Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Jacqueline Bhabha is FXB Director of Research, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She received a first class honors degree and an M.Sc. from Oxford University, and a J.D. from the College of Law in London.

From 1997 to 2001 Bhabha directed the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago. Prior to 1997, she was a practicing human rights lawyer in London and at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. She has published extensively on issues of transnational child migration, refugee protection, children's rights and citizenship. She is the editor of Children Without A State (2011), author of Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age (2014), and editor of Human Rights and Adolescence ( 2014).

Bhabha serves on the board of the Scholars at Risk Network, the World Peace Foundation and the Journal of Refugee Studies. She is also a founder of the Alba Collective, an international women's NGO currently working with rural women and girls in developing countries to enhance financial security and youth rights.

Current Research Projects:

-“Safe Passage: Leveraging Population Data to Improve Protection for Migrants migrating within and from West and Central Africa – West and Central Africa” – report with the International Organization on Migration
-“Returning Home? The reintegration challenges facing child and youth returnees from Libya to Nigeria and Sudan – Libya, Nigeria, Sudan” – report with the International Organization on Migration
-“Human trafficking and Migrant farmworkers: Opportunities for migrant health clinics – US” [In Development}
-An integrative approach to addressing health care delivery for migrant populations in movement through Monterrey, Mexico. – Mexico
-Barriers in accessing antenatal care in asylum-seeking/refugee women: a cross-site comparison of Greece, Mexico, and the US.
-Ignored but Suspect: An investigation into the Stigmatization of Canada’s Roma Minority – Canada
-Book project: “Time for reparation? Addressing state responsibility for collective injustice” (expected publication in December 2020)
-Bhabha et al, A Better Future: The role of Higher Education for Displaced and Marginalized People (2020 Cambridge University Press forthcoming in August 2020).
-Child Protection Certificate program
-Child Protection Executive Education Course
-Harvard X – Child Protection: Children’s Rights in Theory and Practice
-Romani Realities in the U.S.
-Roma in Canada Project: The FXB Center (USA) and Concordia University (Canada) propose a qualitative study involving Romani and non-Romani people in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area (GTHA), Canada. The project constitutes the basis for Harvard’s and other universities’ Roma related research projects into the Americas. This research project will explore experiences of stigma by Romani people in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area, Canada. We also aim to explore perceptions and perspectives of Canadians in relation to Romani people, anti-Roma discrimination and stigma. Both universities will undertake IRB processes and will follow the ethics requirements mandatory in each country.