Migrants’ Right to Health – Legal and Policy Instruments Related to Migrants’ Access to Health Care, Social Protection and Labour in Selected East African Countries

The East and Horn of Africa remains one of the most dynamic regions in the world in terms of migration, caused by an evolving complex of economic, social and security interplay. Migrants and mobile populations continue to face many obstacles in accessing essential health-care services, including migration status, language barriers, lack of migrant-inclusive health-care laws and policies, inaccessibility of services, and the inability of the receiving country to afford addressing their welfare.

This report reviews the domestication in Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda of international legal instruments aimed at ensuring migrants’ and refugees’ access to health-care services and labour and social protection.

According to the report, most of the national legal instruments have insufficient coverage regarding the four key migration-related themes (migration, health, social protection and labour) in international and regional instruments, which also vary widely among the four countries. The national instruments lack direct obligatory language in stipulating benefits for migrant populations in terms of access to health-care services, labour systems, social security systems and social assistance at the country level.

Well-monitored national implementation road maps ensuring enforcement and conformity to the above-mentioned legal frameworks for migrants are urgently needed in the concerned countries.