NYU Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights Blog

Cameron Avisa Patel, Sylvia Rivera Law Project (New York City)

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Cameron Avisa Patel (NYU College of Arts and Sciences) | Sylvia Rivera Law Project | New York, USA

This last month at SRLP has been fulfilling and busy. At the end of June, we participated in the Queer Liberation March. That same week, our working committee on housing also launched a new initiative to distribute food and basic supplies to homeless people in Lower Manhattan. Also included in the care kits was a list of housing resources that SRLP offers in collaboration with another nonprofit. SRLP members plan to make the supply distribution a monthly event to support everyone in the community.

On July 8, we celebrated Sylvia and Marsha Day, and I had the great privilege of meeting people who were at Stonewall in 1969. I spent the previous week tracking down flower donations for the annual tradition of throwing them into the water where Marsha P. Johnson’s body was found. I also learned that Sylvia Rivera spent several months living in the event’s location, the Christopher Street Pier. That reiterated the importance of SRLP’s current housing work, demonstrating how intertwined trans liberation is with housing justice.

A memorial altar to Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. A black and white image of the two activists is propped up with flowers laid out in front of the photo.
A memorial altar for Sylvia and Marsha Day.

Moving forward, I will be finalizing the Know Your Rights pamphlet on involuntary psychiatric admission. Much of my daily work moving forward will be helping people schedule medical appointments, navigate insurance coverage, and find discounted pharmacy prices for their medication. I will also be starting my interviews on trans people’s experiences with involuntary admission and the NYPD, though that will be separate from my work at SRLP.

 

Month Two at the Refugee Law Clinic

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Cameron Roberts (NYU Liberal Studies) | Refugee Law Clinic | London, United Kingdom 

As I near the conclusion of my 10 weeks in London at the Refugee Law Clinic I am experiencing a lot of mixed emotions. I am sad to leave the Clinic as it has proven to be my most rewarding professional experience to date. Throughout my time here both the clinic manager and supervising attorney have afforded me the independence to work through cases and lead client meetings. With their guidance, I have not only become more confident in my understanding of asylum law in the United Kingdom but I have been able to directly apply this knowledge in clinic casework. Over the past 10 weeks, I have worked on fresh claims cases involving disputed nationality, statelessness, and Article 1D and 1F protections in the Refugee Convention. 

Beyond fresh claims work at the clinic I have also assisted with drafting NRM Referrals for victims of human trafficking, Pre-Action Protocol letters to the Home Office regarding delayed decision-making, challenges to immigration bail conditions, and letters of instruction for expert advice on clinic cases. My first post was published on the Refugee Law Initiative blog covering the role of credibility in further submissions. My independent research has been the most fruitful avenue for applying my newfound understanding of UK case law and immigration rules. 

I have been able to work on clinic cases with two other interns at the clinic, both of whom have completed their legal degrees in the UK. I also collaborate with law firm and clinic volunteers currently training to work as barristers in the UK. This aspect of my work has been extremely impactful as I have learned from students and lawyers whose expertise vastly differs from my own and I have learned countless lessons concerning legal norms in the UK from group work at the clinic. 

As I leave the clinic in the next few weeks my most significant takeaway is the difficulty of applying human rights law to tangible legal work. While there are numerous protections available for many of the clinic’s clients, it is never that simple. Instead, they must grapple with Home Office disbelief, bureaucratic delays, biased decision-making, and until recently, the fear of sudden removal to Rwanda. There is an obvious disconnect between the rights afforded to migrants and their lived reality. The application of the rights asylum seekers are (supposedly) promised are not guaranteed in the United Kingdom.

Save the Children Jordan Project – July Update

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Jana Ababneh (NYU GSAS) | Save the Children Jordan| Amman, Jordan

I have found working with Save the Children Jordan to be fulfilling and enriching, as I have been able to build on my existing skills to serve my community. Before pursuing my MA in Near Eastern Studies at NYU, I worked as a Development Officer for two years and gained experience writing grant proposals. I’m currently leveraging those skills to be able to best serve the organization I’m volunteering with in my capacity as a Gallatin Fellow.

One of my current tasks includes developing a concept note on murdered children in Jordan, fleshing out a previous draft, and translating it from Arabic to English to be able to share it with international donors and hopefully obtain funding for a more in-depth research project. In the medium to long term, this will serve as the base for a research-led initiative to intervene in cases where children’s lives may be in danger. Most children who are murdered in Jordan are killed by someone they know, often a family member. I learned that a 2022 report has indicated that familial murders have increased by 94% in Jordan since 2020, with poverty being a key driver for the increase in familial crimes against children and women.

Jordanian law allows for a family to reduce the severity of legal penalties against murderers, with certain loopholes allowing for further reduced sentences if the crime was committed in a “fit of rage” (Art. 98, Jordanian Penal Code).

The research that I am undertaking poses an ethical dilemma. I believe in prison abolition and the rehabilitation of those who commit crimes. However, much of the advocacy to reduce child murders in Jordan centers on removing loopholes in the penal code that allow for reduced prison sentencing. My ideological opposition to incarceration leads me to question how we can best protect children and deliver justice.

Save the Children Jordan project

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Jana Ababneh (NYU GSAS) | Save the Children Jordan| Amman, Jordan

Returning to my hometown of Amman, Jordan has allowed me to see the issue of child labor up close. On a trip with friends to Wadi Rum and Petra, I had conversations with children who “worked” as guides, selling trinkets to tourists, and other tasks. Now that it’s summer, children who are otherwise in school are also partaking in the informal economy through child labor. It’s eye-opening to see the children themselves describe their experiences in a matter-of-fact way.

I have started my project with Save the Children Jordan. Everyone on my team is exceptionally kind and knowledgeable, and I’m excited for the opportunity to work with them. I’m working with the Media and Communication Advocacy Department. One of the current tasks being overseen by my department under the “Work: No Child’s Business” program is a social media awareness-raising campaign that is #لا-تعطيه-عشان-تحميه, which translates to “#Don’tGiveThemSoYouCanProtectThem in English.

The campaign is addressing the issue of children working as beggars and panhandlers. In Jordan, certain panhandling “gangs” are notorious for pulling children out of school and forcing them to beg on the streets. The social media campaign seeks to discourage people from giving cash to these children, aiming to make child labor less profitable in the long run. However, knowing that child laborers are often physically punished if they don’t meet the cash “quotas” set by their families presents an uncomfortable moral dilemma, raising the question of the value of individual actions versus community care. I hope that the work I do this summer contributes positively to a change in the current systems that make it easy – and profitable – to exploit children’s labor.

At the same time, while working on my summer project, I am able to have a close insight into Save the Children Jordan’s work on the plight of children in Gaza. Save the Children International has recently released a report on the 20,000+ children in Gaza who are missing or under rubble. In Jordan, the atmosphere feels different since before the war. There is a constant sense of mourning, even amidst Eid festivities. The children in Jordan that I have talked to expressed solidarity with the children in Gaza. I was deeply moved by the tenderness and camaraderie the children expressed and am unable to give it justice in words even now.

Sincerely,

Jana A

One Month at ACATHI

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Raea Lovett | NYU Silver | ACATHI | Barcelona, Spain

I have really enjoyed the work I have been doing with ACATHI thus far. During the last month I have worked on a number of initiatives and have really gotten to understand the organization  well. On my second day I went to a local Catalan high school we partnered with to help provide educational lessons on trans inclusive feminism and the lives of LGBTQ refugees. That program was a part of a collaboration with a local agency as well as local government, and I have written reports about the outcomes from collected participant surveys as a part of my role, too.

I also have worked heavily on the welcome program mentioned in my previous blog. For the first few weeks, I sat in on the Spanish language welcome programs to understand what they should look like in English. Then, with another intern I helped redevelop the English program. Now, I have been leading our Welcome Program in English for about three weeks and it has been an amazing experience.

I have been able to work closely with ACATHI’s social workers as well who provide tailored support to asylum seekers connecting them with resources, helping them draft their applications, and providing counseling. For me this has been an incredible experience because I am majoring in social work. I have gotten to see how the theory I have been learning in the classroom applies in practical circumstances.

This week my focus is shifting to two Erasmus+ programs ACATHI is in collaboration with NGOs from across Europe on. One program is focused on expanding understandings of gender in intergenerational and intercultural ways and the other program focuses more on educating professionals about working with asylum seekers. For these international projects I have been working on a number of different task which has been a rewarding experience because I have gotten to meet activist and people in the nonprofit human rights space from across Europe.

Overall, my time so far with ACATHI has been extremely enriching and I cannot wait to see how it continues to grow over the coming months.

Three Weeks at TLC: Apsáalooke and Cowlitz Salish

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Isabella Victoria Wolfe (NYU Gallatin) | The Language Conservancy | Indiana, USA

As I am approaching my third week at The Language Conservancy, and the mid-western atmosphere is starting to settle, I am beyond grateful for the community of Linguists I have met in Bloomington. The TLC team has been welcoming and taught me so much in the little time I have been here. 

When I first arrived, I was a bit intimidated by my lack of linguistic training compared to my other colleagues, but I have realized that it was never an obstacle. One of my office buddies and Linguist, Sam, has made this an amazing learning experience, no matter how many questions I may ask.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been assigned to two projects for the languages Apsáalooke (Crow) and Cowlitz Salish. The Crow Language is in the Siouan language family and is spoken in Southeastern Montana and parts of Missouri, about 85% of the Crow Nation speaks Crow as a first language. In conjunction with the Crow Language Consortium (CLC), I am working alongside a team on developing an eLearning website called Ammiláau. Ammiláau is an interactive eLearning platform intended to supplement classroom instruction for Crow Language teachers and students, or independent study. Right now I am beta-testing the K-12 curriculum as well as marking any formatting or grammatical errors. I have enjoyed how fast I have picked up some phonological features of the language. For example, in Apsáalooke, the /k/ would be pronounced more like /g/; and there is no nasalization in Crow. For Cowlitz Salish, in the Coast Salish family of Salishan languages and spoken in Southwestern Washington; I have been working on an online dictionary, mainly editing audio entries in addition to their inflected forms, example phrases, or variants. 

One of the questions I encountered in my independent project, and was continuously stumped on, was how linguists could aid a community without simultaneously invading their space. It’s often that indigenous communities are studied as a spectacle out of curiosity, and conceptualized as “stuck in time,” when these communities and the people are, in fact, continuously growing, adapting, and unapologetically perennial. What TLC has taught me is that the key lies in developing true partnerships, where linguists act as facilitators, always deferring to the wishes and expertise of the community members themselves—making the community, the focal point of revitalization.

Sincerely,

Isabella V. W.

Law, Structure, and Migration

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Clare Francis (NYU GSAS) | Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law | Sydney, Australia

As I approach one month at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, I am grateful for the generosity of my colleagues, who have welcomed me into the life of the Centre. The Kaldor Centre is based at the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) Faculty of Law & Justice. I have been auditing the course ‘Forced Migration and Human Rights’, taught by colleagues at the Centre, which has introduced me to the doctrine of international refugee law (IRL) in the Australian context.

The doctrinal complexity of refugee law in Australia is no accident. It functions to deliberately bar asylum seekers and refugees from accessing legal protection. Successive Australian governments have carved out a domestic refugee regime which circumvents Australia’s international obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. The Migration Act 1958 and other legislation, including the Migration Act Amendment 2014, enforce definitions of ‘refugee’ which further limit those provided for under the Refugee Convention.

What does this mean in reality? For example, under Australian law, ‘membership of a particular social group’ does not include occupation. So, if you are persecuted for being a journalist, doctor, or academic, you cannot claim refugee status on that basis alone. Similarly, Australia applies an ‘internal relocation’ test when determining refugee status. Since 2014, this relocation no longer has to be ‘reasonable’. In other words, to claim refugee status in Australia, you should first have tried to relocate within your country of origin, even if you had no means of supporting yourself in the new place of residence.

One the one hand, examples like these might suggest that we can ‘fix’ refugee law in Australia by adhering more closely to international refugee law. Yet, on the other hand—while recognizing the importance of challenging inhumane domestic laws—the course has also emphasized to me the deep structural flaws within IRL itself. The very framing of the refugee definition (Article 1 of the Refugee Convention) through the concept of individual ‘persecution’, for instance, embeds the exclusion of economic migrants from refugeehood.

This relationship—between law and structure—is something I’ve been thinking about through my work at the Centre on climate mobility. In addition to supporting the Centre’s Climate Mobility Hub and writing for their blog, I am working on a paper about the idea of a ‘right to stay in place’ in the context of climate displacement, with support from Professor McAdam and other colleagues. The piece was originally developed as part of my independent research project for the Gallatin Fellowship. It tries to integrate rights-based responses to climate displacement with scholarship on reparations by E. Tendayi Achiume and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.

At the Centre, I recently attended a talk by Professor Alan Tidwell, who spoke about the role of colonialism and climate exploitation in fuelling migration from small island states, which has in turn eroded their sovereignty. Conversely, Achiume in ‘Migration as Decolonization’ (2019) theorizes migration from the Global South to North as a form of rebalancing which reckons with these historical legacies. This speaks to tensions within the concept of migration itself—what it means for states, communities, those who leave and those who stay. Over the coming weeks, I look forward to thinking through some of these questions.

One Month at the Refugee Law Clinic

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Cameron Roberts (NYU Liberal Studies) | Refugee Law Clinic | London, United Kingdom 

I am nearing my first month of work at the Refugee Law Clinic and have seen up close the quick pace at which refugee rights are changing in the UK. After a little under two weeks in my role, the UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for a general election and promised no flights would take off to Rwanda before July 4th. Yet even as the future of the UK-Rwanda treaty hangs in the balance, the pressure of the proposed removals is weighing heavily on the migrant community in London. 

My work at the clinic is focused on the creation of further submissions for an applicant to lodge a fresh asylum claim. I have been assigned to several clinic cases and in meeting with clients they consistently express fear of leaving the house or continuing to report to the Home Office. The thought on all of their minds is Rwanda, especially after the government released guidance for the removal of appeal rights exhausted asylum seekers. This announcement was a departure from previous government plans that focused primarily on asylum seekers who had yet to receive an initial decision. 

Beyond working directly with clients and assisting with the preparation of witness statements, trafficking referrals, and further submissions I was also privileged enough to attend the Refugee Law Initiative (RLI) 8th annual conference. RLI is the academic institution that houses the Refugee Law Clinic and its annual conference brings together academics, migrant advocates from the NGO sector, and UNHCR officials to discuss a central topic relevant to international refugee law. This year’s conference was focused on ‘Pacts, Promises and Protection.’ This theme allowed panel participants to share their current research on issues related to the Global Compact on Refugees, the UK’s Rwanda Plan, and the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum. 

The conference’s overwhelming focus on the legal aspect of refugee rights was extremely insightful and added to my tangible understanding of the work I am completing in the clinic as well as the work I hope to complete in the future. Moreover, hearing and getting to speak with UNHCR representatives gave me direct insight into the organization responsible for monitoring the enforcement of international agreements related to migrant and refugee rights. 

I am also in the process of completing independent research at the clinic related to credibility’s role in fresh claims proceedings as well as issues related to disputed nationality in asylum cases. I am hopeful that the rest of my time at the RLC will allow me to deepen my understanding of the application of international law in asylum proceedings as I continue to complete research and work on clinic cases.

Cameron Avisa Patel, Sylvia Rivera Law Project (New York City)

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Cameron Avisa Patel (NYU College of Arts and Sciences) | Sylvia Rivera Law Project | New York, USA

This past month, I attended a community meeting at SRLP and got to know some of the members. A lot of my day-to-day role involves helping people fill out forms, sign up for events, and navigate questions about health insurance. I also get to learn from members who witnessed and/or participated in the early Gay Liberation Movement. If I have time, I want to collect the oral histories of interested members.

June is a very busy time because of Pride, and SRLP has been hard at work organizing for upcoming events. We will be participating in the Queer Liberation March, which is a protest against corporate and state co-opting of Pride. Next month, SRLP is honoring key leaders in the Gay Liberation Movement by celebrating Sylvia and Marsha Day.

Alongside supporting SRLP’s existing event planning, I am also working on a Know Your Rights guide on involuntary inpatient psychiatric admission. Once I am done with the content, SRLP will run it by an attorney, and then I will help format it into a pamphlet. That has been most of my work this month since I had some time off for surgery. 

Immersed in Pride: Documenting LGBTQ+ Migrants and Events in Quito, Ecuador

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Renzo Esposito (NYU Gallatin) | Dialogo Diverso | Quito, Ecuador

I arrived in Quito, Ecuador on June 1st, just as the city prepared for Pride Month. It’s an exciting time here, and I couldn’t have picked a better moment to start my internship with Dialogo Diverso. This organization plays a crucial role in the local LGBTQ+ community, organizing the Pride march and a series of related events. I felt like I arrived at the heart of the action.

Renzo Esposito - Filmmaker in Ecuador documentary

 
 

The communications team at Dialogo Diverso, though small, is a powerhouse of dedication and purpose. With just two full-time staff members and some part time volunteers, we achieved remarkable results. I’ve dived right in, assisting with filming, editing, and producing videos for the diverse activities. Moreover, I’ve been crafting graphics and providing on-the-ground support at events. Each day presents a new challenge, and I love the dynamic nature of the work. 

The warmth and friendliness of the people here have been nothing short of amazing. I’ve been embraced with open arms since I set foot in this city. My colleagues have taken me out to try the local cuisine, and I’m already forging friendships that I’m confident will endure beyond my time here. 

Dialogo Diverso Team in Quito Ecuador - Renzo Esposito

Today, we hosted a massive picnic in the context of the pride events that attracted over 1,000 attendees. It was an all-day event filled with laughter, music, and a palpable sense of community. I was responsible for capturing the event on video, documenting everything from candid moments to vibrant performances.

My initial impressions of Quito and my work with Dialogo Diverso are overwhelmingly positive. The energy, the stories, and the community spirit have already made this a transformative experience. I’m eager to dive deeper into the projects and continue contributing to such meaningful work.