IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v123y2019i12p1173-1184.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do health reception policies in the Nordic region recognize the rights of asylum-seeking and resettled refugee children?

Author

Listed:
  • Barghadouch, Amina
  • Skovdal, Morten
  • Norredam, Marie

Abstract

According to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, it is critical that refugee children’s rights are upheld in all national policies covering vulnerable children. This article examines how health policies in the Nordic region recognize the health needs of newly arrived refugee children, and whether these policies respect their individual rights. The article maps out, compares and contrasts health reception policies in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, paying particular attention to how each addresses the rights and needs of refugee children. The policy documents were obtained through desk-research conducted from January 2017–January 2018. We analysed 34 national laws and guidelines that support the health reception of refugee children. We find that only a few health reception policies across the Nordic region have been written specifically for refugee children. The policies identified predominantly recognize refugee children’s right of access to somatic healthcare services, and to emergency services. Their rights to mental health services or broader health-enabling contexts were addressed to a lesser extent. We conclude that there is a need for further recognition of refugee children as rights-holders, and for the intentions of health reception policies to be expanded to include mental health services and health-promoting initiatives. Further research is needed on whether and how the current policies play out in actual health reception practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Barghadouch, Amina & Skovdal, Morten & Norredam, Marie, 2019. "Do health reception policies in the Nordic region recognize the rights of asylum-seeking and resettled refugee children?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(12), pages 1173-1184.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:123:y:2019:i:12:p:1173-1184
    DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.09.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851019302210
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.09.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, 2018. "Protected on Paper? An analysis of Nordic country responses to asylum-seeking children," Papers 940, Innocenti Research Report.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeanette A. Lawrence & Agnes E. Dodds & Ida Kaplan & Maria M. Tucci, 2022. "Ambivalence towards the Protection of Refugee Children: A Developmental Relational Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-14, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:123:y:2019:i:12:p:1173-1184. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.