Migration Justice and Governance
Goal: To uphold the rights and dignity of displaced persons, including refugees, asylum seekers, and victims of trafficking, through legal protection, advocacy, and humanitarian response.
Forced migration in Kenya presents complex humanitarian, social, and economic challenges. It involves individuals and communities who are compelled to flee their homes due to conflict, natural disasters, political persecution, environmental degradation, or development projects. Kenya, as both a host and origin country for forced migrants, faces both internal displacement and cross-border refugee influxes. Many forced migrants lack IDs, birth certificates, or refugee documentation. This limits access to education, voting, property rights, health care, and social services. They are also vulnerable to harmful practices like human trafficking, sexual violence due to lack of social protection and access to justice.
KITUO continues implementing the Migration Justice Programme, which serves poor and marginalized urban refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kenya. The programme safeguards refugees’ rights under the Refugees Act of 2021, advocates for IDP protection, and provides legal advice and representation, assistance in obtaining work permits and civil documents, mental health and psychosocial support, referrals, and investigations into systematic human rights violations. It also addresses forced migration and displacement through interventions against human trafficking, refugee protection advocacy and migration governance.
