Human rights practice is of particular importance to addressing health disparities among forcibly displaced groups. Older refugees in low- and middle-income countries may be socially and structurally vulnerable to poor health related to human rights abuses, xenophobia, and inadequate resources compounded with ageism and isolation. In this policy and practice note, we use findings from a phenomenological study with 23 older Congolese refugees in urban Tanzania to explore the role of religious institutions to improve the health and wellbeing of older urban-displaced adults. Older refugees described how religious networks fostered spiritual support and guidance, enhanced social support and friendship, and provided opportunities to receive material and informational support. We consider how these narratives of support embedded within religious networks can reconfigure the role(s) of third sector/civil society (that is nongovernmental organizations [NGOs], nonprofit agencies) in urban humanitarian settings. We address possible strengths and challenges of including faith communities and actors in humanitarianism, outlining how such collaborative efforts could adhere to human rights tenets. Finally, we note how qualitative inquiry such as phenomenology is aligned with human rights in seeking to uphold human dignity and that these data, therefore, have special relevance in informing human rights praxis.
Background: There is limited understanding of the prevalence of psychological distress and associated stressors and supports among displaced adults in low-and middle-income first asylum countries. Method: This article reports the findings of a cross-sectional study. We recruited 245 Congolese adults (18-80 years) residing in Nairobi, Kenya using snowball sampling. Data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic characteristics, the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20), and a locally We thank the Congolese women and men who participated in this study. We are also grateful to Anne, Patrick, Rinado, Alex, and Mohamed for their invaluable contributions during fieldwork. Many thanks to Drs. Burris (Duke) Duncan, Mark Nichter, and Ivy Pike for insightful conversations and feedback at each stage of JAT's dissertation project as well as to the anonymous reviewers whose thorough and thoughtful engagement with the manuscript strengthened the final version.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.