How Kenya Welcomes Somali Refugees

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Avnish Jolly

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Jun 26, 2010, 12:09:23 AM6/26/10
to SAFE - Social Action Foundation for Equity
--- On Sat, 26/6/10, Human Rights Watch <weba...@hrw.org> wrote:

From: Human Rights Watch <weba...@hrw.org>
Subject: How Kenya Welcomes Somali Refugees
To: "Avnish Jolly" <avnis...@yahoo.com>
Date: Saturday, 26 June, 2010, 2:16

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The Week In Rights
June 25, 2010
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How Kenya Welcomes Refugees
Shot at and raped. Arrested and beaten. Detained and deported. Extorted and robbed. Threatened and insulted. Ignored and shunned. The treatment of hardened criminals in some far-flung police state? The fate of political opponents by a repressive regime? Not quite. For Somali refugees - 80 percent of them women and children - this is their welcome to Kenya.
Kenya's welcoming committee for Somali refugees is a notoriously corrupt and abusive police force. For many of the newly arrived Somali refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch in the Dadaab refugee camps, "Karibuni Kenya" - "Welcome to Kenya" - sounds like this:
"Four [officers] beat and raped us. They kicked me in the stomach, back, and head and held me in a choke position."
"For 10 minutes, the [officers] punched him in the head, kicked him, and whipped him with a nyunyo [a thin rubber whip]. He lost consciousness."
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Photo: © 2009 Jan Grarup/NOOR
Europe Fails Migrant Children
Pressure From Human Rights Watch Bringing Change to Canary Islands
Many European countries are failing to care for migrant children who arrive alone from places like West Africa or Afghanistan seeking safety. But potential changes fueled by a Human Rights Watch report may improve the living conditions of migrant children on the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago.
The Canary Islands’ government has housed 250 unaccompanied migrant children in emergency shelters, with no formal occupancy limits or regulatory oversight. Since 2007, Human Rights Watch has investigated the poor conditions of these facilities. After reading our new report, the government told us that it plans to close the largest, and worst, of the centers – La Esperanza.
Children housed in La Esperanza told Human Rights Watch that they were given low-quality food, and that the facility does not have enough heat, hot water, or blankets. They also reported violent behavior among the children. The children, many of whom fled West Africa, will be moved to other emergency centers. Yet so far, the government hasn’t made a commitment to bring those centers up to its own legal standards.
In the rest of Europe, a growing number of countries now plan to deport Afghan children arriving alone to a reception center in Kabul. The British Government claims that deporting children will prevent others from making these hazardous journeys. But instead of discouraging children from fleeing their homeland, it could have the opposite effect.
Photo: © 2006 AP Images
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