IOM’s health response to humanitarian and public health emergencies aims to save lives, reduce morbidity and alleviate suffering while upholding humanitarian principles and protect human dignity. IOM’s programming in this domain encompasses the various stages and typologies of emergencies, throughout all the phases of the mobility continuum.
With migration being a determinant of health, IOM works to specifically aid the health of displaced populations. Hazardous traveling conditions, overcrowding, and limited access to proper hygiene and sanitation can increase a migrant’s vulnerability to disease, particularly communicable diseases. Yet, displacement can also exacerbate the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). During displacement, the limited access to healthcare throughout travel can delay diagnosis or deplete medications.
Background: Female genital mutilation or cutting comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the female external genitalia and or injury to the female genital organs. The practice is most common in 30 countries in the Western, Eastern, and North-eastern regions of Africa, and in selected countries the Middle East and Asia. With increased migration from such countries, health professionals in destination countries. are confronted with the challenge of caring for women and girls subjected to it and mounting responses to inhibit its practice.
IOM has been involved in psychosocial support activities for migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and crisis-affected communities since the late 1990s. The organization’s approach to its psychosocial programmes is systemic, interdisciplinary and community based. One main feature of these programmes has been the organization of executive masters, diploma or certificate courses on psychosocial approaches to population mobility in low-resource or crisis-affected countries and communities.
Abstract
Background Although the adverse impacts of conflict-driven displacement on health are well-documented, less is known about how health status and associated risk factors differ according to displacement experience. This study quantifies health status and quality of life among returning refugees, internally displaced persons, and the host community in a post-conflict district in Northern Sri Lanka, and explores associated risk factors.
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) features health as a cross-cutting priority with references to health and healthcare access in several objectives.
Between 2013 and 2014, in addition to IDPs and returnees, 45,533 Burundian migrants (51% women, 49% men), who, had never regularized their stay in Tanzania, were deported by the Tanzanian Government due to the recent immigration law. Due to the rapid expulsion of Burundian migrants from Tanzania to Burundi, many left without belongings or in some cases, even their spouses. They arrived in an environment, in particular in communes with high rates of returns, where resources were already stretched.
The International Organization’s (IOM) Migration Health Division acts with Member States, UN agencies and other partners in the international community to meet the operational challenges of migration, advance understanding of migration health issues, encourage social and economic development through migration, and work towards ensuring respect of the human dignity and well-being of migrants.
Migrants and refugees face challenges accessing both healthcare and good social determinants of health in Malaysia. Participants at the “Migrant and Refugee Health in Malaysia workshop, Kuala Lumpur, 9-10 November 2017” scoped these challenges within the regional ASEAN context, identifying gaps in knowledge and practical steps forward to improve the evidence base in the Malaysia.
