Reproductive justice for people on the move within the Global South

29.05.2026 08:30 - 09:30English

The African continent remains the epicentre of displacement, necessitating a localised Reproductive Justice framework.

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

The concept of Reproductive Justice emerged in the United States through the critical and pragmatic mobilisation of women of colour who sought to improve the reproductive health and rights of women facing discrimination based on class, gender, and race. Advocates for Reproductive Justice drew attention to the fact that maternal and infant mortality and morbidity rates are disproportionately high among women of colour.

Similar patterns have been observed in vulnerable populations worldwide. European colonialism, enduring global power asymmetries, and contemporary capitalist economies perpetuate inequalities based on class, gender, and race, disproportionately affecting women who belong to specific social groups depending on their geographical location.

Reproductive oppression and inequality must therefore be linked to the concept of coloniality, including in the context of involuntary population movements. While the Global South hosts 76% of the world’s forcibly displaced persons, scholarship remains heavily skewed toward North-bound migration.

In 2024, Africa alone accounted for close to 50% of the global internally displaced persons. The African continent remains the epicentre of this displacement, necessitating a localised Reproductive Justice (RJ) framework.

This panel aims to explore the heuristic value of the concepts of class, gender and race applied to migrant people (internally displaced, refugees) in African contexts, particularly when analysing inequities in access to and provision of reproductive care. Bringing together researchers speaking from diverse positionalities and situated in different historical and geographical contexts, the panel seeks to de-center Eurocentric migration narratives by theorising reproductive agency within the Global South.

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Bergen Global
Jekteviksbakken 31, Bergen

29.05.2026
08:30 - 09:30
English
Add to calendar 29.05.2026, 29.05.2026

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Adrian Jjuuko
Executive Director, Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum

Adrian Jjuuko is an Ugandan human rights lawyer and advocate.

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Satang Nabaneh
Research Professor, University of Dayton

Satang Nabaneh is a socio-legal scholar, researcher, consultant, and human rights advocate with expertise on human rights, comparative constitutional law, and democratization.

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Irene Maffi
Professor, University of Lausanne

Irene Maffi is Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lausanne.

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Liv Tønnessen
Research Professor, CMI

Liv Tønnessen is senior researcher at CMI and director of Center on Law and Social Transformation.

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Adrian Jjuuko

Executive Director, Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum

Adrian Jjuuko is an Ugandan human rights lawyer and advocate.

He is the Executive Director of Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF) and chairs the Legal Committee of the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, which coordinated civil society efforts to nullify Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act in 2014, and which won the US State Department’s Human Rights Defenders Award 2011. He coordinated the successful legal efforts to challenge the Anti Homosexuality Act, 2014 in Uganda’s Constitutional Court and lead a process to challenge the Act at the East African Court of Justice.

Adrian Jjuuko earned a PhD from the University of Pretoria, from where he also holds an  LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa; an LLB degree from Makerere University Kampala, Uganda, and a postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Centre, Kampala. His research interests are in the areas of: LGBTI rights, the right to health, and children’s rights.

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Satang Nabaneh

Research Professor, University of Dayton

Satang Nabaneh is a socio-legal scholar, researcher, consultant, and human rights advocate with expertise on human rights, comparative constitutional law, and democratization.

Her teaching and research focus on international human rights law and monitoring mechanisms; human rights in Africa, with particular focus on sexual and reproductive rights and women’s rights; democratization in Africa and Gambian constitutional law.

She is the the Director of Programs for the Human Rights Center at the University of Dayton, and Affiliated with the Univeristy of Pretoria and with LawTransform.

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Irene Maffi

Professor, University of Lausanne

Irene Maffi is Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lausanne.

She specialises in the Arab world and has conducted research in two main areas: political anthropology and the anthropology of reproduction.

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Liv Tønnessen

Research Professor, CMI

Liv Tønnessen is senior researcher at CMI and director of Center on Law and Social Transformation.

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Bergen Global is a joint initiative between the University of Bergen and Chr. Michelsen Institute that addresses global challenges.