The jobs they have found are dirty, dangerous and difficult. Often undocumented, migrant workers risk arrest, extortion, deportation and other human rights abuses.

Something of these difficulties and tragedies faced by these workers are documented in these images by Thailand-based documentary photographer John Hulme.

The exhibit ‘In Search of a Job – Any Job: The Life of Burmese Migrant Workers‘, was held by the Refugee Studies Centre and International Migration Institute in Oxford. It ran from 17 – 25 February 2011.

• In Search of a Job – Any Job: The Life of Burmese Migrant Workers
• John Hulme’s website

This podcast was recorded at a launch event for the fifth Refugee Studies Centre Policy Briefing which was held on Thursday 30th September 2010 at the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, London.

The talk given by Dr Jason Hart & Claudia Lo Forte, was on the subject of the Policy Briefing – ‘Protecting Palestinian children from political violence: the role of the international community’.

Drawing on extensive field and desk research, the briefing considers the role of international and UN organisations in protecting Palestinian children.

• Listen to the podcast
• Read the RSC Policy Briefing
• Read previous RSC Policy Briefings

Around two million people are internally displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in central Africa, and nearly 500,000 Congolese people are refugees in neighbouring countries. The DRC continues to be plagued by widespread violence and insecurity, which prevent many people from receiving vital assistance.

The photographs in this collection were part of an exhibition, “No Peace of Mind – Stories of Displacement in the DRC”, which was held by the Refugee Studies Centre in December 2010.

• View the photographs

The briefing, written by Dr Jason Hart and Claudia Lo Forte, considers the role of international and UN organisations in protecting Palestinian children. Four distinguishing features of a rights-based approach to child protection are identified:

• the prioritisation of child protection over national self-interest;
• a focus on causes and not merely effects;
• the need for political engagement around international legal standards;
• the mobilisation of public opinion

Following the publication of this policy briefing, we have also updated our Resource Summary on Palestine.

• RSC Policy Briefing
• FMO Resource Summary: Palestine

Drawing on extensive field and desk research, this study considers the role of international and UN organisations in protecting Palestinian children. Four distinguishing features of a rights-based approach to child protection are identified: the prioritisation of child protection over national self-interest, a focus on causes and not merely effects, the need for political engagement around international legal standards, and the mobilisation of public opinion.

• Protecting Palestinian Children from Political Violence
• RSC policy briefings

• Bearing witness: Martin Bell in Somalia

‘Understanding and Addressing the Phenomenon of Child Soldiers’ by Ah-Jung Lee, the latest in the series of Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers, is now available online.

In the past 10 years, the phenomenon of ‘child soldiers’ has attracted enormous media attention and has also become a policy priority in the humanitarian field. In the global policy discourse, a ‘child soldier’ is commonly defined as ‘any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to cooks, porters, messengers, and those accompanying such groups, other than purely as family members’ (Cape Town Principles). The central thesis of the global discourse is that children have no place in war under any circumstance and that child soldiering is an unambiguous violation of universal children’s rights. With this belief, humanitarian organisations have lobbied for various international legal instruments that prohibit the military recruitment of under 18- year-olds and hold adults who recruit children criminally culpable for war crimes. At the same time, the images and tales of child soldiers have proliferated in such a way that ‘child soldiers’ has almost become a moral and emotional issue, with activists and organisations taking it on with almost missionary zeal.

• Understanding and Addressing the Phenomenon of ‘Child Soldiers’ (PDF file 272 KB)
• Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers