New Periodical Issues: Dev. in Practice, Disaster Prev., H&M, HRQ, Intl. Mig., IMR, JEMS, JIRS

Development in Practice, vol. 17, no. 1 (2007) [contents]
- Mix of articles including several on poverty.

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 16, no. 1 (2007) [contents]
- Mix of articles including one on coordinating humanitarian operations.

Hommes & Migrations, no. 1264 (Nov./Dec. 2006) [contents]
- Focus is on immigrant housing in France.

Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1 (Feb. 2007) [contents]
- Mix of articles.

International Migration, vol. 45, no. 1 (March 2007) [contents]
- Mix of articles including two focusing on Australia: newly arrived refugees and asylum policies, respectively.

International Migration Review, vol. 41, no. 1 (March 2007) [contents]
- Includes mix of articles on migration policy and immigrant experiences.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 33, no. 2 (2007) [contents]
- Focus is on transnationalism. Includes an article by K. Koser entitled "Refugees, Transnationalism and the State."

Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, vol. 5, no. 2 (2007) [contents]
- In prepublication; mix of articles including one focusing on domestic violence in refugee families in Australia.

Posted in Periodicals.

Periodical Formats: Print vs. Online

I have come across several periodical titles that I was not previously familiar with. It’s interesting to see how the periodical format has evolved and the blurring of print and online versions. Start with the Journal of Migration and Refugee Issues: This is a typical scholarly journal, peer-reviewed and published by an academic press. Its web site offers contents and a sample article online, so no significant online presence.

Intervention: International Journal of Mental Health, Psychosocial Work and Counselling in Areas of Armed Conflict is also a peer-reviewed journal but aimed more particularly at professionals and practitioners. It’s produced by the War Trauma Foundation and published by Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins. The WTF's journal site includes contents of the current volume and pdfs of earlier issues, while the publisher's site offers a sample article.

Conflict and Health is a new research journal that is going the online, open access route. It will be refereed but hosted as a free full-text title by BioMed Central, whose mission is to ensure immediate access to peer-reviewed biomedical research.

Refugee Watch has also chosen an online format for its dissemination. It used to be a newsletter of the South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR), but is now published in a blog format by Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group. Access to the full-text of back issues is provided through the “Other issues” link.

Posted in Periodicals.

Kakuma Refugee Camp

I am reading What is the What, a "fictional" autobiography of a Sudanese "lost boy" who spent a number of years in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya before being resettled to the U.S. Kakuma was established in the early 1990s and currently houses some 90,000 Sudanese, Somali and Ethiopian, and other refugees. For more information about Kakuma, refugees in Kenya, and refugee camps generally, see the following selection of resources:

Kakuma:

Refugees International, Kakuma: A Troubled Refugee Camp in Kenya (2003) [text]
- This article notes that "The residents of Kakuma are 'warehoused.'" For more information about warehousing, see below.

UNSW Centre for Refugee Research, Field Trip: Kakuma Refugee Camp Kenya (2002) [text]
- Part of the centre's "Women at Risk" project.

Refugees/humanitarian operations in Kenya:

ReliefWeb, Kenya Country Information [access]

U.S. Committee for Refugees, "Kenya," World Refugee Survey 2006 [text]

Camps/Refugee Warehousing:

FMO Research Guide: Camps versus Settlements (2003) [text]

Forced Migration Review, no. 2 (1998) [text]
- Focus is on "People in Camps."

Refugee Insights, no. 11 (2006) [text]
- Focus is "Encamping Refugees: A Look at the Myths, Realities, and Exploring Solutions." Published by the Refugee Consortium of Kenya.

U.S. Committee for Refugees, Frequently Asked Questions about Refugee Warehousing and the Campaign to End It [text]; Are There any Alternatives? [text]

U.S. Committee for Refugees, Warehousing Refugees: A Denial of Rights, a Waste of Humanity (2004) [text]

Posted in Publications.

Literature Reviews: Human Trafficking

I have come across a number of literature reviews that focus on human trafficking. The principal aim of the compilers was to locate the studies that already exist, assess the research conducted, and identify gaps. The titles are organized by region:

General

Literature Review and Analysis Related to Human Trafficking in Post-Conflict Situations, Washington, DC: USAID (2004) [text]

Africa

Getting to Grips with Trafficking: Reflections on Human Trafficking Research in South Africa, Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies (2006) [text]

Literature Review on Trafficking in West and East Africa, Bangkok: Global Alliance against Traffic in Women ([2004]) [text]

"Review of Research and Data on Human Trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa," International Migration, vol. 43, no. 1/2 (2005): 75-98 [contents of journal issue]

Americas

Literature Review of Trafficking in Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean, Washington, DC: USAID (2004) [text]

"Research on Human Trafficking in North America: A Review of Literature," International Migration, vol. 43, no. 1/2 (2005): 99-128 [contents of journal issue]

Trafficking in Human Beings and Organized Crime: A Literature Review, [Ottawa]: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (2002) [text]

Trafficking in Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Literature Review, Bangkok: Global Alliance against Traffic in Women ([2004]) [text]

Asia/Oceania

"Human Trafficking in East Asia: Current Trends, Data Collection, and Knowledge Gaps," International Migration, vol. 43, no. 1/2 (2005): 165-201 [contents of journal issue]

"A Problem by a Different Name? A Review of Research on Trafficking in South-East Asia and Oceania," International Migration, vol. 43, no. 1/2 (2005): 203-233 [text]

Review of a Decade of Research on Trafficking in Persons, Cambodia, San Francisco: Asia Foundation (2006) [text]

"Treading along a Treacherous Trail: Research on Trafficking in Persons in South Asia," International Migration, vol. 43, no. 1/2 (2005): 141-164 [contents of journal issue]

Europe

Trafficking in Europe: A Literature Review, Bangkok: Global Alliance against Traffic in Women ([2004]) [text]

"'You Can Find Anything You Want': A Critical Reflection on Research on Trafficking in Persons within and into Europe," International Migration, vol. 43, no. 1/2 (2005): 235-265 [contents of journal issue]

Middle East

"A Review of Recent Research on Human Trafficking in the Middle East," International Migration, vol. 43, no. 1/2 (2005): 267-299 [contents of journal issue]

Posted in Publications.

War-Affected Children

An international conference on war-affected children was held last week in Paris (February 5 and 6). The aim was to highlight the "illegal and unacceptable use of children in armed conflict." Participants endorsed two texts, 1) The Paris Commitments to Protect Children Unlawfully Recruited or Used by Armed Forces or Armed Groups (“The Paris Commitments”), and 2) The Paris Principles: Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups ("The Paris Principles"). The latter text "provides more detailed guidance for those who are implementing programmes," and it includes a section on refugee and internally displaced children.

One of the speakers at the conference was the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, formerly the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women. The web site for the Special Representative has been re-organized and provides access to background information, key documents and country profiles.

Each year, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers commemorates February 12 as the anniversary of the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on children in armed conflict. Recently added to the Coalition web site's psychosocial section are three articles that discuss "child trauma, resilience and cultural healing" (Jan. 2007).

More information about the impact of humanitarian crises on children can be found in UNICEF's 2007 edition of the Humanitarian Action Report.

Posted in Publications and Events.

New Research/Policy Reports: Asylum, HIV/AIDS, Hum. Protection/Uganda, IDPs, Livelihoods/Darfur, Refugee Status

Challenges to Peace and Recovery in Darfur: A Situation Analysis of the Ongoing Conflict and its Continuing Impact on Livelihoods, Briefing Paper, by H. Young and A.M. Osman (FIC, Dec. 2006) [text]

Educational responses to HIV and AIDS for refugees and internally displaced persons: Discussion paper for decision-makers (UNHCR and UNESCO, Jan. 2007) [text]

The extraterritorialisation of asylum and the advent of "protection lite," DIIS Working Paper 2007/2, by T. Gammeltoft-Hansen (DIIS, Jan 2007) [text]

Humanitarian protection in Uganda: a Trojan Horse?, HPG Background Paper, by C. Dolan and L. Hovil (ODI, Dec. 2006) [text]

Report of the Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights of internally displaced persons, Walter Kälin, Human Rights Council doc. no. A/HRC/4/38 (Jan. 2007) [text]

'A violation of his or her human security': New grounds for the recognition of refugee status: a proposal for reform, New Issues in Refugee Research, no. 140, by M. Afzal (UNHCR, Dec. 2006) [text]

Posted in Publications.

Journal of Humanitarian Assistance

The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance is back online. The Feinstein International Center assumed management of the JHA and has re-launched it with a number of new features. The format is similar to that of a blog, with a comment section accompanying each article and an RSS feed to announce new additions. Each article includes an abstract and hyperlinked keywords. The staff is working to convert the pre-2007 articles; in the interim, readers can access these texts through the archives.

So far, two articles have been published this year:
International Organisations in Mindanao: To Protect or Not? (Feb. 2007) [text]
Political Complexities of Humanitarian Intervention in the Pakistan Earthquake (Jan. 2007) [text]

Posted in Periodicals.

Forced Migration Controlled Vocabularies

Blogger.com (my blog's host) recently implemented a "label" feature. So for each post I create, I can now add labels (or keywords, index terms, subject headings...) to describe the content. Each label is an active link, which means readers can retrieve other posts that have been assigned the same labels. Over time, the labels will create a browsable cross-referencing system to allow readers to locate related posts in my blog, supplementing the "type" categories I've already established to organize each post and complementing the existing search function.

The challenge with applying labels is being consistent with regard to the term you select and its spelling. Fortunately, the field of forced migration has several thesauri or controlled vocabularies at its disposal which were developed for this very purpose.

International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology (UNHCR/FMO) [access]
- French version available. Terms are provided in English, French and Spanish. This is used for cataloguing purposes by a number of forced migration libraries, including the Refugee Studies Centre library, the UNHCR library, and the Forced Migration & Refugee Studies grey literature collection.

Controlled Vocabulary Lists (OCHA) [access - note: this is an Excel spreadsheet]
- See "keyword" tab. Developed along with a number of other tools to facilitate information management in humanitarian emergencies.

Disasters Controlled Vocabulary (Centro Regional de Información sobre Desastres) [text]
- Vocabulary terms are provided in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Human Rights Micro-Thesauri (HURIDOCS) [access]
- These were developed for documenting human rights violations.

I am going to experiment with terms from the aforementioned refugee thesaurus for my labels. For an example of how labels work , click on the "terminology" link below.

Posted in Web Sites/Tools.

New Periodical Issues: Field Exch., FMR, MIS, Refugees

Field Exchange, no. 29 (Dec. 2006) [text]
- Compiled by the Emergency Nutrition Network. The focus is on Southern Africa.

Forced Migration Review, no. 27 (Jan. 2007) [text]
- Published in conjunction with UNFPA, the theme of this issue is "Sexual violence: weapon of war, impediment to peace."

Migration Information Source (Feb. 2007) [text]
- Produced by the Migration Policy Institute. Focus of this issue is migration and development.

Refugees, no. 145 (Jan. 2007) [access]
- Published by UNHCR. The theme is "Huge country, huge problems, huge potential: Can DR Congo turn the page?"

Posted in Periodicals.