a pandemic response, Action Canada connected with partners across the country to monitor shifting needs and how providers of sexual and reproductive health services were adaptingto this novel situation in Canada. We saw some concerning gaps in services leading to a disproportionate impact on stateless and undocumented persons.1Action Canada’s activities include the operation of a 24-hour toll-free pregnancy information and referral service — the Access Line — paired with a national abortion fund to ensure those who face barriers can access abortion care. Calls to the Access Line more than doubled in the first months of 2020. Callers were looking for ways to access safe abortions during the pandemic. Conference calls with our network of sexual health centres across the country, surveys to partners and a variety of national organisations revealed concerning trends in relation to stateless persons and those with precarious immigration status and their ability to access sexual and reproductive health care.
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, Reproductive Rights, Reproductive Health, Stateless Population, Undocumented Population, and Abortion
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

11923. COVID-19 in Cox's Bazar Pandemic Narratives from the World's Largest Refugee Camp

Author:
Yuriko Cowper-Smith
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
Conditions in the camps have changed significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Rohingya refugees face intensified challenges. As outlined, the lack of sustainability regarding food and water distribution is acutely apparent. Without suitable rations or the ability to supplement rations, refugees cannot fulfil their nutritional needs. Through the new requirements which necessitate staying close to home or indoors for long periods, the existing housing has been exposed as being less than adequate. Appropriate healthcare is more critical, and other services, such as education, are needed to sustain young refugees’ wellbeing. As in all communities, reliable information is vital to lessen the impacts of rumours and misinformation, which cause fear. Finally, gender-based inequities are aggravated by the tenuous situation.Concerning the camps, the pandemic blatantly reveals that the camps urgently require a long-term political solution. Currently, Bangladesh does not issue exit visas to Rohingya refugees, and many refugees do not hold official refugee status. This means that they cannot leave Bangladesh to be resettled in a third country. At the same time, safe repatriation is not an option due to the ongoing coup d’état and the likelihood of continued persecution upon return. This impasse, heightened by the pandemic, demonstrates that the Rohingya communities in the camps need to be able to access more permanent solutions to their plight within-country or have the option to be resettled abroad.
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, Rohingya, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Asia, Burma, and Myanmar

11924. Surviving Overlapping Precarity in a 'Gigantic Hellhole' A Case Study of Venezuelan LGBTQI+ Asylum Seekers and Undocument Migrant in Brazil amid COVID-19

Author:
Yvonne Su, Tyler Valiquette, and Yuriko Cowper-Smith
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
As COVID-19 infection rates grew exponentially in Latin America, countries closed their borders in an attempt to stop the virus. But such measures have put migrants, asylum seekers and other forcibly displaced persons at more risk. For highly precarious groups, such as Venezuelan migrants and asylum seekers in Brazil, who were already facing a multitude of challenges before the pandemic, COVID-19 is multiplying the threats.
Topic:
LGBT+, Public Health, Asylum, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Venezuela

11925. 'Humanising' Statelessness through an Artistic Approach

Author:
Md Mizanur Rahman
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
In this article I critically examine an art-based approach to statelessness in institutional settings, to show how art can produce alternative insights on statelessness. Drawing from ethnographic observation, I show how an art-based approach tries to go beyond the predominant legalistic and political frames and representations of statelessness, but stay married to the same legal and political discourses. I found the art-based approaches observed do not subscribe to the idea that statelessness is only a legal anomaly and instead emphasise the creation of empathy for stateless individuals or groups. This humanises statelessness by showing their human vulnerability and creatively recognising their hope and agency. Regardless, artistic approaches can struggle to challenge the legalistic and political nature of the problem. It remains a question whether such approaches are appropriately promoting the views, perceptions and feelings of stateless persons themselves, as their participation in creating such art projects are minimal. As such, I argue for an ‘ethnographic turn in art practices’, which can ensure the participation of stateless people in the process of creating and demonstrating art. I believe this ‘turn’ could play a crucial role in the development of statelessness studies.
Topic:
Arts, Culture, Law, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11926. Commemorating 50 Years of 'Outcast London'

Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
This event from the Mile End Institute, Raphael Samuel History Centre, and Modern British History Seminar will commemorate fifty years since the publication of Gareth Stedman Jones’ Outcast London. The webinar celebrates the book and featured a panel of experts whose research interests speak to the book’s themes, methods and politics.
Topic:
Development, Labor Issues, Urban, and Industrialization
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, and London

11927. Forty Years On New Perspectives on the 1981 Budget

Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
This year is the fortieth anniversary of the 1981 UK Budget Statement, one of the most controversial in British history. Geoffrey Howe, the Conservative Chancellor in Margaret Thatcher's first government, deliberately increased taxes during a vicious world recession after two years of tight monetary policy and punishingly high-interest rates, to tame high inflation. Inflation dropped, but the Budget also accelerated deindustrialization and spiralling unemployment, and turbocharged inequality. It has since indelibly shaped memories of ‘Thatcherism’. Forty years on, the current Conservative government is at a new fork in the road in its economic policy, grappling with pandemic spending legacies, the fallout from Brexit, and post-2008 economics, and with electoral pledges both to fiscal probity and to 'level up' the UK.
Topic:
Economics, Labor Issues, Governance, Budget, Unemployment, and Deindustrialization
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

11928. The Civic University

Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
In 2018, the UPP Foundation established a commission to investigate the civic work of universities. The commission published its findings in February 2019 and recommended that universities set out to co-create Civic University Agreements with other key civic partners in order to beyond traditional civic engagement and become truly civic universities, embedded into their areas.
Topic:
Education, Social Policy, Higher Education, and Civic Engagement
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

11929. After the Virus: Lessons from The Past For A Better Future

Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
Hilary Cooper and Simon Szreter have published a powerful manifesto for change post-Covid-19. It argues that the world needs ‘a new morality’ to recover from the pandemic and to prepare for future crises - and that Britain’s own history points the way. In 'After the Virus', they show how decades of neoliberalism and austerity left us vulnerable to the effects of Covid-19; they show how important history is for British and global public policy today, going back 400 years to look at Elizabeth I’s innovative Poor Laws, the world’s first universal welfare system; and they present practical proposals, inspired by our own history, that will promote a morality of nurturing, not exploiting, people and the planet.
Topic:
Governance, Neoliberalism, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

11930. Celebrating 20 Years of The Living Wage at Queen Mary University of London

Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
The Living Wage Campaign was launched by London Citizens in Walthamstow, East London, in 2001. Since then, it spread across the country and became a nationwide campaign led by the Living Wage Foundation. In 2006, Queen Mary became the first accredited university in the UK to pay all staff a real Living Wage, based on the cost of living, not just the government minimum. Queen Mary also improved working conditions so that every staff member at the university – regardless of rank or role – received a minimum of 30 days’ annual leave, access to sick pay, an annually negotiated pay increase, and an employer contribution pension scheme. In 2011, the University became a founding partner of the Living Wage Foundation. At this event to mark twenty years of the Living Wage Campaign, the Mile End Institute hosted a conversation with Matthew Bolton, the Executive Director of Citizens UK, to revisit the history of the Living Wage and the campaign to establish the living wage at Queen Mary. The event reflected on how the Living Wage is a vital strategy in the fight to end poverty in London and the important role of higher educational institutions in creating a fairer society.
Topic:
Economics, Poverty, Labor Issues, and Standard of Living
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe