Humanitarian Exchange articles tagged:Human rights

People living in conflict-affected areas of Karen State in south-eastern Burma rely on courageous and ingenious, but also often harmful, self-protection strategies. Protection stemming from international norms and agents is largely absent for this population. The ‘Local to Global Protection’ (L2GP) project explores how people living in areas affected by natural disaster and armed conflict understand ‘protection’ – what they value, how they go about protecting themselves, their families and their communities and how they view the roles of other stakeholders. Since the Rwanda crisis in 1994, protection has increasingly been debated by aid agencies, which have sought to incorporate…

Colombia is in the throes of one of the world’s largest crises of internal displacement. Since the mid-1990s, more than 3.2 million people have been displaced. On average, between 2000 and 2009 300,000 people a year fled in search of protection. In 2008, 294,000 left their places of residence. In late 2008, the government estimated that nearly 40,000 households (176,000 people) had returned to their places of origin with the accompaniment of the authorities.  The official Information System on the Displaced Population in Colombia is one of the most highly developed such systems in the world (www.accionsocial.gov.co). However, it does…

Trends in violence in Colombia have been changing over the past decade. Historically, the conflict has been fought mostly in rural areas. This has led to the massive displacement of rural populations to neighbouring rural areas, local cities and more distant urban areas. In recent years, however, the majority of violence (political and criminal) has taken place in urban areas, creating new forms of displacement. As a result, a full range of displacement patterns exist in Colombia: rural to rural; rural to peri-urban; rural to urban; and intra-urban, where individuals, families or whole neighbourhoods are forced to leave their homes…

A cursory look at the Colombian government’s policy discourse would lead one to conclude that its efforts to tackle armed groups and organised crime are synonymous with protecting the civilian population. This article argues that a more nuanced assessment of the discourse demonstrates that the government’s security agenda, despite using the language of civilian protection and human rights, has in fact undermined respect for International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and has failed to reduce levels of forced displacement and violence against civilians. The discourse of security Since the election of President Alvaro Uribe in 2002, the government has sought to enhance…

Humanitarian actors increasingly recognise the crucial importance of linking humanitarian efforts to human rights issues. In the Occupied Territories this interdependence is particularly stark. Israel’s policies restricting movement within the West Bank and between the West Bank and Israel, Gaza and other areas are a central factor in the Palestinians’ increasing poverty, unemployment and food insecurity, as well as their lack of access to urgently needed medical treatment. The lack of accountability of Israel’s security force personnel – both individual and systemic – is a direct cause of high rates of civilian death and injury. In order to address the…

The Gaza Strip in early 1992: the first intifada is yet to end, and intensive diplomatic efforts – which would lead later to the Oslo Accords – are ongoing, raising hopes for an end to the Israeli occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Although that period was violent, with daily mass demonstrations, confrontations, arrests and casualties, it was at least possible to dream of a better future. Returning 16 years later, in 2008, with the media and the international community highlighting a major humanitarian crisis in Gaza, I was prepared for the worst. However, unlike Somalia, where…

Although internal displacement of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) is at least as old as the occupation itself, it has only recently become a subject of concern among national and international organisations. There are several reasons for this. For some, displacement was either not clearly understood or viewed as too sensitive an issue, as its underlying implications would entail a more direct confrontation with Israel as an occupying power. This would call upon the international community to address, not only the humanitarian effects of the occupation, but also an Israeli policy that, as noted by International Court of…

The scale of the mobilisation of European and American NGOs in response to the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Darfur since 2003 is arguably unprecedented. Attracting public and media attention to the crisis has been an important part of this response. This article argues that many campaigning groups have focused their energies on governments which have relatively little influence on the situation in Darfur. Yet the apparent success of campaigning on Darfur – in terms of media coverage and public and celebrity support – and the dominant, agenda-setting status of the main campaigning coalitions have made it difficult to…

Twenty years after the Burmese junta suppressed pro-democracy protesters, violations of human rights and humanitarian law in eastern Burma are more widespread and systematic than ever. Ten years after the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were submitted, the international response in eastern Burma remains largely ineffective in dealing with a predatory governing regime. The Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) has been collaborating with ethnic community-based organisations to document the characteristics of internal displacement in eastern Burma since 2002. During this period there has been increasing debate about whether violations of human rights and humanitarian law in eastern Burma constitute an…

Aid workers and analysts seeking to explain Somalia’s current humanitarian disaster are understandably preoccupied with the immediate and obvious – the combination of factors which has placed 2.5 million Somalis in urgent need of emergency relief. These include the displacement of between 500,000 and 700,000 civilians, caused by the heavy-handed Ethiopian military occupation; predatory attacks and crime by the Transitional Federal Government’s uncontrolled security forces; assassinations of civic leaders by an increasingly decentralised and violent jihadist movement; economic paralysis and hyperinflation; severe local drought; global spikes in food and fuel prices; and a highly dangerous, non-permissive environment for national and…