Realising Socio-Economic Rights of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Africa: Our Lives Matter

Durojaye, Ebenezer, Robert Doya Nanima, and Gladys Mirugi-Mukundi (with Abiola Idowu-Ojo) (eds.) Realising Socio-Economic Rights of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Africa: Our Lives Matter (PalgraveMacmillan, 2023)

Refugees and asylum seekers continue to face serious challenges regarding their human rights. With an astronomical and increasing number of refugees and asylum seekers, developing countries host up to 85 per cent of this number.

This notwithstanding, the refugees’ realisation of their socio-economic rights is grossly undermined by many host countries. This contribution offers an overview of the normative guidance on refugees and asylum seekers in the international, continental, and thematic spheres. Some of the international instruments that form this discussion include the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the Organisation of African Unity Refugee Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa of 1969. Others include the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The chapter also hints at the added value that this edited volume adds to the jurisprudence on the socio-economic rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Africa, and the sections in this volume.