Researcher spotlight: Holly A. Seglah

Holly A. Seglah joined the Kaldor Centre this year as a PhD candidate in our ARC Laureate Evacuations Research Hub. She holds an LLM in Global Crisis, Conflict and Disaster Management from the University of Reading and an LLB in International Law and Globalisation from the University of Birmingham.

Holly has experience in international development and has undertaken interdisciplinary research and advocacy on inclusive disaster risk reduction policy and practice. Specifically, her work has focussed on the impact of disasters on marginalised populations. As part of the Evacuations Research Hub, she will employ a socio-legal lens in her research exploring child rights in evacuations from disasters related to natural hazards.

What sparked your interest in international disaster law?

I was drawn to study international law during my undergraduate degree following experiences in Ghana, which I have visited every few years since the age of four. Over this period, my family acted as an intermediary between British and Ghanaian schools to develop partnerships and build libraries. From childhood to adolescence, each trip to visit family and the respective partner schools made me increasingly aware of my privileges and unconscious saviourism while also instilling in me a sense of curiosity about international aid and development programs.

After my undergraduate studies, I volunteered in a Tanzanian school with a VSO community development project and also with Challenging Heights, a Ghanaian child trafficking NGO.  These experiences shaped my view of children as active agents of change with unique knowledge and creative capabilities. I also began to develop a better sense of how human rights protections and advocacy operate in practice.

It was not until I started my master’s degree in late 2020 that my interest in disaster law was sparked.

With my tutor’s encouragement and a matured intersectional lens (developed in part through my work on systemic racism with the UK-based Black Women’s Reproductive Health Project), I began to critically question the role of international disaster law and policy in exacerbating the vulnerabilities of marginalised groups in times of crisis. I took up an internship with DRR Dynamics, a consultancy firm that seeks to ensure the inclusion of marginalised groups in disaster risk reduction, disaster management and broader humanitarian policy and practice. Through research with DRR Dynamics, and as an ally to the LGBTQIA2S+ community, I became disconcerted and alarmed as our work shed light on the inequalities, discrimination and exclusion faced by LGBTQIA2S+ and other marginalised communities in times of disaster. At the same time, through interviews with LGBTQIA2S+ community organisations, I was inspired and motivated to continue this investigation of disaster law through a rights-based approach.

Tell us briefly what your research interests are and what your PhD will focus on?

Evacuations, and displacement from evacuations, are increasing around the world. Recent Australian examples include the state-led pre-emptive evacuations ahead of the recent Ex-Cyclone Alfred and the prolonged displacement of evacuees from flooding in New South Wales in 2022.

The role of international disaster law and the rights of children (as a diverse group with varying vulnerabilities and capabilities) in evacuations is a current and critical blind spot in scholarship. My research, therefore, will focus specifically on children in evacuations from disasters related to natural hazards.

Within existing scholarship there is a broad recognition that children are the most vulnerable in times of crisis. Yet at the same time, children are experts in their own lives with the capacity to contribute positively to matters that affect them.

In parallel to this, there is a lack of analysis as to what risks are exacerbated across an evacuation cycle and the implications on children’s rights. This is particularly the case where evacuation leads to prolonged displacement. At the same time, there is a demand for greater research and data into the vulnerabilities and capabilities of children who are in crises and displaced; this demand extends to children in evacuations.

My PhD will focus on the extent children’s rights are respected in domestic evacuation-related law, policy and practice in light of States’ international law obligations.

This will include exploring what children's rights are under international law in evacuation from disasters; how children’s rights under international law are reflected at the domestic level; what risks children's rights face during evacuations in current practice; and, what actions are required by the State to respect the rights of children with diverse evacuation experiences and needs.

What do you hope to find out through your research?

Currently, the lack of insight, analysis or evidence ‘hampers efforts to identify children most at risk to help them recover, thrive and build resilience’. Particularly lacking is evidence on evacuation experiences from children themselves.

Through this research, I hope to find that there are a multitude of provisions under international law that place responsibilities on States (and relevant actors) to uphold the rights of children, including those with intersecting vulnerabilities, in evacuation contexts.

In addition to investigating and clarifying relevant legal principles, I also hope this research will identify good practices relating to the incorporation and realisation of international rights commitments at the domestic level, such as the right of children to participate in evacuation planning, for example. This research will further seek to identify if law, policy and practice related to evacuations at the domestic level inadvertently discriminate against certain children.

I further hope this research will identify and shed light on the diversity of needs of different children in times of evacuations, while also evidencing how children can be agents of change rather than passive victims during evacuations.

Finally, through empirical investigations, I hope this research will evidence children’s eagerness to engage in evacuation-related activities, their creativity and capabilities to contribute to evacuation practices, and how such contributions may strengthen broader resilience for communities facing crises.

What impact do you hope your research might have?

I hope the impact of my research will be threefold: strengthening advocacy and knowledge; promoting investment in evacuations; and influencing law and policy.

I believe this research could strengthen existing advocacy efforts for inclusive and participatory evacuation processes, offering evidence of the value of adding children’s ideas to community evacuation preparedness.

This research will also seek to add knowledge to existing scholarship and assist child-rights advocacy more broadly by providing a platform for children’s voices to be acknowledged while also challenging adultist approaches to children’s participation under international children’s rights treaties.

This research could encourage greater investment in evacuations, including further research and disaggregated data collection for better-informed evacuation planning as well as investment in evacuation-specific disaster curricula.

By identifying gaps at the international and domestic level, this research could indicate what domestic policy should look like in light of international commitments, and through this, inform domestic policy development or amendment which is rights-based and child-focused.

Linking to this, the work may prompt re-examination of how children are included within existing evacuation policy and challenge current practice, to promote the greater recognition of the varied needs of children within current evacuation guidelines and operating procedures.

By working in collaboration with the broader Evacuations Research Hub team, I am inspired and enthused to undertake this project, and I look forward to connecting with colleagues within and beyond UNSW’s Law & Justice Faculty as this research progresses.

For more information, visit the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law.