A Comprehensive Analysis of Care, Migration, and Human Rights Issues

This essay explores the intricate relationship between care, migration, and human rights, emphasizing the increasing recognition of these factors in global public health. It begins by highlighting the significant rise in both internal and international migration, particularly the challenges faced by migrants moving between middle-to-low income countries. The essay defines human rights, discusses the 'push and pull' factors influencing migration, and examines the ethics of care as a crucial element in addressing migrant needs. It addresses the human rights issues faced by migrants, including vulnerability to abuse, negative media portrayals, and healthcare challenges. The essay then analyzes implications for policymakers, including the need for explicit human rights considerations and the development of culturally sensitive healthcare approaches. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of care and human rights for migrants, especially in the context of healthcare, and underscores the necessity of addressing these issues in the 21st century.

Student Name
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION(S)
HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUITY
STUDIES

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CARE MIGRATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Introduction
Care and migration are getting increasingly recognized due to priority given to global
public health. Contributions made by economic flow and irregular migration have increased
the rate of migrations. It is estimated that around 244 million internal and international
migrants globally move within or outside their birth country. When most of the international
migrants move outside their own country, their movement between middle-low income
countries becomes a blind-spot for media, researchers and policymaker. Disproportionate
policy is created and irregular political attention is given on migration among most of the
high-income countries ( Wickramage, Vearey and Zwi). Human rights, on the other hand still
require a long way to go to make it an enforceable claim. However, Held claims that “Human
rights have made remarkable progress in the last half-century”, and many researchers and
theorists along with activists have considered it significantly by pressing the governments to
enhance present conditions and court decisions in its favour. Human rights and care is
applicable to every person worldwide including migrants, non-national and refuges which
makes essential for the government and international policies to ensure that every individual
enjoy the highest attainable physical and mental health. Populations are increasingly moving
from one place to the other due to economic, political and environmental reasons which have
increased care, migrations and human rights implications for migrants along with the ones
whom they leave behind.
Human rights paradigm
Human rights can be defined as legal protections given to the people or groups against
actions that can violate their fundamental freedom and self-esteem. The rights include and

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apply in every sphere of economic, civil, political, cultural, and social rights (Kamruzzaman
and Das). Human rights are something every people desire or demand to ensure their self-
development. Rights constitute the basic needs without which a person can never live with
dignity. It can be said that violating someone's dignity is like treating the person as if he/she
is not a human being. This is the reason most of the international policymakers set some basic
rules of human rights that cannot be neglected, but at the same time, they cannot be made or
guaranteed by statutory laws. It becomes the obligation of the government or the states to
protect and promote individual human rights. According to Held, “Rights are elements of
law" (p. 2) and of morality along with norms, values, virtues and judgements. But then, when
human rights are considered as a moral obligation, people take it as rights that need to be
enforced with other civil and legal rights. For instance, when freedom to expression in moral
rights is expressed and given special privilege in legal systems like a legal claim, it is often
judged as relevant for respecting human rights ideologies. However, when such freedom of
expression indulges itself into criticism or sanctioning the present government that neglects
them, it is criticized as a failure of the government to protect or provide the appropriate legal
rights.
Why do people migrate?
Migration is one of the oldest humankind phenomena where people move from one
place to the other in search of good living standards for themselves and their families or to
escape from intense situations arising in their home country. This phenomenon can be related
to the 'push and pull' theory developed by Lee in the year 1966. His theory emphasizes
economic, social, environmental and political factors that push people out of their homeland
or attract them more towards foreign destination places. These factors act combinedly and
determine the final decisions made by individuals to migrate into other regions. It can be said
that migration is a phenomenon that involves macro-meso factors. The macro factor acts as

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contributors to the migration when individuals receive inadequate economic and human
development opportunities within their home country, dictatorships and wars, environmental
and social changes along with increased urbanization and demographic changes. Such factors
force migrations both internally and internationally. Meso factors are another contributor to
migration that can be related to those factors where individuals link their ethnic or religious
community, communication technology, land grabbing or diasporic links ( Castelli).
Wickramage, Vearey and Zwi claims that increasing complexity in national, regional and
global migration trends along with disagreement upon appropriate way to label and
demonstrate different migrants' cases, political parties and government find it very difficult to
make a meaningful linkage. Nonetheless, from a human rights approach, it is feasible to
undertake steps that can provide every migrant with care and individual rights to deal with
serious issues facing global inhabitants.
The ethics of care
Since the past few decades, the human rights concept has moved from a moral
obligation to an influential condition where critical development has taken place in the moral
theory domain. Earlier theories of Kantian morality, as well as utilitarian ethics theory, have
been reconciled with the feminist approach of ethics care. This makes the ethics of care one
of the prime strands of the feminist approach although few feminists do not advocate the
ethics of care. Other than this, ethics of care has developed upon acknowledgment gained by
unrecognized and valuable workers involved in care such as care of children. If such care is
not supported, there would be no human for it to represent traditional images for whom ethics
and morality are devised (Held). In simpler terms, ethics of care starts not after looking upon
an individual agent or consider how he/she must act rather out of basic recognition where
humans are always dependent on other humankind and both are equally vulnerable and
require each other for fulfilling substantial parts in individual lives. However, Mendus argues

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that the most critical issue arises in the ethics of care due to experiences rooted in individuals
and personal relationship factors. Attending to care and practices related to it might add
values and empathetic understanding, sympathy for others and responsiveness to individual
needs. It will not only add trust between recipients and caregivers but also develop an
understandable relationship between them.
Issues related to human rights in migration
From an individual security paradigm, it is important to put legal protections in the
limelight for people who move from one place to the other by establishing structures and
institutions that enforce protection to them. This is because, migrants, particularly ones who
are forced to move, women and children, irregular migrants and vulnerable populations are
exposed to various threats. For example, sexual abuse is one of the most common experiences
especially faced by women and young girls residing in camps. They are usually targeted for
and subject to sexual exploitation by people who pretend to take care, including humanitarian
workers, peacemakers and even social workers. A study made by Save the Children-UK and
UNHCR focussing on sexual exploitation against refugee children residing in Liberia, Sierra
Leone and Guinea finds that the most common groups that exploit children in camps include
international, local and UN agencies staff members (Vietti and Scribner). In media, the
migrations are portrayed adversely and often leads the public towards stereotypes, false
beliefs and negative perception towards refugees and migrants. This circulation of negativity
often mitigates the severity of migration’s phenomenon, focusing only upon its negative
strands rather shedding light upon the positive impacts behind migrations (Bempong, Sheath
and Seybold). This makes the host country avoid comprehending the migration positivity,
particularly from the political perspective. Even if the migrants are allowed to enter the host
country, many issues hinder the individual rights and health of the population like
occupational health and safety issues.

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Health care challenges in the host country
Although many drivers or individual need makes a person or a group migrate, they
usually experience complex integration procedure in the host community. Alternatively, the
host country is also obliged to adapt to its health and social systems to comprehend migrants'
needs. In many cases, the entire procedure is not completed without conflicts for economic
and cultural adaptations. From the health care point of view, due to the absence of
heterogenicity of epidemiology and provenance of diseases in origin countries, migrants or
refugees who are healthy or not face additional health-related issues more than the host
country. Inadequate living conditions and frequent outbreaks in host camps add to some
infectious diseases ( Castelli). WHO observes that reliable data on health and migration must
be documented by every member nation so that every migrant can access formal services
(Matlin, Depoux and Schütte). Mental and physical illness is another health care issue faced
by migrants, particularly for newly arrived people who face drug and sexual abuse that results
in a traumatic condition. Religion and cultural issues along with language barriers and racism
may further arise problems such as unemployment. This is the reason most of the refugees
and migrants are often exposed to many occupational hazards and jobs that involves physical
labour such as construction, mining and agriculture (Pavli and Maltezou). It can be said that
appropriate management is required for newly arrived migrants as most of their healthcare-
related issues are affected due to barriers to health care access including cultural,
communication, legal and bureaucratic challenges.
Implications for policymakers
While most of the policies and frameworks have been developed to address human
rights concerns, many of the policies satisfy implicit concerns only. This requires an
appropriate examination of explicit human rights concerns and issues and how human rights

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obligations can be developed under international law. McInerney-Lankford suggests that
development programmes and projects which cover new spheres of human and social
development can help in creating a direct relationship between social and economic rights
and mix them with other political and civil rights. Development institutions can conduct a
wider range of functions in different fields related to education, health, labour, social security
and human welfare. Such institutions help in promoting good governance programs also
which includes justice as well as anti-corruption laws to reform and rule common law
activities in the host country. “The task of defending moderate cosmopolitanism should not
be thought of as a narrowly philosophical undertaking” (Mendus 7). This means, it is not
about producing forceful claims to support the formulation of an abstract point of view rather,
moderate cosmopolitan injustice would prove more compelling when human institutions and
practices take every human life seriously.
In the health care context, a proper understanding and provision of immediate
responses are required which includes variables such as age, ability, ethnicity, experience,
gender, linguistic background and socio-economic status. The issues seen in cultural
sensitivity in health care history and presentation needs to be addressed as well. Teaching
strategic ways to minimize stereotypes that arise negativity towards migrants is another good
approach that can address challenges related to migration. Since thinking, in the long run,
might require a considerable amount of time, government or international institutions might
require additional time and resources to develop culturally sensitive treatments and health
plans. By that time, health care institutes and refugee camp workers must provide in-service
training to health workers so that none of the migrant’s face care-related difficulties.
Developing a systematic initiative can also be recommended here which involves cultural
safety (Matlin, Depoux and Schütte).

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Conclusion
Care, migration and human rights continue to demonstrate a separate set of
evolutionary concepts. The above essay defined key terms related to care, migrations and
human rights along with identifying challenges associated with them. Care and human rights
are basic fundamental needs of every human being, however, migrants who move from one
place to the other often face additional issues related to them. Therefore, the above essay
explores the care and human rights issues faced by migrants and how policy developers and
international institutions can mitigate them. Migration has become one of the core structural
phenomena of the 21st century, therefore, necessity behind care and human rights provision to
them cannot be ignored. In a healthcare-related field, it is necessary to understand the basic
need of humankind whether they belong to local or international cultures. Other than this, the
above essay also recommends building a comprehensive framework that can bridge ethics,
humanitarian and human rights imperative to promote social cohesion between individuals as
well as societies.

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Works Cited
Bempong, Nefti-Eboni, et al. "Critical reflections, challenges and solutions for migrant and
refugee health: 2nd M8 Alliance Expert Meeting." Public Health Reviews 40.3
(2019): 1-13.
Castelli, Francesco. “Drivers of migration: why do people move?” Journal of Travel
Medicine (2018): 1-7.
Held, Virginia. Care and Human Rights. 2015.
Kamruzzaman, Md. and Shashi Kanto Das. “The Evaluation of Human Rights: An Overview
in Historical Perspective.” American Journal of Service Science and Management 3.2
(2016): 5-12.
Matlin, Stephen A., et al. "Migrants' and refugees' health: towards an agenda of solutions."
Public Health Reviews 39.27 (2018): 1-55.
McInerney-Lankford, Siobhán. “Human Rights and Development: a Comment on Challenges
and Opportunities from a Legal Perspective.” Journal of Human Rights Practice 1.1
(2009): 51-82.
Mendus, Susan. Care and Human Rights. 2015.
Pavli, Androula and Helena Maltezou. “Health problems of newly arrived migrants and
refugees in Europe.” Journal of Travel Medicine (2017): 1-8.
Vietti, Francesca and Todd Scribner. “Human Insecurity: Understanding International
Migration from a Human Security Perspective.” Journal on Migration and Human
Security 1.1 (2013): 17-31.

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Wickramage, Kolitha, et al. “Migration and health: a global public health research priority.”
BMC Public Health 18.987 (2018): 1-9.