One Health Approaches and ethics in Forced Migration

Forced migration today affects more than 123 million people worldwide, including many communities that depend on farmed animals. During displacement, animals often become the only moveable assets, shaping decisions about routes, destinations, and how to travel. Yet, displaced people and their animals are often cast as threats to public health, triggering restrictive policies that bar animals from refugee camps or relief efforts. Forced to abandon their herds or pets, migrants lose not only sources of income and nutrition, but emotional support and resilience.
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Although zoonoses, diseases transmissible between animals and humans, are frequently invoked to justify biosecurity measures, evidence linking forced migration to new outbreaks is weak. More often, disease emergence is tied to existing endemic pathogens, exacerbated by overcrowded, unsanitary, and stressful conditions. The real drivers, climate change, conflict, ecological disruption, and structural marginalization, play larger roles than movement per se. By contrast, the EU’s temporary decision to allow Ukrainian refugees to bring pets into host countries shows that thoughtful, humane inclusion of animals in migration policies can protect rather than endanger health.

The One Health paradigm, meant to balance human, animal, and ecosystem health, holds strong promise in this arena. Yet too often it remains human-centred, treating animals as tools or risks rather than participants in interspecies wellbeing. To bridge this gap, our new blog published by CABI One Health argues for a richer ethical framework grounded in concepts like Ethics of Care and two-factor egalitarianism. Such a framework would help decision makers in crisis settings weigh complex trade-offs fairly, honoring the interconnected health and dignity of people and animals alike.
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Read the full blog post here: https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/do/10.5555/blog-one-health-approaches-forced-migration/full/