It is been a while since my last blog post, but I'm back again. I had to start with this exciting news. First, let's be clear, I struggle with tooting my own horn. I was raised in a culture where your success is equally shared with the community. So, the "I" becomes "US'. Of course, in the era of social media where the "I" is elevated above all else, I struggle even more to keep up with the constant "ME, ME, ME" fixation. Truth be told, there needs to be a balance. I want everyone to learn about the amazing research work I'm engaged with, hence my resolve to explicitly let the cat out of the bag. Don't be mistaken, as an endangered species (i.e., Black women in law) in the academy, it is not an easy feat juggling the professional-wife-mother responsibilities - what I call the tripod role, all while dealing with constant racism, discrimination, microaggression, and God knows what else on a daily basis. But Still I Rise.
So, here you go:
1. Sexual Harassment and the Law in Liberia (Oxford Human Rights Hub, 2023)
Sexual harassment is a pervasive issue that transcends geographic, cultural, and societal boundaries, and Africa’s oldest republic is no exception. It poses significant barriers to women’s empowerment in Liberia, a nation recovering from a 14-year civil conflict and striving for socio-economic advancement. Understanding the legal frameworks, societal attitudes, and challenges faced by survivors of sexual harassment in Liberia is critical for addressing this issue. Click here for more.
2. Rewriting Feebles, Decolonising Exclusion (Refugee Survey Quarterly, 2024)
Article 1F(b) of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees denies refugee protection to persons who have committed a “serious non-political crime.” In Febles v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 SCC 68, a majority of the Supreme Court of Canada held that the “seriousness” of a crime is to be determined based on the offence at the time it was committed. Later developments, such as serving a sentence or rehabilitation, do not factor in the analysis. Febles remains the leading apex court decision on determining seriousness. We argue the majority’s analysis creates the potential for both material and epistemic injustice. We then rewrite Febles by drawing on criminal law theory and a variety of critical perspectives, most notably critical race theory, decolonial theory, and Third World Approaches to International Law. On our rewrite, crimes meet the threshold of “seriousness” if they represent an intrinsic threat to the civil order of any State, hence indirectly a threat to the international order. Exclusion holds refugee status in abeyance until the goals of criminal justice have been met with respect to such crimes. If they have, either through formal or informal means, a claimant should not be excluded. Click here for more.
3. Rewriting Refugee Law: Centring Refugee Knowledges and Lived Experience (Refugee Survey Quarterly, 2024)
This Special Issue is part of an initiative co-led by scholars and lawyers with lived experience of (forced) displacement. We use the term “displacement” expansively to include all forms of displacement that compel people to leave their places of habitual residence whether as a result of human rights violations, colonisation, slavery, human trafficking, violent conflict, natural disaster, environmental conditions, climate change, or corporate development. However, in the context of this Special Issue, rewritten judgments focus on refugees, a term we also use broadly – and interchangeably – with displaced persons as a way of ensuring that neither our1 lived experience nor our jurisprudential imaginations are constrained or invalidated by imposed legal categories. Our purpose is to rethink, reframe, and rewrite judicial decisions critically, informed by the perspective of displaced persons’ lived experience. Legal frameworks that govern significant aspects of (forced) displacement and the institutional and professional fora created to administer them are colonial, racialised,2 and patriarchal. These legal frameworks, and the way they are understood and practised, govern who is or is not defined as needing or deserving of international protection. Click here for more.
4. Flipping the Narrative on Border Externalisation: An African Migrant Perspective (Externalizing Asylum, 2024)
Border externalisation represents a growing trend in global migration policy, where nations seek to manage migration flows by pushing their border controls beyond their own territories. This practice disproportionately impacts African migrants, who face significant challenges and dangers as a result. This short piece examines these impacts through the lens of an African migrant scholar perspective, aiming to challenge the dominant narratives surrounding border externalisation. By critiquing the prevailing narratives that frame border externalisation practices primarily through security and economic lenses at the expense of the human costs and legal protection for African migrants, the paper argues for reframing migration policies to prioritize human dignity, rights and justice while proposing more equitable, compassionate, and humane approaches to migration. Click here for more.
5. Canada’s Legal and Policy Framework for Migration (Ch8, McGill-Queen, 2024) Open Access
Veronica Fynn Bruey, an Indigenous Liberian migrant, came to Canada in 2001 after surviving three years of the Liberian civil war and nearly a decade of refugeehood in Ghana. Colonial laws and politics in and out of Canada entrench European settlers’ citizenship (called British subjects prior to 1947) irrespective of systemic violence they committed against the First Peoples of Turtle Island. Incongruent to the rule of law principles, the same cannot be said for Fynn Bruey and many other forced migrants to Canada, whose citizenships could be revoked pursuant to Article 1 (F) and (E) of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugee (Refugee Convention) 1951 and section 98 of the Immigration and Refugee Act, 2001. The perpetuity of Canadian citizenships for colonisers and their progenies are set in the proverbial legal stone, while the same settler law denies the similar rights to children of Fynn Bruey’s son, who is a Canadian, born outside of Canada pursuant to section 5, Citizenship Act 1985. Click here for more.
6. Difficult Life in a Refugee Camp: Gender, Violence, and Coping in Uganda by Ulrike Krause [Book Review] (Journal of Internal Displacement, 2024) Open Access
In May 2022, an exam copy of Ulrike Krause’s book Difficult Life in a Refugee Camp: Gender, Violence, and Coping in Uganda was received after an initial hesitation from Cambridge University Press. Their concern was that a request for an exam copy is subject to an instructor teaching a course wherein students taking their course will guarantee purchase of the book and hence an accumulation of capital and extraction of profit on author’s intellectual property. I first heard about Difficult Life in a Refugee Camp prior to requesting an examination copy from Cambridge University Press. From 2021-2022 Professor Ulrike Krause and I served on the executive committee of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration – an international organisation that brings together academics, practitioners and decision-makers working on forced migration issues. Click here for more.
7. Sexual Violence Against Girls and Women in African Conflict (pp745-777, Springer, 2024)
The continent of Africa has seen sustained elevation of both violent and low-grade conflicts since the mid-1950s, when Ghana was one of the first African countries to gain independence from colonial rule on 6 March 1957. Whether an increased level of conflict is an indicator of poor leadership, a study done by suggests that good governance contributes to reduced armed conflict. The violence associated with conflict compels people to leave their places of habitual residence. The entire process of forced movement is awash with vulnerabilities that expose girls and women to sexual violence and exploitation. A long-standing orthodoxy of classical migration theorists is that migration is mainly determined by economic and labour market forces, and, thus, people move to maximize their individual utility. Neoclassical theorists extend individual risk and collective decision-making to the reasons why people migrate. Myron Weiner argues that migrants are not just isolated individuals who react to economic stimuli but are also social beings who seek to achieve better outcomes for themselves, their families, and their communities by actively shaping forced migration patterns. Conflict in Africa is inextricably tied to forced migration. It is this very act of being compelled to leave one’s habitual place of residence that inherently creates dangerous journeys. The fatality associated with mass movement predisposes girls and women to all sorts of vulnerabilities with sexual violence being the most common attack. Click here for more.
8. The Immigration Law Death Penalty [Book Review] (Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Reviews, 2024)
There is an arduous duality of Black and Brown immigrants in the United States of America. First, they are supposed to be super-perfect human beings. Two, they are also unworthy “sub-humans” and “animals.” Any ounce of existence outside this “good-happy-grateful” immigrant conundrum, especially for undocumented migrants from the Global South, will attract the worst of American de-humanity. Classified as “criminal aliens,” they can be penalized (i.e., detained, jailed, and deported) for aggravated felonies (or “immigration law death penalty”), including for misdemeanors such as check fraud and shoplifting. Considered the most expansive incarceration system and world leader in deportation, the United States went from expelling a maximum of 40,000 non-citizens before 1990 to peaking at 415,587 in 2012 and 432,212 expulsions in 2013 (p3). Named “Deporter-in-Chief,” former President Barack Obama deported over two million people during his tenure (p4)). It is imperative to understand, analyze, and contextualize Sarah Tosh’s important work within past and present perspectives on immigration + crime (crimmigration) at both state and individual levels. Click here for more.
9. Sexual Harassment and the Law in Liberia (Ch10, Taylor and Francis, 2024)
Girls and women in Liberia are susceptible to sexual harassment in multiple ways every day. Drawing on theories of intersectionality and feminist-jurisprudence, confined within which are embodied in major regional laws, national laws, and social policy frameworks, I examine in this chapter the history, state, and impact of sexual harassment in public and private spaces. With an estimated 5.4 million people, the post-war Liberia human development index is 0.48, ranked as the 14th poorest country in the world. Such socio-economic ills exacerbate the disproportional prevalence of sexual harassment against girls and women. Efforts to fast-track and prosecute rape and gender violence cases in recent years led to the establishment of the first Judicial Circuit, Criminal Court Assizes ‘E’ (2008) and the Sexual and Gender-based Violence Crimes Unit (2009). Whilst not specific to sexual harassment, it can inadvertently address sexual harassment which arises out of broad forms of gender-based violence. Notwithstanding this modest progress, Liberia still has no sexual harassment law, and this has led to spiralling consequences across the country out of lack of accountability and impunity in sex-based crimes. Click here for more.
10. Algerian Women and Diasporic Experience: From the Black Decade to the Hira by Latefa Narriman Guemar [Book Review] (Journal of Internal Displacement, 2024) Open Access
When Exeter University Press notified the Journal of Internal Displacement about the publication of Algerian Women and Diasporic Experience: From the Black Decade to the Hirak by Latefa Narriman Guemar, the link between the terms diaspora and displacement was not instantly obvious. In addition to issues around geographical identities, displacement, and (forced) migration, Algerian Women and Diasporic Experience engages with the “Islamic State” (dawla Islamiya), “Foreign interference” (ayadi kharijiya), exile (Elghorba/ghrib), “those who risk their life to migrate” (harragas), “injustice” (hogra), “Gangs working within the Algerian state” (issaba), “Holy fighters” (jihad), “resistance” (moukawama), no constitution (la mithaq), “implied sexual aggression” (yetbelaouek) and the “Algerian political protest movement” (Hirak). Click here for more.
11. The Enduring Impact of Slavery: A Historical Perspective on South-South Migration (Springer, 2024) Open Access
It is impossible to understand contemporary forms and experiences of South–South migration without first understanding the history of migration between countries generally classified as the “Global South”—the Majority World—and the enduring effects of slavery. This chapter begins with a historical overview and reflections on the present-day legacies of the transatlantic slave trade, the single largest forced migration between the countries of the Majority World, which mainly took place between countries in West Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Applying the “Global South” as a critical concept, this chapter examines the lasting impacts of the transatlantic enslavement of Black African peoples as a precursor of contemporary forms of South–South migration and associated responses, representation, and challenges. Arguing that much South–South migration is rooted in historical antecedents, the chapter also highlights the contemporary consequences of slavery for Liberia, where the return of captured and emancipated slaves led directly to the civil wars that devastated the country between 1989 and 2003, leading to significant displacement into other parts of West Africa. Click here for more.
Please don't hesitate to contact me should you have a question/comment, wish to explore opportunities to collaborate, or just simply connect.
