Welcome

  Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Programme   

This website takes as its ambitious challenge to be a one-stop shop of resources for everyone concerned with protecting the rights of refugees, in particular legal aid providers who are representing refugees seeking asylum from and in the 'global south'.

Agencies in the 'north' also often need information and assistance from colleagues in the south. This website facilitates working collaboratively to strengthen and expand rights-based advocacy and legal aid for refugees, increase efficiency and effectiveness, and raise the standards of professionalism in the growing specialty of legal aid for refugees.

In 2010, UNHCR reported 53 countries that have produced 9,000 refugees or more. This same source (http://www.unhcr.org/4c11f0be9.html) lists 193 states that produced refugees including Canada, the United Kingdom, the USA and even Sweden. This illustrates how there is no 'safe' country.

These statistics suggest that lawyers are all, to one degree or another, representing refugees of the same nationalities or from the same source countries. For example, lawyers in Hong Kong, Korea and Japan, like those in Israel, Zambia, Mexico, and Brazil are all struggling to find information to defend cases from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Would it not be more effective if we all worked together?

Outside North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, legal aid for refugees, as a specialty, is in its infancy in most of the world. Few law schools offer courses in refugee law. Lawyers representing refugees tend to work in isolation. This limits access to information and resources. This website provides that information as well as access to resource persons who will help you with special issues.

The website is also for refugees, particularly the vast majority in the global south who do not have access to legal aid tailored for them. The page, Refugee Voices, lists newspapers developed by refugees, refugees’ websites, and Diaspora organizations, useful for searching for missing relatives.

You are invited to join the moderated list-serv, FRLAN-list[at]fahamu.org to share information, discuss problems with cases (anonymously), or request country-of-origin information.

The website has been designed to accommodate those who only have low-bandwidth internet access; hence no pictures or logos. The exception is our Films page. We hope you will find them useful for teaching. Please suggest other films that we should include that you have found useful for teaching and awareness-raising.

Please contact us with your suggestions for additions, especially regarding legal aid case work.