In various countries around the world, refugees’ access to vaccines has been delayed and hampered by different obstacles, including uncertainty about eligibility. These challenges reflect the same barriers that refugees routinely face in accessing national health care systems.
In this public statement, Amnesty explains that in meeting the unprecedented challenge of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, governments must not just fully integrate marginalized groups, including refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, in their vaccinations plans, but must do so effectively so that such groups are not discriminated against based on their migration status.