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This case study touches on the development of refugees’ mental and physical health from their stays in the refugee facilities during and after the limbo process for a temporary and permanent visa, which in turn affected their socioeconomic integration. Seven refugees and their families that came to Sweden during the refugee crisis in 2015-2016 and were moved to a facility where I worked, were interviewed on how those issues impacted them. With the help of Egon Kunz’s [Refugee Theory] theory, the study showed that constant relocation to different facilities in Sweden, and experienced events and conflicts at the facilities have resulted in long-term health and socioeconomic problems. Such as PTSD, mental and physical recovery from occurred events at the facilities, in turn, negatively affecting socioeconomic integration. Additional research in those issues showed that other countries like Germany, which also had a large influx of refugees during that time, had better and faster success with integration when they helped the refugees with the language and societal information at the beginning of limbo. Because their interest in learning and integrating is higher, and the health and integration issues are much lower than when refugees are sometimes forced to wait at least two years, which is what some of the participants and other refugees in this study did before starting SFI, integration programs and have their own private place live in.  The temporary visa, especially with no help to integrate, caused the lack of interest in learning the language; socioeconomic integration, mainly when the person was alone with no family. Moreover, their developed health from their time at the facilities is still a recovering process.

This thesis explores how the concepts of sovereignty and solidarity are affected by and influence each other within the institutional framework of the European Union. It does so by conducting a case study of the border controls that were implemented in Sweden during the refugee crisis of 2015 and utilizing a theoretical framework based on the theories of Europeanisation and De-Europeanisation. The theories explain the integration and de-integration processes that can happen between supranational and national actors. Examining data in the form of policy documents from the Swedish government, the thesis employs the method of qualitative content analysis which aims at identifying the rhetoric surrounding refugees, the cooperation of Sweden and the EU, as well as border controls in a condensed time period from May to December of 2015. The thesis finds that in line with existing academic debates, sovereignty and solidarity are both ambiguous concepts that are applied in a various of contexts; the data reflects infringements on sovereignty on the basis of solidarity as well as statements claiming that sovereignty is a fundamental principle of multilateral cooperation.

This thesis explores agency in urban refugee spaces and the factors and skills seen to facilitate refugee journeys towards self-reliance in protracted situations. An ethnographic case study was carried out in Kampala, Uganda, where observations and conversations were held with refugee leaders, business owners, and with practitioners at refugee-led organizations. The reasoning is based on Hannah Arendt's notion on what it means to have agency and on wider connections to agency in relation to spaces, storytelling, resilience, and a sense of community. Hermeneutics was applied to the planning and execution of the research, while a narrative approach was adopted to exhibit the findings. The stories presented lay a foundation for proposing a new agency-led approach of how to critically reflect and rethink refugee support in ways that are cost-effective, ethical, and durable over time. This proposed agency-led approach was made by learning from the field and comprises four parts: (i) organizational resilience; (ii) meaningful ownership; (iii) meaningful representation; and (iv) meaningful participation. The new approach is presented to practitioners, potential donors, and those interested in learning how, but also why, we must rethink refugees as actors.

The refugee crisis is an ongoing challenge for the European Union. Refugees from the Middle East, the majority of them Syrians, are risking their own and their children’s lives, putting their money –both figuratively and literally speaking- on the chance of surviving the almost six-year long war in Syria.The brutal death of thousands of refugees in the Aegean Sea’s waters was the reason why the EU mechanisms have started to mobilize seeking a solution. The ‘problem’ was not possible to be hidden under the carpet anymore. It was reaching the highly developed Europe’s doorstep.The media coverage of the crisis has started to emerge in a greater extent throughout 2015, as a result of the ‘explosive’ increase of the refugee flows. In the beginning it was just a synthesis of innumerous personal tragedies, before it became an official European ‘problem’.If we ‘leap’ through time and refer on today, we can observe that the massive death toll in the Mediterranean was only the starting point of a vicious circle, which is strongly related with developmental, political and communication issues.Through this thesis my goal was to examine how four European newspapers (which represent both Europe’s North and South) have reported on the biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the World War II. What strikes me as a very interesting aspect is that the refugees, as representatives of the developing countries have come in the territory of the European developed countries. Therefore I believe that there is space for a wide development dialogue and I would like to examine at what point the media seized this opportunity to reflect on development issues, through their cover stories.I have performed a combination of quantitative/qualitative methods of analysis. A full scale content analysis of 85 articles has been performed as the quantitative part and this was my primary research method. My secondary method of analysis was about the visual elements used by the newspapers and I have relied on semiotics to examine 141 photographs.

Sjuksköterskor verksamma på barnavårdscentral (BVC) möter dagligen flyktingbarn och deras föräldrar i sitt arbete och dessa möten ser olika ut beroende på olika faktorer. Syftet med studien var att beskriva BVC- sjuksköterskors arbete med flyktingbarn och deras föräldrar. Semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes och analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Ur resultatet kom tre kategorier: att skapa trygghet, att vara lyhörd och att ge stöd. I kategorin att skapa trygghet beskrev BVC- sjuksköterskor hur de arbetade för att skapa jämlik vård, öka tillgängligheten samt belyste de vikten av kontinuitet i vården för flyktingbarnen. Kategorin att vara lyhörd innefattade sjuksköterskors sätt att se det enskilda barnets behov. Detta tillämpades med respekt, förståelse och acceptans för kulturella skillnader. Att ge stöd genom behjälplighet vid språk-och kommunikationssvårigheter, rätt anpassad information och samverkan med andra professioner gav flyktingbarnen tryggare och snabbare integrering i det svenska samhället. Svårigheter som BVC- sjuksköterskorna beskrev var kommunikation via tolk, brist på resurser och brist på kontinuitet i arbete med flyktingbarn. Fortsatt forskning behövs för att få ökad kunskap och förståelse kring flyktingbarns behov. Det behövs även fortsatta studier i utveckling, organisation och samordning av verksamheter som bedriver vård och omsorg för flyktingbarn. / Nurses working in Child Health Centers (CHC-nurses) face daily refugee children and their parents in their work and these meetings vary depending on various factors.The aim of this study was to describe CHC-nurses experience of working with refugee children and their parents. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. From the result three categories emerged; to create security, to be responsive and to provide support. In the category to create security the CHC-nurses described how they worked to create equal care, increase accessibility, and highlight the importance of the continuity in the health care of refugee children. Category to be responsive comprised nurses' approach to the individual child's needs which was applied with respect, understanding and acceptance of cultural differences. Providing support through helpfulness with language and communication difficulties, the right customized information and collaboration with other professions gave refugee children safer and faster integration into the Swedish society. Difficulties described by the CHC-nurses were communication through interpreters, lack of resources and lack of continuity in the work with refugee children. Continued research is needed to increase knowledge and understanding of refugee children’s needs. Further studies in development, organization and coordination of activities engaged in health care for refugee children are needed.

This study has aimed to examine the actions of the European Union and its member states during the on-going refugee crisis. The EU is founded on a certain set of values and institutions that were clearly abandoned by more than one of the actors of the EU in the face of the overwhelming refugee crisis. The purpose is thus to investigate the cause behind these decisions by using two European integration theories. Neofunctionalism and Security Communities were chosen because of their founding role in the field of theories and because they constitute a so called hard case. The study concludes that the reason for these actions has its explanation in the lack of trust and common values between the member states. The crisis is also perceived by some actors as an outside threat due to the securitization of the European identity.

Bakgrund: Det finns 45 miljoner flyktingar i världen. Många flyktingar har svåra upplevelser bakom sig som kan påverka hälsan och de skattar sin hälsa som dålig. Flyktingar möter många hinder när de söker vård. Trots grundläggande rättigheter om bästa uppnåeliga hälsa för alla är vården för flyktingar godtycklig. Syfte: Syftet med litteraturstudien var att beskriva flyktingars erfarenheter av hälso-och sjukvård. Metod: Kvalitativa resultat ur sex kvalitativa och tre mixed-methodstudier kvalitetsgranskades, analyserades och sammanställdes. Sökningar av artiklar gjordes i databaserna PubMed, SocIndex och CINAHL. Manuella sökningar genomfördes även. Resultat: Flyktingar hade olika erfarenheter kring vårdpersonalens bemötande och tillgången till vård. Fyra kategorier identifierades: svårigheter att få vård, kulturkrockar, diskriminerad samt respektfullt bemött. Inom dessa kategorier beskrivs kommunikationssvårigheter, rädsla för deportation, att bli lyssnad på och ekonomiska hinder som faktorer som påverkade vården. Slutsats: Flyktingar upplever att det är svårt att få vård samt att de får sämre vård än medborgare. Resultatet visar att kunskapen om bemötandet av flyktingar behöver utvecklas. Sjuksköterskor kan arbeta för att förbättra flyktingars erfarenhet av vården. / Background: There are 45 million refugees in the world. Many refugees have traumatic experiences that might affect their health and their self-rated health is generaly poor. Refugees encounter many obstacles when they seek care. Despite the fundamental rights of highest attainable standard of health for all people, healthcare for refugees is inconsistent. Purpose: The purpose of this literature review was to examine the refugees’ healthcare experiences. Method: Qualitative results from six qualitative and three mixed-method studies were reviewed for quality, analyzed and summarized. Searches of articles were made in the databases PubMed, SocIndex and CINAHL. Manual searches were also conducted. Results: Refugees had different experiences regarding their treatment by health professionals and in their access to healthcare. Four categories were identified: difficulties in accessing care, cultural clashes, discriminated and respectfully treated. Within these communication difficulties, fear of deportation, being listened to and economic barriers were described as factors that affected the care. Conclusion: Refugees experience difficulties getting care and recieve worse care than citizens. The results show that knowledge around the treatment of refugees needs to be developed. Nurses can work to improve refugees’ experiences of healthcare.

Patriarchal power structures and oppression from the occupation are two major influences in how women in Dheisheh refugee camp can live their lives. Gender roles are strict and traditional and women are homebound and generally marginalized in the community. Daily life is made difficult by the occupation making violence, fear and loss a plainness. However, the occupation has caused traditional gender roles to sway, in terms of women having to work outside the home in order to support the family, because husbands and fathers either being killed or imprisoned by the Israeli Occupation Forces, IOF. Women are also given higher education in a larger scale than before because education has become both a form of resistance but also a way and a hope for the younger generation to build a better future for themselves and the community. Making work and education tools and strategies for women to gain more independence. Strength is the outcome of living under dual oppression. Women are forced to be strong by the harshness of living under occupation and are made strong by constantly negotiating their roles as women within the stern framework of a patriarchal society under a violent occupation.

BACKGROUND: Millions of people have fled from their countries, due to war or conflict, in order to find a safer environment for themselves and their children. One common destination is Europe, which people can reach only through the sea from the Turkish coast to the Greek coast after walking hundreds of kilometers through the mountains. This long journey has a significant impact on refugee children’s health and that is primarily observed in the Greek islands were they can seek for emergency health care. The aim of this study is to investigate the reasons that the refugee children seek for emergency help in the hospital of Lesbos, Greece.   METHODS: Primary data collection from the medical records of the Pediatric department of the hospital of Lesbos. Statistical analysis of the data with R commander 3.2.1.The results will be presented in diagrams and tables, showing the most common symptoms/clinical findings, diagnoses, origin, gender, hospitalization or not of the refugee children and the relation of the symptoms and diagnoses in accordance with the seasonality, age, gender and origin calculated with Chi² and Chi² Fischer test.   RESULTS: Respiratory tract infections and gastro-intestinal tract infections are the first two most common diagnoses by far. Almost half of the refugee children that were submitted in the Hospital of Lesbos needed hospitalization and further treatment. More than half of the refugee children that sought after emergency help in the hospital of Lesbos were Syrians and boys. Mental health was also a big issue.   CONCLUSION: The journey that the refugee children are undertaking in order to reach the Greek islands and the prolonged living in refugee camps and detention centers is affecting their mental and physical health, with respiratory tract infections and gastro-intestinal tract infections being the major diagnoses.