INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS: PROSPETS AND GAPS

By

Prof. Milline J. Mbonile

ESRHA TRAINING COURSE UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

UNiSLIDES

Definition

• Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are people forced to flee their homes but who, unlike refugees, remain within their country's borders.
• At the end of 2006 estimates of the world IDP population rose to 24.5 million.
• The region with the largest IDP population is Africa with some 11.8 million in 21 countries.

Contd.

• There is no legal definition of an IDP as there is for a refugee
• The United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement uses the definition:

Internally displaced persons are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, border

Contd.

• as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State.

Controversy of Definitions.

• The above definition stresses two important elements of internal displacement that is coercion and the domestic/internal movement.
• The definition steers toward flexibility rather than legal precision leading to reasons for displacement being not exhaustive.

Contd.

• However, as Erin Mooney has pointed out, global statistics on internal displacement generally count only IDPs uprooted by conflict and human rights violations.
• Moreover, a recent study has recommended that the IDP concept should be defined even more narrowly, to be limited to persons displaced by violence.

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Contd.

• Thus, despite the non-exhaustive reasons of internal displacement, many consider IDPs as those who would be defined as refugees if they were to cross an international border hence the term refugees in all but name is often applied to IDPs.

Contd.

• McGregor (1995) and Tolba (1990) defined internally displaced persons as people displaced through natural and man made disasters and environmental degradation.
• One type comprises those temporary displaced as a result of sudden environmental change which is irreversible such as natural and industrial disasters.

Contd.

• Second category include people permanently displaced through long term or irreversible environmental change like construction of a dam, sea level rise and desertification (environmental factor).
• Third category include those who leave their place of origin in search of better life or poverty or undermined by the state like land alienation or structural adjustment (economic factor).

Contd.

• Forth category includes those who have been forced to leave due to family conflicts, livestock theft and witchcraft suspicion as in the case of elderly people in Lake Zone.

Fig.1: Factors Influencing IDPs

Global Distribution of IDPs

• The largest IDP populations can be found in Colombia, the DRC, Iraq, Sudan, Turkey, and Uganda, each with IDP populations of over one million.
• It has been estimated that between 70 and 80% of all IDPs are women and children.

Table 1: Countries with significant Number of IDPs

Table 1 Contd.

Table 1 Contd.

Table 1 Contd.

Table 1: Contd.

Table 1 Contd.

Table 1 Contd.

Protection and Assistance Challenge

• The problem of protection and assistance of IDPs is not new.
• In international law it is the responsibility of the Government concerned to provide assistance.
• Displaced persons being the result of civil wars local authority are reluctant to provide assistance and protection.

Contd.

• Estimated that about 5 million IDPs in 11 countries have no significant humanitarian assistance of the respective governments.
• Unlike refugees there is no organization which is responsible with their welfare.
• Only a number of organizations have stepped in specific circumstances.

Collaborative Approach

• The current system which is often referred to as collaborative approach is used ie share responsibility among UN agencies- UNCHR, UNICEF, Office of the Commission of Human Rights, IOM, ICRC and International NGOs.
• Coordination is the responsibility of the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Human Right coordinator in the country concerned.

Contd.

• Approach criticised and so in 2005 introduced sectoral responsibility to several humanitarian agencies.
• Most notably the UNCHR taking the responsibility of protection and caring the IDPs camps.

Cluster Approach

• Cluster approach tried to do away with abnegation by designating individual sectoral leaders to coordinate.

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International law

• Unlike refugees there is no international treaty which applies specifically to IDPs.
• UN Secretary General in 1992 appointed a representative for internally displaced persons.

Environmental Refugees

• Myers (2005) shows that there is a new phenomenon in the global arena: environmental refugees.
• People who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification and other environmental problems.

Contd.

• These are more associated with problems of population pressure and profound poverty.
• In their desperation these people feel that they have no alternative but to seek refuge elsewhere.
• They do so even if their attempt is hazardous.

PICTURE 1: Poor economic Conditions makes people go to politics

Picture 2: Ready to Adopt New Cultures

Picture 3: Ready to Risk

Picture 4: Major Root Cause of IDPs

Picture 5: Uprooted People Behaviour

Contd.

• Not all flee their countries and so they are internally displaced.
• In 2006 these environmental refugees totalled 25 million compared to 27 million traditional refugees.
• Environmental refugees could double in number by 2010.

Contd.

• Out of 25 million environmental refugees there were 5 million in the African Sahel who fled recent droughts. Almost the same number returned home after the drought.
• Another 4 million are in the Horn of Africa including Sudan.

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Contd.

• Other parts of Africa about 80 million people are considered to be semi-starving due to environmental factors.
• 7 million people have been obliged to migrate in order to obtain relief food.
• In early 2000 Sudan returned 8 million people who were considered at risk of starvation, another 6 million people in Somalia and 3million people in Kenya.

Contd.

• Another 7 million in other countries.
• Sub Saharan Africa remains the prime focus of environmental refugees.
• There are sizeable number in other regions and countries.
• China with its 120 million internal migrants 6 million obliged to abandon their farmland due to shortage of agricultural plots due to population increase.

Contd.

• Scattered through out the world there are 135 million people threatened by severe desertification.
• 550 million people threatened by chronic scarcity of water.
• The problem exist in a population which survive at US $1 per day.

Root Causes

• Poverty is the underlying push factor.
• Other factors include population pressure, malnutrition, landlessness, unemployment, over rapid urbanization, pandemic diseases, faulty government policies and ethnic and conventional conflicts.

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Identify Environmental Refugees in Tanzania 2002

• Surveys in conducted in Mwanza, Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Mbeya Cities identified as environmental or economic refugees the following: barmaids, beggars, house girls/boys, informal sector traders, retrenched workers, security guards, sexual commercial workers, street children, urban renewal displaced persons, elderly people, pick pockets, widows

Concerned for environmental security

• The issue of environmental refugees ranks as one of the foremost human crises of our times.
• It generates myriad problems of political, social and economic sorts and so could readily become a cause of turmoil and confrontation leading to conflict and violence.

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Contd.

• Yet as a problem becomes more pressing our policy responses fall short of measuring up to the challenge.
• To repeat a pivotal point: environmental refugees have still to be officially recognized as a problem at all.

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Linkages to developed countries

• Concentrations of environmental refugees are located in developing regions.
• Developed countries may think the problem is over there BUT developed countries cannot isolate themselves from distress and disaster in developing countries.

Contd.

• Not only a sizeable numbers of environmental refugees who made their way to developed countries.

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Policy Options

• Reduce the need to migrate by ensuring an acceptable livelihoods in established homelands.
• Should not continue to ignore environmental refugees because there is no institution to deal with them.
• Anti-desertification Action Plan should be strengthened.
• If a famine has been human- made moves must be made to alleviate it.

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Exercises

1. Identify and discuss the root causes of IDPs in your respective countries
2. Show the main ways of solving the problems of IDPs in your country.