Human Rights and Refugees: The Case of Kenya1

This paper deals with some human rights aspects related to the treatment of refugees in Kenya and is based on data collected between March 1997 and April 1998. After giving a brief background on refugee policy developments in Kenya, the paper presents some observations on the situation of refugees living in camps, particularly in Kakuma refugee camp in the northwest of the country. It highlights some of the human rights problems that refugees have to face in this camp, and stresses the fact that camps are legal anomalies, in which the administration of justice is virtually in the hands of the humanitarian agencies that exercise this function either directly, or by delegating it to community leaders. After looking at an example of a human rights violation carried out with at least the complicity of humanitarian organizations—the forcible relocation of refugees from the camps in Mombasa—the paper finally sketches some of the more ‘classic’ human rights issues that present themselves with respect to refugees living in Nairobi: police harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention without trial.