A contested issue is the extent to which refugee claimants should have access to health care in Western host countries with publicly subsidized health-care systems. In Canada, for a period of over fifty years, the federal government provided relatively comprehensive health coverage to refugees and refugee claimants through the Interim Federal Health Plan (IFHP). Significant cuts to the IFHP were implemented in June 2012 by the Conservative federal government (2006–15), who justified these cuts through public statements portraying refugee claimants as bring- ing bogus claims that inundate the refugee determination system. A markedly different narrative was articulated by a pan-Canadian coalition of health providers who characterized refugee claimants as innocent victims done further harm by inhumane health-care cuts. This article presents an analysis of these two positions in terms of frame theory, with a greater emphasis on the health-provider position. This debate can be meaningfully analyzed as a contest between competing frames: bogus and victim. Frame theory suggests that frames by nature simplify and condense, in this case packaging complex realities about refugee claimants into singular images (bogus and victim), aiming to inspire suspicion and compassion respectively. It will be argued that the acceptance of current frames impoverishes the conversation by reinforcing problematic notions about refugee claimants while also obscuring a rights-based argument for why claimants should have substantial access to health care.
Processes associated with the formation of child-headed households (CHH) are complex. Findings are mixed with regard to the impact of living in CHHs on children. On the one hand, children in CHHs do not necessarily have more unmet basic needs than do peers in adult-headed households and, in fact, have more opportunities to develop self-esteem and care for others. Nonetheless, children in CHHs confront specific challenges to their well-being. This chapter summarizes the state of the literature pertaining to CHHs, with a particular focus on CHHs as indicators of “the breakdown of the extended family” as a safety net. The authors present two case studies from Namibia that illustrate changes in children’s relationships and other aspects of the CHH experience and explore immediate and deferred reciprocity as a measure of accessibility and strength of their relationships and as an indicator of the changing status of children and family dynamics.
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