13. Advocacy and Empowerment in the Context of Refugee Health

Advocacy and empowerment are closely related concepts. Advocacy refers to efforts to support the rights and needs of a particular group or individual, while empowerment involves the process by which individuals or groups acquire the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to take control of their own lives and advocate for their own needs. The first section of this chapter looks at ’health advocacy’. It emphasises that a human rights framework in refugee health requires health and social care professionals to engage inactions that advance the rights of individuals and groups towards social justice objectives. Following this, the next section introduces the concept of empowerment as it is commonly applied in health and social care, highlighting both political-activist and psychosocial perspectives. In order to illustrate the relevance of advocacy and empowerment in practice, the last section of the chapter provides a case example of a current project in which the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM) is closely linked to the empowerment of African women living in the federal state of Lower Saxony in Germany.