The Migration-Displacement Nexus: Patterns, Processes, and Policies 9780857451927

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The Migration-Displacement Nexus

STUDIES IN FORCED MIGRATION General Editors: Roger Zetter and Dawn Chatty, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford Volume 1 A Tamil Asylum Diaspora: Sri Lankan Migration, Settlement and Politics in Switzerland Christopher McDowell Volume 2 Understanding Impoverishment: The Consequences of Development-induced Displacement Edited by Christopher McDowell Volume 3 Losing Place: Refugee Populations and Rural Transformations in East Africa Johnathan B. Bascom Volume 4 The End of the Refugee Cycle? Refugee Repatriation and Reconstruction Edited by Richard Black and Khalid Koser Volume 5 Engendering Forced Migration: Theory and Practice Edited by Doreen Indra Volume 6 Refugee Policy in Sudan, 1967–1984 Ahmed Karadawi Volume 7 Psychosocial Wellness of Refugees: Issues in Qualitative and Quantitative Research Edited by Frederick L. Ahearn, Jr. Volume 8 Fear in Bongoland: Burundi Refugees in Urban Tanzania Marc Sommers Volume 9 Whatever Happened to Asylum in Britain? A Tale of Two Walls Louise Pirouet Volume 10 Conservation and Mobile Indigenous Peoples: Displacement, Forced Settlement and Sustainable Development Edited by Dawn Chatty and Marcus Colchester Volume 11 Tibetans in Nepal: The Dynamics of International Assistance among a Community in Exile Anne Frechette

Volume 12 Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey Edited by Renée Hirschon Volume 13 Refugees and the Transformation of Societies: Agency, Policies, Ethics and Politics Edited by Philomena Essed, Georg Frerks and Joke Schrijvers Volume 14 Children and Youth on the Front Line: Ethnography, Armed Conflict and Displacement Edited by Jo Boyden and Joanna de Berry Volume 15 Religion and Nation: Iranian Local and Transnational Networks in Britain Kathryn Spellman Volume 16 Children of Palestine: Experiencing Forced Migration in the Middle East Dawn Chatty and Gillian Lewando Hundt Volume 17 Rights in Exile: Janus-faced Humanitarianism Guglielmo Verdirame and Barbara Harrell-Bond Volume 18 Development-induced Displacement: Problems, Policies and People Edited by Chris de Wet Volume 19 Transnational Nomads: How Somalis Cope with Refugee Life in the Dadaab Camps of Kenya Cindy Horst Volume 20 New Regionalism and Asylum Seekers: Challenges Ahead Edited by Susan Kneebone and Felicity Rawlings-Sanei Volume 21 (Re)constructing Armenia in Lebanon and Syria: Ethno-Cultural Diversity and the State in the Aftermath of a Refugee Crisis Nicola Migliorino

Volume 22 ‘Brothers’ or Others? Muslim Arab Sudanese in Egypt Anita Fábos Volume 23 Iron in the Soul: Displacement, Livelihood and Health in Cyprus Peter Loizos Volume 24 Not Born a Refugee Woman: Contesting Identities, Rethinking Practices Edited by Maroussia Hajdukowski-Ahmed, Nazilla Khanlou and Helene Moussa Volume 25 Years of Conflict: Adolescence, Political Violence and Displacement Edited by Jason Hart Volume 26 Remaking Home: Reconstructing Life, Place and Identity in Rome and Amsterdam Maja Korac Volume 27 Materialising Exile: Material Culture and Embodied Experience among the Karenni Refugees in Thailand Sandra H. Dudley Volume 28 The Early Morning Phone Call: Somali Refugees’ Remittances Anna Lindley Volume 29 Deterritorialised Youth: Sahrawi and Afghan Refugees at the Margins of the Middle East Edited by Dawn Chatty Volume 30 Politics of Innocence: Hutu Identity, Conflict and Camp Life Simon Turner Volume 31 Zimbabwe’s New Diaspora: Displacement and the Cultural Politics of Survival Edited by JoAnn McGregor and Ranka Primorac Volume 32 The Migration-Displacement Nexus Edited by Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

The Migration-Displacement Nexus Patterns , P rocesses ,

and

Policies

Edited by Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

Berghahn Books New York • Oxford

Published in 2011 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2011 Khalid Koser and Susan Martin All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The migration-displacement nexus : patterns, processes, and policies / edited by Khalid Koser and Susan Martin. p. cm. -- (Studies in forced migration v.32) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-85745-191-0 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-85745192-7 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. Emigration and immigration. 2. Forced migration. 3. Return migration. 4. Refugees. I. Koser, Khalid. II. Martin, Susan, 1947JV6271.M53 2011 304.8--dc23 2011018045 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States on acid-free paper ISBN 978-0-85745-191-0 (hardback) E-ISBN 978-0-85745-192-7

Contents

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements   1. The Migration-Displacement Nexus Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

vii vii viii 1

  2. Conceptualising Displacement and Migration: Processes, Conditions, and Categories Oliver Bakewell

14

  3. A Unified Approach to Conceptualising Resettlement Robert Muggah

29

  4. When Does Mobility Matter for Migrants to Colombo? Michael Collyer

61

  5. Profiling Urban IDPs: How IDPs Differ From Their Non-IDP Neighbours in Three Cities Karen Jacobsen

79

  6. Displacement and the State: The Case of Iraq Philip Marfleet

96

  7. Between Displacement and Migration: Neoliberal Reform and the Residues of War in Rural Nicaragua Sang Lee

119

  8. The Migration-Displacement Nexus and Security in Afghanistan 131 Khalid Koser   9. The Migration-Displacement Nexus in China Xiao Junyong

145

10. The Extended Family as a Form of Informal Protection for People 15 6 Displaced by Operation Restore Order in Zimbabwe Nedson Pophiwa 11. Climate Change and Human Migration Robert McLeman and Oli Brown

168

12. State and Non-State Actors in Evacuations During the Conflict in 197 Lebanon, July–August 2006 Ray Jureidini

vi   |   Contents

13. Internal Displacement and Internal Trafficking: Developing a New Framework for Protection

216

Susan Martin and Amber Callaway 14. The Impact of Global Migration Governance on UNHCR Alexander Betts

239

Notes on Contributors Index

260 263

List of Tables   3.1 Labelling settlers and resettlers   5.1 Comparing IDPs and non-IDPs in three cities   5.2 Education and employment   5.3 Standard of living indicators   5.4 Mobility within the city and future intentions   6.1 Newly displaced families in 15 governorates, 2006 11.1 Expected impacts of anthropogenic climate change

32 88 89 91 91 100 179

List of Figures   4.1 District map of Sri Lanka   4.2 Colombo Metropolitan Area by ward   4.3 Reasons for coming to Colombo 11.1 Estimated population of Orleans Parish, Louisiana pre- and post-Katrina 11.2 General continuum of climate-migration relationship 11.3 Comparison of current estimates and future forecasts of global number of migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons 14.1 The refugee regime complex

64 68 69 172 174 177 246

Acknowledgements Several of the chapters in this volume were originally presented to a panel at the 11th conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) in Cairo. Support for the panel was received from the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement at the Brookings Institution and IASFM. Jill Floyd at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University provided invaluable editorial support for the volume. Our thanks also to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for providing support that enabled us to adapt the conference papers into this edited volume.

The Migration-Displacement Nexus Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

Introduction In Afghanistan, one of the world’s largest and most enduring protracted refugee situations coincides with the largest repatriation in recent history. Returnees to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan cross paths with increasing numbers of cross-border migrants, traders, and new refugees moving in the opposite direction. Many returning refugees have effectively become internally displaced persons (IDPs); while some refugees have remained as ‘irregular’ migrants in Pakistan or paid smugglers to move them further away. In Iraq, the headline that almost three million people have been internally displaced since the American occupation does not do justice to the complexity of internal movements over time in Iraq, whereby people recently displaced by conflict and occupation mix with those transported and resettled by the Ba’thist regime and in some cases even earlier. In China, the so-called ‘floating population’ in fact combines ruralurban blue collar migrant workers who were relatively prosperous until the impact of the recent global economic and financial crisis, with at least three million destitute migrants including street children, the abandoned elderly, and the mentally and physically disabled.

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In Lebanon, during the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah forces from 12 July to 14 August 2006, hundreds of thousands of foreign workers found themselves dependent on an ad hoc international response, as well as their own networks and resources, for protection and assistance to evacuate, because overnight their status in international law had changed and international humanitarian law does not address the rights of migrants inadvertently placed at risk by conflict in a host country. These are just some examples taken from the contributions to this volume that illustrate the increasing complexities of migration and displacement; the growing difficulties of distinguishing between the two; the misalignment between existing labels, categories and constructions and migration realities; and the consequences of falling into legal, normative, and institutional gaps. Both policy makers and academic scholars tend to use classification systems that place those who migrate into specific boxes, with the assumption that standards, mandates and programmes will follow the designated classification. These categories reflect three dimensions. First, people are designated by where the displacement takes place. Those who cross international borders are designated as ‘refugees’ or ‘international migrants’ whereas those who remain within their national borders are ‘internally displaced persons’ or ‘internal migrants.’ Depending on whether they have received permission to enter another country, they may also be designated ‘undocumented, unauthorised, irregular or illegal’ migrants. Individuals are also designated by the causes of the movements. The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees gives specific recognition to persons who flee a well founded fear of persecution. If they cross an international boundary, they are ‘refugees.’ Persons fleeing conflict may also be specially designated, either by Convention (i.e. the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention) or because the UN High Commissioner for Refugees uses his good offices to recognise them as refugees. In contrast, there is no international legal framework for addressing cross-border movements caused by economic deprivation, natural disasters, development projects, environmental degradation or climate change. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement uses a broad description that encompasses many of the causes of forced migration in defining who is covered by the principles. Unlike refugee law, however, the Guiding Principles are not legally binding international law, although they are based on binding human rights and humanitarian instruments. The third dimension relates to time. Movements of people are addressed through different mechanisms depending on the phase of migration and displacement. Emergency movements often require specialised assistance and protection due to the instability of the situation. Most refugees and displaced persons, however, are in protracted situations, with the average

The Migration-Displacement Nexus   |   3

period of displacement around 17 years. In these situations the needs, challenges and opportunities differ in many ways from the emergency phase. Camps often become settlements, sometimes approaching the size of cities, with an economic life that may remain dependent on international assistance but includes employment and entrepreneurial activity. New protection issues also arise over time, sometimes shifting from outside threats to internal ones as domestic and other violence erupts in response to continuing displacement. When there is a resolution to the crisis, new challenges appear even as the refugees and displaced persons may be redesignated as ‘returnees’ or ‘resettled’ persons. These formulations have arisen in the context of conflict-induced displacement, but they often also apply in other situations. Those forced to migrate because of development projects (for example the construction of dams) or the effects of climate change, may remain displaced for protracted periods, finding they are unable to return to their homes and instead are treated as resettled populations. To a large extent, categorising the displaced by geography, cause and time has succeeded in raising the visibility of groups of forced migrants who previously had been either ignored or had fallen between the cracks in the international system. This has particularly been the case in designating internally displaced persons as a category of concern to the international community. It also allows targeted responses to address issues arising from the specific cause or phase of an emergency. Options for those driven from their homes by conflict are different in nature and scope to those applicable to persons driven from their homes by development projects or the effects of climate change. Nor does the same approach make sense in every stage of a crisis. There are nevertheless limits to the approach taken to date. These categories are not mutually exclusive. More often they are overlapping. The victims of humanitarian emergencies may belong to more than one group, either at the same time or in close sequence. To take the 2004 tsunami as an example, many of the survivors in Sri Lanka and Indonesia were displaced by conflict as well as natural disaster. In other situations, refugees repatriate, thereby earning the designation of ‘returnees,’ only to find themselves newly designated ‘internally displaced persons’ because they were unable to return to their home communities because of continued instability. In many cases, drawing careful lines between categories of forced migrants hinders rather than facilitates the ability of national, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organisations to offer appropriate assistance and protection. Agencies may too easily avoid responsibility by citing an institutional mandate to serve a specific population. Alternatively, agencies interested in intervening on behalf of a particular group may be denied

4   |   Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

the opportunity because they have no explicit mandate to do so. In the meantime, the forced migrants – whether migrants or refugees or internally displaced, whether fleeing conflict, natural disasters or other causes – may face serious deprivation of their human rights. If the government of the territory in which they seek safety is unable or unwilling to provide protection of their rights, including access to needed assistance, the cause of their displacement and their geographic location may be irrelevant to their plight. These issues and dilemmas are encapsulated by the concept of the ‘migration-displacement nexus’ introduced in this volume. In explaining the concept, this Introduction answers three principal questions: ‘What is the migration-displacement nexus?’, ‘What are the causes of the migrationdisplacement nexus?’, and ‘What are the consequences of the migrationdisplacement nexus’, before describing the structure of the volume and the main content of its chapters.

What is the Migration-Displacement Nexus? Between them the chapters in this volume illustrate the migrationdisplacement nexus in at least six different ways. One is to demonstrate how individual migrants often move for mixed motivations. The traditional distinctions between ‘voluntary’ and ‘forced’ migration or ‘economic’ and ‘political’ migration, for example, are increasingly out of touch with realities. Without underestimating the desperate circumstances in which refugees flee persecution and conflict, for example, it is generally accepted that even they exert some control over their options, for example by choosing between staying to fight, moving locally and internally, or crossing an international border. Similarly in explaining why refugees flee it can be useful to discern underlying factors from proximate causes – the former may be conflict and the threat of persecution, whereas the latter may relate to the loss of livelihood or separation from family: in other words some combination of political, economic and social motivations. This idea of mixed motivations is best demonstrated in this volume in Sang Lee’s chapter on Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica, in which she demonstrates how the migration dynamics of people usually depicted as ‘labour migrants’ are influenced both by the process of economic development and by political instability. Another illustration of the migration-displacement nexus is socalled ‘mixed flows’. This term itself has different meanings for different institutions and in different settings, but it is most usually used to describe a situation where migrants moving for broadly different motivations are difficult to discern because they move between the same origin, transit and destination countries, often with the assistance of the same migrant

The Migration-Displacement Nexus   |   5

smuggler or migration agent, and often in the same airplane, boat, or truck. The most often-cited example is of the boats that traverse the Mediterranean from sub-Saharan and North Africa to Southern Europe. The challenge for policy makers is to distinguish those who are entitled to international assistance and protection, from those who are not. As the UNHCR states in the 2008 Note on International Protection, ‘…there are protection gaps in mixed flows, especially as regards migrants deemed “irregular” by the authorities who fall outside established protection frameworks, but who otherwise need humanitarian assistance or other kinds of protection.’ But even those not formally entitled to protection and assistance may still require both. What is more, this task is made even more difficult as in public discourse all these migrants are often simply described as ‘illegal’ or ‘irregular’ migrants. In his chapter in this volume Khalid Koser describes the rapid expansion of ‘mixed flows’ across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where people principally fleeing conflict, violence, and persecution are moving alongside those mainly moving for economic and social reasons, and in all their cases usually without the explicit authorisation of the government of Pakistan. A third example of the migration-displacement nexus arises where different migrant types adopt broadly similar survival strategies or coping mechanisms, again meaning that it can be hard to distinguish them. In his study in this volume of displacement in Zimbabwe as a result of the government’s ‘Operation Restore Order’ slum clearance programme, Nedson Pophiwa shows how many of those who were displaced fell upon coping mechanisms that they had developed as rural-urban migrants to survive, including for example staying with friends and family and borrowing from social networks. One outcome was that they remained hidden from view from humanitarian organisations, and were often mistaken as rural-urban migrant workers rather than the victims of forcible displacement and resettlement. A fourth illustration of the migration-displacement nexus is where migrants change status or category, sometimes intentionally, for example in the case of a migrant who knowingly and deliberately overstays a visa, but often because of arbitrary changes in laws or policies on visas or work permits. Khalid Koser demonstrates how Afghan refugees in Pakistan, for example, are effectively ‘transforming’ into irregular migrants as the government of Pakistan is withdrawing their refugee status but many remain too frightened to return to Afghanistan and instead are choosing to remain in Pakistan without legal status. The Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) region demonstrates another way that migrants can change category or status, as a significant proportion of those refugees who do opt to return to Afghanistan cannot go to their homes especially in rural areas in the south of the country and are instead settling in urban areas and effectively adding to the already growing number of IDPs in Afghanistan.

6   |   Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

A fifth form of the migration-displacement nexus considered in this volume is where individual migrants simultaneously fit two (and sometimes more) pre-existing categories. This is best demonstrated in the chapter by Susan Martin and Amber Callaway, in which they discuss the intersections between internal trafficking (a phenomenon that has received far less attention than cross-border human trafficking) and internal displacement. Even though the same person can often be a victim of both processes, the category to which they are ascribed by states and humanitarian organisations influences the level of attention, protection and assistance they receive. In contrast, and finally, sometimes single categories or labels can encapsulate people moving for a range of different motivations and who have very different levels of vulnerability and need. A number of chapters, for example, demonstrate how the IDP category includes people variously fleeing conflict, natural disasters and development projects. Arguably the category artificially ascribes the same level of vulnerability to all these people, whereas in reality the circumstances of an individual fleeing for his or her life are significantly different from those of someone formally resettled as a result of the construction of a dam. In Afghanistan the label IDP covers a wide range of people, including returning refugees, people displaced by natural disasters, and people displaced by the ongoing conflict. While these people all satisfy the IDP definition and are in principle entitled to similar protection and assistance, in reality their circumstances, levels of desperation, and prospects for finding a durable solution are significantly different. Similarly Xiao Junyong demonstrates in his chapter how in China the term ‘floating population’ is often used in political and public discourse to describe in an undifferentiated and negative manner the massive population of internal migrants, which in fact combines economic migrants, people displaced by natural disasters and resettlement projects, and especially vulnerable migrants.

What are the Causes of the Migration-Displacement Nexus? An important point to make straight away is that the migration-displacement nexus is not necessarily a ‘new’ phenomenon. This point is well made in Phil Marfleet’s chapter, where he describes waves of displacement, transportation and resettlement in Iraq during the colonial period, later perpetrated by the Ba’thist regime, and more recently still as a result of the American occupation. Marfleet emphasises the significance of the state and views the migration-displacement nexus as an outcome of ‘ … state reformation in which the most vulnerable social groups are part of the means

The Migration-Displacement Nexus   |   7

by which power is exercised and consolidated.’ Nedson Pophiwa’s chapter on Zimbabwe illustrates this point, where the migration-displacement nexus has been compounded by the government’s increasingly desperate efforts to maintain control and power. In this case the state depicts forcible relocations and displacement as migration – and often irregular migration. In contrast, several other authors suggest that the migration-displacement nexus has become more apparent in recent years, that more people than ever before are part of the nexus, and that it is even more complex today than previously. One reason is the changing nature of conflict, where competition over scare economic resources often fuel conflict, and where conflicts can reignite as a result of failed peace processes or inadequate postconflict reconstruction efforts. In either case it can be hard to distinguish political from economic factors in explaining migration, for example in the case of internal movements from northern Sri Lanka to the capital city Colombo considered in Michael Collyer’s chapter. Similarly, the politics of agrarian reform and agricultural subsidies confuse the extent to which migrants from rural areas, such as those in Nicaragua considered in Sang Lee’s chapter, are moving for economic or political motivations – to find work or to escape oppression and discrimination. Another explanation for the migration-displacement nexus considered in this volume is the artificiality of categories designated either in law, by state administrations, or by institutions. The classic example of this is that in many parts of the world, the criteria used to assess an individual claim for refugee status were defined over 50 years ago in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees; criteria that suited a particular geographical and historical context and that are increasingly less relevant to the modern realities of displacement. Perhaps the best example, illustrated in the chapter by Robert McLeman and Oli Brown, are the significant movements that are predicted in the next ten to 20 years of people crossing borders as a result of the effects of climate change. Environmental factors are not considered one of the criteria for refugee status according to the 1951 Convention, and currently such people would fall outside existing legal frameworks. In effect they would be ‘irregular’ migrants whereas they would likely have very similar protection and assistance needs as conflictinduced refugees. Categories can also be defined in administrative procedures, often explicitly to support government policies. Examples in this volume are efforts by the government of Pakistan to reduce the population of Afghan refugees by rescinding their refugee status; labels ascribed to internal migrants in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to marginalise those belonging to particular ethnic minority; and descriptions promoted in the press and in public discourse by the government of Zimbabwe to distract attention from forcible relocation of slum dwellers.

8   |   Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

Arguably another explanation for the migration-displacement nexus is imprecision in concepts used by academics and policy makers alike. As Robert Muggah explains, the concept ‘resettlement’ is a particular example – it is often confused with ‘settlement’ and ‘colonisation’, or used in the context of durable solutions for refugees or IDPs, and interpreted differently by ‘applied’ and ‘action’ researchers. Again these different interpretations arise from specific contexts: ‘Many foundational concepts and labels used to describe the development-induced displacement and resettlement, conflict-induced displacement and resettlement, and natural disaster-induced displacement and resettlement phenomena were informed by the bureaucratic imperatives of specific groups of international agencies and governments.’ A final explanation for the migration-displacement nexus that emerges from the following chapters relates to the empirical challenges of actually identifying migrants and ascribing a particular status to them, meaning that they may be inappropriately labelled or categorised. In no setting is this more challenging that in urban areas, where refugees, IDPs, internal migrants and international migrants often live, work and survive side by side and are often out of reach of international organisations. This point is well illustrated in Karen Jacobsen’s chapter, in which she develops a methodology adopted in three urban areas in the developing world to attempt to ‘profile’ urban IDPs and distinguish them from other mobile populations. Another empirical challenge in identifying the migrationdisplacement nexus is that it may become more – or less – obvious through the so-called ‘migration cycle’ of migration-settlement return. In the case of IDPs, for example, it can be particularly hard to discern when displacement comes to an end, in other words when IDPs no longer have specific vulnerabilities and protection and assistance needs that distinguish them other mobile and non-mobile populations.

What are the Consequences of the MigrationDisplacement Nexus? In various ways, the chapters in this volume also explain why the migrationdisplacement nexus matters. One reason is conceptual. As Robert Muggah observes, ‘A scientific field cannot progress if there is a lack of consensus over terminology’, which can also result in segmentation in policy and practice. At the same time Oliver Bakewell observes, ‘Besides helping to address our academic squabbles, greater clarity in the use of our terms may also help to generate new practical outcomes’. The migration-displacement nexus can leave migrants at risk – whether they be IDPs, foreign nationals in conflict zones, or people displaced by the

The Migration-Displacement Nexus   |   9

effects of climate change – because they do not neatly fit existing migration categories, and as a result at times fall into gaps in legal, normative and institutional responses. Another reason why the migration-displacement nexus matters, as demonstrated by Michael Collyer through his case study of internal displacement in Sri Lanka, is because labels can impact directly on the protection and assistance that migrants receive from states and international institutions – in other words it can make a difference to survival chances if a migrant does or does not fit certain institutionally-defined migration categories. Significantly, these categories are not always defined by international law or international institutions. In the case of Sri Lanka, for example, Collyer demonstrates how local authorities have devised arbitrary distinctions among migrants in Colombo depending on their perceived level of belonging in the city. Indeed in this case an internationally- or institutionally-defined category does not necessarily guarantee that the migrants in question receive the assistance and protection to which they are entitled by international law. Thus even though those defined by the authorities in Colombo as ‘out of place’ may technically fit the IDP definition of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, in reality they fall outside state protection, which in turn dramatically increases their vulnerability. An alternative illustration of the vulnerability arising from the migrationdisplacement nexus is where people who do fit pre-existing categories that have been defined precisely because they often are more vulnerable and have particular protection and assistance needs, are not recognised as such because of the mixed migration setting in which they find themselves. Karen Jacobsen’s study of urban IDPs, for example, finds that they are more vulnerable across a range of indicators including income, employment and education than other migrant types. They may be particularly susceptible to looting, intimidation and extortion, and yet may often not be recognised as IDPs. Susan Martin and Amber Callaway argue that ignoring the relationship between internal trafficking and internal displacement seriously impedes efforts to protect and assist the victims of both processes. Particularly at risk are those who are vulnerable to being trafficked precisely because they have been displaced by conflict, natural disasters and other crises. A more holistic and integrated approach would enhance the protection currently offered to victims of both phenomena by existing international instruments. In the case of refugees, in contrast, Alexander Betts argues in his contribution to this volume that protection concerns arise not so much because of institutional gaps, but because of the institutional ‘proliferation’ that has evolved in response to the complexity and diversity of forced migration. It is argued that this has created opportunities for northern states to reduce the access of asylum seekers to their states, to ‘outsource’

10   |   Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

refugee protection, and to use institutional frameworks relating to IDPs as a substitute for refugee protection; in sum to ‘…redistribute the costs of the refugee regime without formally renegotiating the regime’. Khalid Koser’s chapter considers the intersections between the migration-displacement and security in the ‘AfPak’ region to provide another example of why the nexus matters. He highlights human security implications arising for example from the transformation of returning refugees into IDPs in Afghanistan and the shift of status from refugees to ‘irregular’ migrants for many of those who remain in Iran and Pakistan. He also identifies possible linkages with national security concerns too, as for example the return of large numbers of refugees stokes communal and ethnic tensions; irregular migrants in Pakistan compete with local workers in urban areas; and poor and disenfranchised people refugees and IDPs become susceptible to recruitment by insurgency groups. A final reason identified here for why the migration-displacement nexus matters is that it is not a passing phenomenon. While there are significant question marks about the number of people who will be displaced by the effects of climate change, and while the precise relationship between climate change and migration may be complex, the chapter by Robert McLeman and Oli Brown, for example, leaves the reader in no doubt that existing legal categories will be inadequate to cover new forms of displacement.

Patterns, Processes, and Policy Responses This volume can be considered to be in three main parts, the first bringing together chapters with a particular focus on concepts and methodology; the second collating largely empirical case studies of the migrationdisplacement nexus; and the third focusing on new challenges and policy responses. Oliver Bakewell’s chapter is ideal as the first substantive chapter of the volume and the initial chapter in the first part of the volume. He traces the evolution of the migration-displacement nexus, and presents various methods for distinguishing the concepts, by examining them in turn as a process, a condition, and a category. Robert Muggah demonstrates how even international institutions can develop different interpretations of migration categories. In his chapter he considers the historical evolution of ‘resettlement’ in forced migration nomenclature and practice, demonstrating how politicized the process of labelling resettlers has been, and making a strong argument for a unified approach to conceptualizing resettlement. One of the themes that pervade the contributions that comprise the first part of the volume is the significance of labelling – both how labels are

The Migration-Displacement Nexus   |   11

ascribed to migrants, and what their implications are. Michael Collyer demonstrates how migrants in Colombo who by and large fit the category of IDP are differentiated by the local authorities, with significant implications for the level of protection and assistance that they receive – as opposed to which they are entitled. Karen Jacobsen’s chapter on ‘profiling’ urban IDPs in Khartoum, Sudan, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, and Santa Marta, Colombia, has important empirical findings and policy implications, but is included in the first part of this volume because of its innovative methodological approach. Faced with a mixed migrant population, and an IDP definition that is broad and non-specific, Jacobsen develops a series of indicators for distinguishing IDPs from non-IDPs. The author recognises that at times the designation of respondents to either category was rather arbitrary, but concludes that arbitrariness may be required in an effort to try to disentangle the migration-displacement nexus in reality. The second part of this volume combines examples of the migrationdisplacement nexus from around the world, including Afghanistan, Central America, China, Iraq, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. Together the chapter also cover a wide range of migrant types, including labour migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons, although at the same time these categories are problematised in a variety of ways. Phil Marfleet’s chapter reminds us that the migration-displacement nexus is not necessarily a new phenomenon. He demonstrates significant continuity in the patterns and processes of displacement in Iraq since the colonial era onwards, relating displacement with state collapse and reformation. Besides providing a novel perspective on the migration-displacement nexus, Sang Lee’s contribution also addresses an important gap in the wider literature on international migration, namely the significance of migration between countries of the developing world. What is more her case study of Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica also focuses on international ruralrural migration. Her extensive original research among the migrants demonstrates the ‘ … inseparability of multiple displacement experiences, insecure land tenure, climate, and a legacy of violence’ in explaining motivations to migrate and return. While Lee’s chapter illustrates the migration-displacement nexus by demonstrating how individuals can have mixed motivations to move, Khalid Koser’s chapter on the migration-displacement nexus in the ‘AfPak’ region illustrates the nexus in another way, by showing how migrants can shift status either by moving or as a result of changes in legislation and administrative procedures. In contrast, Xiao Junyong dissects the massive internal migrant population in China (numbering at least 140 million) that is often undistinguished and

12   |   Khalid Koser and Susan Martin

labelled the ‘floating population’, by demonstrating that it is in fact possible to categorise different segments of this population. He distinguishes ruralurban migrant workers; those displaced by government resettlement projects; those displaced by natural disasters; and a group of particularly vulnerable migrants including street children, abandoned elders, and the mentally and physically disabled. His chapter describes in detail the different circumstances of these populations. In one of the very few academic articles on Operation Restore Order in Zimbabwe, Nedson Pophiwa draws on interviews with victims to explain the survival strategies they adopted in the face of the government’s programme. On the whole they fell back on strategies they had adopted previously as rural-urban migrants. Ironically, these strategies on the one hand helped them survive, but on the other hand helped the government to portray them as migrant workers and not displaced populations, thus diverting the attention of humanitarian actors. The third part of the volume turns to future challenges, understood as settings or contexts where the migration-displacement nexus is likely to cover more people, in more complex situations, and demanding new policy responses, in the near future. The first chapter included in this part of the volume is by Robert McLeman and Oli Brown and focuses on the relationship between climate change and migration. It presents an objective overview of the existing evidence, in particular answering the following questions: What are the known linkages between climate and migration? How many climate change migrants should we expect? How soon can we expect climate change migrants? From where will climate change migrants come? What social groups from within these areas are most likely to migrate? And where will they go? Throughout the chapter illustrates the inadequacies of existing legal and administrative categories to describe, and where appropriate assist and protect, people likely to be displaced by the effects of climate change. Ray Jureidini focuses on the increasingly relevant question of who has responsibility to protect, assist, and evacuate foreign nationals in conflict zones; a category of migrant that currently falls outside existing legal and normative frameworks and institutional mandates. His case study focuses on the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon between July and August 2006, where hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals (an estimated 80,000 from Sri Lanka alone) were posted at the time. While providing a generally positive assessment of the activities of foreign governments, international agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in supporting foreign nationals in Lebanon, Jureidini points out that their interventions were not always predicated on precise international law or humanitarian provisions. Intervention therefore largely depends on the

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extent to which the states involved had the capacity to intervene, and in the case of nationals from some of the poorer states intervention was limited and often they had to rely on their own networks and resources. Jureidini concludes that: Given the discrepancies between countries in their means and abilities to mobilize emergency evacuation procedures, there is a dire need for the development of international humanitarian law to address and clarify the rights of migrants who are inadvertently placed at risk due to war or other crises in a host country.

The chapter by Susan Martin and Amber Callaway falls within the third part of this volume for two main reasons. First, they consider a relatively unexplored phenomenon – internal trafficking – the challenges of resolving which have been underestimated. Second, they propose an innovative approach to integrating existing international instruments to enhance the protection for victims of both phenomena. Finally, Alexander Betts expands the notion of gaps in international responses to the migration-displacement nexus by focusing on the growing lack of clarity over institutional responsibilities for new and complex forms of human mobility. In particular he considers the evolution of a ‘refugee regime complex’ in which ‘ … different institutions overlap, exist in parallel to one another, and are nested within one another in ways that shape states’ responses towards refugees.’ In the context of the risk of refugee protection being undermined as an indirect consequence of this institutional ‘proliferation’, Betts argues that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) needs to adapts its strategy to stay relevant and serve its mandate.

References UNHCR, 2006. The State of the World’s Refugees 2006: Human Displacement in the New Millennium, Oxford: Oxford University Press. UNHCR, 2008. Note on International Protection, Geneva: UNHCR.

Conceptualising Displacement and Migration: Processes, Conditions, and Categories Oliver Bakewell

Introduction Since the study of forced migration as a distinctive field of academic research – now marked out by research centres, degree courses, and journals – emerged in the 1980s, it has been dogged by debates about its relationship with other fields and academic disciplines. While there appears to be consensus that it should be a multidisciplinary endeavour, there is much less agreement about its scope. Many of these debates are concerned with how far one can distinguish displacement from migration and the value of making such a distinction. In this essay, I argue that the terms migration and displacement are used with three different senses, which are often conflated and confused. As a result, the discussion about the relationships between migration and displacement is made much more complex and less productive. The field was incarnated as refugee studies and some of its boundaries were mapped out by Zetter in the first issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies ( JRS). This placed refugees, as defined by the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 OAU Protocol, at the centre of study, ‘excluding patterns of migration solely or largely generated by voluntary and self-determined decisions’ (Zetter 1988: 5). Over time, this focus on refugees as the primary

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focus of the field has come under pressure in two directions: first, to extend the boundaries to encompass other forced migrants, in particular internally displaced persons (IDPs); and second, to blur those boundaries by looking at parallels with broader issues of migration. In a special edition of JRS on ‘Refugee Studies and the Refugee Regime in Transition’ in 1998, Van Hear summarised the positions of those looking to restrict the field to the study of refugees as defined by Convention as ‘traditionalists’ or ‘fundamentalist’ in contrast to the ‘holist’ or ‘messianic’ views that include those in refugee-like circumstances or subject to similar abuses of rights (Van Hear 1998). As he noted then, these debates were ongoing and a decade later they continue. The broadening of the field from the study of refugees to forced migration continues to have its opponents. In 2007, Hathaway called for the sharp distinction between refugees and other forced migrants to be maintained, arguing that refugees have a unique position in international law (Hathaway 2007). This provoked a vigorous response from Cohen and DeWind among others (Cohen 2007; DeWind 2007). The former insists that IDPs should be brought into the picture and should be considered in parallel with refugees. The latter argues that we must take a broader view to consider not just the persecuted individuals but also the process of forced migration in the context of the social and political circumstances that create it. While these debates may seem somewhat esoteric and extravagant for those working in a field so close to realms of immense human suffering, they reflect the authors’ profound concerns about the abuse of rights suffered by many millions of people across the world who are forced to leave their homes. Hathaway (2007) argues that extending the field beyond the legal category of refugees would play into the hands of those who want to reduce protection. It has also been seen as a dangerous step which enables states to refuse asylum for those who could receive protection within the borders of their country of origin. Opening up the Convention will inevitably weaken it. Others argue that this narrow focus is somewhat arbitrarily framed by policy concerns rather than reflecting the interests of those who are victims of abuse. It is hard to justify the differing responses to those who flee violence based on whether they manage to cross a border or remain within their country of origin. Countering the suggestion that protection for IDPs should be provided within the broader protection of human rights, Mooney (2003) argues that having suffered the violation of displacement, IDPs are rendered particularly vulnerable to further abuse of their rights as a result of their displacement. Their position is therefore distinctive and should not be conflated with that of other victims of war. Only by naming them as being in a ‘category of concern’ will it be possible to ensure that their needs are met and their rights are respected, alongside those of the rest of the population.

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A similar line of argument can be traced in the current controversy over the issue of migrants forced to move by environmental conditions, especially those induced by climate change. Leaving aside the debate about how far migration can be related to climate change, there is a growing clamour in some quarters for the recognition of environmental or climate change migrants (or even ‘environmental refugees’) and policy responses to the issues, including calls for changes to international law to provide them with equivalent rights to international protection to those afforded to refugees (for a useful summary of these arguments see Boano, et al. 2008). These debates about the scope of forced migration are also reflected in the policies of international humanitarian actors. While the definition of forced migration is becoming more stretched and blurred over the years, the distinction between forced and voluntary migration remains very important. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) attempts to draw a sharp line between refugees and migrants, with its Director of International Protection arguing that ‘refugees are not migrants’ (Feller 2005). The final edition of UNHCR’s Refugee magazine in 2007, which was entitled ‘Refugee or Migrant? Why it Matters’, also served to emphasise the importance of the distinction for the organisation. At the same time, the agency is increasingly forced to respond to ‘mixed flows’ of migrants including both refugees and labour migrants.1 These responses include supporting improved ‘migration management’ and measures to reduce irregular migration, as a strategy to preserve the ‘asylum channel’ for those who are fleeing persecution. UNHCR argues that refugee protection and migration management are ‘distinct and different functions’; its view ‘adheres to the principle that they should be undertaken in a complementary and mutually reinforcing manner’ (UNHCR 2007). While UNHCR is attempting to draw this line between refugee and other forms of migration, it is simultaneously being drawn into operations that reach beyond providing assistance (protection) to those displaced by conflict, such as the response to Pakistan earthquake in 2005. UNHCR’s engagement in humanitarian crises that create internally displaced persons (and to a lesser extent those forced to move by natural disasters) has been institutionalised in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s cluster approach in which UNHCR is the lead UN agency for providing shelter, camp management, and international protection (Morris 2007). In summary, these debates about responses to refugees, other forced migrants and other migrants requiring international protection continue to create both intellectual and practical challenges. It is easy to see why UNHCR may struggle to hold to a consistent policy; once it moves from the narrowest interpretation of the UN Convention, it is not clear where it has a solid base on which a policy can be built.

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Over the last eighteen years working as both a researcher and practitioner across the field of refugee, migration and development issues, I have consistently found myself simultaneously agreeing with opposing sides of these debates about the relationship between migration and displacement. This may be for a number of reasons. First, it could simply reflect a lack of conviction that results in my being swayed by whatever I happen to be reading at any particular time. Second, it is possible that the arguments on both sides do not have any material substance – they are concerned with abstract theoretical concerns – so it is perfectly possible to hold contradictory positions in parallel theoretical worlds. While this may be true of some academic debates, I do not think this is the case here. As I have already shown above, there are substantive issues at stake which will make a real difference to people’s lives as they shape attitudes, policies, and the allocation of resources. A third possibility, which is the one that I pursue in this chapter, is that there is a level of semantic confusion which renders the terms of the debate ambiguous and results in the protagonists talking at cross purposes. It seems clear to me that we should be concerned with the ‘unique situation’ of refugees especially in so far as they have distinctive status under international law – in that sense refugees cannot be conflated with other migrants. Their special status may be as rooted in historical events as much as having any coherent intellectual rationale. It is possible to argue that Convention refugees are distinctive in being defined by both their fleeing a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ and also crossing an international border. The former suggests that they are subject to direct and purposive action by some actor setting out to persecute them. The same cannot be said of those who are forced to move from their homes in the face of appalling economic conditions in order to find some assistance or new livelihoods in neighbouring countries. While they may be forced migrants and the state may fail to offer the required protection of their lives and livelihoods, their plight is not necessarily the objective of any actor’s action (and if it is proved to be the objective of such action, they become refugees). Thus, the situation of refugees is uniquely political – they are not just victims of a set of failed policies and unfortunate conditions (economic crisis, drought); to put it crudely, somebody is out to get them. Such an argument does feel stretched and uncomfortable, especially when it is clear that the circumstances facing both refugees and other forced migrants are almost indistinguishable. The cause of their flight may be irrelevant when they all find themselves living in the same conditions. However, I would still uphold the unique position of the refugee in international law and am wary of calls to broaden its scope (see Foster 2007; and the response from Lomo 2008).

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At the same time, it seems self-evident that we need to understand the connections between the mobility of people who are forced to move (the displaced) and ‘voluntary’ migrants. There is enormous variation in the extent to which people exercise agency in the process of movement (Richmond 1993), but there is no clear dividing line between voluntary and forced migration. Conflict and violence that make daily life intolerable may be the critical factor which triggers a family’s decision to move, but economic factors may also play a significant role in the timing of the move and the choice of destination (Bloch 2008; and Engel and Ibáñez 2007; for examples see Kronenfeld 2008). A similar analysis may apply to those facing economic crisis which lies beyond their control. Despite this blurring of the boundaries, the movement of refugees and other forms of forced migration are usually bracketed off from most theories of migration. Studies take the degree of individual freedom of action as a crucial limit to the extent of their theories; involuntary migration is excluded by statements such as: ‘Forced migration is of course a topic of considerable interest and significance, “but not with respect to individual decision making”’ (De Jong and Fawcett 1981: 45). Moving beyond the analysis of movement at the micro-level, the violent displacement of people from their homes cannot be understood as a result of aberrations from a peaceful normality. Many of the conflicts which drive the movement of refugees and IDPs are intimately connected with the same global capital interests that are also driving labour migration around the world. For example, the ongoing chaos in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has displaced and killed hundreds of thousands of people. It has been fuelled by the struggle for control over the minerals, such as cobalt, that are crucial to processes of industrialisation in China, which is driving both the massive internal labour migration and the building of new dams, displacing millions more people. At this level of analysis, the creation of refugees cannot therefore be separated from other forms of migration (Castles 2003). In this essay, I argue that part of the problem is that the concepts of migration and displacement are used in different senses at different times. This creates the possibility of confusion as we slip incautiously from one sense to another. The foregoing discussion about the links between migration and displacement (of different forms) already illustrates the different senses in which the terms displacement and migration are used and how that affects the debate. The case for maintaining a clear separation between forced migrants (especially refugees) and other voluntary migrants looks quite weak if we are concerned with the process of movement. However, it is made much more convincing when we are considering these groups as categories of people.

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I suggest that the terms migration and displacement can be used in at least three senses – as a process, condition, or category – each of which relates to different concepts. In the rest of this chapter, I will discuss these three senses in more detail and show how the nature of the relationship between migration and displacement will vary according to which sense is being used. I should make it clear from the outset that I make no claim that clarifying semantic differences will bring a resolution to the debates. However, I do suggest that it might make it easier to see the underlying bedrock of disagreement rather than getting bogged down in the froth of terminology. If there is going to be a dispute let it be over substantive issues rather than careless thinking.

Process A process is related to a ‘succession of actions occurring or performed in a definite manner, and having a particular result or outcome; a sustained operation or series of operations.’2 In particular, for social scientists, both migration and displacement can be seen as social processes: ‘The continuing interaction of human groups and institutions, esp. as observed through its effects in social, political, cultural, etc., life, with the aim of finding underlying patterns of behaviour in the available data.’3 It is clear that both migration and displacement can be understood as processes which bring about changes in people’s physical locations and as a result transform economic, social, and political relationships. Different aspects of the migration and displacement process – including the structural conditions in areas of origin, decision-making (when to move, where to go), journeys (routes), and patterns of settlement and integration – are the subject of numerous studies. But what is the relationship between migration and displacement as processes? This question can be addressed by first considering the broader process of mobility, which clearly encompasses both migration and displacement. The boundaries between migration and other forms of mobility are broadly circumscribed by a number of different parameters, in particular, the distance moved and the timescale. This excludes from consideration, for example, commuting, tourism, or permanent moves within local neighbourhoods, but still leaves a vast range of movements within the scope of migration studies. To make sense of these and to begin to identify the ‘underlying patterns’, we can start by breaking up the field into different forms of migration, which can be differentiated along a number of dimensions, which might be described as follows:

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• The level of agency involved – ranging across a spectrum from free agents (infinite degrees of freedom) to no agency (no degrees of freedom), with voluntary migration tending towards the former, and forced migration closer to the latter. Richmond described this spectrum as moving between ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ migration (1993). • The rationales for migration – proximate causes for migration, where we might distinguish between migration driven primarily by economic (labour migration), social (retirement migration, family reunification), human capital (student migration), or political (asylum seekers, refugees) considerations. Of course, this list is by no means complete and most analyses of the drivers of migration will recognise the complex interaction of different motivations and causes. However, the point remains that such divisions are commonly used to separate the streams of migrants in both literature and policy. • The timescale of migration – in particular, whether the process of migration results in permanent or temporary settlement. Where the latter involves migrants returning to the area of origin, it is widely described as circular migration (or repatriation in the case of refugees), or if they move on to a new area, the process is referred to as transit migration (or resettlement in the case of refugees). • The degree of change involved – this may include the spatial change described by the distance travelled and boundaries crossed (internal, regional, intercontinental migration); the environmental change (moving between rural and urban landscapes or different climate zones); social and cultural changes, shifting between households in different locations, moving between groups with different languages, ethnicity, religion, and social practices; economic distance in terms of different livelihood practices and job markets; and institutional changes such as moving into different government regimes, services and legal frameworks. • The extent of migration – this is concerned with who is involved in the migration process (both those who are migrating and those making decisions about migration), whether this is individuals, households, or involvement varies with gender and generation. • The level of institutional engagement – the institutions that are involved in enabling (possibly forcing) people to move. These may include the analysis of the roles of households and social networks; the private sector and commercial companies such as employment agencies, travel agencies; criminal networks especially in the cases of smuggling and trafficking; the public sector, government, and multilateral bodies for example providing visas and information. Other dimensions could be added but even this simple mix makes for a very complex multi-dimensional migration ‘space’. The first of these dimensions – the level of agency exercised by migrants – can be used to

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differentiate between processes of forced and voluntary migration. Other dimensions can be used to narrow the investigation to the situation of refugees, IDPs, asylum seekers and so forth. The choice of theoretical outlook and particular area of concern may determine which particular dimensions are explored in most detail. The main body of migration theory has tended to focus on specific directions along only a few of the dimensions of migration listed above: in particular, voluntary migration motivated by improved employment prospects involving either internal rural to urban movement, or international migration from less developed to more developed countries. Those coming from a neo-classical perspective explicitly assume a high degree of agency for migrants and exclude forced migration from their consideration. Even those drawing on more structuralist approaches or network theory, who may call into question the level of agency, tend to focus on those moving within particular labour markets or across social networks rather than those forced to move by violent conflict. The process of displacement remains largely outside the realm of social scientific theory (Black 2001; Castles 2003). Despite its theoretical isolation, this mapping of the migration processes suggests that displacement can be viewed as a particular sub-set of this broader migration space. In other words, as a process, displacement is simply a special case of migration. Where we draw the boundaries of this sub-set may be the subject of much debate and raises many methodological challenges. Recognising that the migration process is taking place is relatively straightforward as we are helped by the observable fact of people moving, which marks them out from other population groups. However, it is much harder rigorously to identify the subset of those who are displaced, as then we have to be able to analyse people’s motivations for moving. We may develop a definition of displacement (as a process) which can be operationalised to distinguish it from migration, but it remains a sub-set of migration processes. Considering displacement as part of a wider set of migration processes encourages one to think not only about what is distinctive about displacement but also areas of commonality. Does the rationale for moving necessarily change people’s experiences of moving and settling? The growing volume of work on mixed migration suggests that it might not. Research looking at how people come to claim asylum in Europe focuses on the irregular crossing of borders, which involves people moving for a variety of reasons ranging from those fleeing conflict to find safety, those seeking work and economic opportunity, to those who are being forcibly moved from the relative safety of their homes by traffickers. The process of migration does not give us a basis for distinguishing forced migrants from others (much to the regret of both states and many activists).

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Looking at another example, the Gwembe Tonga Research Project was started by Elizabeth Colson nearly fifty years ago to look at the forcible displacement of people whose land was inundated by the lake formed with the building of the Kariba Dam on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border. This research helped to lay down some of the foundations of the field of refugee studies (Colson 1971; Scudder 1993; Scudder and Colson 1982). As part of this study, Scudder elaborated a set of stages of resettlement for displaced persons. It is perhaps ironic that this study has now evolved into a longitudinal research on broader processes of migration within Zambia, as new researchers have followed up the ongoing movements of the Gwembe Tonga (Cliggett 2005). Thus, when considered as a process, it is not possible neatly to separate displacement from migration, nor is it particularly helpful to do so.

Condition The relationship between migration and displacement changes when each is considered as a condition, by which I mean a particular ‘state of being’. Being in the condition of having migrated or having been displaced can be seen as an outcome of the processes of migration and displacement respectively and these conditions endure when the process finishes. When we speak of migration, we are implicitly referring to movement. It seems reasonable to suggest that migration as a process comes to an end when, having moved, a person takes up residence in a new place. Of course, we may debate when a person can be considered to have taken up residence (after six months, one year, two years?), but at some stage we draw a line under the migration phase of their lives. Someone who has migrated in the past will still be regarded as a migrant, but it is not a continuous, flexible state. It is related to a past event (or period of movement) in someone’s life that can be relatively easily verified by answering the question: did he or she move or not? It is fixed as an historical fact and cannot be changed: once a migrant, always a migrant. Displacement looks rather different from migration, as a condition, in three particular ways. First, it is related to a process of physical displacement (which may itself be contested) that may come to an end when those displaced find a place to settle, but results in a continuous state of being displaced that can be maintained over time and reproduced through generations. Thus, unlike being a migrant, the condition of displacement does not become fixed with the end of movement; it remains an ongoing condition which is concerned with a separation from ‘home’, the place of origin from which people were compelled to move (displaced – process). It is about not being where one wants to be, and is often described in terms of exile, being cut off from one’s roots and so forth (Malkki 1995).

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A second area of difference is that, in contrast to the condition of migration, displacement can be reversed. It comes to an end when people regain their sense of home and become emplaced: possibly by returning to their place of origin or by establishing a new ‘home’ elsewhere (Hammond 2004). It is a subjective condition which is based not just on one’s history (were you once displaced?) but also one’s ongoing sense of displacement. This can be maintained and reproduced through generations as the lack of home is passed on to children. Thus, the condition of being displaced can be separated from a personal experience of movement (migration). It is possible for people to be born into the condition of displacement. Hence, the displaced can be found among people who have never moved. It is relatively easy to know when someone has migrated and when their migration (process) ends, but it is never so clear when displacement occurs or when that displacement ends. Hence, there is an ongoing debate around the definition of IDPs, as there is no consensus on when the condition of being an IDP comes to an end (Mooney 2003). Third, migration and displacement as conditions are likely to be experienced in rather different ways. The condition of being a migrant does not necessarily have much bearing on a person’s day to day life. It may be possible to identify links between individuals’ social and economic positions and their experience of having migrated in the past. For example, Portes argues that irregular labour migrants in the U.S. are more likely to be caught in downward spirals of social deprivation that result in lower education attainment and higher levels of crime, which he describes as ‘segmented assimilation’ (Portes 2007). While such phenomena may be observed by social scientists, it does not necessarily mean that they shape the self-perception of migrants (though they may do so). One may not feel oneself to be a migrant, but it is still reasonable for an observer (such as a social scientist) to describe one as such. In contrast, displacement is not an objective state and it is more likely to be related to people’s self-perception of being out of place. If people deny that they are displaced and refute the condition, it is makes little sense for any observer to try to impose that condition on them. To a large extent, I am only displaced as long as I feel myself to be displaced. If I make a new home, my condition of displacement ends; however, my condition as a migrant remains.

Category In the foregoing discussion, the condition of being a migrant or displaced (or both) is a reflection of people’s personal history of movement and their perception of their position. This can usefully be distinguished from the

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related category to which someone may be assigned using criteria which are established by other actors. The creation of categories plays a fundamental role in both social science and social policy. For academics observing the world, categorisation is concerned with identifying people’s ‘unequivocally shared features’4 which can be used as the basis for the aggregation and analysis of data; for example, we may disaggregate observations on the basis of gender, or their reason for moving. For policy makers, categorisation also involves dividing the world into groups of people who share particular qualities. However, their focus is on identifying those qualities that makes it reasonable to subject group members to the same outcomes of policy: such as granting them legal rights or providing them with resources and services (for an expanded discussion of analytical and policy categories see Bakewell 2008). Hence, when we consider migrant and displaced as categories, we should expect to see a sharp divide between them. Feller’s call for maintaining the unique status of refugees and distinguishing them from other migrants (Feller 2006) is much more powerful when we recall that she is concerned primarily with categories. Here, I am particularly concerned with the use of migrant and displaced as policy categories. For example, legal categorisation is of critical importance for refugees. Formal recognition that a person is a refugee will make a fundamental difference to his or her position in the country of asylum; it brings with it the right to stay, protection under international law, and access to services such as health and education. Failure to prove one’s claim to refugee status can render a person an ‘illegal immigrant’, liable to deportation. Categorisation is not limited only to the legal sphere. Organisations, such as international humanitarian agencies, non-governmental organisations, service providers, and advocacy groups focus their attention on particular groups of people, who are seen as falling within their mandate. Those organisations working in the field of forced or voluntary migration need to distinguish between those who are displaced – such as refugees, internally displaced persons, development induced displaced and so forth – and other migrants who moved of their own volition. Whose agency predominates in the process of movement will largely determine whether they are categorised as migrants or displaced. However, as already noted above, this distinction is hard to maintain. As a result most agencies end up working with a system of bureaucratic labelling, based on stereotypical identities and sets of assumed needs (Bakewell 2008; Zetter 1991). The critical point to note here is that these categories of migration and displacement may not overlap with the corresponding conditions. I may have the legal status of being a refugee but no longer feel displaced. Equally, I may be recognised as displaced and on the beneficiary lists to receive food rations, but this may say very little about my self-perception,

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my condition, as a displaced person. Many people who have moved in appalling circumstances to come to Europe, may describe themselves as displaced, but having made huge efforts reach their destination are excluded from the category of the displaced and labelled as economic migrants. Over time, the relationship between people’s condition and their category may change. For example, those once described as refugees may become citizens (category) but still feel that they are living in exile (displaced condition). Legal and bureaucratic categories can also become self-perpetuating and be reproduced over time and generations. In many African states, for instance, there are no provisions for those recognised as refugees to become residents or acquire citizenship. Refugees are often required to stay within formal settlements for many years, where they are expected to conform both to the restrictions imposed by law and the often stereotypical expectations of aid agencies. In practice they may make considerable efforts to resist such strictures (Kibreab 2004), but they are constantly aware of their categorisation as refugees and are likely to internalise it as their condition. In my own research in North-West Zambia, it was very striking that Angolans who remained in the villages did not describe themselves as refugees (including those holding refugee identity cards), while those in the refugee settlements continually referred to themselves as such and attributed many of their problems to their status (Bakewell 2000). Hence, prolonging the category may keep people in a condition from which they might otherwise move.

Conclusion In conclusion, I briefly revisit some of the debates about migration and displacement to see how they are changed in the light of these distinctions between processes, conditions, and categories. While it may be correct to say that refugees are not migrants (seen as categories), this does not mean refugees cannot become migrants (as a condition) or that displacement cannot be usefully analysed as a form of migration (as a process). The study of forced migration surely must take account of all three senses of displacement and migration. Hence, Hathaway’s argument (2007) that the drawbridge of the castle of refugee studies should be pulled up to keep out all invaders seems counterproductive. It would leave us with refugee studies as a field bound by narrow legal categories and make it much more difficult to analyse the broader processes which give rise to refugees, or the situation of those who perceive themselves to be in exile, while not recognised as refugees. However, if we were more scrupulous about distinguishing the different senses of our terms, such as refugee, displacement, and migration, it may be possible both to address the valid

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concerns of authors such as Hathaway and still recognise the overall field of forced migration studies. Besides helping to address our academic squabbles, greater clarity in the use of our terms may also help to generate new practical outcomes. Focusing on those falling within the categories of displacement, whether refugees and/or IDPs, can exclude the experience of others who may have been through the process of displacement but are not included in the category. For example, many Zimbabweans who have escaped persecution by fleeing to South Africa avoid claiming asylum because staying unregistered leaves them in a better position to support their families at home (Bloch 2008). They are by necessity having to develop their own forms of protection, which prioritise their economic survival, rather than relying on the flawed legal protection offered by the state. Understanding their priorities and responses offers a powerful critique of current policies, which rest on a naïve separation of refugees from other migrants. In fact, the large numbers and the very high profile of the situation in Zimbabwe have meant that there has been research into the situation of those who stay outside the refugee category in this particular case. In many other cases, the experience and strategies of those who fall outside the categories of displacement tend to disappear from view (Bakewell 2008). As a result, new solutions to problems of displacement may be neglected, or worse, undermined. As noted above, many African states have resisted any policies of refugee integration, resulting in ‘protracted refugee situations’ across the continent (Crisp 2003). Despite such policies, in practice there are examples of refugees, such as Angolans in Zambia, who have settled themselves and effectively become fully integrated (Bakewell 2000; Hansen 1982). However, this resolution of integration cannot be recognised as long as we are concerned with the formal category of refugees, which keeps the focus firmly on the refugees who remain within camps and settlements. If we can do better at understanding the complex processes of migration, the shifting conditions of displacement and their relationship with the categories that frame policy, we may be in a better position to recognise and facilitate new solutions to the problems of displacement.

Notes 1. See the dedicated section of UNHCR’s website on Asylum and Migration http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/asylum last accessed 10th March 2009. 2. ‘Process, n.’ OED Online. June 2003. Oxford University Press. 27 November 2007. http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00299371

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3. Ibid. 4. A Dictionary of Sociology. John Scott and Gordon Marshall. Oxford University Press 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 20 August 2007

References Bakewell, O. 2000. ‘Repatriation and Self-settled Refugees in Zambia: Bringing Solutions to the Wrong Problems’, Journal of Refugee Studies 13(4): 356–373. . 2008. ‘Research beyond the categories: the importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration’, Journal of Refugee Studies 21(4): 432–453. Black, R. 2001. ‘Fifty years of refugee studies: From theory to policy’, International Migration Review 35(1): 57–78. Bloch, A. 2008. ‘Gaps in Protection: Undocumented Zimbabwean Migrants in South Africa’, Migration Studies Working Paper Series, Vol. 38, Johannesburg: Forced Migration Studies Programme, University of the Witwatersrand. Boano, C., Zetter, R. and Morris, T. 2008. ‘Environmentally Displaced People: Understanding the linkages between environmental change, livelihoods and forced migration’, Forced Migration Policy Briefings, Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Castles, S. 2003. ‘Towards a sociology of forced migration and social transformation’, Sociology–The Journal Of The British Sociological Association 37(1): 13–34. Cliggett, L. 2005. ‘Remitting the gift: Zambian mobility and anthropological insights for migration studies’, Population, Space and Place 11(1): 35–48. Cohen, R. 2007. ‘Response to Hathaway’, Journal of Refugee Studies 20(3): 370–376. Colson, E. 1971. The social consequences of resettlement: the impact of the Kariba resettlement upon the Gwembe Tonga, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Crisp, J. 2003. ‘No solutions in sight: the problem of protracted refugee situations in Africa’, New Issues in Refugee Research, Geneva: UNHCR. De Jong, G.F. and Fawcett, J.T. 1981. ‘Motivations for Migration: an assessment and a value expectancy research model’, in G.F. De Jong and Gardner (eds.) Migration Decision Making: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Microlevel Studies in Developed and Developing Countries, London: Pergamon Press. DeWind, J. 2007. ‘Response to Hathaway’, Journal of Refugee Studies 20(3): 381–385. Engel, S. and Ibáñez, A.M. 2007 ‘Displacement Due to Violence in Colombia: A Household-Level Analysis’, Economic Development and Cultural Change 55(2): 335– 365. Feller, E. 2005. ‘Refugees are not Migrants’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 24(4): 27–35. Feller, E. 2006. ‘Asylum, Migration and Refugee Protection: Realities, Myths and the Promise of Things to Come’, International Journal of Refugee Law 18(3–4): 509–536. Foster, M. 2007. International refugee law and socio-economic rights: refuge from deprivation, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Hammond, L.C. 2004. This Place Will Become Home: Refugee repatriation to Ethiopia, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

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Hansen, A. 1982. ‘Self-settled Rural Refugees in Africa: The Case of Angolans in Zambian Villages’, in A. Hansen and A. Oliver-Smith (eds.) Involuntary Migration and Resettlement; the Problems and Responses of Dislocated People, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Hathaway, J.C. 2007. ‘Forced Migration Studies: Could We Agree Just to ‘Date’?’, Journal of Refugee Studies 20(3): 349–369. Kibreab, G. 2004. ‘Pulling the Wool over the Eyes of the Strangers: Refugee Deceit and Trickery in Institutionalized Settings’, Journal of Refugee Studies 17(1): 1–26. Kronenfeld, D.A. 2008. ‘Afghan refugees in Pakistan: Not All Refugees, Not Always in Pakistan, Not Necessarily Afghan?’, Journal of Refugee Studies 21(1): 43–63. Lomo, Z.A. 2008. ‘International Refugee Law and Socio-Economic Rights: Refuge from Deprivation. By Michelle Foster’, Journal of Refugee Studies 21(3): 401–403. Malkki, L. 1995. ‘Refugees and Exile: From Refugee Studies to the National Order of Things’, Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 495–523. Mooney, E. 2003. ‘The Concept of Internal Displacement and the Case for Internally Displaced Persons as a Category of Concern’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 24(3): 9–26. Morris, T. 2007. ‘UNHCR, IDPs and Clusters’, Forced Migration Review 25: 54–55. Portes, A. 2007. ‘Migration, Development, and Segmented Assimilation: A Conceptual Review of the Evidence’, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 610(1): 73–97. Richmond, A.H. 1993. ‘Reactive Migration: Sociological Perspectives on Refugee Movements’, Journal of Refugee Studies 6(1): 5–24. Scudder, T. 1993. ‘Development-induced Relocation and Refugee Studies: 37 Years of Change and Continuity among Zambia’s Gwembe Tonga’, Journal of Refugee Studies 6(2): 123–152. Scudder, T. and Colson, E. 1982. ‘From Welfare to Development: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Dislocated People’, in A. Hansen and A. OliverSmith (eds) Involuntary Migration and Resettlement, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. UNHCR 2007. ‘Refugee Protection and Durable Solutions in the Context of International Migration’, High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges, Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Van Hear, N. 1998. ‘Editorial Introduction’, Journal of Refugee Studies 11(4): 341–349. Zetter, R. 1988. ‘Refugees and Refugee Studies – A Label and an Agenda: Editorial Introduction to the Journal of Refugee Studies’, Journal of Refugee Studies 1(1): 1–6. Zetter, R. 1991. ‘Labelling Refugees: Forming and Transforming a Bureaucratic Identity’, Journal of Refugee Studies 4(1): 39–62.

A Unified Approach to Conceptualising Resettlement Robert Muggah1

Introduction Resettlement is one of the more diffuse and misunderstood concepts in forced migration studies. While much is written on the dynamics and pathologies associated with population displacement, there is comparatively less intellectual engagement with resettlement. Writing on settlement and resettlement in Africa, Sutton (1977: 219) lamented the ‘inability of research to draw meaningful generalisations from the disparate literature on settlement and resettlement schemes.’ Although Palmer (1974) recognised the virtues in comparing different forms of relocation arising from development, war and ‘overpopulation’, Chambers (1969: 12) condemned resettlement studies to an ‘academic no man’s land … [wherein] no single science or study has yet established its claims and each has its limitations.’ Led by Cernea (2005, 2000, 1997 1993a, 1993b), among others, the academic debate on resettlement has become sharper and more defined in recent years. The basic social and spatial parameters of resettlement are generally assumed to include the planned and controlled relocation of populations from one physical place to another. Put simply, it entails the geographic movement of individuals and even entire communities to a new place which distinguishes it from ‘return’ to one’s place of origin. Though frequently conflated with other forms of migration, this chapter contends

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that resettlement can occur only when the choice to remain in one’s original place is fundamentally constrained by real or perceived coercion. As noted more than three decades ago by Scudder (1973), the compulsory nature of resettlement is crucial: most resettlement schemes involve the use or threat of physical violence. Displacement is therefore a necessary precondition of resettlement. This chapter considers the historical evolution of ‘resettlement’ in forced migration nomenclature and practice. It begins with a critical treatment of the ideological assumptions that underpin the concept and its diffusion into contemporary forced migration discourse. This is followed by a short review of the highly politicised (and routinely confused) process of labelling resettlers. The three sections that follow consider the epistemological moorings of development, conflict, and natural disaster induced displacement and resettlement in order to highlight their commonalities and differences. In distilling their points of convergence and divergence, the chapter calls for a unified approach to understanding the causes, consequences, and mechanisms of resettlement.

Resettlement as Social Engineering While there is no natural category of resettlement, there are relatively clear boundaries to the debate. As one scholar on resettlement observed in the late 1960s, resettlement consists of ‘planned social change that necessarily entails population movement, population selection and most probably population control’ (Chambers 1969: 5). Resettlement therefore incorporates a strong spatial element and a high degree of social control. Since at least the middle of the twentieth century, there was a presumption among urban planners, civil engineers, and social scientists that resettlement followed a predictable and linear pathway that, with advance planning and adequate management, could account for and minimise the risks and vulnerabilities accompanying physical dislocation (Cernea 1990a, 1990b; Scudder and Colson 1982; Colson 1971). Resettlement has long been construed instrumentally as a platform for social engineering and an opportunity to enact far-reaching political, economic, and demographic transformation. Since the 1950s it constituted an important vehicle for modernisation theory and, inevitably, attracted considerable subaltern opposition. Chambers (1969: 34) described resettlement schemes as ‘experiments in nation-building in miniature’ while Scudder (1973) introduced the concept of ‘ecological imperialism’ to highlight the ways in which resettlement schemes represented an extension of the international economic system – command or capitalist-driven – into new domains. Whatever paradigm invoked to explain resettlement onset, most scholars arrived at critical conclusions regarding their outcomes:

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resettlement exhibited immense destructive potential in relation to human lives and livelihoods. Sutton (1977) and Scudder (1973) observed that resettlement often faltered precisely because it was not initiated ‘from within’ (or below) but rather by social actors who (purposefully or unintentionally) negated complexity. They attributed poor returns to the inability of resettlement planners to reconcile modern and ‘traditional’ value-systems. Resettlement was expected to harness modernist management procedures to transform (civilise) ‘backwards’, ‘primitive’ and otherwise dislocated or non-sedentary populations. Considerable faith was vested in the (exported) social technology of resettlement, including an efficient administrative bureaucracy, the resources of international agencies and donors and the spatial morphology of the schemes themselves. Reacting to the ‘high modernist’ aspirations of the resettlement enterprise, however, was an eclectic opposition movement comprised of actors within ‘civil society’. Together with those forced to move, these movements actively resisted hegemonic and frequently elite-driven resettlement interventions (Grabska and Mehta 2009). Likewise, forced migration scholars critically examined the (negative) effects of resettlement – particularly on minority and indigenous groups – and in some cases identified strategies to mitigate and reverse the pathologies that frequently accompanied the process. Despite repeated and documented failures of resettlement to create ‘durable solutions’ for those involved – whether in terms of self-reliant and productive communities or livelihoods restored to (or above) predisplacement levels – expectations of the potential dividends expanded in the intervening decades. The World Bank (2000), Asian Development Bank (ADB 2001) and others anticipated that carefully planned and managed resettlement could avoid impoverishment of those ousted by development projects. Success was routinely measured as a function of income restoration and land-for-land compensation (Cernea and Mathur 2008; Cernea 1999). Although less optimistic than the World Bank, the United Nations (UN) (1998) observed that successful resettlement of conflict and disaster affected populations could be administered in such a way that was equitable and free of discrimination, accounted for the safety and dignity of the ‘beneficiaries’, ensured fair compensation for lost land, income, and assets and involved the ‘full participation of the [internally] displaced in public affairs.’2 These criteria, they also argued, formed the basis of durable solutions.

Labelling Resettlement Resettlement is persistently confused with other, related processes. Sutton (1977) observed a bewildering variety of ‘origins, sizes and objectives’ of resettlement schemes making it difficult to generalise across cases but also

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leading to confusion about what was and what was not resettlement. For example, the expression is often used interchangeably with ‘settlement’ and ‘colonisation’ (Kibreab 1989; Colson 1971; Chambers 1969). Unlike these latter concepts, resettlement is involuntary. Whether or not settlement and colonisation processes coincide with development programmes or ethnic cleansing, the incidence of coercion distinguishes resettlement from otherwise voluntary population relocation. Resettlement is distinct from ‘assisted migration’ a process that also includes an element of state planning and involves the relocation of individuals – ideally ‘enterprising’ young men – and the clearing, development and (re)population of otherwise uninhabited areas (Table 4.1). Dunham (1982) described how settlement schemes and colonisation processes from Sri Lanka’s southern districts to the north were purposefully described as economic and labour migration, thus ensuring benign – if subtly hegemonic – connotations. There are important similarities and differences between voluntary settlement and involuntary resettlement processes. Both may include prepared safety-nets and welfare systems for prospective residents. Interventions can entail advanced land clearance and subsidised housing, new public services (e.g. health and education facilities), transportation networks and enabling commercial or market-promotion infrastructure such as grants, credit, and loan facilities. But unlike voluntary settlement, resettlement is permanent because the option and choice to return to one’s original place is eliminated. While settlers and colonisers frequently retain the right and possibility of returning to their original homes and social networks (and often maintain that option by holding on to some or all of their original assets), resettling populations manifestly do not (Table 4.1). Table 3.1 Labelling settlers and resettlers Settlement

Resettlement

(spontaneous) settler

resettler

colonizer

reintegrate

assisted migrant

relocate

pioneer

project-affected person

encroacher

project-dislocated

slum dweller

integrate

Additional concepts are often substituted with resettlement and further complicate a coherent and unified understanding. For example, ‘settlement’, ‘return’, ‘repatriation’, ‘reintegration’, and ‘integration’ are all expressions frequently invoked as synonyms of resettlement by policy makers and practitioners (Kibreab 1996a, 1989). Adding to confusion, the United

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Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR 2001: 12) observes that ‘settlement of IDPs is analogous to local integration of refugees … in the context of IDPs, resettlement means the relocation of the IDPs in areas in their country or their places of habitual residence as a possible durable solution.’ But these concepts should not be conflated with resettlement. Depending on who deploys them, the expressions ‘return’ and ‘repatriation’ carry precise statutory meanings and refer to the relocation of displaced populations either across an international frontier or within the boundaries of a given state and back to their original place of residence. ‘Reinsertion’, ‘reintegration’, and ‘integration’ are concepts that refer more generally to the restoration of living standards and the re-articulation of social, cultural, and economic networks with host communities. They may accompany resettlement or they may not ( Jacobsen 2001). Though certain scholars and practitioners contend that reinsertion, reintegration, and integration are constitutive features of resettlement, others are adamant that one or all may take place independently.

Resettlement as Permanence If displacement is perceived as temporary dislocation, resettlement is envisioned as a permanent process of relocation. In the case of development induced displacement and resettlement, schemes are ordinarily prepared as a subcomponent of a larger enterprise – whether dam and reservoir project, road-building initiative, urban renewal scheme, or parkland development. Provisions for resettlement, where they are incorporated at all, are anticipated to begin before and extend far beyond the life-span of the intervention giving rise to relocation in the first instance (Cernea and Mathur 2008). In the case of conflict and natural disaster induced internal displacement and resettlement, planned relocation is designed in such a way as to ensure a permanent (e.g. durable in the vernacular) solution. But practices and experience frequently deviate from expectations and prescriptions. In theory, resettlement is designed in such a way as to (re)produce selfsustaining or self-reliant communities. Resettlement schemes typically offer ‘modern’ housing designs and materials and are frequently ordered and laid out in a grid-pattern schematic. The compactness and close proximity of the new housing schemes often contrasts with the more dispersed and organic village clusters from where resettlers heralded (Karakat and Hannurkar 2007). Despite the unfamiliar (social and geographic) layout of the new schemes and surrounding area – resettlement planners expect that they will lead to durable solutions if prepared adequately in advance and in consultation with affected populations. Paradoxically, resettlement schemes

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only occasionally contribute to the emergence of successive generations of viable self-reliant or productive communities (Cernea and McDowell 2000). Rather, planned resettlement schemes are often prematurely abandoned by project implementers and resettlers soon after they are established. Even when resettlement sites are prepared well in advance and fitted with social and physical infrastructure, allotted land frequently goes under-utilised. The new residents are typically less productive in their new schemes than anticipated and many either suffer from various degrees of impoverishment or drift (migrate) away in search of alternative opportunities. Successive resettlement planners found that instead of engineering durable solutions, they unintentionally created dysfunctional communities. To paraphrase Jane Jacobs (1961), while much may be known about what a broken community looks like, comparatively less is known about how to bring a functional one about. The following sections consider the emergence of three separate epistemic communities focusing alternately on development, conflict, and disaster induced internal displacement and resettlement. As noted in Muggah (2008, 2003), separate communities preoccupied with forced migration – themselves composed of advocacy coalitions of activist researchers and public-policy networks of scholars and policy makers – emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century. Though encountering challenges in defining the conceptual boundaries of the debate, they were instrumental in enhancing practical action on the issue. While often treated as disparate phenomena, this chapter reveals that there are more synergies between different types of displacement and resettlement than commonly assumed.

Development-Induced Displacement and Resettlement Research and advocacy on DIDR exhibits a comparatively long and distinguished pedigree. For example, as early as the 1940s urban planners in the United States generated a rich vein of enquiry into the ruinous outcomes of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) project, including longitudinal evidence of the consequences of large-scale hydroelectric power generation systems on the livelihoods of hundreds of resettled households. But few scholars loom larger in the early DIDR literature than Brokenshaw and Scudder (1968), Chambers (1969) and Colson (1971). From the beginning of their academic careers, they worked as consultants to major multilateral and bilateral agencies, public utilities, and private sector corporations. As such, their research and findings were not immune to bureaucratic policy imperatives. And while generating critical empirical contributions to the forced migration field, they deliberately sought to influence the protocols and practices of their patrons.

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Early methodological approaches to field research on DIDR adopted a number of common features. Many studies transferred anthropological and sociological models of social change and migration theory to the phenomenology of resettlement – focusing primarily on the stresses and responses of populations to relocation. Most research was ethnographic and entailed successive panel surveys among a defined cohort resettled by dams and infrastructure projects in Africa and South Asia (e.g. Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, and Sri Lanka). Virtually all of the early researchers generated common findings on the overwhelmingly negative consequences arising from urban and rural development. Colson (1971: 1) wrote passionately on how ‘… massive technological development hurts. This is a fact largely ignored by economic planners, technicians and political leaders … they count the engineering cost but not the social costs.’ Likewise, Scudder (1973) described how ‘compulsory resettlement is a traumatic experience which precipitates stress and leads to a crisis of cultural identity.’ The critiques of early resettlement experts such as Sutton (1977), Palmer (1974) and Apthorpe (1968) of modernist development and social engineering paradigms presaged the criticisms of neo-liberal market-based orthodoxies epitomised by structural adjustment and decentralisation in the late 1980s and 1990s (Sachs 1992). Their research unveiled the traumatic social costs of economic progress, the dynamics of how affected communities cope with adversity and the challenges of overcoming institutional inertia in powerful aid bureaucracies. The dominant conceptual resettlement models emerging from this period were formulated by Chambers (1971, 1970) and Colson (1971). Each detected a series of common trends and patterns of change (stresses) that characterised resettled communities across time and space. Colson expanded Chamber’s multi-stage framework and formulated a fourstaged linear model that began before the displacement event, anticipated a measure of risk adversity in the immediate post-displacement period and was followed by a comparatively smooth period of transition from rehabilitation to the handing-over phase. Though initially focusing on (voluntary) settlement in Zambia, her conceptual approach was later extended to the analysis of (involuntary) resettlement by Scudder and Colson (1979, 1982) and others in Africa. Many of these early contributors were pessimistic that resettlement, as with many instances of ‘assisted migration,’ left people better off than those otherwise settling on their own. Criticism began to focus on resettlement management processes and the ways in which they routinely deviated from a predictable path. Critics of the narrow linear models of resettlement discussed above emerged in the 1970s and 1980s (Hulme 1988; Sutton 1977). On the basis of a growing body of empirical evidence, much of it generated from prior evaluations of World Bank-financed projects, they

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determined that ‘not all projects pass through all stages’ and that ‘a steady movement [through all four stages] is the exception rather than the rule’ (Cernea 1997). These critics noted that on the basis of their analysis, many displacement and resettlement outcomes did not conform to the patterned expectations set out by Chambers and Colson. The next generation of resettlement scholars included, among others, Cernea (1996, 1991) and Harrell-Bond (1986, 1982). Despite holding divergent epistemological perspectives from their predecessors and harbouring divergent interpretations of the causes, consequences, and responses to internal displacement and resettlement, they nevertheless embarked on a useful collaborative experiment to learn from one another. There are deep and occasionally unacknowledged ideological fault lines dividing scholars and practitioners working on DIDR in the 1980s and 1990s and perhaps fewer areas of consensus than presumed. Their perspectives were neatly, controversially, summarised by Dwivedi (2002) into parallel camps: applied and action researchers. At one end of the continuum are applied scholars who envision DIDR as an inevitable, if unintended, consequence of development. These scholars-cum-practitioners argue that development projects leading to resettlement, however unpalatable, are in most cases unavoidable and necessary. Writing with sanguinity, they contend that with effective planning and management, social pathologies can be avoided and that resettler livelihoods can be substantially improved.3 Questions of power and the historical, ‘identity’, and political factors shaping resettlement are comparatively less well represented. At the other end are action researchers who treat DIDR as a failure of the development paradigm and a fundamental expression of power asymmetries. Focusing on the negative externalities generated by development, they advocate for the abandonment of interventions likely to generate large scale displacement and resettlement. Discerning the vested interests of elites, subaltern movements and identity-based politics shaping the resettlement and the dynamics of resistance are of central importance. Moreover, they adopt an adversarial approach to monolithic authority – highlighting the ways in which poorer segments of society are exploited at the expense of the centre. Only in unusual cases do action researchers offer technical advice on minimising the negative consequences of resettlement, in some cases recommending modest, diverse, and environmentally-sound alternatives. Most contemporary resettlement specialists fall somewhere in between the two camps. There are those rejecting interventions leading to mass displacement in principle though compelled to identify the opportunities afforded to some groups by the political and economic dynamics of social change. While working as a consultant to the World Bank, for example, Partridge (1993) documented the ways in which certain indigenous

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northern Colombian populations resettled in the context of oil and hydroelectric projects in the 1970s and 1980s exhibited ‘productive energy’ and entrepreneurial spirit following their ‘release’ from culturally and sociallyembedded ‘constraints’. Likewise, Kibreab (1996b) described the ways in which Ethiopians resettled as a result of villagisation schemes – particularly single female-headed households – availed themselves of new marketbased opportunities when patriarchal (Tigrayan) systems of land and asset ownership broke down. The transformation of a pre-existing social order made possible by resettlement gave rise to new social, cultural, and economic spaces in which to reconstitute radically changed identities and livelihoods. Despite this rapprochement, applied and action researchers speak to differentiated understandings of the fundamental purpose, values and principles of development. In time, Cernea (1997) introduced a new conceptual approach to measuring and practically responding to DIDR. His ‘impoverishment risk and livelihood reconstruction’ framework was innovative precisely because it advanced a synchronic perspective to predicting and ultimately reversing the poverty-inducing risks associated with resettlement. In departing from linear modelling, is framework proposed a typology to anticipate and mitigate impoverishment. One particular innovation on Colson’s model was its expansion of the range of negative costs associated with resettlement beyond a narrow treatment of cultural dissonance or losses of physical assets such as land and common property. Rather, the framework forced planners and researchers to consider a wider assortment of risks accompanying resettlement, including landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, social marginalization, increased mortality and morbidity, food insecurity, loss of access to common property, and social disarticulation. Other potential risks added (in the context of war-displaced) include reduced access to public and private services (i.e. education and health), political disenfranchisement and exposure to acute violence (Muggah 2000). The model was evidencebased, drawing as it did from a multi-project review of World Bank and non-bank financed resettlement schemes with an active reflection on past theoretical contributions. The merits and limitations of Cernea’s conceptual framework are widely debated. Certain action researchers challenged its narrow consideration of the political and social causes of displacement, its generic approach to constructing risk and the framework’s limited treatment of the agency (e.g. endowments and resourcefulness) of resettling populations (Muggah 2000). Nevertheless, Cernea’s risk model acquired a considerable degree of legitimacy in the DIDR community. Though its conceptual scaffolding is still in evolution, the framework is widely in use and Cernea (2006, 2005) invested energy in promoting its application by policy makers, practitioners, and researchers in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere.

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Conflict-Induced Displacement and Resettlement Theoretical innovations in relation to conflict-induced displacement and resettlement (CIDR) lagged behind those debated by DIDR scholars and practitioners. Unlike early practitioners working on dam-related displacement and resettlement, scholars examining displacement arising from war appeared to attached more importance to the immediate logistical imperatives of aid delivery than to sustained reflection and research. During the 1970s and 1980s grounded and long-term research in and around war zones was limited to only the most assiduous researchers (Crisp 1999; Harrell-Bond 1986). By the 1990s, however, empirical research on CIDR expanded dramatically. Much of the focus of the nascent epistemic community was oriented towards the production and dissemination of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN 1998). But most published outputs were noteworthy more for their rich advocacy potential than for their original theory development. Rather than drawing on inductive approaches, conceptual models for CIDR borrowed heavily from refugee studies. That the study of CIDR stimulated comparatively limited academic engagement from the 1950s to the 1970s should come as little surprise to the discerning reader of Cold War era international relations. After all, it was refugees – not IDPs – who figured prominently in the contest between the United States and what was then the Soviet Union. In addition to serving as a valuable source of intelligence, refugees and third country asylum claimants were held up as a vindication of the failings of the other and were therefore the focus of much forced migration research. Where carried out, field research focused on their relative abilities to cope and adapt to their new circumstances. By way of contrast, those unable to flee across borders were seldom enumerated, consigned instead to ‘collateral damage’ arising from the proxy wars of the period. The drafters of the 1951 Refugee Convention and many of the relief agencies operating in and around war-affected areas since the 1960s were aware of these so-called ‘internal refugees’. But robust scholarly enquiry was constrained by intermittent access and marginal political and popular interest. Many felt it was simply too difficult to fit the phenomenon into contemporary discourse or legal doctrine associated with war, peace, and development. The truth is that internal displacement did not really matter. There were few obvious normative or political gains to drive the agenda and, in any case, attention was focused on bolstering the emerging refugee regime. A dedicated literature on CIDR emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was accompanied and even stimulated as in the case of DIDR, by persistent advocacy and lobbying from a transnational movement composed of non-governmental entities. Prominent among them were the United

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Nations Quakers Office (QUNO) and the American Friends Associations who, together with certain humanitarian and development practitioners, placed a premium on (human) rights- and need-driven assistance. Although the management and response to internal displacement was initially cast as distinct from the protection and permanent solutions endowed to refugees, CIDR discourse and practice borrowed liberally from the refugee field (Hathaway 2006). Early analysts spoke of protecting and providing assistance for internally displaced people, of preparing systems to ensure ‘care and maintenance’ and facilitating ‘durable solutions’ such as local integration, return, and resettlement. Even though the internal displacement issue presented a conundrum to their mandate, UNHCR together with a host of research institutions played a seminal role in setting out the normative architecture of CIDR. Throughout the early 1990s the UNHCR, along side the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) and the United Nations General Assembly, issued a series of resolutions, declarations, statements, and guidelines on the subject of ‘in-country flight alternatives’, return and resettlement – often at the insistence of a core group of donor states (UNGA 1993a, 1993b, 1995). Although not statutorily mandated to advocate on behalf of the internally displaced, the UNHCR mobilised support for them, supported interinstitutional capacities within the UN to respond to their needs, and took the lead to protect and assist them in certain circumstances – usually on the grounds that they were preventing new refugee flows or extending their reach to ‘others of concern’ where programmes already supported refugees. Meanwhile, the Brookings Project on Internal Displacement (renamed the SAIS/CUNY-Brookings Project) also provided an institutional platform for a UN Special Representative on Internal Displacement to carry out his mandate to elaborate Guiding Principles. The conceptualisation of CIDR drew from UNHCR’s evolving experience with local (re)settlement of refugees. In the first few decades of its existence, UNHCR, with the backing of UN member states, promoted third-country resettlement of refugees, particularly where options for repatriation were unavailable (Troeller 1990). Third-country resettlement included the transfer of refugees from the state in which they initially sought asylum in another state that agreed to provide permanent residency. This strategy was adopted for most European refugees following the Second World War as well as for many Latin American and Southeast Asian refugees throughout the Cold War and African refugees following the independence struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. ‘Internment’ or ‘refugee’ camps were comparatively rare during this period and resorted to only as an interim measure (Wigley 2002; Black 1998; van Damme 1995). The strategy of permanent thirdcountry resettlement for refugees soon gave way to two other durable solutions: (voluntary) repatriation and local (re)settlement. Because of their

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relatively low political and economic cost to donor states, repatriation, and local (re)settlement emerged as the preferred durable solution for refugees in developing countries from the late 1970s onwards (Roberts 1998). By the 1980s in-country (re)settlement of refugees became widespread – primarily in Africa. The expansion of ‘local’ (re)settlement can be attributed to two key factors: first, the steadily diminishing interest of western states to process refugees from underdeveloped countries and second, the prominence of a modernisation ideology calling for increased agricultureled development through cheap labour. Notwithstanding the fact that most countries hosting large refugee caseloads already displayed a massive labour surplus, so-called local durable solutions were frequently preferred by refugees themselves, many of whom anticipated swift repatriation. Local (re)settlement was modelled on two prototypes: the refugee camp and the rural (re)settlement scheme. Bakhet (1987) traced the refugee camp model to the early 1960s where it emerged in East Africa – particularly Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. According to Black (1998: 2), camps then as now were ‘large … overcrowded sites that are … dependent on assistance.’ Camps were frequently characterised as holding tanks, remote from line services and intentionally isolated to keep (foreign) populations separated and distinguishable from the local populace. They were distinct from the ‘small open settlements where refugees have been able to maintain a village atmosphere’ that Black (1998) and, later, Schmidt (2003) described as ‘settlements’ or ‘village schemes’. Key characteristics of camps included the active promotion of self reliance coupled with centralised and heavily managed systems of control. Early approaches to the design and management of camps were analogous to the settlement schemes examined by Colson (1971) and others in the case of DIDR. Their design drew consciously on predictable linear models that anticipated an emergency phase; a self-support and transition phase; an integrated settlement phase; and, the eventual possibility of a transfer or handing-over of services to refugees themselves. Owing to early successes with local resettlement in Africa, the camp approach began to spread – often replicating assumptions and lessons derived from the African context to new and challenging environments. It was not until the 1980s and early 1990s that the social consequences of camps came under scrutiny and the issue of ‘protracted refugee situations’ emerged as a concern to the donor community (Crisp 2002; van Damme 1995). The rural (re)settlement scheme emerged as a de facto response to the inherent challenges of accounting for and physically controlling mass refugee influxes in the 1970s and 1980s. Early operational reactions to refugee movements depended less on externally-planned and administered camps then on the hospitality and absorptive capacity of hosting communities. Where there were shared ethnic, religious, linguistic or socio-cultural

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characteristics between host communities and refugees, (rural) resettlement schemes appeared to be more easily administered than large camps (WoldeSelassie 2000; Kibreab 1996a, 1996b; Hansen 1981). Resettlement schemes therefore tended to adopt fewer systems of centralised control than was the case in camps and advocated complementary, rather than parallel, social services for both refugee and hosting populations. Over time resettlement schemes were readily distinguishable from refugee camps. The former put a premium on self-sufficiency in agricultural production, the granting of tenancy rights, an expansion in cash-cropping and in certain cases, permanent integration. According to Neldner (1979: 33), from the earliest days the aim of such planned resettlement schemes was to bring refugees into ‘self-support through agricultural production’ even if on inhospitable, unproductive and marginal land. This particular feature was not lost on many host governments that recognised the opportunities of bringing peripheral land into cultivation, or even of the potential for refugee camps to serve as frontier ‘buffers’ against hostile neighbouring states. Nor was the logic of these schemes missed by many locally resettled refugees who saw in these actions evidence that international support for their ‘cause’ and eventual repatriation was waning (Malkki 1995). During the late 1970s and 1980s donors and hosting states began to agitate for ‘developmental solutions’ in order to prevent new flows of refugees and encourage longer term integration of refugees in lieu of repatriation. Applied refugee scholars and practitioners galvanised around the concept of refugee aid and development (RAD), an approach that acquired shortlived prominence (Betts 1984). RAD drew consciously from thinking in rural integrated development and coincided with growing alarm over the pervasiveness of refugee dependency. Many practitioners felt that rural resettlement schemes offered a viable and long-term alternative to camps because of the way they were linked to existing communities and markets. Donors, multilateral agencies and host governments remained in large part supportive of temporary planned camps for refugee populations with the expectation of eventual repatriation or third country resettlement. The debate over the advantages and disadvantages of camps and resettlement options for internally displaced populations (as compared to refugees) is comparatively new. So-called ‘safe havens’ were formally authorised for the first time in northern Iraq during the first US-led Gulf War in 1991. Over the next decade, dozens of camp-like settlements for IDPs – managed primarily by UN agencies and other relief and development organisations – rapidly emerged from Angola and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Somalia and Sri Lanka. Although the limitations of these de facto camps insofar as durable solutions were widely acknowledged, they offered a new and unprecedented form of ‘in-country protection’ – particularly in situations of war and insecurity. Host governments actively endorsed

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them precisely out of a concern for national security, to attract overseas assistance and to promote civilian protection. Camps were attractive because they allowed internally displaced populations to be controlled and monitored: they served as a means to regulate population movements and as bargaining chips during inter-state negotiations. Acceptance of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (Principles hereafter) by UN member states in the 1990s revealed a nascent commitment to the principle of protecting and achieving durable solutions – including resettlement – for internally displaced populations. The Principles themselves laid out a conceptual and normative framework for advocating, monitoring and promoting (human) rights on their behalf. While the Principles were described by their proponents as the bedrock of an incipient regime for CIDR, critics claimed that they added ‘virtually nothing to the pre-existing corpus of already binding international human rights law’ (Hathaway 2006: 8). Even so, the Principles issued for the first time a definition of internally displaced that included ‘all those who have left their homes and places of habitual residence involuntarily, whatever the circumstances and have not crossed an international frontier.’ They proscribed a set of rights and affirmed the obligation of competent national authorities to assume responsibility to provide and ensure access to basic assistance, regardless of whether IDPs were living in camps or dispersed in cities. Crucially, they set out the fundamental standards for return and resettlement – or durable solutions – in line with international human rights and refugee law (Muggah 2008).

Natural Disaster-Induced Displacement and Resettlement More people are forced to leave their homes owing to natural or environmental ‘disasters’ than development or war (IFRC 2008). However, the effects of these disasters are spatially concentrated: similar disaster types tend to exhibit differentiated impacts depending on the ‘development’ context. Davis and Seitz (1982: 557) noted that natural disasters, while not necessarily more frequent in developing countries, experience disproportionately higher levels of severity (measured as a function of death and displacement). Irrespective of where they emerge, disasters are heterogeneous: they arise in an immense variety of ways. They are also generally understood in relation to their social context: disasters are measured as a function of their ‘effects on human settlements rather than [their] effect on sparsely populated or unpopulated environments’ (Committee on International Disaster Assistance 1978: 26).

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The experience of natural disaster-induced displacement and resettlement (NIDR) occurs at the interface of environmental, social, and technological change. In spite of their monumental (and expanding) scale, there is virtually no empirical research on NIDR. One major impediment to the elaboration of a thick theoretical framework for researching the phenomena is the difficulty in defining what is actually meant by a ‘natural disaster’. As noted by Britton (1986), disasters tend to be more easily recognised than studied. Connoting a complex process with (usually) dramatic ecological consequences, the concept is often narrowly conceived as a single uncontrolled ‘pathogen’ or set of interlocking ‘hazards’ – whether a hurricane, earthquake or flood. Natural disasters are frequently treated as one-off events rather than processes mediated by interrelationships between natural (meteorological or ecological) phenomena and society (Davis and Seitz 1982). The study of disasters as a distinct field of enquiry stretches back to the early twentieth century. Pioneers include physical geographers such as Barrows (1923) and White (1945). They defined natural disasters as causal agents (vectors) that contributed to a sudden and unexpected shock or disruption to an otherwise ‘normal’ social and geo-physical arrangement. In projecting a linear trajectory between a natural disaster on the one hand and social consequences on the other, they explicitly de-link the event from the outcome. The disaster-centric approach emphasises the event and its physical consequences rather than the relationships of the event to a broader social universe. Omitted from these early characterisations of natural disasters were the socio-cultural constructions, relationships, resiliencies, and vulnerabilities of socio-economically and culturally stratified communities, households, and individuals. Natural disasters were neatly detached from those affected, including the internally displaced. Deterministic and mono-causal understandings of natural disasters came under scrutiny in the 1960s and 1970s. For one, the attribution of disasters and their consequences to fate – god or geography – were discredited. Acceptance of alternative explanations emerged incrementally. Most experts accepted that physical location and topography played a role in relation to exposure though disagreed on the ‘human element’ (Glantz 1976; Baker and Chapman 1962). Owing to pressure from social scientists, disaster specialists began to recognise that the resilience of a given society’s social and economic institutions and endowments were critical factors to take into account when modelling the risks and impacts of ecological events. Several disciplinary approaches to studying natural disasters and hazards emerged in the 1970s ranging from geographic to anthropological, sociological, developmental, public health-oriented, and engineeringbased. Arguably for the first time, Hewitt (1983) analysed the relationships

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between natural events and pre-existing structural social conditions, rather than focusing exclusively on the causes or intensity of the disaster itself. Contemporary disaster specialists – including ecologists, meteorologists, human geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists – soon began examining the relationships between the vector, the environment, and the agent as a complex ‘system’ (Benthal 1993). Natural disasters were no longer envisioned as temporary and abrupt disruptions to a stable system, but more importantly as an index of ‘the success or failure of a society to adapt … to certain features of its natural and socially constructed environment in a sustained fashion’ (Oliver-Smith 2006). The specific ways in which natural disasters were conceived influenced conventional approaches to NIDR. For example, analysts working in the natural sciences often interpreted disasters as discrete environmental or ecological events amenable to preventive interventions. Because natural disasters precipitated and aggravated certain forms of risk, they counselled for the preparation of early-warning systems, specialised preventive measures (such as reinforced break walls and structural enhancements to tenements) and responses focused on rehabilitating the built environment. Other approaches drawing from sociology and human geography were more proactive and conceptualised disasters as clusters of inter-connected hazards mediated by pre-existing human or ‘social’ and ‘political’ structural conditions in society. The latter perspective emphasised measures to enhance community resilience, so-called ‘protective factors’, social networks, and longer-term restoration. By the 1980s, as a result of a growing acceptance of multi-disciplinary approaches to natural disaster reduction, approaches to NIDR began for the first time to combine efforts to limit biophysical and environmental risks with efforts to enhance political, economic, and social capital. This more expansive approach to conceiving disasters resulted in a corollary expansion of labelling. The variability of disaster labels contributed to both over and under identification (Davis and Seitz 1982). There is comparatively little original theory development or research on NIDR as a discrete phenomenon. As in the case of CIDR, few scholars examined the causes, approaches to and consequences of NIDR until the 1980s. The most widely recognised include anthropologist Oliver-Smith (1979, 1986; Hansen and Oliver-Smith 1982) and sociologists such as Hewitt (1983) and Drabek (1986). As with applied researchers undertaking ethnographic and policy-oriented assessments of DIDR and CIDR, these scholar-practitioners generated a stylised continuum to describe the various stages of NIDR. Drabek (1986), for example described how NIDR began first with a planning and (early) warning stage before the displacement event which was then followed by evacuation, emergency restoration, and reconstruction. Others challenged this phased approach

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calling for a less Hegelian approach in light of the ways various bureaucratic responses waxed and waned depending on the context (Davis and Seitz 1982). The positioning of NIDR at the intersection of exogenous shocks and endogenous social processes – including human agency, choice and behavioural responses – constituted an innovation that would have farreaching implications for relief planning models more generally (Twigg 2004). Research on NIDR qualitatively and quantitatively expanded in the 1990s. According to Oliver-Smith (1996) new contributions focused on behavioural and organisational responses to traumatic events and social change, the political economy of disaster relief and environmental restoration. A growing number of forced migration researchers also began to include in this category not just those affected by ecological or meteorological shocks, but also people fleeing ‘human-induced’ environmental deterioration in their communities and cities. While not necessarily crossing an international border, ‘environmental’ or ‘climate refugees’ were alleged to have fled from floods and mudslides in heavily eroded areas. They were also displaced due to unsustainable resource use, desertification and uncontrolled population growth and other forms of deterioration in their built environment (Black 1994, 1988). Environmental refugees were believed in some cases to have caused NIDR on account of their (or their immediate societies) ‘backwards’ agricultural and common property resource management strategies. Though not de jure refugees, they faced analogous stigmas that reflected ‘adversity in their homelands … bio-indicators of environmental quality and national indicators of resource management competence’ (El-Hinnawi 1985). Notwithstanding the controversial causal assumptions underpinning the concept, the environmental refugee label is legally incongruous. The definition of a refugee is carefully articulated in the 1951 Refugee Convention and consciously eschews people forced to move as a result of environmental factors. There is mounting concern that ascribing the refugee label to all manner of displacement by advocates and academics: ‘… potentially exposes groups and individuals to accusations of naivety and failing to produce a sound legal basis for their argument. Use of incorrect terminology gives governments grounds to disregard advocacy on behalf of the displaced’ (Romer 2006: 26). Likewise, Hathaway (2006) strongly resists the merging of de jure refugees with others in ‘like’ circumstances for fear of diluting the quality and quantity of refugee assistance. Romer (2006) herself proposed an alternative – ‘environmentally displaced person’ (EDP) – for the basis of advocacy and policy development. The study of NIDR took on a new urgency in the late 1990s as irrefutable evidence of massive environmental degradation and climate change began to emerge. Myers (1997), for example, asserted that desertification,

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deforestation, and soil erosion compounded by natural and humaninduced disasters could result in the NIDR of more than 50 million people each year by 2010. Evidence of large-scale internal displacement and relocation arising from deteriorating habitat was increasingly detected by mainstream forced migration scholars (Leiderman 1996; Forbes 1992). Although heavily criticised, the environmental refugee label took hold and was swiftly absorbed into policy discourse (Castles 2002; Black 2001b). According to Leiderman (1996: 12), environmental refugees included those fleeing: ‘… toxic spills and dump sites, desertification, hydroelectric projects, strip mining, radon and other radiation exposure, severe logging, soil erosion, agricultural land abuse, disease epidemics, defoliation, land mines and other unwitting or intentional human activities.’ Oliver-Smith (2005: 5) continued to challenge this construct, arguing that it was misleading and out of step with evolutions in the NIDR field: by assuming ‘single-agent’ causality they felt the concept denied the political, social, and economic complexities of NIDR. The attribution of (latent) resource degrading habits to so-called environmental refugees also stimulated fierce arguments over the legitimacy of the label (Leach and Fairhead 2000). Undeterred, conflict and security studies specialists began to detect possible relationships between environmental calamities, NIDR and the potential for escalating resource-related conflict and contagion. Political scientists started to investigate the relationships between rapid environmental transformation and collapse, increased exposure and vulnerability to socio-natural hazards, communal tension, and ultimately the incidence of armed conflict and ethnic cleansing (Homer-Dixon 1994, 2000). Criticised for their reified treatment of the issue, they began to identify explicit associations between different categories of displacement and resettlement, including NIDR and CIDR. These (comparative) perspectives introduced, for the first time, compelling ways of interpreting the causes of past and ongoing conflicts that were previously characterised as ethnic or religious in character, or motivated purely by profit and economic advantage. By the end of the 1990s the pendulum swung back again as specialists renewed their focus on vulnerability as an exacerbating factor for NIDR (Twigg 2004). Vulnerability, according to Oliver-Smith (2005: 2), referred to ‘the totality of relationships in a given social situation producing the formation of a condition that, in combination with natural forces, produces a disaster.’ The scale and intensity of internal displacement in the context of disasters was contingent on pre-existing characteristics present in the community and household. The focus on the vulnerability approach in the study of NIDR coincided with Cernea’s (1997) impoverishment risks framework reviewed above. In adopting a vulnerability-first approach, the

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emphasis was less on the ‘natural disaster’ as a mono-causal agent than on the pre-existing patterns of susceptibility (e.g. low income, inadequate health care, spatial location of homes and housing quality, poor education, access to markets, etc.) and the relative resilience (e.g. endowment sets and coping strategies) of those exposed. The idea that natural disasters were ultimately connected to structural and enduring developmental challenges was increasingly accepted by mainstream international agencies and donors. Research during the 1990s demonstrated convincingly that weaker groups suffered most during natural disasters – especially single-headed households, the very young and old, the disabled and those marginalised by religion, race, or caste: ‘[d]isasters are first and foremost a major threat to development and specifically to the development of the poorest and most marginalized people in the world. Disasters seek out the poor and ensure they stay poor’ (Cherpitel, quoted in Twigg 2004: 9). Disasters and NIDR were fast assuming a niche for certain development agencies. The re-orientation of focus on the agency of internally displaced and resettled populations in the context of natural disasters challenged prior assumptions of passivity and dependency-proneness. It was increasingly accepted that the emergence, consequences, and responses to natural disasters had as much to do with pre-existing political, social, and economic asymmetries as with the disaster or hazard ‘events’ themselves. The adoption of a human-centred approach to NIDR revealed how highly stratified communities affected by a common natural disaster such as a tsunami could experience differentiated exposure and risks accorded with, inter alia, income, ethnicity, gender, age, and even political persuasion.

Conclusions The internal displacement and resettlement agenda was shaped by separate clusters of epistemic communities and sustained interaction between scholars and policy makers. Consequently, many foundational concepts and labels used to describe the DIDR, CIDR, and NIDR phenomena were informed by the bureaucratic imperatives of specific groups of international agencies and governments. Predictably, a lively debate persists amongst a multi-disciplinary network of forced migration scholars over the parameters of core concepts. The discourse and practice of internal displacement and resettlement is therefore contested and often blurred. A unitary approach to researching displacement and resettlement can potentially bridge latent segmentation in forced migration studies. In revealing the common approaches to modelling the causes of, and responses to, forced migration, it is possible to see how different categories of displaced

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and resettled populations share more commonalities than frequently assumed. Comparative analysis also highlights the similar political and economic interests and agendas that underlie the process while revealing opportunities for learning and sharing between potentially disconnected epistemological communities. Likewise, a comparative assessment reveals the common effects and pathologies associated with resettlement and ways of potentially minimising them. As noted by Cernea (2005: 26) almost three decades later, investment in interdisciplinary and comparative research can potentially ‘influence the public arena by mutually reinforcing their policy advocacy and operational recommendations.’ Cernea in particular was concerned with the persistent ‘unjustified dichotomies’ in the forced migration literature and an absence of meta-theory building. Though separate ‘streams’ of enquiry co-existed, he detected little meaningful collaboration between experts focused on oustees and specialists concerned with refugees. Nevertheless, a basic level of consensus on core concepts is required if the forced migration field is to mature. As signalled by Ostrom (1986: 4) ‘no scientific field can advance far if the participants do not share a common understanding of key terms.’ Despite a recent rapprochement between certain policy makers, practitioners and academics working on DIDR, CIDR, and NIDR and instinctive agreement on certain basic concepts, there is comparatively little evidence of a robust dialogue between specialists seized by different categories of internal displacement and resettlement. A self conscious and critical application of terminology and a unitary approach to researching the issue is critical.

Notes 1. This chapter draws from Muggah, R. 2008. Relocation Failures in Sri Lanka: A Short History of Displacement and Resettlement, London: Zed Books. 2. See, for example, Principles 29 and 30 of the UN (1998) Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement that outline the rights and entitlements for those people who choose to ‘voluntarily’ pursue resettlement. 3. See, for example, the work of Picciotto et al. (2001); Mathur (2000); de Wet (2000b); McDowell (1996a); Rew et al. (1996); Cernea (1991); and Appell and Appell-Warren (1985).

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When Does Mobility Matter for Migrants to Colombo? Michael Collyer

Introduction The internally displaced person (IDP) label, as a category of forced internal migrants, has obvious problems which have not gone unchallenged over the years in which it has been widely used. Most controversially, it privileges migrants over those who stayed behind, even though people who could not migrate may be more vulnerable. Even those who do move face a broad spectrum of possible vulnerabilities. For some, mobility may resolve the issues they faced at their point of origin, so they no longer face any risk and integrate into society with few problems. For others, movement does not reduce or can even exacerbate the threat to their lives, or introduce new threats. There are echoes here of the debate instigated in the late 1980s that challenged the dichotomy between forced and voluntary migration (Richmond 1988; Black 1994; Koser 1997), and led to the acceptance of what two decades later is seen as a blurred boundary between the two. Though that debate also applies to IDP movement, it is not the main focus of this chapter. Rather than examining the blurred boundaries between migration and displacement at the beginnings of displacement, the salience of the IDP category has more recently been investigated by focusing on its end (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, 2007). The Brookings-Bern study recognises that ‘the end of displacement is achieved when the persons concerned no longer have specific protection and assistance needs related to their having been displaced, and thus can enjoy their human rights in a non-discriminatory manner vis-à-vis citizens

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who were never displaced’ (2007: 9). This echoes the basic principle of equality that underlines most international human rights conventions and is reflected in principle 1.1 of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement: IDPs shall enjoy ‘in full equality, the same rights and freedoms under international and domestic law as do other persons in their country. They shall not be discriminated against in the enjoyment of any rights and freedoms on the grounds that they are internally displaced.’ The Brookings-Bern study suggests that the fulfilment of this first principle also marks the end of displacement. This in turn suggests a precision in the now famous definition of displacement, found in the introduction of the Guiding Principles: IDPs are not only ‘persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes’ for one of the reasons mentioned and ‘who have not crossed an internationally recognised State border’ but also those whose displacement differentiates them from other citizens in terms of their enjoyment of rights and freedoms. In other words, IDPs are those people forced to move whose mobility continues to matter. Once their mobility is no longer relevant, they cease to be IDPs. The question of differential treatment is well established for the many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of IDPs living in substandard, makeshift or temporary accommodation in designated camps. For the larger numbers of IDPs outside such defined institutions, identifying when, how and why mobility matters is more challenging. This chapter examines when mobility matters for individuals from conflict affected areas of north and east Sri Lanka living in Colombo, based on ongoing research. Sri Lanka provides an important case study of IDP movement since not only are IDPs numerically significant but, unlike many other locations of largescale displacement, the IDP category is clearly defined and responses have long been firmly institutionalised, amongst international organisations and within the government itself (Clarance 2007). The migration from the conflict-affected north and east of the country to Colombo is one of the most significant internal migrations in Sri Lanka though, with very few exceptions, migrants to Colombo are not considered as IDPs by either governmental or non-governmental institutions. The definitional question in itself is politically important since re-categorisation may result in a change in the official policy response towards these migrants. This leads to the more fundamental question tackled in this chapter: not whether a certain group of individuals should be labelled as IDPs or not but how and why mobility is important to their lives. The chapter argues that, in the case of Sri Lanka at least, the attitude of state institutions towards mobility is the principal determinant of when mobility matters. This is inevitably shaped by the ways in which movement is measured and recorded. The chapter examines the context of mobility and vulnerability in three sections. The following section sets IDP movements in Sri Lanka and

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migration to Colombo in historical and political context, using census data and other secondary sources. These data suggest a close correlation between conflict and migration to Colombo. Data from the 2001 census were used to identify locations for survey research in the city, which is presented in the second section of the chapter. This research has identified classification of mobility, rather than mobility itself as an important determinant of vulnerability. Finally, the chapter turns to the significance of state practice in identifying migrants and the ways in which these have translated into targeted threats against migrant groups. In Colombo the risk deemed to be posed by a particular individual relates to their perceived level of belonging to the space of the city. Research on which this chapter was based was completed before the final violent months of conflict in the North of Sri Lanka in April and May 2009. The end of conflict operations has obviously changed the context of displacement in Sri Lanka though, given the political developments over the year since the absolute victory of the Sri Lankan army, many of the chapter’s conclusions remain valid. Movement out of the conflict affected areas was seen as a threat by the state, one reason for the internment of approximately 350,000 IDPs. The anticipated incorporation (in April 2010) of the Department of Immigration and Emigration into the Ministry of Defence suggests that movement has come to be seen as more, rather than less of a security threat since the end of the conflict.

Historical and Political Contexts of Migration to Colombo According to the 2001 census 206,310 individuals in Colombo, just under a third of the city’s population, were lifetime migrants from outside Colombo district, Half of these migrants came from just five of the 24 districts and one fifth came from the district of Jaffna alone, in the far north of the country. The north and east of Sri Lanka have suffered most from conflict. Migration from this area, the districts of Jaffna, Killinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa (see Figure 1), accounted for 25 per cent of all lifetime migration to Colombo at the time of the 2001 census, or 8.5 per cent of the entire population of the city. All seven districts either have majority Tamil or large minority Tamil populations. They are also all in the dry zone and are therefore characterised by extremely low population densities. Since the 2001 census was not completed in any of these districts it is impossible to know their exact current populations though it is certain that individuals from these districts are very significantly overrepresented amongst migrants to Colombo.

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Figure 4.1 District map of Sri Lanka, showing 5 principle districts of origin, accounting for 50% of all lifetime migrants to Colombo with the percentage of total migration and all districts numbered in order of significance. Source 2001 Census of Population and Housing.

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It is difficult to chart the history of these migrations, as the census does not record the date of migration from these areas. Since the 2001 census was not complete, information from areas of origin cannot be used to supplement the Colombo information. There was no census in 1991. The most recent complete census was in 1981 and that did not include a question on migration. Despite these gaps in the data, it is possible to piece together an historical account from what little information is available. Since independence Sri Lanka has experienced regular episodes of organised violence across the country (Hoole et al. 1990). The anti-Tamil riots at the end of July 1983 were amongst the most dramatic and signalled a major escalation in the level of violence that retains an important place in the collective consciousness of Sri Lankans in general and Tamils in particular. They resulted in mass destruction of Tamil property, the deaths of an estimated 3,000 Tamil civilians and the violent displacement of as many as 200,000 more. As now, Colombo was home to the largest Tamil population outside the northeast and was inevitably a significant focus of the violence. Although published accounts and analysis of this period consider the events in varying ways, the catastrophic extent of displacement from Colombo is a common thread (e.g. Kanapathipillai 1990). Many people had nowhere else to go, but those who did would have left the city. Although there is no statistical data available, the weight of evidence suggests that for some time after July 1983, there were virtually no migrants from the north east living in Colombo. Since July 1983 Sri Lanka has experienced more or less continual conflict, interspersed with short periods of relative peace. By 1987, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had established dominance over four other major Tamil armed groups. Ceasefires were agreed between the government and the LTTE from July 1987 to July 1990, January to April 1995 and February 2002 to January 2008, though all three were regularly violated. Fighting between government forces and the LTTE has been concentrated in the north and east. The town of Jaffna, the most densely populated part of the northeast has been continuously unstable, though attacks on civilians have occurred all over the country and the south was particularly affected by an armed insurrection by a notionally Marxist, Sinhala party in 1989–90. The most recent ceasefire was first violated by the assassination of Lakshman Kadiragama, the foreign minister in August 2005, which resulted in the declaration of a state of emergency. Fighting intensified from July 2006 and in January 2008 the government formalised the return to conflict by withdrawing from the ceasefire, announcing intensified hostilities in the north. Conflict intensified from January 2009 and the government declared victory over the LTTE in May 2009, though with widespread accusations of war crimes against the civilian Tamil population over the last months of the war (ICG 2010).

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The exodus of Tamils from Colombo following the 1983 riots suggests that the vast majority of the 51,144 migrants from the north and east residing in Colombo at the time of the 2001 census arrived after July 1983 against this background of regular and sustained conflict in their districts of origin (Siddharthan 2003). The 2002 ceasefire resulted in a significant return migration, but in response to renewed fighting in the north and east since 2006 migration to Colombo has again increased. In August 2006 the A9, the main road linking Jaffna to the rest of the country, was officially closed and the only routes out of Jaffna were by sea to Trincomalee or by air direct to Colombo, both highly controlled and expensive. In October 2008 the A9 remained closed. The long waiting times for travel by both of these routes have meant that individuals from Jaffna with periodic business in Colombo, such as visa applicants or hospital out-patients, have little alternative but to relocate long-term. The continued northward advance of the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) from June 2008 onwards was thought to be producing as many as 15,000 newly-displaced families in the north each month. The LTTE attempted to prevent individuals leaving the areas that they controlled. The SLA endeavoured to contain those who did manage to escape in closed camps. However, given the poor conditions of these camps, significant onward movement was inevitable. On 20 September 2008, the government’s concerns surrounding the growing Tamil population in Colombo prompted a ‘census’ of all Tamils from the north and east who had come to Colombo in the previous five years, and long queues formed outside police stations as people sought to comply. This information does not suggest that all 51,144 migrants to Colombo from areas experiencing conflict since 2001 should properly be considered IDPs, but probably tens of thousands should. The high levels of violence and insecurity in their districts of origin must inevitably have played a significant role in their decision to move to Colombo but they were not necessarily the only or even the main reasons for migration. According to an interview with a representative of the Resettlement Ministry, at the end of 2007 the government recognised 1,925 individuals (385 families) living in Colombo as IDPs. More than one third of these individuals are Muslims expelled from Jaffna in 1990 who are now living in a recognised IDP camp in the city. The remaining 250 families live in private accommodation. Of these 250 families, 100 are also Muslim and have lived in Colombo since 1990. The remaining 150 are Tamils from the north and east. The most recent family to be recognised arrived in 2004, during the ceasefire. In order to be recognised as an IDP outside a context of mass recognition, as occurs in IDP camps, the head of household has to present a case, including a letter from the grama sevaka (the lowest level of local government official) of their home area, to their local Colombo grama

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sevaka. The Resettlement Ministry were not able to say how many requests they had received. Though it seems that they are rarely refused, there are simply not many applications. There is little incentive to register, the only benefit of recognition is a monthly dry ration, the value of which has not been increased since 1990 and still stands at 1,290 rupees (about US$12) for a family of six or more and 960 rupees (about $9) for smaller families. The complexity of this process, involving difficult or dangerous return to the area they left to obtain the correct documents, and lack of significant reward even if they are successful, suggests that there are likely to be many other migrants in Colombo who moved there for protection related reasons but have not taken the trouble to register as IDPs. There has not been any research conducted on IDP movements to Colombo so this research is a first attempt to explain the significant movement from conflict affected areas.

Vulnerability, Security, and Migration to Colombo The research on which this chapter is based began in January 2007, with the aim of identifying reasons for which individuals from conflict-affected areas migrate to Colombo and investigating their experiences when they arrive. Further information from the 2001 census was used to identify the areas with the highest concentration of migrants in the city. There are two clear concentrations of migrants from the northeast in Colombo (Figure 2). The southern area, around the wards of Wellawatte North and South, is a relatively recent area of settlement for migrants from the north and east and is much wealthier. The northern area is centred around the five wards of Kotahena West, Kotahena East, Gintupitiya, Kochikade North, and Lunupokuna. It is much closer to the historic core of the city, which is now a middle and working class area, a more established focus of Tamil settlement, and initially focused around employment in the nearby docks (Manawadu 2003). The northern area was selected for this research. Research involved a questionnaire survey of 100 households in this area. This was supplemented by 25 in-depth interviews with these individuals. A related survey of budget boarding houses, known locally as ‘lodges’, in the same area resulted in a further 100 questionnaires in lodge rooms with maximum of six inhabitants. This has also been supplemented by 25 indepth interviews and a variety of focus groups with lodge residents. Initial contact was made by direct house-to-house enquiries in the five wards selected, asking if there were any migrants from elsewhere in Sri Lanka living in the house. The phrase used in Tamil, which is the most common language in this area, was the most neutral possible: veru mavatham makkal, ‘people from other districts’. Where people reported that there were no such people, they were asked if there were any living nearby.

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Figure 4.2 Colombo Metropolitan Area by ward showing concentrations of migrants from north and east (source 2001 census). NB: there are 47 wards so an equal division would result in 2.13% in each ward. The divisions therefore show half, 1.25, 1.75 and twice this share.

All 200 migrants interviewed were originally from the seven districts of the north and east highlighted in Figure 1, though the large majority were from Jaffna. All had arrived in Colombo since 1995. This included two households which had lived in Colombo prior to 1983, returned to Jaffna in

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the immediate aftermath of the riots in July, and subsequently come back to Colombo after having been displaced from their homes in Jaffna district as fighting intensified after 1990. The most striking finding of this research is the dominance of security as one of the main explanations offered for migration to Colombo. The questionnaire included one closed question, asking respondents to evaluate the importance of six factors in influencing their migration to Colombo: wages are higher, jobs are easier to find, to be with family, children’s education, to travel abroad, or because they were worried about the security situation at home and they thought that Colombo would be safer. This was followed by an open question asking why they came to Colombo which provided the opportunity for more detail. More than two-thirds of the 200 migrants questioned cited an improvement in their personal security as either important or very important in their decision to come to Colombo, by far the most significant of all six categories (Figure 3). The second most significant category, ‘to go abroad’, cited as important or very important by 40 per cent of respondents, was also almost always motivated by a desire for personal security and safety. The obvious economic reasons relating to wages and jobs were the least significant factors, cited by 15 and 26 per cent of individuals respectively, the majority of whom also cited security. Our pilot survey did not pick up the importance of hospital visits, so this was not included as a separate category but came out in the open question. Accessing hospitals or health care that was not available in the north and east was the main reason for migration to Colombo for 11 per cent of those questioned and this always included at least one family member of the individual requiring treatment. The questionnaire survey began in July 2007. The deterioration in the political and security climate that began with the declaration of the state

Figure 4.3 Reasons for coming to Colombo (source: research data) N=200 NB: multiple responses were possible.

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of emergency in 2005 had continued. Terrorist attacks in the city were a relatively common occurrence, usually targeting the public transport network and resulting in a small number of deaths each month. Targeted assassinations, disappearances, and killings were also common and our research area was particularly vulnerable. A journey of a few miles in Colombo was likely to result in as many as three or four stops at security checkpoints, and armed soldiers lined major roads every thirty yards. Houses in majority Tamil areas were searched by the army and police on at least a monthly basis and lodges were receiving as many as two or three visits a week by security forces, usually in the early hours of the morning. Anyone coming to Colombo from the north and east for more than a day had to register with the police, reporting where they were staying, why they were there and how long they were expecting to stay. House searches and checkpoints are an inconvenience and an indignity for those who have to experience them, particularly on a regular basis, but for many people they represent a much greater threat. On 7 June 2007, soon after we began our research, the army and police attempted to evict Tamils from the north and east living temporarily in Colombo. A total of 376 people were taken from their homes or lodges and put on buses to the border with LTTE controlled territory in Vavuniya, 250km away (IASC 2007). The government claimed that they were staying in Colombo with no valid reason and this was simply facilitating their voluntary return. The fact that it took place in the middle of the night, individuals were given only a few minutes to pack, and according to media reports the majority have since returned, undermines this claim. These evictions fit more obviously into the history of controlled or encouraged migration in Sri Lanka born of a nationalist concern with the ‘purity’ of populations (Spencer 2004). The 200 households in which our research was conducted included one woman who was evicted at this time. She explained: I didn’t understand. I didn’t think I could get to Jaffna and I certainly didn’t want to go. Some people protested and ran away but I was alone. […] They said I had to get on the bus. […] We travelled for the rest of the night and at Vavuniya [the town the furthest north in the government controlled area at the time] they told us all to get off. We were told not to come back to Colombo but most of us had to.

She returned to Colombo as soon as she was able to borrow money for the bus fare back. In response to a petition brought by a local NGO, the Supreme Court immediately issued an interim order preventing further evictions and has since ruled such evictions unconstitutional (CPA 2008). Nevertheless, the use of state machinery on a mass scale to intimidate Tamil migrants in Colombo has had a significant psychological impact.

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The high level of human right abuses in Colombo has had an equally significant impact on attitudes and behaviour, though it is much more difficult to establish the reasons or the organisations behind the abuses. According to the Law and Society Trust, a local NGO, there were 87 disappearances in Colombo during 2007 (LST 2008), though this is likely to reflect a significant under-reporting. Our relatively small sample of 200 households was not representative, but it was certainly not purposively sampled to identify victims of human rights abuses. Even so, we encountered three people awaiting news of relatives who had disappeared and three who had been kidnapped and released, all of whom had been beaten and two of whom had been threatened with death if they did not leave Colombo. Kidnapping and disappearances follow the similar pattern of people being manhandled into the back of white vans, without number plates, to the extent that ‘white van disappearances’ and even just ‘white vans’ have become a shorthand for crimes with no obvious perpetrator that in all likelihood will never be solved. Both of the individuals who had been kidnapped and threatened attributed blame to groups associated with the security forces. Other reports of abuse in Colombo report similar findings (HRW 2007). Others were victims of more clearly established state sanctioned abuse: five individuals were attempting to secure the release of a family member who had been arrested and of whom they had no further news; 12 had been arrested and released without charge, usually following mistreatment or torture. In total, almost ten per cent of our sample had direct experience of major human rights abuse. While it would be surprising if anyone reported abuse who had not suffered it, it is far more likely that individuals suffered abuse but did not feel comfortable discussing it with us, so this, again, is likely to be an underestimate. Since the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement there has been plenty of evidence of a pattern of human rights abuses in Colombo, which focuses disproportionately on Tamils and particularly on Tamil migrants. Those who reported that they came to Colombo in search of enhanced personal security were bitterly disappointed, though many were still reluctant to return to Jaffna where they feared the situation would be worse. Yet our research found that the principle reason for migrating to Colombo had no relationship with the negative experiences of abuse once they arrived. Although migrants typically reported a continual fear and many intentionally restricted their movements to avoid contact with security forces, the majority had no direct experience of anything more than humiliation and relatively low level harassment at the hands of security forces. Those who had experienced severe abuse were in a minority and they included those who had come to Colombo seeking protection, following multiple displacements in the north and east, and those who had

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come for medical treatment or work. Neither mobility, nor the principle reason for mobility appears to offer a clear explanation for the vulnerability of individuals once they reached Colombo. The common factor amongst those who had experienced severe harassment or abuse was the way in which their mobility was recorded by the Sri Lankan state apparatus.

Registering and Recording Mobility to Colombo The treatment of migrants in Colombo is not directly related to their mobility but to three associated factors; language, perceived ethnicity, and, most of all, the way in which their mobility is recorded. Language is relatively clear; although Tamil speakers formed the majority of the population of Colombo at the time of the 2001 census, only one individual in the 200 households interviewed reported meeting a police officer in Colombo who could speak Tamil, and that had happened only once in the 13 years he had been resident in the city. An inability to speak Sinhala is therefore a serious handicap in negotiating the ubiquitous checkpoints and communicating with police and army during regular house searches. More importantly, an inability to speak Sinhala indicates a lack of belonging to Colombo which, despite its demographics, remains a resolutely Sinhala city in the minds of the police officers and army who guard it. Much like the caricature of the British officers who once patrolled the same streets, they are proud of their broad-minded multicultural understanding having nothing against people from elsewhere, as long as they speak the right language. Like border guards everywhere, police officers working checkpoints rely on a rudimentary anthropological understanding to categorise and interpret ethnicity that goes beyond the language spoken. There is considerable flexibility to encourage alternative understandings amongst those passing through by changing dress styles, body language, times, and locations which was widely appreciated by interviewees who had spent some time in Colombo and has been extensively commented on (e.g. Schrijvers 1999). Particular performances of ethnicity at checkpoints, in which ethnicity is obviously and actively socially constructed, contrast starkly with the essentialist understanding of ethnicity imposed by the Sri Lankan state through the census and approximated in the National Identity Card (NIC), the essential tool to pass through the checkpoint. Although the NIC does not mention ethnicity, it is interpreted, along with other signs to provide particular indications about the degree of the bearer’s belonging to the particular space they are in. Pradeep Jeganathan (2004) identifies the significance of a detailed reading of the NIC to highlight the contradictions of citizenship in Sri Lanka, but it is its role in locating citizens that is most relevant here. These ‘tiny compasses’ ( Jeganathan 2004: 79) help to place

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individuals within the geographical, socio-cultural, and ultimately political context of Sri Lanka. The information on the NIC, which includes the place of birth and place of current residence may be used to categorise individuals in one of three ways. First are those individuals who were born and officially reside in the place where they are currently present, in Colombo. These people are ‘in-place’. There may be some concern if they appear to be Tamil, but the fact that they are in-place is reassuring and, in any case, they are likely to speak good Sinhala and to be adept at the required performances of encounters with authorities. This group of people were not the subject of this research, though during a related project with returnees from the U.K. I met a woman, Rajani, who illustrates their situation. She was 28 at the time of interview, and was born and grew up in Colombo. She studied in the U.K. and returned to Colombo to take up a professional office job. She speaks fluent Sinhala, but even so, when asked if she ever experienced racism in Colombo, she replied ‘every day, at checkpoints I wait longer, in the office I have to keep my mouth shut when my Sinhala colleagues talk about “the Tamils” as if they are all terrorists.’ Despite this type of insensitivity from her colleagues and harassment at checkpoints she had never been victim of more serious incidents, and she has access to the resources and the confidence needed to respond if necessary. The second category is those who were born elsewhere but who nonetheless are officially recorded as being resident in Colombo. These people are ‘migrants’. This group, at least those who had arrived in Colombo since 1995, were the target population of this research. Their movement is potentially troubling to the authorities. A place of birth in the conflict affected north and east would be a particular reason for attention, but their movement has been categorised and effectively accommodated by the state. They are also likely to have some experience with correct responses to security encounters. Branavan*, a 42-year-old construction worker, born in Jaffna, had lived in Colombo for 10 years when he was interviewed. He admitted that he struggled a little in Sinhala and it was immediately apparent that he was Tamil when he spoke. I asked him if he had any strategies to make life easier getting round Colombo, he was uncomfortable with the question, but eventually replied: Branavan: I pretend to be Sinhala M ichael Collyer: How do you do that? Branavan: I’m very quiet. I show my ID card quickly. I don’t say much, only answer questions.

Branavan faced more difficulties, but he also had the language ability and the experience to identify potentially dangerous situations and the skills to make himself inconspicuous. *all names used are pseudonyms

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Finally, the most vulnerable category of people are those who are defined by their NIC as being ‘out of place’, those people who were neither born, nor are currently official residents of Colombo. The size and significance of this group was the surprise discovery of this research. It is this last group that is most threatening to the established order or ‘purity’ of the state; their movement has not been made legible by its inclusion in their NIC. Official residences are technically supposed to be changed after living six months in a new place, though many people in this category have lived in Colombo considerably longer. Even so, an individual in this category is likely to have come very recently from elsewhere. If they are from the northeast this will inevitably be problematic and will single out individuals for attention. Gaya, a 38-year-old woman had come to Colombo with her husband and two children soon after her husband had escaped an assassination attempt in Jaffna. They had been in Colombo for 10 months at the time of our last interview. While he remained in hiding, she took care of the children and took him food regularly. She was too scared to even attempt to register with the police. Her Sinhala was extremely rudimentary. Her two children, aged six and nine, did not attend school and the family only left the house to buy food or visit Gaya’s husband. They rarely had enough to eat and lived in a single room with no furniture in very poor quality housing. Gaya lived in a state of despair and during the course of a series of interviews over the space of six months her situation deteriorated disturbingly. ‘When I think I can’t go on living like this, I remember what it was like in Jaffna, then I think “we have to stay here”, but I can’t, we can’t live like this.’ An individual in any of these three categories may technically fit the IDP definition of the Guiding Principles and all three may be migrants. Most of the 1,925 recognised IDPs in Colombo fall into the migrants category, since they have registered a change of address. I do not wish to suggest that the first two categories are invulnerable; indeed, Ranjani’s and Branavan’s stories illustrate the difficulties they face and some of the most high profile human rights abuses, such as the assassination of the MP Maheshwaran in January 2008, have occurred to well-established individuals. Yet, the in-place and the migrants from the north east have more resources to draw upon and much greater experience of the survival strategies necessary in Colombo and perhaps most importantly, an officially sanctioned relationship with the state. It is only the out of place whose movement is still relevant, since they still do not belong in Colombo in a civic-administrative and therefore social and political sense. They are outside of the protection of the state. Being outside of state protection dramatically increases their vulnerability. This increased vulnerability is caused by the fact that they do not exist in any administrative sense and so the state has no duty of care towards them. This prevented their uptake of services; they received no state support, their children could not be registered in schools, and even

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receiving basic medical care provoked genuine concern. They could not open back accounts, pay utility bills, or take up any official employment. All of the usual relationships of patronage with political institutions which poorer people rely on to supply certain benefits and even sometimes employment, were denied to them. Most seriously, since they had no official existence mistreating them carried no significant sanction. Some police officers, of course, treated them well, but those who did not suffered no consequences. The out-of-place face tremendous difficulties in reporting disappearances of family members or in tracing individuals who had been arrested. The vulnerability faced by this group intersects with other vulnerabilities, but in surprising ways. The vast majority of victims of disappearance, incommunicado detention or assassination in Colombo have been young men (LST 2008). There is undoubtedly significant under-reporting of violence against women, particularly rape and sexual abuse, but the greatest dangers appear to affect men most severely. They are seen as more of a threat by the army and face greatest risks of forcible recruitment into the LTTE or other armed groups. This was the reason why Gaya’s husband remained in hiding while, despite the tremendous difficulties she faced, she had been able to move around the city without serious problems for ten months. Another example of the risks young men face is found in Kesevan and Jeevan. The two brothers were both large men, over six feet tall and very well built. They were staying with their relatively frail mother in one lodge room where we conducted interviews. I asked how often they left the lodge:

Interviewee: We don’t really like to leave the lodge by ourselves, so she [mother] usually comes with us. M ichael Collyer: Is that because you don’t like to leave her alone here? Interviewee: (laughs) no, it’s because we need her to protect us!

Their point was a serious one, the two well built six foot men appeared a lot less threatening at checkpoints if they were accompanied by their five foot two, slight, elderly mother. The less individuals in the out of place category drew attention to themselves, the more they depended only on the mercy and humanity of police officers and the less in danger they were likely to be. It is impossible to judge the size of the out-of-place category accurately. It is not likely to be much larger than the 15,000 people from the north east who live in lodges, or between two and three per cent of the population of Colombo. Yet this group is victim to the majority of serious abuses. All individuals we interviewed who had experienced serious human rights abuses in Colombo were out of place. Mano Ganessan, a Member of Parliament for Colombo and director of the Civil Monitoring Commission, a Colombo based human rights organisation, estimates that 75 per cent of all

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victims of killings and disappearances in Colombo are also in this category. All of those evicted from Colombo in June 2007 were, in the government’s understanding, out of place, and continue to face aggressive harassment. Even for some time in late 2007, they were subject to a ‘Colombo visa’, a piece of paper valid for a four month stay which was handed to people registering at the police station, enabling those who stay longer to be targeted for more direct intimidation. As the national political situation has deteriorated it is becoming more and more difficult for individuals in this situation to register in Colombo, and registration is not possible for those living in lodges. It is not their migration in itself which is responsible for this degree of vulnerability, but the way in which their migration has been registered and recorded.

Conclusion Migration to Colombo is amongst the largest internal migrations in Sri Lanka. The figure of 51,144 individuals living in Colombo previously from the north and east, recorded in the 2001 census provides an indication of the size of this movement. In the immediate aftermath of the riots of July 1983 it is likely that there was a very high net migration out of Colombo to the north and east of the country and a significant return migration from Colombo to the north and east was also a feature of the 2002 ceasefire, at least until the state of emergency was declared in August 2005. At other times, particularly since 2006, individuals have arrived in very significant numbers from the north and east. There are undoubtedly a number of reasons behind this movement, major hospitals, important government departments and all foreign embassies are located in Colombo. However, our research suggests that the most important reason for this movement is a search for peace and safety that is denied to people of the north and east. Life in Colombo, particularly living in lodges, is expensive. However, migrants to Colombo have certain advantages over those individuals who remain trapped in government IDP camps with restricted movement or those unable to leave LTTE controlled territory. Everyone interviewed for this research was well acquainted with the dangers following multiple previous displacements. In some respects, therefore, Colombo is more secure. Escaping the indignity and continual insecurity of life in the northeast is a rare opportunity which was frequently supported with the help of family or friends overseas. Yet it is a mistake to see migrants to Colombo as just like IDPs in the north and east but with access to more resources. For many, coming to Colombo is an act of desperation following a direct attack on them or a member of their family, particularly in the case of the death of a close family member. Coming to Colombo offers the hope of getting out of

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Sri Lanka altogether, although for many this is a sadly unrealisable dream which leads to the amassing of debts in poor accommodation. For all of these people Colombo holds a new range of dangers which have increased since 2006. As mentioned in the introduction, the end of the war in May 2009 does not appear to have fundamentally altered this context. At first sight, the dangers faced by migrants to Colombo appear random and unpredictable. Closer analysis suggests that this is not the case. Vulnerability is closely related to the way in which government institutions classify and record movement. Those people who came to Colombo seeking protection may perhaps be defined as IDPs, and if the status were to offer them significant advantages they might attempt to officially register. However, the only difference registration provides is an unreliable supply of a few packets of sugar or tea a month is only relevant for the very poorest. Under these circumstances, increasing the recognition rate of IDPs will not change the situation significantly. What matters is official residence in Colombo. Once they have achieved this they continue to face racism and harassment on a daily basis. Unfortunately this is the fate of most Tamils in Colombo, even those who were born in the city. In this sense, IDPs are no longer discriminated due to their displaced status, but due to their ethnicity. This remains unacceptable, but nevertheless, their chances of suffering serious human rights abuses fall dramatically when their residence is registered and their mobility fits within the logic of the government’s structures. Mobility to Colombo matters most when it falls outside of accepted classification systems – when migrants appear out of place. Under these circumstances, whatever the reason for their movement, their vulnerability increases.

References Black, R. 1994. ‘Political Refugees or Economic Migrants.’ Migration 25. Brookings Institution – University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement (Brookings-Bern) 2007. When Displacement Ends: A Framework for Durable Solutions. Washington: Brookings Bern. Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) 2008. ‘CPA Welcomes Court Order on Evictions.’ Press Release 5 May 2008. Clarance, W. 2007. Ethnic Warfare in Sri Lanka and the UN Crisis. Colombo, Vijitha Yappa and London: Polity Press. Hoole, R., Somasundaram, D., Sritharan, K., and Thiranagama, R. 1990. The Broken Palmyra. Claremont (CA): Harvey Mudd College Press. Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2007. Sri Lanka: Return to War: Human Rights Under Siege. New York: HRW. Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 2007. Conflict Related Internal Displacement in Sri Lanka: a study of forced displacement, freedom of movement, return and relocation April 2006 – July 2007. Colombo: IASC.

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International Crisis Group (ICG) 2010. War Crimes in Sri Lanka. Asia Report no. 191, Brussels: ICG. Jeganathan, P. 2004. ‘Checkpoint: Anthropologies, Identity and the State’ in Das, V. and Poole, D. (eds.) Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press: 67–80. Kanapathipillai, V. 1990. ‘July 1983: the Survivor’s Experience’ in V. Das (ed.) Mirrors of Violence. New Delhi: 321–44. Koser, K. 1997. ‘Social Networks and the Asylum Cycle: the Case of Iranians in the Netherlands.’ International Migration Review 31(3). Law and Society Trust 2008. Summary of Killings and Disappearances January – December 2007 unpublished report, Colombo: LST. Manawadu, L. 2003. ‘Ethnic Segregation in the City of Colombo.’ Sri Lanka Journal of Population Studies 6: 61–78. Richmond, A. 1988. ‘Sociological Theories of International Migration: the Case of Refugees.’ Current Sociology 36(2): 7–25. Schrijvers, J. 1999. ‘Fighters, Victims and Survivors: Constructions of Ethnicity, Gender and Refugeeness among Tamils in Sri Lanka.’ Journal of Refugee Studies 12(3): 307–333. Siddhartan, M. 2003. ‘Negotiating ‘Tamilness’: a Case Study of Jaffna Tamil Migrants to Colombo since 1990.’ Building Local Capacities for Peace. Meyer, M., Rajasingham-Senanayake, D., and Thangarajah, Y. Delhi: Macmillan India: 305–320. Spencer, J. 2004. ‘A Nation ‘Living in Different Places’: Notes on the Impossible Work of Purification in Post-colonial Sri Lanka.’ Migration, Modernity and Social Transformation in South Asia. Gardner, K. and Osella, F. New Delhi: Sage: 1–24.

Profiling Urban IDPs: How IDPs Differ From Their Non-IDP Neighbours in Three Cities Karen Jacobsen

Introduction In 2007, the number of people displaced by conflict and violence within their own countries stood at an estimated 26 million, in 52 countries (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2008). Perhaps as many as half of these internally displaced persons (IDPs) migrate to urban areas, particularly the capital, where they blend into the population of urban poor and migrants. Globally, it is almost impossible to estimate the number of urban IDPs with any accuracy, but an educated guess by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) puts them at about half of all IDPs. Our knowledge and understanding of this population, including whether and how their problems differ from their non-displaced neighbours, is still in very early stages, and there is disagreement about the nature of an appropriate humanitarian response. One argument is that IDPs are simply urban migrants, facing the same problems and no better or worse off than those who migrate to cities for work or because they have lost their livelihoods. By contrast, many advocacy organisations argue that urban IDPs are as vulnerable as rural IDPs and should therefore be similarly assisted with humanitarian resources. At least two empirical questions arise from this quandary: first, can IDPs be distinguished from

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other urban migrants? Second, do IDPs face greater protection and livelihood difficulties than the urban poor amongst whom they live? These questions were among those addressed in a recent study of IDPs in three cities, conducted jointly by the Feinstein International Centre (FIC) at Tufts University and IDMC. This chapter describes our approach and some key findings, and discusses the implications for humanitarian policy. There is relatively little solid evidence about the number of urban IDPs and whether their protection and livelihood needs differ from non-IDP residents. Researchers and advocacy organisations have documented the difficulties and threats faced by urban IDPs (CODHES 2007; Evans 2007; Refugee Law Project 2007), but urban migrants and the urban poor also struggle to find adequate income, and also live in crowded and sub-standard housing – in shanties, construction sites, and other makeshift shelters – often without electricity, plumbing, or access to social services. Advocacy groups point to forced relocations, such as those carried out in cities like Khartoum and Abidjan,1 as targeting IDPs, but destitute non-IDPs are also caught up in these relocations and suffer the same consequences. A further complicating factor is that distinctions between IDPs and the resident population tend to be mitigated over time. Some IDPs return to their home areas (with or without formal assistance programmes), and those who remain in the urban area tend to become integrated. They gain access to income-generating activities and local services and start new lives, their children attend local schools, and over the years IDPs come to consider the urban area ‘home’. Evidence suggests that the longer IDPs remain in urban areas the less likely they are to return permanently to their home areas – a problem currently facing IDP return programmes in Khartoum. The ‘profile’ of IDPs thus resembles other urban migrants: people initially struggle to establish themselves, but then find ways to cope, often drawing on local networks, or they return home or migrate onwards. Given the difficulty of making distinctions, we might question the rationale for programming that targets IDPs. If their experience is no different from other migrant groups who face the same problems, why treat them differently? The issue of humanitarian response to IDPs in urban areas has drawn the attention of humanitarian organisations, donor governments, and a few national governments in recent years. There is a growing interest in improving our knowledge and understanding of this population. However, the collection of data on urban IDPs faces the same conceptual and logistical obstacles faced by aid agencies trying to reach this often hidden population. First, there is the challenge of distinguishing IDPs from other newly urbanized populations (migrants). Most conflict-ridden countries have experienced urbanisation, or mass economic migration from rural to urban areas, over a long period of time, and this is exacerbated by armed conflict. Patterns of internal displacement generally follow a series of three

Profiling Urban IDPs   |   81

stages: hiding, displacement, and onward migration. Initially, people leave their homes only far enough to hide from marauding militias or aerial bombing (usually by the government, as in the case of Sudan) but staying within range of their homes or farms. In the second stage, when this hiding strategy no longer ensures safety, or when harvests, livestock, and other assets are destroyed or stolen, people flee further, to safer villages or IDP camps, or across the border to refugee camps. This stage can endure for long periods, and ends when the displaced either return to their home areas, or embark on a third stage of onward migration, often to urban centres to find work or join family members already residing there, or to seek resettlement. An urban migration strategy can also be utilized by households during the second stage – they send one member of working age to the city to act as an anchor for the future migration of the entire household, or to find work and send remittances back to the family still living in the conflict zone or in camps. It is important to note how people who have been forcibly displaced and then engage in urban migration can easily be seen as ‘economic migrants’ rather than IDPs. One of the most serious consequences of armed conflict in rural areas is the loss of livelihoods that occurs when people are forced off their land, or when their assets, such as land and livestock, are destroyed or stolen. The flight of households or individuals from areas of conflict to urban areas is then concomitant with their search for greater economic security and access to health and education services. People also migrate from conflict zones to urban areas to search for their families, or because they feel safer there, even though they may not have been directly attacked in their homes. At the same time, conflict zones experience periods of relative peace, and some areas are subject to less conflict or violence. Darfur is a good example: the region has been plagued by recurrent violent conflict dating back to the 1980s, when President Numayri mobilised muraheleen (tribal militias) to fight rebels in Southern Sudan (Young et al. 2005). But since then and even during the current phase of the conflict there have been periods of relative peace and areas that are less afflicted by the violence. When people from these regions migrate to Khartoum for work, it seems inaccurate to call them IDPs. When a country suffers from a failing rural economy, rapid population growth, and pressure on land, there are multiple reasons for urban migration. The complexity of urban migration patterns and multiplicity of reasons for coming to urban areas makes it conceptually difficult to pinpoint a specific IDP group. Logistical and ethical challenges also confront aid agencies and researchers interested in urban IDPs. Logistically, finding and gaining access to IDPs is made difficult by the landscape of urban settings. Poor infrastructure, lack of maps, and insecure areas mean aid organisations often avoid the shantytowns and marginalized areas where IDPs live.

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More importantly, unlike IDPs in camps who are more easily identified and assisted, some IDPs in urban areas comprise a hidden population that seeks anonymity or ‘invisibility’ for security reasons. They often choose not to register with government authorities for fear of being rounded up or targeted. In Colombia, for example, some IDPs in urban areas fear they may be targeted because the authorities or resident population believe they sympathise with the guerrillas. Given this desire to keep a low profile and not identify themselves, it is ethically questionable to seek out IDPs for the purposes of obtaining information about them. These problems are further compounded by the pattern and magnitude of forced displacement to urban centres. In some countries, such as Georgia, the movement of hundreds of thousands of IDPs to a major city has occurred in a massive wave, overwhelming state or agency capacity to account for them. In other situations, the flight of IDPs to urban centres has been more gradual and staggered, with displaced families fleeing to nearby villages, then continuing to larger provincial towns, and then to national capitals. This pattern of gradual and small-scale migration, in which IDPs slowly enter and mingle with urban populations, contributes to the invisibility of IDPs. These conceptual, logistical, and ethical challenges pose significant barriers to gathering information, and governments and aid organisations lack a clear picture of the numbers, demographics, basic needs, and specific problems confronting IDPs, and how these compare to the rest of the urban population. This lack of information makes it difficult to design and implement sound and timely programmes and advocacy strategies to address IDP problems and protect their rights.

The Tufts-idmc Profiling Study In an effort to address this information gap, IDMC commissioned the FIC to conduct a research study that would both design information-gathering tools (including population estimates), and use these tools to gather information about urban IDPs. From 2006–2008, we conducted surveys in three urban locations: Khartoum in Sudan, Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire, and Santa Marta in Colombia.2 Our conceptual approach followed that used by researchers of selfsettled refugees, such as Oliver Bakewell, who have been careful not to create a priori categories of refugees and study them separately from their host communities (Bakewell 2000). In order to avoid embedding the IDP terminology in the research methods, our study avoided using the term ‘IDPs’ in our instrumentation. To try to identify IDPs and then ask them about their activities and experience assumes that it is possible to differentiate IDPs from others in their communities, and that their experience is special or different compared to others who fall outside the predefined IDP category.

Profiling Urban IDPs   |   83

Our study did not deliberately seek out IDPs, nor did we ask respondents whether they considered themselves to be IDPs. Instead, we surveyed a random sample of the entire city, based on the latest census3 and then conducted secondary analysis of the data to determine which respondents were likely to be IDPs. This is a key difference from other IDP profiling exercises in which IDPs are preselected and interviewed.4 While we did not ask our respondents whether they considered themselves to be IDPs, we did ask our enumerators to indicate after each interview if they thought the respondent was an IDP. In Abidjan and Khartoum, our enumerators worked for the community-based organisation that assisted us, and they had extensive experience working with the urban population. Their views served as an important validity check, because we could compare them with our analysis of whether the respondent was an IDP or not. For the most part, their views matched our analysis. Our data allowed us to explore patterns of urban migration: when and why people came, and from which parts of the country. In this way we built up a picture of urban migration, from which we could discern the profile of IDPs. We assigned respondents to the IDP category based on the definitions of IDPs contained in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement which define IDPs as ‘persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, … to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters’ (UNOCHA 2004). In each country we applied these principles to displacement factors specific to the local context. We used a combination of three variables: region of origin, year of arrival in the city, and reason for moving, to distinguish IDPs from non-IDPs. IDPs were those who: • came from regions of the country where the displacement factors (armed conflict, generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters) occurred, • came during or after the beginning of the displacement factors; • gave one of the displacement factors as a reason for moving. Our survey questionnaire used a variety of questions to get at this information. We then synthesized the data to give us a profile of who IDPs were likely to be, and divided the sample into IDPs and non-IDPs. We could then estimate the number and distribution of IDPs in each city, and explore their experience compared with the non-IDPs in our sample.

Case Studies Our three selected countries – Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire, and Colombia – each experienced different types of armed conflict, in one or more region,

84   |   Karen Jacobsen

that set off the spiral of displacement, destruction of livelihoods, and food insecurity that leads to urban migration. In addition, each city had experienced a phenomenon known as intra-urban displacement, in which conflict and violence within the city leads to further (or new) displacement within the city. This section briefly outlines the displacement context in each country; a longer review of these conflicts and ensuing displacement can be found in each case study.

Khartoum, Sudan In recent decades Sudan’s second North-South civil war (1982–2005) and the conflict in Darfur (2003 to present) have generated one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world. In 2007, the IDMC estimated that Sudan has 5.8 million IDPs, of which some two million currently reside within Khartoum State. 5 Most do not live in camps (where numbers can be monitored) and IDP figures are estimates and projections. The Tufts-IDMC study of Khartoum was a pilot for our larger study and was carried out in January 2007, two years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that sought to end the war in Southern Sudan. While the CPA raised hopes for the return of IDPs, continuing insecurity, lack of services in areas of return, and doubts about the sustainability of the CPA have slowed the pace of return. At this writing (October 2008) the future of the CPA remains highly uncertain and the peace is fragile, particularly in the region known as the Transitional Zone or Three Areas – Abyei, Blue Nile State, and Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains – which saw intense fighting during the civil war and whose future was not determined by the CPA. Sudan’s growing oil revenue has not been equitably shared and the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) lacks resources to establish health, education, and other services or to repair infrastructure. In our Khartoum study, we defined IDPs as those who met any of the following conditions: • They said they came for reasons related to conflict or drought (86 respondents or 8.8 per cent of the total sample); • They were from the South, or the Transitional Zone/Three Areas, and had come during or after 1983 when the war resumed and the drought began, but before 2002. Of 93 respondents from the South, 80 (86 per cent) met this condition, as did 85 (70 per cent) of 122 coming from the Three Areas. Together, those from the South and the Three Areas comprised 81 per cent of our IDP respondents, or 17 per cent of the total sample. • They were from Darfur, and came after 2002. This number was 34 (24 per cent) of 143 respondents from Darfur, and comprised 17 per cent of the IDP respondents and 3.5 per cent of the total sample.

Profiling Urban IDPs   |   85

According to these criteria, 204 out of 980 respondents could be defined as IDPs, or 21 per cent of our sample in a range of 18.3 – 23.3 per cent. As with all our studies, we assume that this estimate is conservative, as we have used relatively narrow criteria for our IDP category. If we had gathered a random sample of Khartoum’s entire population we could have used this proportion to estimate the number of IDPs in Khartoum. However, our sample was skewed towards areas where IDPs were more likely to be found, so we cannot make IDP population estimates for the whole of Khartoum. As with all our studies, we assume that this estimate is conservative, as we have used relatively narrow criteria for our IDP category.

Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire After a series of political crises, Côte d’Ivoire’s armed conflict erupted in 2002, leading to the division of the country into government and rebelcontrolled areas. Both sides committed grave human rights abuses and hundreds of thousands of civilians fled attacks on villages, kidnappings, and severe persecution based on ethnicity, nationality, or political opinion. Especially targeted were northern nationals and immigrants from Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Many internally displaced people migrated to urban centres such as Abidjan, Grand Bassam, and Yamoussoukro, but in cities they were subject to government harassment, including, in Abidjan, demolition of housing and attacks. Three peace agreements brokered between 2003 and 2005 failed, but the signing of the Ouagadougou Peace Agreement in March 2007 raised hopes for a return to stability, and IDPs started to return to their areas of origin. Our Abidjan study defined respondents as likely to be IDPs if they said they had been forced to move or evicted for reasons related to government relocation or because of the conflict, and who had arrived at their current address after 2001 (the conflict broke out in 2002). Of our sample of 976 respondents, 95, or 9.7 per cent, met our criteria for being IDPs, so we expect IDPs to constitute between 7.9 and 11.6 per cent of the urban population. Note: as of March 2011, post-election violence and political conflict have led to significant internal displacement in Cote d’Ivoire.

Santa Marta, Colombia For more than 40 years, Colombians have been subject to chronic violence perpetrated by left wing guerillas, paramilitaries, government forces, and drug cartels. In the past 20 years, an estimated four million people have been forced to leave their homes. Generally, the pattern of displacement has been within rural areas or to small administrative centres or larger cities; a relatively small proportion of displaced people have become

86   |   Karen Jacobsen

refugees compared to other countries that have suffered major internal conflict. More recently, a new pattern of intra-urban displacement within city limits or between city centres has emerged, an outcome of the 2006 paramilitary demobilisation process, which has led to new forms of conflict and contestation in urban areas. Magdalena Department in the north of Colombia has experienced one of the highest rates of internal displacement. From 1996 to 2004, Magdalena was the site of a major paramilitary campaign against the guerrillas groups (primarily the Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia or FARC). The targeting of civilians was part of the strategies of both guerillas and paramilitaries and large numbers were displaced to rural and urban areas, including Santa Marta, the capital of Magdalena, and the site for this study. After the paramilitary demobilisation programme was implemented in 2006, Santa Marta became the centre of violent power struggles between demobilised paramilitaries, politicians, and drug traffickers. Organised crime and gang related violence increased, leading to new waves of intraurban displacement, as well as new insecurity for IDPs and the urban poor. Our Santa Marta study defined respondents as likely to be IDPs if they had ever been forced to leave their place of residence because of violence or conflict, including over land issues, or had applied to register as an internally displaced person. Of our 909 respondents, 15.8 per cent of our sample met our criteria, in a range of 13.4–18.2 per cent of the total population of the city.

Limitations of the Surveys In all three cities, it is possible that some respondents we did not designate as IDPs would in fact have qualified, but since they did not mention displacement factors, they were not placed in the IDP category. It is also possible that some of our designated IDPs were not IDPs, but were categorized as such because of either our analytical approach or misrepresentation on their part. Despite these Type 1 and Type 2 errors, we believe we have a reasonably accurate grasp of who were IDPs in our sample. However, our estimates are likely to be on the low or conservative side, first because we employed restrictive definitions for the purpose of data analysis, and second because our sample was based on census information that was outdated by a few years and did not include all of the outlying, unincorporated poorer areas (shantytowns). Our survey encountered other institutional and methodological obstacles that limited the representativeness and validity of our data. In generating a systematic random sample across the whole city, we probably missed IDPs where they live clustered in unsampled areas. Also, like all surveys, our findings and conclusions are based on self-reported data.

Profiling Urban IDPs   |   87

Response bias is a common limitation of household surveys, and in our case, some respondents were probably reluctant to answer politically sensitive issues. Depending on the city, these issues included ethnicity, reasons for displacement, identification documents, and place of birth. The response rates for some of these questions were lower than with other less sensitive questions. A third limitation was that our survey did not allow us to explore complex issues such as protection and insecurity, or household economic situation. Asking questions in a survey about these issues is notorious for generating inaccurate data. In the author’s experience, it is unproductive and often inappropriate in a survey to ask probing questions about the respondent’s experience of violence or harassment by state or nonstate entities. We asked relatively superficial or proxy questions about these matters but are not fully confident about the reliability of our data. In addition to questions about their migration history, we asked a range of questions about our respondents’ current living situation, the difficulties they experience in the city, their employment situation and their plans for future migration. With further qualitative research and additional surveys, our findings can be refined. For now, they will serve as a rough guide with which to compare the experience of IDPs and non-IDPs.

Findings from Three Cities: Differences Between IDPs and non-IDPs In each city we split our sample into IDPs and non-IDPs through secondary analysis of our data, then compared IDP with non-IDPs living in the same neighbourhoods. IDPs are a sub-group of the much larger urban migrant group, and we compared IDPs with other migrants in Santa Marta. For the present purposes, however, we compare IDPs with ‘non-IDPs’ including migrants. We found IDPs distributed throughout the urban area of all three cities, but they tended to be concentrated in certain sectors. In this chapter, we report broad patterns of our findings rather than details.

Demographics, Households In order to compare our two groups, and to probe for indicators of vulnerability, we explored demographic characteristics and household composition. In all three cities, the demographic profile of IDP and non-IDP respondents were similar in age and marital status. Our respondents were distributed more or less evenly between men and women, except in Santa Marta where logistical constraints led to a biased gender representation, and our sample was 72.5 per cent women. In Abidjan and Khartoum, as expected, the IDP group was mostly composed of ethnic groups from the conflict regions. In Abidjan, IDPs were predominantly Baoulé, Guéré, and Yacouba, and in Khartoum most IDPs

88   |   Karen Jacobsen

were of ethnic groups from the South or the Three Areas. Ethnicity is less salient in Colombia, and was not significant in Santa Marta. Household size, particularly number of children, can be an indicator of potential economic vulnerability. As shown in Table 1, in all three of our studies IDP households were slightly larger and had more children. The larger number of children in IDP households signals that IDPs carry an additional economic burden. Table 5.1: Comparing IDPs and non-IDPs in three cities Khartoum (n= 980)

Abidjan (n= 976)

NonIDPs

IDPs

NonIDPs

IDPs

NonIDPs

IDPs

60.2%

50.2%

54.0%

54.7%

27.5

19%

Mean no. household members

6.95

6.76

8.14

8.39

5.19

5.89

Mean no. children

2.97

3.50

2.83

3.23

2.31

2.90

Per cent households w/ no children

14.6%

5.7%

17.6%

18.9%

Per cent nonIDp households hosting IDPs

Not asked

NA

7.8% (asked of a subset of sample)

Per cent male

Santa Marta (n= 909)

Household

High density barrios: 3.4% Low density barrios: 2%

The communities to which IDPs migrate are also affected by internal displacement, because many non-IDP households host IDPs in their homes. In Abidjan, eight per cent of our non-IDP respondents had IDPs living with them,6 and in Santa Marta, in neighbourhoods with high concentrations of IDPs, three per cent of non-IDP households were sharing with IDPs. While some of these non-IDP hosts might be families of IDPs, it is also worth noting that there have been reports of IDPs, especially children, being abused or exploited in exchange for housing.

Education and Employment: the Importance of Gender In the key areas of education and employment, there were some differences between IDPs and non-IDPs, but the gender differences were more marked.

Profiling Urban IDPs   |   89

Education Lack of education, especially illiteracy, is an indicator of vulnerability – making it more difficult to find work and to claim one’s rights. As shown in Table 2, in our studies women were significantly less educated than men – twice as likely as men to have no schooling (and probably be illiterate), and in the case of Abidjan men were more than three times as likely to have some university education. But differences between IDPs and nonIDPs were only significant in Khartoum where IDPs had much lower levels of education. in Abidjan and Santa Marta, education levels for IDPs and non-IDPs were similar.7 Table 5.2: Education and employment Khartoum (n= 980)

Abidjan (n= 976)

Santa Marta (n= 909)

NonIDPs

IDPs

NonIDPs

IDPs

NonIDPs

IDPs

men women

13% 24%

23% 35%

8% 17%

4% 14%

2% 6%

3% 7%

Some university: men women

18% 11%

9% 4%

35% 19%

44% 12%

20% 9%

4% 2%

Education No school:

Employment

men women

9.4% 6%

9.8% 5%

13% 18%

23% 24%

-5%

-10%



Self-employed men women

33% 11%

32% 20%

45% 55%

7% 92%

-hswfe: 64%

-hswfe: 69%

Students

1% 0

1% 0

65% 35%

72% 28%

-7%

-6%

Unemployed



men women

Employment Employment patterns varied in each city, with gender differences again significant. As Table 2 shows, in Khartoum, there were no differences between IDPs and non-IDPs in unemployment or self-employment rates, but interestingly, women were less likely to be unemployed, and women IDPs were more likely to be self-employed than women non-IDPs. It is worth noting that other researchers have reported that IDPs, especially

90   |   Karen Jacobsen

Southerners, are often used as a cheap labour force in Khartoum. If this is so, our survey results showing that IDPs have similar employment levels to non-IDPs could mask deeper forms of job discrimination. In Abidjan, women were more likely to report being self-employed than men, and more than 90 per cent of women IDPs said they were selfemployed. In Santa Marta, both IDP and non-IDPS were most likely to be housewives (~67 per cent) but we were unable to explore male employment patterns because of the low number of male IDPs respondents. While our survey gave a broad idea of the similarities and differences between IDPs and non-IDPs, we did not explore the kinds of jobs our respondents had, or wage levels. Employment is a key indicator of vulnerability and needs further exploration and clarification.

Standard of Living In each city we examined a range of standard of living indicators including housing situation, access to potable water, distance from facilities, respondents’ expressed difficulties, and whether respondents had received assistance from the government or aid organisations in each city. In general, IDPs appeared to be worse off. Table 2 shows that IDPs were less likely to have a water connection in their homes, and more likely to use water vendors. In terms of housing, they were more likely to be renters rather than owners, and more likely to live in temporary housing. In some respects, IDPs appeared to be no worse off than their neighbours: their distance from facilities such as transportation, schools, police stations, and health facilities was about the same, and they reported similar levels of difficulties such as sanitation problems, crime, and difficulty finding work. The apparent similarity of living conditions is probably explained by the fact that IDPs are living within host communities, sometimes even in the same houses, and while they may be poorer in some respects, their urban experience is similar in many other respects.

Indicators of Vulnerability and Insecurity: Mobility and Relocation with the City Having to move repeatedly signifies vulnerability, and being forced to move as a result of government relocation programmes or harassment can be a sign of security problems. We asked whether our respondents had lived in other parts of the city and their reasons for moving, including whether they had been forced to move. As shown in Table 3, in all three cities, IDPs were more likely to have lived elsewhere in the city, and in Khartoum and Abidjan they were more likely than non-IDPs to report having been forced to move.

Profiling Urban IDPs   |   91

Table 5.3: Standard of living indicators Santa Marta (n= 909)

Khartoum (n= 980)

Abidjan (n= 976)

NonIDPs

IDPs

NonIDPs

IDPs

NonIDPs

IDPs

77% 20%

45% 52%

66% 28%

60% 38%

80% --

60% --

Living in temporary shelters

2%

8%

6.7%

9.5%

4%

10%

Per cent renting

17%

26%

56%

70%

21%

45%

Access to potable water: House connection Water vendor Housing

Table 5.4: Mobility within the city and future intentions Khartoum (n= 980)

Abidjan (n= 976)

Santa Marta (n= 909)

NonIDPs

IDPs

NonIDPs

IDPs

NonIDPs

IDPs

55%

63%

36%

57%

18%

23%

4%

22%

4%

44%

8%

8%

Relocation within city Per cent lived elsewhere in city Future migration intentions Per cent wanting to return ‘home’

Future Migration and Return Finally, we asked respondents whether they and their families hoped to return to their place of habitual residence, resettle elsewhere in the country, or remain in the urban area. In Khartoum and Abidjan IDPs were more likely than other migrants to want to return home, as shown in Table 3. In Santa Marta, we found no difference between IDP and non-IDP migrants, only 8 per cent of both groups wished to return home. However, IDPs were less likely than other migrants to believe it possible to return home and more likely to anticipate problems in the return area such as access to

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food, education, healthcare and housing. IDPs in Santa Marta were also more likely to anticipate finding their property occupied or destroyed, or problems with security than non-IDP migrants.

Implications of Our Study Findings Our findings indicate that, in general, urban IDPs are poorer, at a greater disadvantage, and experience more insecurity than their non-IDP neighbours. IDPs arrive impoverished because their land, harvests, and other assets (including documents) were lost, stolen, or destroyed; they are often traumatized and in search of family members. In trying to establish urban livelihoods, IDPs are at a disadvantage because they lack support networks, urban livelihood skills, and knowledge of the urban setting, and they may not speak the language used in municipal centres. There is also some evidence – but more in-depth exploration of this issue is needed – that IDPs experience more security and protection problems than non-IDPs. Our findings for the most part confirm other studies that have reported how IDPs have been deliberately targeted by authorities, subjected to harassment and violence at the hands of security forces and/or the civilian population, and more likely to be the victims of looting, intimidation, and extortion by militia and criminal groups in the urban area. Our study found that IDPs live amongst and sometimes even in the households of non-IDPs, and many of their problems resemble those of their non-IDP neighbours. However, even where they appear to be integrated, tensions with resident populations can occur when IDPs are seen as a burden on local infrastructure and scarce resources. Where IDPs are of a different ethnic background than host communities, they can be subject to social and economic marginalisation, These tensions can lead to subtle or overt types of discrimination, including being forced to pay higher rents and to accept less favourable housing, and harassment by local authorities. Given the evidence of the difficulties, insecurity, and vulnerability IDPs face in urban areas, there is justification for providing assistance and addressing their protection needs, as well as programmes that seek to restore their rights. However, it is difficult to justify special treatment for IDPs when they live amongst other urban poor who also experience many hardships. Even if it is the case that IDPs are worse off, it is difficult to explain to their neighbours that special programmes and humanitarian resources are only intended for those who have been displaced. IDPs’ physical and social proximity to their neighbours means their wellbeing and security are closely tied to their relations with their host community. Under these circumstances it is important to design IDP programmes with a great deal of care so that they help IDPs but do not antagonize the host community, which ultimately provides the most direct assistance

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and support. IDPs can go about reconstructing their lives when the host community is welcoming or at least does not put up barriers against them. These relations can potentially be jeopardised when aid agencies target economic resources such as food aid, microcredit, and vocational training exclusively at IDPs. Programmes that seek to redress the specific losses that IDPs have experienced as a result of displacement are less likely to engender local resentment. For example, enabling IDPs to recover their identity documents and other legal certification, such as property titles, or job and education certification, can ‘level the playing field’ and enable IDPs to participate in local markets, while avoiding perceptions of special treatment and unfairness. Assisting with legal problems or helping IDPs fight discrimination by landlords or employers are other potentially useful areas of assistance. Targeting resources should be done in a strategic way, to ensure that only areas of IDP vulnerability are addressed. These areas will vary in each city, depending on the political and displacement context. For example, lack of identity documents is a particular protection problem in Abidjan, and helping IDPs recover or renew their documentation would be a useful programming area. Programming efforts aimed at those who have been forcibly displaced and have moved to urban areas, whether refugees or IDPs, cannot resemble the kinds of traditional refugee and IDP programmes found in camps. The importance of maintaining good relations with the host community suggests that humanitarian agencies should target assistance to poor urban communities as a whole, in ways that ensure IDPs are not seen as receiving special treatment. For example, livelihood programmes such as microfinance, urban agriculture, and vocational training, could be extended to members of the host community too, so that IDPs are seen to be an asset to the community because of the humanitarian resources they bring. Humanitarian agencies confront different and more subtle problems in their efforts to assist the urban displaced, but urban IDPs also bring opportunities, and it is these differences that should be addressed in programmes. Our studies demonstrated that it is feasible to conduct a comprehensive survey of urban IDPs that provides estimates of their numbers and location, and which can identify their specific needs vis-à-vis their non-IDPs neighbours, and their intentions regarding return. This kind of information, located within the broader context of urban migration and poverty, can help governments and aid agencies develop a comprehensive strategy for the assistance and protection of IDPs. Such a strategy, developed with the full and active participation of the IDPs themselves, is highly desirable, and governments who seek to do this should be provided with the international humanitarian community’s full assistance.

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Notes 1. Since 1989 the Khartoum government has forcibly relocated an estimated 900,000 urban squatters to the outskirts of the city in what it described as urban development efforts. These areas lack access to water, education, and health services and are distant from employment opportunities in the city. In Abidjan, about 20,000 persons, including many IDPs became homeless when the government destroyed slum areas in 2002 and 2003. 2. For the full reports on each city, and the Methods Annex, see Tufts-IDMC Study on urban IDPs at http://fic.tufts.edu or http://internal-displacement.org 3. For example, in 2007 UNHCR conducted a profiling exercise in Abidjan, in which IDP heads of households were encouraged to participate through a media campaign on radio, television and in the press. They were asked to present themselves at central points near their sites of displacement to be interviewed. This approach, in which IDPs self-identify, is the opposite of our approach. 4. Our methodology was a household survey, based on a random, two-stage, systematic sample of households, with a sample size in each city of about 970 individuals. The study area included only the main urban areas, not the periphery (peri-urban area). Using structured questionnaires, trained local researchers conducted interviews with the head of household in the official language (Arabic in Khartoum, French in Abidjan, Spanish in Santa Marta, Colombia). For more on our methods, see the Methods Annex in the TuftsIDMC Study on urban IDPs at fic.tufts.edu 5. Almost half a million IDPs are believed to reside in the states of White Nile, North Kordofan, Gezira, Sennar, and River Nile (IOM 2005). 6. We asked this question in four out of ten communes in Abidjan. 7. In Abidjan, more male IDPs had some university than male non-IDPs. However this could be an artifact of our sampling, as one randomly selected neighbourhood was a university area, and a large number of young IDP men designated themselves as ‘students’.

References Bakewell, O. 2000. ‘Repatriation and Self-Settled Refugees in Zambia: Bringing Solutions to the Wrong Problems’, Journal of Refugee Studies 13: 356–73. CODHES. May 2007. ‘Una Guia para la Aplicación de los Principios Rectores de los Desplazamientos Internos en Áreas Urbanos.’ Evans, Martin. 2007. ‘“The Suffering is Too Great”: Urban Internally Displaced Persons in the Casamance Conflict, Senegal.’ Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(1). IOM. 2005. ‘Return Intention Survey’, cited in UN 2008 Workplan for Sudan. http://workplan.unsudanig.org/2008/docs/WP08_Document_volume_1.pdf Refugee Law Project. December 2007. ‘ What About Us? The Exclusion Of Urban IDPs From Uganda`s IDP Related Policies and Interventions’ Briefing Paper. Makerere University: Kampala, Uganda.

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UNOCHA. September 2004. ‘Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement’ Available at: http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/projects/idp/resources/GPEng lish.pdf Young et al. 2005. Darfur - Livelihoods Under Siege. Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, Medford. pp. 21–23.

Displacement and the State – the Case of Iraq Philip Marfleet

Introduction For over 30 years forced migration was an instrument of rule in the hands of Iraq’s Ba’thist regime. Transportation and forcible resettlement were used systematically on a massive scale, producing over a million IDPs.1 The American occupation, which began in 2003, brought much larger and more intensive movements so that within five years the number of IDPs had increased to almost 3 million.2 Many of those affected have faced extreme difficulties. Isolated far from places of origin they have been exposed to political forces increasingly intolerant of the presence of migrants. This chapter examines the background to recent movements, suggesting that they are an inevitable outcome of an external intervention driven by specific strategic and ideological aims. It also suggests that they reveal much about the nature of forced migration during periods of state formation and reformation. Since 2003 mass population movements have affected every area of Iraq. By the end of 2008 there were over 2.7 million IDPs across Iraq, and each of the country’s 18 governorates has accommodated significant numbers of IDPs. This unusually even pattern suggests a systemic problem – one affecting the whole national society. During the Ba’thist era IDPs were found mainly in Kurdish areas and in the south – an outcome of repression

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which penalised certain ethno-religious groups and political currents. Since the invasion displacement has had a different character, becoming part of a process of change through which external forces have set out to restructure economic and political life. A crash programme of privatisation and ‘liberal’ reform has profoundly affected the economy, while politics has been reorganised on a new confessional basis. Millions of Iraqis have been compelled to realign with novel territorial and cultural boundaries, ‘unmixing’ communities which earlier had a complex ethno-religious character.3 Many displaced people have failed to find security, however. Vulnerable and often isolated, they have become targets for national and local authorities which have penalised them again and again because of their status as migrants.

Colonial State Iraq has much in common with other states of the Global South in which displacement is a systemic problem. The modern nation-state of Iraq was created during a period of rapid political change following the First World War. France and Britain, the most aggressive colonial powers in the Middle East, supervised the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, claiming for themselves territories of the Mashraq, the Arab East. This they divided into areas of direct rule and of ‘influence’ which accorded with their strategic interests. Britain obtained a mandate in Mesopotamia, most of which fell within the three Ottoman wilayaat of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra.4 These were eventually fused to form a new state of Iraq, formally ruled by an appointed monarch, and which in effect provided Britain with a colony extending from Turkey in the north to the Arab/Persian Gulf in the south, including areas believed to contain large reserves of oil. From the very first the British faced acute problems vis-à-vis a population hostile to their presence and within there were various and competing aspirations for autonomy or for independence. Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill was determined to maintain control using all means, including novel techniques of repression: Catherwood (2005) describes his approach as ‘Winston’s folly’. In 1920 British forces were engaged in prolonged fighting in the south and centre of the country in which at least 6,000 Iraqis were killed (Tripp 2000: 54). They also battled Kurdish forces in northeastern provinces of the new state, for the first time using aerial power as a means of achieving mass displacement. 5 The specific aim was to launch extreme violence – a comprehensive assault which could ‘clear’ villages.6 An Royal Air Force (RAF) document of 1920 pointed out that ‘within 45 minutes a full-sized village… can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured by four or five planes.’7 The strategy was used

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repeatedly during the 1930s and 1940s, establishing forcible population movement as a standard strategy of central government vis-à-vis dissident movements. The new Iraqi state contained communities and networks with strong local religious/linguistic identities and with complex links (commercial, familial, socio-cultural) across regional and state borders. At the same time, it both reflected and engendered national sentiment. There has been much debate over what Stansfield (2007) calls the ‘artificiality’ problem – the extent to which Britain imposed a state structure uncongenial or even alien to people of the region. European colonial powers routinely imposed novel state structures – but in the case of Iraq this echoed certain features of political society in the Mesopotamian wilayaat, notably in the main urban centres. These had not been sufficient to stimulate momentum for an independent state – but when British intervention imposed such a state new institutions and networks came into being within which ideas of independent national identity were confirmed and consolidated. The British encouraged relations of patronage controlled from the centre – a reward system which gradually drew diverse communities closer to the apparatus of state. Meanwhile they established cadres of military men, administrators, teachers, and technical specialists, recruited principally from the Sunni communities of Baghdad and the central region. As the British had already discovered, those charged with staffing colonial states invariably developed an aspiration to direct them to different ends, seeing the state itself – even the most ‘artificial’ of entities – as a means to achieve independence. By the 1920s colonial powers in the Middle East faced numerous movements for national independence and/or for pan-Arab unity; these profoundly affected Iraq, where a series of nationalist/Arabist currents developed strong bases in the army and civil administration. Discovery of oil and rapid expansion of the petroleum industry and of transport networks meanwhile brought into being an urban working class with its own agendas. By the 1940s, observes Batatu (1978), the Iraqi Communist Party had become one of the strongest radical organisations in the Arab world, with support in intellectual circles, in industry and within the apparatus of state. Like similar currents worldwide its principal aim was ‘national liberation’. Genuine independence came only in 1958, with overthrow of the monarchy by nationalist army officers. Their leader, General Abel-Karim Qasim, proposed a unified Iraq ‘in which rich and poor, Kurd, Arab, Sunni and Sh’i, would work together for the common good’ (Tripp 2000: 151). Rising expectations of change soon produced a mass movement which engaged rural and urban society and extended across ethnic groups and religious communities. But contradictions inherent in the architecture of the colonial state soon re-emerged, with conflicts between Kurds,

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Arabs, and Turkmen, especially in ethnically mixed cities of the north and east. The Iraqi state had remained a complex construction in which centralising and centrifugal tendencies were both at work. When the Ba’th Party eventually took full control in 1968 it further concentrated power within a Sunni elite, exaggerating differences in relation to other ethnoreligious communities and targeting the latter with a long series of attacks in which Jews, Christians, Turkmen, Shi’a and Kurds were persecuted and sometimes moved en masse in order to facilitate central control. During the 1980s the regime’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds resulted in destruction of hundreds of villages and displacement across the whole of rural Kurdistan. A decade later the draining of extensive marshes in the southern provinces displaced numerous Shi’a communities. Although the most recent migrations have taken place on an unprecedented scale the practice of compelling population movements is inseparable from the entire history of modern Iraq, colonial and post-colonial. A similar pattern is seen in other states such as Colombia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Burma in which mass migration has been integral to economic and/or political development and which have been under authoritarian rule. Here too displacement remains a key feature of contemporary society.

New Displacements Since 2003 Iraq has been the site of the world’s biggest migration crisis. By October 2006 Iraqis were said to be leaving their homes at a rate of 50,000 a month (UNHCR 2006). By the end of 2008 over 2.7 million people had been displaced internally and a further two million people had crossed Iraqi borders, most to neighbouring Arab states. Iraq was already the main state of origin of applicants for asylum in industrialised countries: by 2007 the number of Iraqi applicants was more than double the total of the secondand third-largest source countries combined (UNHCR 2008b). Many of these refugees ‘proper’ (forced migrants who had crossed an international border) had earlier been IDPs, having engaged in complex journeys within Iraq, including ‘ricochet’ and ‘repeat’ migrations – unsuccessful attempts to find security which eventually led to cross-border movements. The pattern of uneven distribution of IDPs characteristic of the Ba’thist era had been modified. Detailed information collected by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), showed that since 2003 millions of Iraqis had moved to a host of locations across the country. During 2006 alone, the IOM reported, some 41,000 families, approximately 247,000 persons, moved to locations in 15 governorates of the central and southern regions (IOM 2006: 2). In addition, United Nations monitors counted some 84,000 newly displaced individuals in the three most northerly provinces (ibid).

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Table 6.1 Newly displaced families in 15 governorates, 2006

Governorate

Displaced families

Anbar

3,638

Babylon

3,271

Baghdad

6,651

Basra

1,487

Diyala

3,594

Kerbala

2,060

Missan

2,203

Muthanna

968

Najaf

2,609

Ninewah

3,665

Qadissiya

1,614

Salah al-Din

3,073

Tameem/Kirkuk

1,002

Thi-Qar

2,072

Wassit

3,822 (Source: IOM 2006: 4) 8

Although some governorates, notably Baghdad, contained very large numbers of new IDPs, in others located widely across Iraq – such as Anbar, Diyala, Wassit, and Ninewah – there were also large groups. The great majority of new migrants (almost 70 per cent) originated in Baghdad but significant numbers also came from other governorates, notably Diyala in the east and Anbar in the west. Most travelled to readily accessible areas in adjacent regions; some, however, moved very long distances: 70 per cent of IDPs in the northern governorates and almost 90 per cent in the eastern governorates originated in Baghdad; 10 per cent of IDPs in Ninewah (on the Turkish border in the extreme north) and 15 per cent of IDPs in Salahal-Din (north of Baghdad) were from Basra in the extreme south (ibid). Some governorates hosted IDPs of very diverse geographical origins. By 2008 IDPs in Salah al-Din included people from Basra (15 per cent of the total), Babylon (10 per cent) and Diyala (10 per cent), as well as large

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numbers from Baghdad and smaller groups from seven other provinces (IOM 2008a). In Basra over a quarter of IDPs came from Salah al-Din, with significant numbers from Anbar in the west and Diyala in the east (ibid). There were many other such examples. The headline notion of internal displacement does not do justice to this complex pattern. Since 2003 a significant part of the Iraqi population has been in movement – undertaking countless journeys at the local, regional, and national levels. In 2006 the IMO found that 45 per cent of IDPs intended to return to places of origin, 25 per cent expected to integrate in their new location and an extraordinary 28 per cent expected to move to a further destination (IOM 2006: 9). 9 In some governorates the proportion expecting to move on reached strikingly high levels – 63 per cent in Qadissiya, 64 per cent in Wassit, and 77 per cent in Baghdad (ibid). Such was the state of insecurity that, despite a sharp fall in the rate of displacement, by 2007 only a fraction of IDPs had returned to places of origin and on average one in five displaced people across the country still maintained that they would move to a new location (IOM 2007: 1). These figures do not account for those displaced within Iraq and who have subsequently crossed national territorial borders to seek refuge elsewhere. They do not include people unwilling to be counted or who have not been enumerated because they are part of ‘invisible’ populations in areas of high insecurity. And they do not include movements which fall short of migration ‘proper’ (see below). It is likely that many millions of Iraqis have been displaced in the broader sense – that there has been a ‘churning’ process in which component elements of the population have been separated out and redistributed, and within which a large number of people have been involved in multiple movements. This is the first episode in which Iraqi society as a whole has been subject to pressures which produce mass displacement. It is an outcome of conflict and of extreme insecurity associated with unprecedented attempts to reconstruct the nation-state.

Assault on the State The military offensive of 2003 initiated an agenda for change imposed by American strategists for whom the Iraqi state itself was anathema. Many observers of the events, including allies of former President George W. Bush, have noted the apparent absence of plans for Iraq after the invasion. Brigham, for example, comments: ‘the Bush administration made absolutely no plans for post-Saddam Iraq. The Bush team believed it could quickly turn its limited invasion force into peacekeepers without addressing fundamental social, economic and political problems in Iraq’ (Brigham 2006: 69).

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There has been less attention paid to assumptions made by key American strategists that detailed plans were unnecessary – that a ‘new’ Iraq would emerge with minimal assistance from the wreckage of the old state. This was the shared vision of political neo-conservatives and of neo-liberals whose views had long dominated American economic policy vis-à-vis the Global South. Klein (2007: 328) notes their special concerns about the Middle East: the perception that there was a general deficit of ‘free-market democracy’ in the region and a determination to undertake interventions which would set off ‘democratic/ neoliberal waves’ of reform – the response of populations liberated from years of unwanted state influence. She comments: ‘Within the internal logic of this theory, fighting terrorism, spreading frontier capitalism and holding elections were bundled into a single unified project’ (ibid). Iraq was selected as a first target for change, with high expectations that it would accelerate what leading neo-conservative Joshua Muravchik (2002) called ‘democracy’s quiet victory’ – the advance worldwide of market relations and of political practices congenial to American corporate interests.10 Once the suffocating influence of the Ba’thist regime had been removed, it was argued, these would arise within Iraqi society. The process would not require formal enabling structures like those of most states in the region, for with the market given free rein local entrepreneurs supported by global commercial networks would quickly stimulate a new Iraqi economy. Meanwhile a pluralist democracy would emerge from below: in effect, both the economy and political system would ‘kick-start’ (Allawi 2007: 161). Washington’s key aim was to erase what economists have called the ‘development state’ – structures put into place across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East in the wake of colonial rule and which for 50 years were the main agency for change. Buoyed up by their success in weakening the stateled model in Egypt, Algeria, and other countries intimately associated with ‘Arab socialism’, by the late 1990s American strategists had focused upon the recalcitrant Ba’thist government in Iraq, targeting Saddam Hussein for an exemplary intervention which would facilitate ‘regime change’ in Syria, Iran, and elsewhere. The Ba’thist monolith, they argued, was an obstacle to prosperity, harmony, and peace. Like all such centralised structures, it inhibited proper functioning of the market, restrained entrepreneurial energies, and retarded growth. Notwithstanding the substantial private element of the economy (with which the Ba’th Party had been closely identified) the architects of intervention regarded wholesale economic change ‘as an integral part of the American mission to remake the country’ (Chandrasekaran 2006: 128). Following the invasion, US-appointed administrator L. Paul Bremer III (‘Presidential Envoy to Iraq’) attended a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Jordan at which he explained Washington’s thinking: ‘Markets allocate resources much more efficiently than politicians’, he maintained, ‘So our strategic goal in the months

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ahead is to set in motion policies which will have the effect of reallocating people and resources from state enterprises to more productive private firms’ (Chandrasekaran 2003). ‘Reallocation’ was abrupt: in September 2003 Bremer lowered Iraq’s corporate tax rate, reduced the minimum wage, removed key tariffs on imported goods and restrictions on foreign businesses, and announced a crash programme of privatisation of public enterprises. According to The Economist (2003), Iraq was about to transformed into ‘a virtual free-trade zone’. The journal observed: ‘If it all works out, Iraq will be a capitalist’s dream’ (ibid). This assault on the state as an economic actor was paralleled by an attack on its political functions. Allawi (2007: 152) comments on the determination of neo-conservatives to eradicate Ba’thist influence. They wished for ‘the complete erasure of the Party and its legacy from public and private life’ (ibid), he observed: ‘It was thought that the Party was an unmitigated evil, and that any acknowledgement of its existence, even in an indirect way, would seriously compromise the reform of Iraqi society and politics’ (ibid). Under Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Order Number l, DeBa’athification of Iraqi Society, the Ba’th Party was ‘disestablished’ and its senior members evicted from all state bodies. CPA Order Number 2, Dissolution of Entities, dissolved the army, the air force, and the navy, and among a host of other state bodies the ministries of defence, military affairs, and information. Allawi (2007: 153) suggests that at least 400,000 people were dismissed, causing an abrupt increase in unemployment already at a level of some 70 per cent.11 After more than 10 years of international sanctions many Iraqis lived at the margin of survival, with millions sustained by food rations channelled through the official Public Distribution System (PDS). In December 2002 the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) had suggested that their situation was so parlous that the planned invasion would prompt a further crisis in which millions of people would be at risk of malnutrition (CASI 2003b). A few weeks later the World Food Program (WFP) distributed 2.1 million metric tons of basic supplies through the PDS with the aim of averting a national emergency. Invasion was not followed by an immediate crisis of food availability nor, contrary to expectations of many humanitarian organisations, was there a new phase of mass displacement. Most people had access to PDS rations and seemed prepared to wait for evidence of what a post-Ba’thist order might deliver. At the end of March 2003 UNHCR reported ‘no substantial [migratory] movements’ from Iraq (UNHCR 2003a). A large numbers of refugees repatriated from Iran, while some long-term exiles from North America and Europe made exploratory journeys to investigate the possibility of return.12 Forces were now at work, however, which were shortly to bring displacement on an unimagined scale.

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New Conflicts In the months following invasion state property was stripped bare. Looters entered ministries, depots, barracks, warehouses, hospitals, campuses, and schools to carry off all they could remove. Bremer (2006: 3) reports arriving in Baghdad to witness ‘industrial-strength looting’. American troops watched passively; in some cases they encouraged those involved.13 Peter McPherson, senior economic advisor to the CPA, declared that looting was part of the process of change – a form of ‘privatisation’ consistent with values of the new Iraq. Pillage of public resources, he observed, was a legitimate form of public sector ‘shrinkage’ that cleared the ground for vigorous new forms of economic activity (Klein 2007: 337). Likewise John Agresto, in charge of higher education, commented that looting of university campuses was beneficial, as it provided ‘the opportunity for a clean [sic] start’ (Chandrasekaran 2006: 184).14 Iraqis were in effect encouraged to erase the infrastructure of the state - contaminated by association with Ba’thism and centralised authority its resources could be appropriated at will. It was soon clear that people associated with the state were also legitimate targets. CPA Order Number 1 had identified tens of thousands of members of the Ba’th Party as suspects for investigation of ‘criminal conduct’ (CPA 2003: 1). Once de-Ba’thification was under way the net was cast much more widely, so that low-ranking party members were also dismissed and banned from employment in public bodies. Under the former regime many had been compelled to take party membership to secure a job. In higher education even the most junior positions had been available only to those holding party cards; in primary and secondary education many teachers had been instructed by the Ministry of Education to join the Ba’th: in effect, membership of the party was a condition of service. The effect of Order Number 1 was to remove 10,000 to 15,000 teachers from their jobs, with the result that schools in some regions were promptly emptied of staff (Chandrasekeran 2006: 81). Allawi (who witnessed these developments from within the post-invasion administration) characterises the dismissals as a ‘blunderbuss approach’ which was to have profound implications: The function of the [Ba’th] Party as administrative glue and the fact that considerable numbers of people had joined it for nothing more than personal advancement, or even survival, were only tangentially acknowledged by the CPA, and more generally by the proponents of full-scale de-Ba’athification amongst Iraqi political figures …

The planners of the war, especially those in the Pentagon and the vicepresident’s office, saw the Ba’ath Party as an ideological block that had to be removed and its influence excised, a Nazi Party in all but name (Allawi 2007: 151 and 153).

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Most of those removed under de-Ba’thification were Sunni Muslims – and the vast majority of those publicly vilified as the campaign progressed were Sunnis who occupied modest positions. Cockburn (2006: 70–71) comments that, ‘Without quite knowing what it was doing the CPA was trying to force through a revolutionary change in social and ethnic relations in Iraq.’ Historically the state had been intimately linked to national aspects of Iraqi culture. As it came under assault those most obviously associated with national institutions and professional networks became key targets. The Bush administration was disinterested in reconciliation – rather than peace commissions or tribunals on the South African model it declared open season on all those identified with the ‘old’ Iraq. Bremer (2006: 39) notes the pressure coming from senior figures in Washington to remove the Ba’thist cadre ‘and to wipe the country clean of the Baath Party’s ideology’. Occupation authorities were therefore unconcerned by murders, kidnappings and ‘disappearances’ of thousands of people who had held public office. Many academics, doctors, and professionals were attacked publicly – assassinated in gruesome scenes in which they killed were in front of students, patients, or colleagues; others ‘disappeared’ and were found dead, often dumped in public places (Marfleet 2009). In the first eighteen months after the invasion, said the Iraqi Union of University Lecturers, 250 academics were murdered (Morgan 2004). The CPA failed to investigate any of the incidents; when in September 2004 the US State Department was asked to comment, a spokesman described the matter as ‘obscure’ (Rubin 2004). The intelligentsia began to disintegrate, as thousands of educators, writers, artists, and professionals left Iraq. By mid-2004 the international press was recording ‘a climate of fear’ and a ‘brain drain’ of leading academics.15 Among those who did not leave many were affected by growing insecurity: they avoided certain areas in which they now felt vulnerable; changed the routine of their journey to work or even sought new jobs; and took measures to protect their families. This process was largely unseen and unrecorded but marked an important change – an initial phase of displacement which was to become migration ‘proper’. Despite many signs of general insecurity, the CPA and the Bush administration issued repeated statements celebrating peace and the prospect of stability and harmony. When Saddam Hussein was arrested in December 2003 Bremer declared that conflict was finally over and that Iraqis should ‘look to the future, to your future of hope, to a future of reconciliation’ (CPA 2003c). He added: ‘Now is the time for all Iraqis – Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis, Shias, Christians, and Turkomen – to build a prosperous, democratic Iraq at peace with itself and with its neighbours’ (ibid).

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‘Repatriation and Reintegration’ Leading humanitarian agencies were meanwhile operating on the assumption that Iraq had been liberated and was about to enter a new era of social stability; it was appropriate, they believed, to encourage repatriation of those compelled to leave during the Ba’thist era. The UNHCR appointed Dennis McNamara as Special Envoy for Iraq, charging him with supervision of return and reintegration. A few weeks after the invasion it published detailed proposals – a Repatriation and Reintegration Plan intended to assist 500,000 Iraqi refugees (UNHCR 2003b). This took at face value the assurances of Bush and his allies that Iraq would shortly be at peace. As UNHCR (2003b: 3) noted, ‘It [the Plan] assumes a relatively rapid stabilisation of the security situation in Iraq thereby enabling refugees to return to their homes in conditions of safety and dignity.’ The document continued: ‘Many among the forcibly displaced Iraqis, those living in the immediate region in particular, are expected to return over a relatively short period of time, including in a spontaneous manner. Those living further afield might need more time, and perhaps more incentives, before they decide to repatriate’ (UNHCR 2003b: 7). As the CPA issued its first Orders, UNHCR was preparing inward movement of hundreds of thousands of people.16 After the initial returns from Iran, however, few Iraqis showed a desire to repatriate. It had become clear that the country was entering a period of turmoil in which Bremer’s ‘future of hope’ was increasingly remote. By 2004 Bremer had been compelled to revise the reform agenda. Discovering that an abrupt privatisation of industry and commerce was implausible, he had opted for a more modest policy of ‘shrinkage’ of the public sector.17 Facing mass opposition and armed resistance in some regions, he also abandoned efforts to identify representatives of the spontaneous ‘bottom-up’ democracy anticipated by neo-conservative think-tanks. Instead the CPA drew together politicians who had earlier led opposition to the Ba’th, among whom most represented political currents organised on explicitly ethnic or religious bases. They were to join discussions on formation of an interim government and administration – a shadow state that would eventually restructure Iraqi politics. Stansfield (2007: 173) comments that the cleavages apparent within the group were soon visible in society at large, as communalist principles began to shape the new order. The Ba’thist regime had earlier reinvigorated communalism. Following a strong assertion of radical nationalist and class-oriented agendas in the 1950s and early 1960s, its own brand of ethnicised, highly conservative nationalism had prompted strong resistance from the Kurds and the Shi’a. In effect, Saddam Hussein had reproduced approaches pioneered by the British and which were inherent in the architecture of the colonial state.

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These were largely successful – the opposition was fragmented by repeated assaults, with the result that it was unable to challenge Ba’thist control. When US forces removed the regime, and eventually nominated the Ba’th’s chief opposition as candidates for key positions in government, they endorsed communalism even more emphatically. It was soon entrenched as the key principle of a new Iraqi politics.

Towards Ethnic Cleansing During the first year of occupation living conditions deteriorated rapidly. The CPA showed little interest in restoring infrastructure damaged during the ‘shock and awe’ offensives that had accompanied invasion. Many technical experts had been dismissed; those who remained struggled to repair outdated plant and machinery, with the result that power generation failed to reach even inadequate pre-invasion levels.18 Prices of gasoline and kerosene rose and in some areas food supplies faltered. Allawi (2007: 290) comments that ‘the average lot of the citizenry was pitiful’. Disillusion with the Americans spread rapidly and centres of armed resistance began to multiply. Cockburn, who witnessed this sharp change in popular attitudes, comments: ‘the ground was beginning to quake under [the Americans’] feet’ (Cockburn 2006: 107). It was in this situation that the CPA co-opted opposition parties to an Interim Iraqi Government (IIG), attempting to consolidate what remained of the apparatus of state as a means to assert central authority – a project that amounted to ‘re-establishment of a version of the authoritarian state in Iraq’ (Allawi 2007: 293). US officials offered key state institutions to the main opposition parties, providing them with powerful means of consolidating ethno-religious constituencies: ‘Ministries were allocated [to the opposition] on a sort of quota system … The new minister would … treat his new ministry as a fiefdom of his party, a deep well of patronage, money and power from which members of his party alone could draw’ (Cockburn 2006: 151). Herring and Rangwala (2006: 152) comment that the consequences were profound: as finance, arms, and influence flowed to communalist networks, ‘political leaders had to become sectarian entrepreneurs’. For the mass of Iraqis, struggling with the pressures of everyday life, there was a new reality: jobs, income, food, fuel, education and health services, and basic security, depended more and more on links to family and clan, and to religious institutions and political parties. In a process familiar from similar episodes in Lebanon and in the Balkans, large numbers of people aligned with organisations which seemed to make irresistible claims on their loyalty. Sectarian militias proliferated, recruiting (like the armed resistance to Coalition forces) from a huge pool of unemployed. Threats, killings, and

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disappearances earlier directed mainly at public figures including former officials, academics, and professionals became general in some areas. The process of ‘pre-displacement’ intensified, as millions of people began to adjust their lives to ethnicisation of social space. Journeys to and from work, schools, clinics, and PDS centres were modified to avoid contact with potentially hostile groups; in some areas self-imposed restrictions on movement amounted to curfews. By 2004 vulnerable communities were on the move. Following attacks on churches in Baghdad large numbers of Christians fled to the north and later to Syria (Zoepf 2004). When U.S. forces engaged in fierce fighting in the city of Fallujah there was a mass exodus. The Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq (2005) suggests that 300,000 people may have been displaced, many fleeing to Amriya and Ghazaliya, predominantly Sunni suburbs in the west of the city where militias evicted local Shi’as in order to accommodate Falluji families. The UNHCR, still formally committed to the Repatriation and Reintegration Plan, was in serious difficulty. It had become clear that most returnees were experiencing further displacement, making a mockery of the official programme.19 In March 2004 the agency cited an Iraqi government recommendation that ‘host’ countries should not encourage return of refugees, noting ‘a generalized climate of instability and insecurity’ and ‘potential for increased violence, given the persistence of extremist elements and tensions among Iraq’s various ethnic and religious groups’ (UNHCR 2004a). It also recorded a collapse in living standards, including ‘severe lack of housing, irregular provision of basic services, no effective judicial system or financial institutions, and an unemployment rate running as high as 60–70 per cent’ (ibid). In April 2004 it declared that ‘UNHCR is not promoting return to Iraq’ (UNHCR 2004b); in September it produced a Return Advisory Regarding Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Refugees. This asserted that Iraq was ‘extremely unstable with a dangerous security situation’ and advised governments to suspend organised returns to any part of Iraq until further notice (UNHCR 2004c: 1 and 4). In 2005 living conditions again declined precipitously; the proportion of people with reliable access to drinkable water and regular electricity supplies fell sharply and the cost of fuel increased: in exchange for an IMF loan of $685 million the government agreed to remove subsidies and overnight prices of kerosene and cooking gas rose by over 500 per cent (Daragahi and Roug 2006). Meanwhile the much-trumpeted democratic experiment had heightened social tensions. A general election in December 2005, prepared by the IIG, was entirely dominated by ethnocentric agendas. The International Crisis Group (2006: i) described polls as little more than ‘confessional exercises’ in which rival parties and militias consolidated networks of support and staked out their territories, spatial and sociocultural. Millions of people were under intense pressure to move to areas

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in which they would (notionally) enjoy physical protection and access to resources supplied through the networks of patronage. In several regions ‘pre-displacement’ measures were no longer adequate to safeguard against killings, assaults, disappearances, and threats. Here, exemplary attacks and/or warnings produced ‘demonstration’ effects, leading families, kin groups and whole communities to relocate to areas secured by parties and militias with which they had an ethnic affiliation. A process of cumulative causation was at work. Networks and communities underwent attrition, losing more and more members until mass emigration seemed to be the sole option. Eventually systematic ethnic cleansing became evident: in ethnically mixed towns around Baghdad rival militias began to enforce segregation and thousands of people moved into and around the city in complex movements that tracked new ethnic boundaries (Tavernise 2005). In February 2006 an assault on the al-Askari mosque in Samarra (a Shi’a shrine in a predominantly Sunni city) launched revenge attacks and counter attacks, producing mass migration in and from Baghdad and from most ethnically diverse urban centres. Many migrants now moved long distances to areas in which they hoped for safety. Despite perilous journeys some travelled hundreds of kilometres through territories controlled by hostile forces: by such means thousands of Christians from Baghdad and Basra reached villages in the north, and Sunni groups in the east and Shi’a in the west moved across the country in population ‘exchanges’ that recalled the movements imposed 20 years earlier by the Ba’thist regime.

Fate of the Displaced According to the IOM, by October 2008 the number of people displaced within Iraq since early 2006 had increased to almost 1.6 million; the total of IDPs (including those displaced before 2003) was almost 3 million (IOM 2008b). Most of those newly affected had been compelled to move to areas in which their ethnic affiliation was consistent with that of the majority community. Many did not complete their journeys as planned, while some migrants soon suffered further repressions and displacements. As early as 2006, in ten of Iraq’s eighteen governorates the authorities made efforts to exclude people arriving from other parts of the country (UNHCR 2006c). Some migrants were held at internal borders and refused entry; among those attempting to take shelter in public buildings many were evicted and informal shanty settlements began to appear outside major cities (most IDPs attempted to find security in urban settings). In September 2007 IOM noted the impact of much tighter visa requirements for Iraqis wishing to enter Syria and Jordan – states which had long

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received most Iraqi refugees (IOM 2007). Many displaced people who might have left Iraq were now compelled to stay within its borders, while refugees who returned discovered that they were obliged to remain. Rafiq Tschannen, IOM’s Chief of Mission for Iraq, commented on the combined effect of external and internal restrictions: ‘Iraqis who remain inside the country will be effectively marooned without a place to go’ (ibid). UNHCR noted ‘disturbing reports’ of regional authorities refusing to register new arrivals and denying them access to government services (UNHCR 2007c), suggesting that ‘ad hoc camps’ were being established by people who had no alternative. A senior official commented that, ‘Iraqis detest living in camps and the fact that we are now seeing these types of camps being established is a very bad sign that other options are no longer available’ (CNN 2007).20 The organisation identified tens of makeshift sites, including in Baghdad, in the southern city of Najaf, and in Ninewah province, in which it estimated that seven per cent of IDPs were living in informal locations (ibid). (Formal ‘tent’ camps established by the Ministry of Displacement and Migration [MODM] together with international humanitarian organisations accommodated only a handful of families).21 In February 2007 the Iraqi prime minister ordered people illegally occupying the homes of others in Baghdad to leave or to give evidence of their permission to remain; there was no provision for alternative accommodation of occupants (of whom the majority were known to be IDPs) nor were measures taken to ensure the security of those ordered to leave.22 Several large demonstrations outside the Green Zone (the location of US and Iraqi government headquarters in Central Baghdad) delayed implementation of the edict which eventually took effect in September 2008. IOM reported that in some areas of the city police had created special ‘eviction committees’ and that families were given 24 hours notice to move (IOM 2008b, 2008c). In June 2007 the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (Unami) and WFP had reported that almost half of IDPs nationwide did not have access to official food distribution channels and that many were living in impoverished conditions (UNHCR 2007c). By 2008 security in some regions had improved and the rate of displacement had decreased; IDPs were nonetheless more insecure. Few had employment; most were reliant on the support of family or friends and on rations supplied through the PDS. In many areas IDP families had been instructed to reassign ration cards to local PDS offices by retrieving their original documents and reregistering in the new location – a task impossible for most. 23 In mid-2008, half of IDPs in Qadisiyya province reported that they had been unable to transfer their cards (IOM 2008d: 15). Similarly, children of displaced families had been threatened with expulsion from local schools unless they could provide documents which had been left in places of origin when

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they fled (IOM 2008b: 17).24 Hundreds of thousands of people were being denied access to food and welfare. Policies of exclusion adopted by national and local authorities penalised people because they were ‘out of place’ – distant from the location in which they been registered as Iraqi citizens. Ethnic cleansing had reallocated them in accordance with preferences of those who dominated the new Iraqi government; the same political leaders and officials now took punitive measures against them. Many migrants became desperate. In October 2008 IOM (2008b: 7) reported that even in the relatively stable governorate of Dahuk ‘a significant number’ of IDPs were selling valuables to purchase daily necessities; some were forced to work in demeaning or illegal jobs, including as sex workers, and had been victims of sexual assaults. An assessment undertaken at the same time in Kirkuk, based on some 10,000 families or over 50,000 people, noted that ‘Women must beg at traffic stops and in markets to feed their families, and there are many unofficial reports of sexual assaults’ (IOM 2008b: 12). Immiseration and ill-health among IDPs were reported from most provinces. In November 2008 almost 40 per cent of displaced people nationwide said that they had not received any form of humanitarian assistance (IOM 2008c: 3). The government appeared disinterested. In September 2008 a parliamentary committee on displacement reported that both refugees and IDPs faced ‘harsh conditions’ and called for renewed international support (UNOCHA 2008). Sassoon (2008: 29) comments that the committee was in fact entirely ineffectual, ‘apart from grabbing headlines on its website defining its mandate … it is difficult to see any concrete steps that had any real effect for those who had been displaced.’ The committee and the MODM spoke on behalf of migrants, who like all displaced people faced extreme difficulty in attempting publicly to speak about their real needs. Their key social, cultural, and political relationships had been disrupted; kin groups, communities, and professional networks had been fragmented; families had been dispersed across Iraq or even across several states. Institutional structures were in the hands of people concerned with specific political constituencies, among which the displaced – people at the margin of society – were an insignificant category. IDPs were not entirely silent, as witnessed by the demonstrations in Baghdad, but were in general rendered ‘voiceless’ by the nature of their predicament and their vulnerability in the face of forces which had emerged as the new power-brokers. Iraqi society as a whole had proved receptive to the IDPs, many of whom had initially found shelter with family members, or with people in employment networks and communal groups. But even at an early stage in the displacement process many IDPs reported tensions within families over access to scarce resources (Unami 2006: 16). After years of displacement with no prospect of return more and more IDPs faced isolation, exploitation,

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and repression – and in some areas those who sheltered them also faced punitive measures. In Kirkuk province, says IOM (2008a: 6), security for IDPs is ‘a constant battle’. Here, people of diverse ethno-religious backgrounds struggle to find a niche in which they can survive (IOM 2008a: 6). In 2008 the governor issued an order prohibiting movement of displaced people from Diyala and Ninewah and declaring that those who sheltered them would be penalised - so that even association with IDPs was in effect treated as a criminal act.

‘Corroded State’ By 2009 many IDPs had been displaced for several years and had little prospect of return; meanwhile, notwithstanding somewhat improved security in major cities, new displacements continued to take place, especially in the north and east. In mid-2008 there were extensive movements in and around the city of Mosul and along the borders of provinces in which Kurds were the majority population. In some governorates humanitarian organisations anxious about further displacements prepositioned emergency supplies and prepared for major new migrations (IOM 2008c: 2). The fate of Iraq’s IDPs has been closely linked to circumstances that prompted their displacement. In 2003, as part of a calculated offensive, the Iraqi state was assaulted and much of its infrastructure destroyed. The reshaped structure that emerged in its place was based upon principles of ethnic differentiation likely to produce intense communal hostility and to prompt very widespread migration. Iraqi history contained a wealth of examples of such movements associated with crises of the state, in particular with efforts of the authorities to assert central control. The occupation which began in 2003, followed by attempts to reconstruct the political system, was certain to take effect in terms of similar developments. Those who benefited from political change had their own interest in displacement – their own stake in a reshaped political structure – and were largely unconcerned about the fate of the displaced except as potential recruits to parties, militias, and paramilitary organisations. Large numbers of people were in effect marooned across Iraq, becoming a tempting target for assertion of authority by both national and regional officials. Vulnerable and often isolated, they were groups against which weak political forces were able to demonstrate a minimum of control. As mobile people they were viewed as dysfunctional and potentially subversive – ‘outsiders’ onto whom ineffectual authorities could displace responsibility for their own failure to provide security and basic services. Border controls, eviction orders, and mobilisations against them were one means by which

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those in office could assert political status without cost, as the migrants were rarely able to articulate their concerns publicly, or to resist effectively. In areas such as Kurdistan even those who assisted IDPs were punished, as if migrants contaminated those with whom they now came into contact. The Iraqi state which began to emerge under the CPA was based on new internal borders which ‘unmixed’ diverse cultural elements and separated them on the basis of ethno-religious affiliation. Brah (1996: 198), who has examined the multiple implications of borders, describes them as ‘arbitrary dividing lines that are simultaneously social, cultural and psychic’. They are, she says, ‘territories to be patrolled against those whom they construct as outsiders, aliens, the Others; …places where claims to ownership – claims to “mine”, “yours” and “theirs” – are staked out, contested, defended, fought over’ (ibid). When such borders are formalised as the basis for access to key resources they begin to define the geography of the state itself, with profound implications for society at large. Cockburn (2006: 208) comments that sectarian strife which overtook Iraq in 2006 brought abrupt change: ‘Districts where Sunni and Shi’a had lived peacefully for decades, if not centuries, were being torn apart in a few days.’ Mass displacement was part of this process – it was indeed required by political factions (which were both competitive and collaborative) focused upon their chance of securing power. Allawi (2007: 460) comments that, ‘The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order.’ Just as the Ba’thist state engendered forced migration and despatched its victims without concern, the new order stimulated and profited from mass displacement. We can learn much from these episodes of state re-formation in which the most vulnerable social groups are part of the means by which power is exercised and consolidated. Soguk (1999) writes of the importance of displaced people in the ‘statecraft’ employed by those who constructed nation-states in early modern Europe. Displacements, he argues, were integral to consolidation of the new entities – part of complex processes by which emerging political authorities began ‘to acquire the characteristics of a modern centralizing state’ (Soguk 1999: 71). They have since occurred repeatedly during processes of state formation, including the imposition of colonial states by European powers in the Middle East. The use of particularly savage forms of mass displacement by the British colonial secretary as part of the making of Iraq was ‘folly’, says Catherwood (2005). But Churchill was enacting policies long used in Europe and in the ‘colonial’ world and which are still used routinely as political strategies. The determination of the Bush administration to destroy the Ba’thist state and emplace a new order may be particularly striking but it is not a novel approach, nor one that has employed novel techniques. Soguk (1999: 247)

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notes the lack of literature on histories of displacement and state formation outside Europe. The case of Iraq – past and present – is one among many that may add to our understanding of the dynamics of displacement during crises of the state.

Notes   1. Fawcett and Tanner (2002: 8) note that estimates ranged from 600,000 to 800,000 IDPs in northern governorates and up to 300,000 in the southern governorates.   2. In only two states worldwide were there larger populations of IDPs – Sudan, with up to 6 million IDPs, and Colombia with up to 4.3 million (IDMC 2008).   3. ‘Unmixing’ - a term originally used by the British colonial administrator Lord Curzon and later by Arendt to describe the impact of state formation upon diverse socio-cultural communities in Europe during the early decades of the twentieth century. See Arendt 1951.   4. Wilaya (Arabic ) – plural wiyalaat – an administrative unit under the authority of a wali. Turkish – vilayet.   5. Corum (2000) suggests that their imperial experience had taught the British that, ‘strong and forceful action was the best means of keeping natives under control’. He quotes an officer of the Royal Air Force (RAF): ‘the Air Force must, if called upon to administer punishment, do it with all its might and in the proper manner. One objective must be selected – preferably the most inaccessible village of the most prominent tribe which it is desired to punish. All available aircraft must be collected … The attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle … This sounds brutal, I know, but it must be made brutal to start with. The threat alone in the future will prove efficacious if the lesson is once properly learnt’ (RAF wing commander J.A. Chamier, quoted in Corum 2000).   6. Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer L Haldane, quoted ibid.   7. Draft of the RAF’s Notes on the Method of Employment of the Air Arm in Iraq, quoted ibid.   8. A comprehensive report on IDPs in Iraq as at 31 December 2006.   9. Two per cent were waiting to make their decisions, said the IOM (200.6: 9). 10. According to Muravchik, of the American Enterprise Institute (a leading neoconservative think-tank), ‘Change toward democratic regimes in Tehran and Baghdad would unleash a tsunami across the Islamic world’, part of a process which would bring ‘a friendlier, more humane and peaceful world’ (Muravchik 2002). 11. Iraq Ministry of Labour figure quoted by Cockburn 2006, p. 71. 12. In 2006 UNHCR suggested that 300,000 had returned ‘spontaneously’ from Iran (UNHCR 2006: 10). 13. Cockburn (2006: 75) quotes eyewitnesses who testified that U.S. troops watched looters, ‘standing by, taking photographs, cheering them on’. See also Bremer

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2006 (ch. 1) for evidence that U.S. troops watched as public buildings were ransacked. 14. Agresto later admitted that the destruction had disastrous consequences: ‘What the looting did to the capacity to teach was incredible … The Americans don’t want to talk about it because we did so little to stop the looting’ (Chandrasekaran 2004). 15. See for example Ciezadlo 2004, Fisk 2004. 16. The Plan suggested: ‘Of the 212,000 Iraqi refugees living in the immediate region, it is estimated that 75–80 per cent will return (i.e. an approximate total of 165,000 persons). Of the 183,000 Iraqi refugees living in industrialised countries, the majority are well integrated in the host society and may be reluctant to repatriate to Iraq. For the purpose of this planning exercise, it will be assumed that only around 20 per cent of them will require some form of support from UNHCR to repatriate to Iraq (i.e. 35,000 persons). Of the 84,000 Iraqi asylum-seekers, it will be assumed that, following political change in Iraq, around 75 per cent of them will be willing or otherwise compelled by their respective host countries to repatriate (i.e. around 60,000 persons).’ See UNHCR 2003c, p. 8. 17. The occupation authorities had already distributed lucrative contracts to leading U.S. corporations, a process that accelerated as the anticipated flowering of entrepreneurial activity in Iraq failed to materialise. See Klein 2007. 18. See Allawi 2007, pp. 258–9 for analysis of gross failures by the occupation authorities: ‘the CPA and its successors … primarily responsible for the chaotic conditions in the power sector’. 19. This information was not made available until 2006. See UNHCR 2006b, page 11. 20. Andrew Harper, head of UNHCR Iraq support unit in Geneva, quoted by CNN (CNN 2007). 21. According to IOM, in January 2008 there were some 550 families in eight formal camps (IOM 2008e). 22. Evicted families received a grant for six months – but no accommodation was provided, nor assistance in finding accommodation. 23. PDS cards have special significance, as they have also been the basis for voter registration. 24. When government officials announced distribution of returnee grants they also instructed IDPs to register in Baghdad – a journey most found impossible to undertake (ibid). IDPs in Kurdistan faced the added difficulty that tension between the Kurdish authorities and the central government made travel across border zones around Kurdistan extremely dangerous.

References All websites accessed 30 December 2008. Allawi, A. 2007. The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, New Haven: Yale University Press. Arendt, H. [1951]. 1986. The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York: Harvest.

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Batatu, H. 1978. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brah, A. 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities, London: Routledge. Bremer, L.P. 2006. My Year in Iraq, New York: Simon and Schuster. Brigham, R. 2006. Is Iraq another Vietnam? New York: PublicAffairs. CASI [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq] 2003a. ‘Internal UN documents on the humanitarian impact of war on Iraq’, at: http://www.casi.org.uk/info/ undocs/internal.html CASI [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq] 2003b. ‘Notes on ‘Integrated Humanitarian Contingency Plan for Iraq and Neighbouring Countries’, at: http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/ocha030107notes.html Catherwood, C. 2005. Winston’s Folly: Imperialism and the Creation of Modern Iraq, London: Constable. Chandrasekaran. 2003. ‘Attacks Force Retreat From Wide-Ranging Plans for Iraq’, Washington Post, December 28. Chandrasekaran, R. 2004. ‘An Educator Learns the Hard Way – Task of Rebuilding Universities Brings Frustration, Doubts and Danger’, Washington Post, June 21. Chandrasekaran, R. 2006. Imperial Life in the Emerald City, London: Bloomsbury. Ciezadlo, A. 2004. ‘Death to those who dare to speak out’, Christian Science Monitor, April 30. CNN. 2007. ‘Shantytowns springing up in Iraq’, June 15. CNN broadcast at: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/15/iraq.shantytowns/ CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] 2003a. ‘Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1’, at: http://www.cpairaq.org/regulations/20030823_ CPAORD_2_Dissolution_of_Entities_with_Annex_.pdf CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] 2003b. ‘Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2’, at: http://www.cpairaq.org/regulations/20030823_ CPAORD_2_Dissolution_of_Entities_with_Annex_.pdf CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] 2003c. ‘Text of Ambassador Bremer’s OpeningRemarks at the CPA Conference Center, Baghdad, December 14th, 2003’, at: http://www.cpairaq.org/transcripts/20031214_Dec14_Saddam_ Capture.htm Cockburn, P. 2006. The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, London: Verso. Corom J.S. 2000. ‘The Myth of Air Control – Reassessing the History’, Aerospace PowerJournal, at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/ apj00/win00/corum.htm Daragahi, B. and Roug, L. 2005. ‘Iraqis Pummeled at the Pumps’, Los Angeles Times, December 28. Economist. 2003. ‘Let’s all go to the yard sale’, September 25. Fawcett, J. and Tanner, V. 2002. The Internally Displaced People of Iraq, Washington: Brooking Institution- SAIS. Fisk, R. 2004. ‘Academics targeted as murder and mayhem hits Iraqi colleges’, The Independent, July 14. Herring, E. and Rangwala, G. 2006. Iraq in Fragments: The Occupation and Its Legacy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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IDMC. 2008. ‘Total internally displaced population is estimated to be more than 2.7 Million’, at: http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/ countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/B6C0B024031DFA0F802570B8005A74D6?O penDocument IOM. 2006. Iraqi Displacement 2006 - Year In Review, at: http://www.iom-iraq.net/ Library/2006%20Iraq%20Displacement%20Review.pdf IOM. 2007. ‘Most Governorates Restrict Entry to Internally Displaced Persons’, IOM Press Briefing, Geneva: IOM. IOM. 2008a. Kirkuk, Ninewah and Salah al-Din – Governorate Profiles, June 2008, at: http://www.iom-iraq.net/Library/idp_gov_profiles/2008/Governorate_ Profiles_Kirkuk_Ninewa_Salah_Al-Din_ Jun08.pdf IOM. 2008b. IOM Emergency Needs Assessments – Post-February 2006 Displacement in Iraq (1 October 2008 Monthly Report), at: http://www.iom-iraq.net/Library/ IOM%20Iraq%20Displacement%20Assessments%20and%20Statistics%20 1%20Oct%2008.pdf IOM. 2008c. IOM Emergency Needs Assessments – Post-February 2006 Displacement in Iraq (1 November 2008 Monthly Report), at: http://www.iom-iraq.net/Library/ IOM%20Iraq%20Displacement%20Assessments%20and%20Statistics%20 1%20Nov%2008.pdf IOM. 2008d. IOM Emergency Needs Assessments – Post-February 2006 Displacement in Iraq (1 June 2008 Monthly Report), at: http://www.iom-iraq.net/Library/ IOM%20Iraq%20Displacement%20Assessments%20 &%20Statistics%20 1%20Jun%2008.pdf IOM. 2008e. Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Tent Camp Assessment Report, Iraq January 2008, Geneva: IOM. IRIN. 2007. ‘Iraq: IDPs in Baghdad suburb stage protest, demand protection’, 24 September, Geneva: Unocha. Jalili, I. 2007. Iraq’s Lost Generation: Impact and Implications, at: http://www. brusselstribunal.org/pdf/alJalili170607.pdf Klein, N. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, London: Penguin. Marfleet, P. 2006. Refugees in a Global Era, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Marfleet, P. 2007. ‘Iraq’s refugees: war and the strategy of exit’, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, 1(3). Marfleet, P. 2009. ‘Purging of Minds’, in Baker, R. and Ismael, T. (eds.) Cultural Cleansing, London: Zed. Monitoring Net for Human Rights in Iraq (2005), First Periodical Report, http:// www.brusselstribunal.org/survey111105.htm#10 Morgan, T. 2004. ‘Murder of Lecturers Threatens Iraqi Academia’, Times Higher Education Supplement, September 10. Muravchik, J. 2002. ‘Democracy’s Quiet Victory’, New York Times, Linkedin Digg Facebook Mixx Yahoo! Buzz Permalink August 19. Rubin, A. 2004. ‘The slaughter of Iraq’s intellectuals’, New Statesman, 6 September. Sassoon, J. 2008. The Iraqi Refugees – The New Crisis in the Middle East, London: IB Tauris. Soguk, N. 1999. States and Strangers: Refugees and Displacements of Statecraft, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Stansfield, G. 2007. Iraq: People, History, Politics, Cambridge: Polity.

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Tavernise, S. 2005. ‘Sectarian Hatred Pulls Apart Iraq’s Mixed Towns’, New York Times, November 20, 2005. Tripp, C. 2000. A History of Iraq, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition. UNHCR. 2003a. ‘Iraq region: no substantial movements reported’, at: http:// www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/iraq?page=briefing&id=3e844f7e4 UNHCR. 2003b. Preliminary Repatriation and Reintegration Plan for Iraq, Geneva: UNHCR. UNHCR. 2004a. ‘Latest guidance on Iraqi asylum seekers’, at: http://www. unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/iraq?page=briefing&id= 4056eddf4 UNHCR. 2004b. ‘Iraq: security an issue for returnees too’, http://www.unhcr. org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/iraq?page=briefing&id= 406d38465 UNHCR. 2004c. Return Advisory Regarding Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Refugees, Geneva: UNHCR. UNHCR. 2006a. ‘Iraq Displacement’, at: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/ vtx/iraq?page=briefing&id= 452f69d74 UNHCR. 2006b. Iraq Operation 2006 – Supplementary Appeal, Geneva: UNHCR. UNHCR. 2006c. ‘Iraq displacement’, at: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/ vtx/iraq?page=briefing&id= 454b1f8f2 UNHCR. 2007a. ‘Statistics on Displaced Iraqis Around the World – September 2007, Global Overview’, at: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/ opendoc.pdf?tbl= SUBSITES&id= 470387fc2 UNHCR. 2007b. ‘Growing needs amid continuing displacement’, at: http:// www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/iraq?page=intro UNHCR. 2007c. ‘Iraq: situation continues to worsen, local governorates overwhelmed’, http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/ iraq?page=briefing&id= 46653e804 UNHCR. 2008a. ‘Statistics on Displaced Iraqis around the World’, at: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendoc.pdf?tbl= SUBSITES& id= 470387fc2 UNHCR. 2008b. ‘Iraqis still at the top of the asylum seeker table, despite drop’, at: http://www.unhcr.org.uk/press/PR20October08.htm UNAMI [UN Assistance Mission for Iraq] (2006) Human Rights Report 1 September– 31 October 2006, Amman: Unami. UNOCHA [UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] (2008) ‘Iraq:Parliament demands financial help for IDPs, refugees’ (IRIN), at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId= 80581 WFP (World Food Program). 2004. Baseline Food Security Analysis in Iraq, Geneva: WFP. Zoepf, K. 2004. ‘The Reach of War: Exodus; Many Christians Flee Iraq, With Syria the Haven of Choice’, New York Times, August 5.

Between Displacement and Migration: Neoliberal Reform and the Residues of War in Rural Nicaragua Sang Lee

Introduction International migration from the global South to the North has largely overshadowed South-South movements and remains understudied (Farrag 1997; Messina and Lahav 2006; Ratha and Shaw 2006). This raises the question of how well the current theoretical frameworks born out of empirical studies on South-North migration help our understanding of South-South migration. Because migrant-sending countries in the global South are often economically, politically, and/or environmentally unstable, it can be difficult to attribute the motivation to move to any one of these causes singly. Thus, the concepts of forced and voluntary migrant often become problematic in the case of South-South migration, with significant implications for migration policy. This chapter uses the case of Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica to unveil the complexity of migration dynamics occurring within the global South, and in particular to problematise current conceptualisations of ‘labour’ migration. Focusing on rural out-migration from two economically, ecologically, and historically distinct regions in Nicaragua, this study

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attempts to explain migration dynamics at the individual and household levels through in-depth interviews and ethnosurveys (Massey and Zenteno 2000) with Nicaraguan migrants in Costa Rica and families of migrants in Nicaragua respectively. This chapter first provides a brief background of Nicaragua’s political history. Nicaragua’s history of concurrent political and economic instability illustrates how migration dynamics are influenced both by the process of economic development and political instability. Next, the case studies are introduced and the methodologies adopted explained. In the third section, migration patterns and processes from each region are described, compared, and explained. The inseparability of multiple displacement experiences, insecure land tenure, climate, and a legacy of violence is demonstrated in trying to understand the motivations to migrate and return.

Background Nicaragua’s agricultural base transformed during the twentieth century from subsistence and small-scale farming to the more extensive production of export crops, especially coffee, cotton, and cattle (Prevost and Vanden 1997; Enríquez 1991). These agricultural transformations in turn led to a ‘proletarianisation’ and ‘semi-proletarianisation’ of the people in the countryside employed in this expanding agro-industry (Enríquez 1991). In 1970, the triumph of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ended the 42 year dictatorship of the Somoza family. The FSLN quickly initiated a literacy campaign, especially in the rural countryside, improved healthcare access, and modernized the education system. Land reform, technical assistance, subsidised seeds, fertilizers, and basic grain markets jump-started the agricultural economy. However, plans for socialist economic development were quickly thwarted by the escalating counter-government force called the Contrarevolucionarios (counter-revolutionaries) or the Contras. A decade-long civil war was waged in the countryside where rural families joined the Contras, the Sandinistas, or were displaced into the cities. The areas most affected by the war were in the agricultural frontier regions. This chapter focuses on two regions, Matagalpa in the north and Nueva Guinea in the south, to examine the international migration dynamics of the people migrating out of this area nearly two decades after the war officially came to an end. The civil war officially ended with the election of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in 1990. In order to stabilize the economy, the Chamorro administration fully embraced neoliberal economic development policies. A structural adjustment program (SAP), similar to the SAPs in other Latin American countries, called for reduced government spending to

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balance the national budget, currency devaluation to increase exports, and the privatisation of nationally-owned enterprises including financial institutions. The 1990s marked the beginning of Nicaragua’s economic decline, especially for its farming people. Institutional support for agricultural production during the 1980s was quickly disassembled during the post-war neoliberal era in two significant ways: through the closing of Banco Nacional de Desarrollo (the National Development Bank, BANADES) and through the elimination of the Empresa Nacional de Alimentos Basicos (the National Basic Foods Enterprise, ENABAS). BANADES was a state-run bank that provided long-term low interest loans to over 80,000 small and medium-sized farms (Rocha 1998). After reform BANADES reduced its coverage to only 7,000 producers in 1997 before finally closing in 1998 ( Jonakin and Enríquez 1999). The subsequent credit gap was filled by private banks, nongovernmental organisations and micro-finance institutions ( Jonakin and Enríquez 1999). Interest rates that reflect market conditions and account for currency devaluation, macroeconomic instability, the risks associated with agricultural crops are between 20–40 per cent with a loan life of one year, and, unsurprisingly, default rates are high. As a result, most lending institutions require collateral with high probability resale, such as titles to homes and land that is at least twice the value of the loan. Thus, the landless have no access to capital and the landed fear losing their land to loan default. Effectively, privatisation has denied capital flows to small producers. Agricultural crop market dynamics also dramatically shifted during the 1990s. Prior to 1990, ENABAS, a government institution, created a subsidised agricultural market primarily for the basic grain producers in the country. During the early 1980s, ENABAS was the largest buyer of basic grains and subsidized production through guaranteed producer prices, machinery services, and low interest and long-term credit (Spoor 1994b). Producers of all sizes were able to grow basic grains with minimal risk and their production maintained low food prices for the country’s urban poor. After the mid-1980s, when the Contra War waged in the countryside deteriorated the national economy, the ENABAS budget diminished along with its basic grain buying power.

Case Studies and Methods The findings in this chapter are based on interviews with Nicaraguan migrants in Pital, Costa Rica and families of migrants in Matagalpa and Nueva Guinea (Figure 1). In these two regions, various communities were selected to represent the regions’ diversity. Heads of families with a family

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member in Costa Rica were selected for interview through snowball and convenient sampling. In a few cases, all of the families with members in Costa Rica were selected due to the small size of the villages. The interviews with the families were guided by a modified version of the ethnosurvey used in the Latin American Migration Project (LAMP). The ethnosurvey was comprised of a total of 67 questions related to past and present socioeconomic information, employment history, social networks, remittances, internal and international migration histories of the family members, as well as, open-ended with a focus on concerns and suggestions on how to improve the families’ general economic situation. The ethnosurvey guide was not used for the in-depth interviews with migrants in Costa Rica. Instead these in-depth structured, but unscheduled interviews intended to facilitate conversation and the flow of personal narratives. The department of Matagalpa is located in the northern central mountain region of Nicaragua, and like much of the country, Matagalpa’s economy largely depends on agriculture. Families of migrants were interviewed in four communities in Matagalpa: Escipulas, El Tuma, San Andres, and Jucuapa, and shorter visits were undertaken to Matiguas and Bocana de Paiwa. These communities varied in microclimate, population, and proximity to urban centres. Matagalpa is known primarily as a coffee-producing region. The coffee market crash in the late 1990s and its slow recovery contributed to the region’s nearly decade-long economic depression. During the late 1990s there were few jobs for coffee pickers or plant workers. As a result many farmers and unemployed or underemployed rural people migrated to Costa Rica to supplement household incomes. Nueva Guinea is located in the south-eastern region of Nicaragua in the Southern Autonomous Region (RAAS). The six villages called “colonias” of Nacíones, Fonseca, La Union, Puerto Principe, Los Angles, and La Flor and the city of Nueva Guinea were surveyed. A few interviews were conducted in the communities or homes beyond the colonies in what local people generally called fincas or farms. During the second half of the 1970s, the newly formed Instituto Agrario Nacíonal (IAN) relocated over 5,000 families into the region through a large land reform programme implemented during the Somoza era (Mordt 2002: 153).

Migration Patterns and Processes Migration patterns and processes in the two study regions were driven by distinct factors including climate, land tenure, a history of displacement, and a legacy of violence. Both regions were also heavily affected by the dramatic reduction of capital available to small and medium producers after the closure of BANADES and by the unstable market prices of basic

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grains as a result of the elimination of ENABAS. These processes combined to result in an overall economic vulnerability of agriculture-dependent families in the countryside. Moving beyond these macroeconomic and structural changes, a closer examination of the driving mechanisms of migration patterns and processes demonstrated that region- and familyspecific conditions influenced whether, when, and for how long family members migrated.

Seasonal Migration Like the rest of Nicaragua’s Pacific region, Matagalpa has a distinct dry and wet season. The wet season from May to November is long enough to plant two short cycle crops. Although the wet season is supposed to begin in May, producers often complained that the rains have started later and later each year. People in the region are concerned about the unpredictability of rainfall, as nearly all of them depend on rain for agricultural production, with the exception of the privileged few who have land in the irrigated plains. December to April is the dry season in the north. During this ‘dead period’ when there is no agricultural production, the producers take time off or work on larger farms. Conveniently, the dry season in the north coincides with the harvest of export crops such as coffee, sugar, melon, and mango in Costa Rica. Historically, many of the producers and their families in the north have migrated seasonally. Fewer families have undertaken seasonal migration recently, however, due to low wages on export farms. Crop loss is also a significant factor in initiating migration. Jucuapa and the surrounding communities suffered from crop losses due to heavy rains during the latter part of the hurricane season in 2005. Beans, an important subsistence and cash crop in Nicaragua, are particularly susceptible to rain in the later stages of its production. Recently returned migrants in Jucuapa had all migrated to finance the upcoming production cycle: ‘I went there because I lost all my beans, I need money to buy beans this year and I don’t work with the bank’ (Lucca, January 29 2006). The perceived risks of taking loans out from a bank or microfinance institution in the face of crop failure pushed people out from Jucuapa into Costa Rica’s seasonal agricultural labour market. Most felt they had little choice other than to migrate, as migration was the only way to continue agricultural production in the face of crop failure and no access to capital.

Multiple Displacement and Family Disintegration As Nueva Guinea was settled during the 1970s, nearly all of the interviewees had migrated from elsewhere in the country or belonged to the first generation of natives in the region. Unlike the people in the north, the

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majority of interviewees here had migrated multiple times within Nicaragua in search of land and work. While Matagalpeños migrated seasonally as agricultural labourers during the coffee harvest season, they nevertheless remained rooted in their home towns and retained their parcels of land. Nueva Guinea’s history of permanent displacement has resulted in families being spread out and disconnected throughout the country. In addition, while the family members remaining in Matagalpa had little experience themselves of international migration to Costa Rica, 25 of the 81 families of migrants in Nueva Guinea have also migrated themselves to Costa Rica in the past. The lack of knowledge that people in the community had about their neighbours demonstrated the disconnect between families even in a small village setting. This can be attributed to the people’s high mobility in the area as well as the staggered and recent settlement history. This history of displacement and a lack of sense of ‘home’ played a large role in explaining patterns of return migration – and more specifically lack of return – from Costa Rica. ‘I have not gone back to Nueva Guinea, I do not have anyone there, I do not have a place to stay. My mom moved, my dad passed away, my brothers are scattered all over the place, all I have is my uncle in Nueva Guinea. Maybe I will go back to visit him, but it is not the same as having my mom and dad there’ (Modesta, 30 October 30 2005). The absence of a ‘home’ makes return migration unlikely. Many migrants moved to Costa Rica with limited social networks to facilitate their integration there; their lack of social networks or connections to people who can facilitate their reintegration prevents their return as well. Of the 80 families surveyed in the south only ten (13 per cent) were temporary or circular migrants; the rest of the migrants lived and worked year round in Costa Rica (see Table 1). This is in contrast to the migrants in the north where half were circular migrants (they either came back to Nicaragua regularly, to visit and support family, or would seasonally migrate to Costa Rica).

Land is Work Trabajo, or work, was the most common answer to questions about their reasons for migration by the families of migrants in Nueva Guinea, and by the migrants themselves. Over half of the families of migrants there stated that availability of stable, higher paying, and/or full time work would improve their economic situation and would most likely have prevented international migration. ‘If I had a small piece of land, even two or three manzanas (one manzana equals 0.7 hectares), we wouldn’t have to buy food, other than coffee, sugar and salt. It would be a job and maybe if I had more land my kids would not have gone to work in Costa Rica, there

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is nothing for them to do here so they had to go’ (Maria Cruz, 14 March 2006). Since Nicaraguan producers dry their beans and corn and store it for consumption throughout the year, a small piece of land that produces enough food for the family and limited wage labour is sufficient to sustain a family. Depending on the time of year, it is common to walk into a house in a small village and see hundreds of pounds of grain stored in the house as a means of securing food for the year and for savings. Since many of the interviewees saw working as a means to purchase food, if they had the opportunity to produce their own food, their need to work for a wage decreases, ‘We do things differently here in Nicaragua, in Costa Rica, you have to go to the store and buy our diario,1 here we don’t sell everything, we keep it to eat so we don’t have to buy as much, it is not like that in Costa Rica, there everything is at the supermarket’ (Martín, 11 March 2006). While agricultural production does pose a high risk in the case of crop failure, it is different from the day to day stress of providing for the family, ‘If you do not work, you do not eat’ ( Juan Carlos, 27 August 2005) that migrants and their families experience as landless wage-dependent workers. Over half of the families of migrants living in Nueva Guinea or in one of the surrounding colonies were landless and did not opt to sharecrop or rent land (see Tables 2 and 3). The difficulties of sharecropping and renting arise from a lack of available land, the high costs associated with production, and low returns on traditional crops. Nearly all of the Nicaraguan migrants interviewed in Costa Rica from Nueva Guinea were from landless families. One of the main incentives to leave Nicaragua was not just the lack of work back home, but rather the inability to save. Many moved with the hope of saving money to buy land or a house that would provide an opportunity to return permanently to Nicaragua. Limited employment opportunities, lack of land, and the inability to save enough money to purchase land in Nicaragua has therefore left many Nueva Guineans as permanent wage earners in Costa Rica with little to no hope of permanent return.

Persistence of Violence The legacy of violence from the civil war in Nicaragua has continued to displace people in the countryside. Incomplete disarmament and demobilisation resulted in increasing crime and violence, and this lack of security has in turn led to economic instability for many families. When I asked one small producer from a village outside Matagalpa what would improve his economic condition, he stated: If they allowed me to work tranquillo [without worries], last month someone came on my farm and killed one of my cows that was just about to have a calf. They came in the middle of the night and slaughtered it right there on the

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spot and left part of the carcass in my field. Last winter I had my team of oxen stolen! The thieves must have come with a truck in the middle of the night and stolen it. What can I do here? … I am not going to report it to the police, for what? So that the thieves could come and kill me or do something else? … I just go and try and earn an honest living the best I can. (10 March 2006)

General insecurity has compounded acute financial needs to fuel international migration. Carlos’ son temporarily migrated to Costa Rica to work on cassava and mango harvests during the dry season. Although his son intended to help his father recuperate his losses over the past year, he did not manage to save enough money to do so. Carlos was fortunate enough to belong to a lending cooperative that provides low interest loans to its members for agricultural production, but he was unusual in this regard. A returned migrant and single mother of five children was also a victim of theft. She and her oldest son harvested taro, one of the only export crops produced in the Nueva Guinea region. Her farm was a few hours walk from the colony where she lived. After harvesting over 25 100 pound sacks of taro, they left the harvest to be picked up the next day by mule to sell to an intermediary in a nearby colony. A week prior to the interview, the entire harvest had been stolen from her farm. Lourdes explained: We worked hard and what do we get? Nothing! They came in the middle of the night, it was a full moon and they stole everything. I sent money from Costa Rica so that we could have this harvest and now all I have to show for all that time away from my kids is this TV and we can not afford electricity in the house … I think I know who did it, but I am not going to send my kid to chase after them, then I will be without a harvest and a son. We are going to have to keep working and try and figure it out. (28 March 2006)

Lourdes’ case also demonstrates the difficulty of supporting children within a context where crime and violence is a part of life even 16 years after the official end of the civil war. For the landless life is even more difficult. As small farmers struggle, they cannot afford to hire outside work. With little wage labour available, the limited economic options for the landless include becoming an intermediary or running a small business. But they are also at risk from theft. Most small business people engaged in buying and selling agricultural goods in the countryside. Many travelled from village to village purchasing livestock and grains to resell at the market. Nearly all of the transactions took place in cash, and robbery was widespread. José, a migrant in Costa Rica, explained: I first came into Costa Rica in 1997. I could not live there anymore. Many of us who live doing business could not live in the rural areas because of the violence. I sold live pigs, that was my job, but you can not be in the rural areas with money in your pocket because they will steal from you.

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What are you going to do? Die for the money that you have in your pocket? After getting robbed a few times I decided that I was not going to do that anymore … after the disarming, the Sandinistas who were paid, did not get paid anymore. The Contras were delinquents too, but they were never paid so I do not think that they were in as bad of shape as the others. So those who got paid and did not have work needed to do something so they started stealing … (27 August 2005)

Persistent violence in the countryside has compounded economic instability to result in international migration to Costa Rica. This is a more complex picture than the one normally portrayed of traditional ‘labour migration’ (Morales and Castro 1999, 2002).

Production of Poverty Another implication of the conflict is that many people have not been able to reclaim or obtain compensation or restitution for property and land that was occupied or destroyed during the civil war – even 16 years after it ended. More than half of the families interviewed in Matagalpa claimed that the war contributed to the loss of their agricultural land. Some lost their cattle, some fled out of fear, while others sold their land cheap to avoid its confiscation. An inability to recover from their losses led many families to move within and out of Nicaragua. The search for land or livelihood has resulted in family disintegration as multiple moves left many families geographically and emotionally dispersed. In explaining the motivations of these people to migrate, it is hard to disentangle the impacts of the civil war from the impacts of economic liberalisation in its wake, which have in turn disrupted social networks. These factors in the immediate worlds of migrants are embedded in each other. Only a few migrants interviewed actively participated in the war and most migrants grew up during the war. The migrants entering Costa Rica today are from a generation that suffered from the residual impacts of the war in a distinct way because their lives either began or were formed by it. Despite the literacy programmes implemented in the countryside during the early years of the revolution, many migrant workers did not attend school during those years because of the violence: [Pointing to an Imperial beer sign down the road and migrant worker explains to me directions] You take a left where the black eagle sign is. I do not know how to read, I grew up during the war and I never went to school because we were all scared. Now I am 30 and I still do not know how to read. I do not even know how to write my name … what a shame that is. I do not think that I am ever going to learn how to read, maybe my future kids will. ( Juan Carlos, 27 August 2005)

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Another migrant worker explained: We were living in the north on a coffee farm when I was a kid. My parents brought us there and we picked coffee. During the war there was a teacher who came and taught us how to read. They killed her; she was a really pretty woman with white skin … they killed her with a machete. After that we did not have any classes, it was too dangerous. We moved out of the area and moved down here [Nueva Guinea] … I am in class now, I do not think that it is every too late to get an education. I hope to get my high school degree someday. (Lily, 3 December 2005)

While Juan Carlos and Lily had contrasting views about their education potential, they, like many other migrants of prime working age, suffered the residual consequences of being raised in the countryside where most of the violence was taking place. They felt that their economic opportunities in Costa Rica and Nicaragua would have been better had they had the opportunity to receive education denied them by the war and residual violence.

Conclusions The mechanisms of migration and displacement in and from Nicaragua highlight some of the complexities of international migration dynamics between countries in the global South. This study demonstrates how two migration systems, centred on Matagalpa and Nueva Guinea, are both related to land tenure and migration histories. The families surveyed in the northern region by and large were landed and did not suffer from multiple displacement, even during the war. Their secure land tenure resulted in circular migration of their family members to ameliorate the risks resulting from neoliberal reform and crop failure. For the migrants from the southern region of Nueva Guinea that was established through land reform, their migration patterns are more permanent in nature. Evidence from the study demonstrates that their migration dynamics were related in particular to their histories of displacement. The study also problematises the categories of forced, voluntary or labour migrant, especially within the context of South-South migration where people’s migration initiation, perpetuation, and dynamics are influenced by economic development, historical political instabilities, and family histories. While the people in the north provide an archetypal case of international migration that functions to reproduce the peasantry, migration dynamics in southern Nicaragua more resemble forced migration. Those migrants without land or a home explained that they did not have the option to return to Nicaragua because they would have nowhere to live or work.

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The economic situation in rural areas has not improved for small farmers and agricultural workers since the end of the civil war, and continued economic instability in these areas blocks many landless migrants from returning to their country of origin. Many migrants working in the agriculture sector in Costa Rica were not able to save enough money to return to Nicaragua. While landless Nicaraguan migrant workers theoretically have a choice to return to Nicaragua; realistically their only means of survival is to work in Costa Rica’s agriculture sector. As such, their migration initiation, perpetuation, and dynamics are influenced by the political and economic instabilities in Nicaragua, as well as their political and economic precariousness in Costa Rica. This case of South-South, rural-rural migration sheds some light on the shortcomings of migration theory and the subsequent policies that have largely been conceptualised out of South-North, rural-urban movements. In addition, the lived experiences of Nicaraguan migrants and their families demonstrate the need for academics and policy makers to move away from the confining concepts of forced and labour migration. Through the examination of South-South migration dynamics, where reality challenges these concepts, it is possible to broaden the existing theoretical frameworks that fully explains and predicts the other half of international migration who move between the global South.

Note 1. Diario is a term used by Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans in Costa Rica use to refer to basic foodstuffs like rice, beans, sugar, coffee, oil, and salt.

References Enríquez, L.J. 1991. Harvesting Change: Labor and Agrarian Reform in Nicaragua, 1979– 1990, University of North Carolina Press. Farrag, M. 1997. ‘Managing International Migration In Developing Countries’. International Migration Review 35: 315–336. Jonakin, J. and Enríquez, L. 1999. ‘The Non-Traditional Financial Sector in Nicaragua: ‘A Response to Rural Credit Market Exclusion.’ Development Policy Review 17:141–169. Massey, D. and Zenteno, R. 2000. ‘A validation of the Ethnosurvey: The Case of Mexico-U.S. Migration’. International Migration Review 34(3): 766–793. Messina, A.M., and Lahav, G. 2006. The Migration Reader: Exploring Politics and Policy. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Morales, A. and Castro, C. 1999. Inmigracion Laboral Nicaraguense en Costa Rica. San Jose: Facultad Latino Americano de Ciencias Sociales.

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. 2002. Redes Transfronterizas: Sociedad, Empleo y Migracion entre Nicaragua y Costa Rica. San Jose: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO). Mordt, M. 2002. Sustento y Sostenibilidad en la Frontera Agricola: La evolucion de la frontera en el sudeste de Nicaragua. Translated by C. Ferreria. Managua: Imprimatur Artes Graficas. Prevost, G. and Vanden, H.E. 1997. The Undermining of the Sandinista Revolution: St. Martin’s Press. Ratha, D. and Shaw, W. 2006. ‘South-South Migration and Remittances’: The World Bank. Rayos, D. 2004. Identificación y Caracterización de Comunidades Expulsoras de Migrantes Internacionales: Un Análisis Basado en los Censos Nicaragua 1995 y Costa Rica 2000. Masters in Population and Health, Department of Statistics, University of Costa Rica, San Jose. Rocha, J.L. 1998. ‘On the Death of BANADES (r.i.p.)’. Envio 200 (March 1998). Spoor, M. 1994b. ‘Issues of State and Market: From Inverventionism to Deregulation of Food Markets in Nicaragua.’ World Development 22(4): 517–533. Stark, O. and Bloom, D. 1985. The New Economics of Labor Migration. The American Economic Review 75 (2). Taylor, E.J. 1999. ‘The New Economics of Labour Migration and the Role of Remittances in the Migration Process.’ International Migration 37(1): 63–88.

The Migration-Displacement Nexus and Security in Afghanistan Khalid Koser

Introduction Migration and displacement in and from Afghanistan are bewilderingly complex: One of the world’s largest and most enduring protracted refugee situations coincides with the largest repatriation in recent history. Returnees to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan cross paths with increasing numbers of cross-border migrants, traders and new refugees moving in the opposite direction. Many returning refugees have effectively become internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Afghanistan, forming one of an increasing number of different IDP categories in that country. Some refugees who have chosen not to return to Afghanistan have remained as ‘irregular migrants’ and in some cases paid smugglers to move further away. These movements take place against the backdrop of an increasingly unstable situation in Afghanistan, which only seems likely to exacerbate their scale and complexity. Living conditions in Afghanistan are dire and deteriorating: An estimated 40 per cent of rural Afghans are malnourished; about 70 per cent of the population lives on less than 2 USD per day; over two–thirds of Afghans over the age of 15 cannot read and write; and one in five children dies before they reach their fifth birthday (Koser and Schmeidl 2009). The economy was described as ‘little short of catastrophic’ (Maley

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2007: 79) even before it was hit by the recent hike in food prices and global financial and economic crisis; and increasingly it relies on exports of opium and heroin (Rubin 2009). At the same time there has been an increase in insurgent activity and violent incidents over the past three years. Over the last two to three years there have been on average 548 violent incidents every month; there have been over 300 suicide attacks since the beginning of 2007; and the humanitarian space is shrinking. It is hard to predict the outcome of the recent ‘surge’ by the United States Army, but even in the best case it is unlikely to have a demonstrable impact on security in every region of the country. Over the border the Afghan-Pakistani tribal belt that straddles the border remains unstable (Synnott 2009); while Iran remains high on the security agenda of the international community. After a brief overview of displacement numbers and trends in Afghanistan, this chapter has two main purposes. The first is to describe and analyse the various intersections between migration and displacement in the Afghan context. In this way the chapter provides a series of examples that illustrate the core concept of this volume. The second is to consider the implications of the migration-displacement nexus in Afghanistan for security – both ‘human security’ and also national, regional, and even global security. In the context of this volume the point is that the migrationdisplacement nexus is not simply a new (or newly-visible) phenomenon that challenges traditional concepts and categories in migration; it also has significant implications, for migrants and their families, and for origin, transit, and destination states and societies. Implications for security are just one example.

The Dynamics of Afghan Displacement There have been waves of refugee flows and returns from and back to Afghanistan since the Communist coup in April 1978, broadly paralleling the phases of conflict in that country (Goodson 1998). At their peak in the mid- to late-1990s there were at least six million Afghan refugees, mainly in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan (Colville 1997), and according to some estimates as many as eight million (Kronenfeld 2008). According to the UNHCR Global Appeal 2008–2009 there are currently still about three million Afghan refugees in exile, about 2.1 million in Pakistan and 915,000 in Iran (UNHCR 2009). There are also much smaller numbers of Afghan refugees (and some asylum seekers) in Europe (mainly in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Denmark); Australia and New Zealand; North America; Russia; Central Asia; and India.

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Two main waves of repatriation can be identified in the last 10 years or so, with ad hoc and intermittent trickle movements occurring throughout. Almost three million refugees returned to Afghanistan between 1992 and 93 following the capture of Kabul by the mujahideen. Nearly five million Afghans have returned in a second major wave after 2002, following the fall of the Taliban government. Although the major repatriation flows are clearly linked to political events in Afghanistan, there has also been growing pressure from Iran and Pakistan on Afghan refugees to repatriate since the end of the 1990s, as expanded in the following section. In addition to refugee flows and returns, there is also a significant internally displaced population in Afghanistan. According to UNHCR in 2009 there were about 278,000 registered IDPs in Afghanistan (UNHCR 2009), but this figure certainly underestimates the true scale of internal displacement, which is probably closer to half a million (IDMC 2008). All these statistics also disguise a complexity that suggests that the ‘migration-displacement nexus’ is not a new phenomenon in the Afghan context. Schmeidl and Maley have identified a wide range of displacement types over the last thirty years, distinguishing new refugees from refugees sur place (especially in Iran); ‘anticipatory’ from ‘acute’ refugees; and refugees settled in neighbouring countries from those in the wider diaspora. All of these movements have also taken place against the background of a strong tradition of mobility among certain Afghan communities, in particular to access labour markets in nearby states (Schmeidl and Maley 2008). It has also been observed that many Afghans in Pakistan are ‘in some measure both refugees and economic migrants: they may face political threats in Afghanistan but also be working to support relatives there’ (Kronenfeld 2008: p. 45). Neither is the overlap between displacement and wider security issues examined later in this chapter new in the Afghan context. During the 1980s and early 1990s mujahideen resistance fighters based themselves and sheltered their families in Pakistan’s refugee camps, with backing from the international community and government of Pakistan, and support from humanitarian organisations. In many cases the mujahideen were permitted to distribute aid and recruit within camps, and as a result many of the refugee camps became heavily militarised (Zolberg et al. 1992; Lischer 1995). This was generally not the case in the camps in Iran. There was also a significant radicalisation of the refugee camps in Pakistan, particularly among young men attending extremist madrassahs (religious schools). Many of them subsequently made up the majority of the early fighters for the Taliban. According to some reports certain of the camps that remain in Pakistan are still used by the Taliban as a base for cross-border infiltration, and to recruit new fighters.

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From Refugees to Irregular Migrants Their association with the Taliban is one of the main reasons provided by the government of Pakistan for placing increasing pressure on Afghan refugees to repatriate. The refugees have also been suggested by Pakistani officials to have become associated with cross-border flows of narcotics, small arms, and human traffic. While there certainly are legitimate security concerns around the refugee camps which may become more acute, it has also been argued that the refugees have become a convenient scapegoat for Pakistan’s internal strife, failure to curb fundamentalism, and growing social ills (Ruiz 2001). Besides security, there are several other explanations for the pressure to repatriate. One is the sheer size of the population and the duration of displacement. Even after massive repatriation, over two million refugees remain in Pakistan and close to one million in Iran; and while some of these are relative newcomers, the majority have been in exile for decades. This longevity has also worn thin hospitality on the part of the host population, generating increasing resentment over competition for resources and jobs from the refugees (Schmeidl and Maley 2008), which has been exacerbated by the recent increase in food prices. In addition there has been a sharp decline in international assistance for Afghan refugees (although it picked up temporarily in 2001) – likely to be accentuated by the current global financial crisis. The role of the U.S. and its relationship with Pakistan is crucial in this analysis. During the Cold War, the U.S. (and other western states) openly provided refugee assistance to Afghan refugees via Pakistan, even if this muddled humanitarian with political assistance. Post 9/11, however, as the U.S. sought out Pakistan as its main ally in the war against terrorism in the region, it began to support the government’s stance on rapid repatriation to Afghanistan (Maley 2009). Furthermore, the return of refugees is often viewed by the international community as a signifier of peace and stability in origin countries, and in the case of Afghanistan thus a demonstration that U.S. and NATO tactics are succeeding. As a result of all these factors, since 2004 Pakistan has developed a new stringent policy aimed at closing the Afghan refugee camps. In 2008, after delays and protracted negotiations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), one of the largest camps, Jalozai in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), home to around 80,000 refugees, was closed. While refugees from camps such as Jalozai that have been closed are formally given the option either to return voluntarily, or to be resettled in other refugee camps in Pakistan, in reality it is reported that through establishing bureaucratic obstacles to resettlement and in

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some cases direct harassment, the government of Pakistan is trying to leave the refugees with little alternative but to return. In total an estimated 277,000 Afghans were repatriated from Pakistan in 2008, and the Pakistani government has set a target of repatriating all the remaining refugees by the end of 2009 when their current permits expire (UN News Service 2009). Set against the deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan reported at the beginning of this chapter, these policy goals that are certainly difficult to justify in humanitarian terms. Even more explicitly than Pakistan, Iran has been pursuing a policy of forced return. Since April 2007 the Iranian government has moved actively to expel Afghans who lack formal papers permitting them to reside in Iran. In addition employment and the freedom of movement have been restricted for Afghans, taxes have been levied on them, and they have been subject to intermittent roundups. It has been estimated that 360,000 Afghans were deported from Iran in 2007, including during the worst winter the region has experienced in years (IRIN, 2008). In at least three ways current pressure on Afghan refugees to repatriate is providing a context for their ‘transformation’ from refugees to irregular migrants – one illustration of the migration-displacement nexus. First, in Pakistan and especially Iran, their refugee permits are being withdrawn or not extended, thus effectively rescinding their legal status as refugees and leaving them in an irregular and undocumented status until they return to Afghanistan. Second, faced with diminishing options other than to return, it has been reported that increasing numbers of Afghan refugees are moving into cities in Pakistan to work there informally and with irregular status. Finally, there is some evidence that those who can afford to, or who can borrow from relatives in the diaspora, are paying migrant smugglers to move them away from Pakistan (Koser 2008).

From Refugees to idps One reason why many refugees are unwilling to return to Afghanistan from either Iran or Pakistan, and appear to be willing to stay even with irregular status and in the face of growing pressure from host governments and resentment from local populations, is that they are unable to return to their homes in Afghanistan. Indeed, a report by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission found that a majority of returnees (67.1 per cent) were unable to return to their places of origin (AIHRC 2007), and most had instead settled in urban areas in Afghanistan. There are a number of reasons why returning home has proved so difficult. Perhaps the most important is security: a large proportion of the country is rated by the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan

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(UNAMA) as extremely risky; while the Taliban still has a permanent presence in many regions. The rule of law is also weak, especially in rural areas. In a 2008 survey by the Asia Foundation, 74 per cent of respondents identified corruption as a major problem in Afghanistan (Asia Foundation, 2008); and in a report by the International Crisis Group the police were described as ‘a source of fear, rather than community protection.’ (ICG, 2008: 42). Land mines are another critical obstacle: Afghanistan is one of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world, with 15 per cent of the population living in affected areas. Mines and unexploded ordnance kill or injure an average of two Afghans every day. There are still 700 million square metres of land that need to be cleared. Disputes over land ownership and tenure are major sources of conflict in Afghanistan, as the livelihood of a majority of Afghanistan’s rural population (about 70 per cent) depends on agriculture (Wily 2003). Many returning IDPs have found their land occupied, lack proper documentation to prove their ownership and in turn occupy the land of others (Beall and Schütte 2006). There is a general lack of access to justice; inadequate dispute resolution mechanisms (TLO 2008); and on the whole an absence of compensation. According to McEwen and Nolan ‘Returnee claims constitute a large proportion of all disputes over private rural land ownership’ (McEwen and Nolan 2007: 103). Government land allocation schemes have begun to address this problem but they are often hindered by corruption. There have been recent criticisms that some of the sites identified for the resettlement of IDPs by the government’s land allocation strategy are located on barren land and far from local towns where there may be work. A lack of basic infrastructure is yet another obstacle to return. According to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), in 2007 about 20 per cent of returnees lacked access to health care, and another 40 per cent felt they received inadequate services. Overall, health workers lack access to over 40 per cent of the country. About one third of the interviewed returnees noted that their children (mostly girls) did not attend primary school, either because of a lack of school buildings, or childlabour (especially for boys) (AIHRC 2007). In October 2007 the Minister for Education reported that less than half the schools in Helmand Province were functioning, a fate shared by many other provinces in the volatile south and east of the country. Furthermore, in many parts of Afghanistan there is simply no opportunity to establish – or regain – a livelihood and adequate source of income. Finally, there are vulnerable groups that require special attention, including women, especially the two million or so widows in Afghanistan; and unaccompanied minors who are vulnerable to recruitment for child-labour and trafficking (Rahio 2007).

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Returning in many cases under pressure, and unable to go home, the majority of returnees are in effect becoming internally displaced persons within Afghanistan. The majority are now in urban areas, and in particular in Kabul, where it is estimated that over one million returning refugees now live, often in squatter settlements.

The Complexity of Internal Displacement in Afghanistan Returning refugees comprise just one of several categories of IDPs in Afghanistan. In addition to returnees, UNHCR has distinguished four other major ‘categories’ (UNHCR 2008): First, there is a protracted caseload living in IDP camps mainly in the south, and numbering around 130,000. Second, there are people recently and currently being displaced by conflict, especially in the south and east. These ‘new conflict-affected IDPs’ include both the victims of inter- or intra-tribal conflict (especially in the north) and ‘battle-affected.’ Third, there are those displaced as a result of food insecurity, particularly during the harsh winter of 2007–2008. Fourth, there are the internally displaced in urban areas, both conflict and development-induced (IDMC 2008). To these might be added a further category, created by an economic revival and some ‘land-grabbing’ in urban areas, especially Kabul, and resulting in rising land prices and increased rents which have displaced poor urban dwellers in a form of development-induced displacement (Beall and Schütte 2006; Koser 2007). At the same time, and adding to the complexity, there have also been significant IDP returns. Since 2002 UNHCR estimates that over half a million IDPs have returned to their homes in Afghanistan, although the rate has dropped off significantly recently. Overall the number of IDPs is on the rise in Afghanistan for three main reasons. One is that many returnees have been unable to go to their places of origin in Afghanistan. Second, armed conflict is still escalating in certain parts of Afghanistan, causing periodic (and sometimes short term only) displacement (IDMC 2008). During a working visit to Afghanistan in August 2007, the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons expressed particular concern that the methods both of the Taliban and of anti-insurgency operations are disproportionately impacting on civilians (RSG 2007). An estimated 100,000 people had been displaced by fighting between NATO and Afghan National Army Forces and the insurgency by the end of 2006, and a further 80,000 were displaced by violence, mainly in the south, in

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2007. Third, the country is prone to natural disasters – floods, droughts, earthquakes, and landslides. Drought-induced displacement in the north of the country, particularly in Saripul, Faryab, and Jawzjan provinces, is an annual phenomenon. There are regular warnings of a pending humanitarian emergency in food-insecure areas in the areas of Balkh, Samanga, Sri-Pul, and Jawzjan in the north, Badghis, Nimroz, and Ghor in the west, Logar in the east, Wardak in the centre, and Khost in the southeast. Beyond these specific pressure points, there is a general sense of susceptibility to displacement in Afghanistan. Lingering ethnic tensions combine with a weak rule of law, an inadequate police force and a security force preoccupied with fighting the Taliban. Large swathes of the country are inaccessible for humanitarian assistance. And above all people are poor and vulnerable (Koser 2007). If the ‘transformation’ of refugees into irregular migrants and IDPs is one way that the Afghanistan case illustrates the migration-displacement nexus concept, another is the range of IDP categories currently found in Afghanistan, covering as it does people displaced for different reasons, and over different periods of time. A protracted IDP situation coincides with short-term displacement; people displaced by insecurity, food shortages, and environmental hazards move together, and often live side by side in squatter settlements in urban areas. They in turn can be hard to distinguish from rural-urban migrants working in cities.

New Migration Strategies Daniel Kronenfeld cites an unpublished report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) which revealed that a startling 390,000 Afghans passed through a single border crossing, in both directions, in one two-week period in January 2005. Approximately as many people were reported to be crossing into Afghanistan as those setting out for Pakistan. Respondents in the study reported that they had crossed into Pakistan an average of twenty times each. There has been a long history of cross-border movements between Afghanistan and Pakistan for trade and seasonal employment. It appears that the volume of these movements is increasing, and that people who have traditionally moved across the border are being joined by a range of new categories. One category of cross-border movement has been Afghans assisted to return under the UNHCR assisted repatriation programme subsequently ‘recycling’ across the border in order to receive multiple cash grants. In response UNHCR has introduced biometrics which have effectively ended ‘recycling’.

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Still many Afghans in Pakistan live relatively close to their home areas in Afghanistan, and the border is very porous. Another category has thus been Afghans still based in refugee camps in Pakistan, crossing to their home areas for social and economic reasons, before returning to the camps. The extent to which it is accurate to describe such people still as refugees is debateable. Another category of cross-border movement is reported to be refugees who have returned but been unable to establish a livelihood, and are thus crossing the border once again (Kronenfeld 2008). There are also reports that some IDPs now moving across the border; and in some cases new asylum seekers from Afghanistan. Cross-border movements between Afghanistan and Pakistan thus present a good example of so-called ‘mixed flows’, with people leaving for different reasons nevertheless moving together, and provide another illustration of the migration-displacement nexus in the Afghan context. It has even been suggested that supporting cross-border mobility may be an innovative solution for Afghan refugees, for many of whom the traditional durable solutions of local integration, third country resettlement and voluntary repatriation are all difficult (Monsutti 2008). The proposal that has been made is for a transnational model allowing permanent and flexible labour migration between Afghanistan and its neighbours (Kronenfeld 2008). Thus refugees still present in Pakistan would be permitted to work (many do so already) on a temporary basis, at least until it is safe for them to return home. The economic interdependence and interconnectedness between Afghanistan and its neighbours would support such a solution, if political and security consideration would allow for it. Such a global approach to the Afghan refugee problem would also mirror the solutions put forth to resolve the security dilemmas in the region (especially in regard to Pakistan). Maley argues that ‘ … it should be recognised that without a regionally based approach, no single state’s problems are likely to be resolved. Interconnectedness is the name of the new Great Game.’ (Maley 2009: 90). Recognising this reality, however, may still take some time, and in the meantime it seems likely Afghans will adopt it for themselves, and continue to cross into Pakistan and work there, if necessary in an illegal manner.

The Migration-Displacement Nexus and Security As early as 2003 Amnesty International expressed concern ‘ … that large numbers of returns to a situation in which these returns cannot be sustained will be detrimental both to the safety and human rights of returnees as well as to the long-term reconstruction of Afghanistan’ (Amnesty International

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2003: 23) – and UNHCR was criticised for ‘facilitating’ large-scale returns in these circumstances. Since then conditions in Afghanistan have deteriorated, yet pressure continues to mount in Iran and Pakistan on the remaining refugees to return. Across a range of indicators, conditions for IDPs and returning refugees are deteriorating in Afghanistan. Due to a lack of access to land and shelter, a majority settle in ad hoc makeshift camps and and and orsquatter settlements. This is especially concerning during winter seasons. Even though a presidential decree established a Special Land Disputes Court in 2002 in order ‘to specifically deal with private persons who are returnees or internally displaced and who seek to retrieve private properties of which they have been unwillingly deprived during the period since 1978’ (World Bank 2005); it has been largely unsuccessful (Wily 2004). In Kabul in particular there is a lack of infrastructure to support the population that has been swelled by returning refugees and IDPs – much of the city lacks proper sanitation facilities, electricity, schools, or health centres. Unemployment and underemployment among returning refugees and among IDPs is rife. There are reports of food shortages and hunger in IDP camps. Lack of security is both a concern and a reality for returning refugees, as are rights issues such as unresolved community conflicts or fear of persecution of minorities are also a concern (CMI 2008). Beyond the dire human security implications for returning refugees and IDPs in Afghanistan, it is possible to discern a series of wider implications for development and security both nationally and within the region, especially as the Afghan refugee situation has been subject to politicisation in the past. As early as the 1980s, refugees were ‘pawns in the larger geopolitical struggle for regional and international domination’ (Loescher 1993: 89), a trend that is starting to repeat itself. First, far from contributing to post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding, the return of such large numbers of refugees has almost certainly exacerbated existing problems in Afghanistan, by placing huge pressure on the country’s absorption capacity. Examples range from pressure on limited services, to competition for jobs, to stoking communal and ethnic tensions. As Turton and Marsden have observed, repatriation aid has been ‘ … in the best interests neither of the majority of its intended beneficiaries nor of the long term reconstruction of Afghanistan’ (Turton and Marsden 2002: 35). Second, ‘voluntary’ repatriation has largely come to a halt and those who remain are likely to return only if forced. Refugees under pressure to return from Iran and Pakistan thus may seek alternatives, including for example migrating internally within those countries to urban areas (many Afghans in Pakistan already hold Pakistani Identification cards), or joining the large force of labour migrants. Such an outcome would add to pressure on

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resources and competition for jobs in urban areas, and further exacerbate negative public sentiments towards the refugees in host countries, if not regarding Afghanistan as a whole. While it is very important not to impute refugees with tainted intentions without substantiation (Uehling 2004), it may also be worth considering, thirdly, possible interactions between returning refugees and IDPs in Afghanistan and other security issues and threats, especially as these populations are poor, unemployed, and feel disenfranchised and marginalised. The source of problems lies less with the displaced populations themselves than with inadequate assistance and protection. They may be associated with urban unrest (for example in Kabul in 2006 and in Jalalabad in 2005); the narcotics industry; or cross-border trafficking of people, arms, and drugs. In other contexts it has been suggested that IDPs may be sympathetic towards or actively support insurgency groups, especially if they do not consider their government to be assisting them adequately, or at the least provide an easy recruitment ground for the insurgency (Ferris 2008). Finally, the situation of returning refugees and IDPs in Afghanistan has put a further strain on already tense political relations between the Afghan government and its neighbours. Afghanistan is likely to resist repatriation to avoid further exacerbation of the sorts of problems outlined here; while Iran and Pakistan show no let up in their determination to continue to send Afghans home. As in the past, Afghan refugees have once again become a convenient scapegoat in their host countries for social ills, an assertion Afghanistan rejects. Especially Pakistan, under increasing international pressure for its failure to rein in growing fundamentalism, is blaming Afghan refugee camps for harbouring extremists that not only feed the insurgency in Afghanistan, but are increasingly destabilising the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA) of the country.

Conclusions There can be few regions in the world that illustrate the migrationdisplacement nexus as well as Afghanistan and its neighbours. This chapter has focused on Afghan migrants and refugees, but the migrationdisplacement nexus has also now affected Pakistani citizens. Camps that have been evacuated by Afghan refugees in Pakistan were filled by Pakistani IDPs in 2009 fleeing violence in the Bajaur agency of the FATA in NWFP: according to some estimates 800,000 people were internally displaced in Pakistan, mostly for only a short period of time. There were even reports that some Pakistani from Bajaur crossed the border into Afghanistan as refugees.

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This chapter has contributed to understanding of the migrationdisplacement nexus in three main ways through its case study. First, it has provided examples of a variety of different ways that the intersection between migration and displacement occurs. The status of individuals can transform overnight – as in the case of Afghan refugees who now remain in Pakistan as irregular migrants; or retuning refugees who have effectively become internally displaced persons in Afghanistan. Even within a single category, there can be migrants with a wide range of experiences and motivations – as illustrated by the diversity of IDPs in Afghanistan; as well as the inclusion in the category ‘Afghan refugees’ of people in protracted situations, new asylum seekers, ‘recycled’ refugees, and some economic migrants. ‘Mixed flows’ provide another example of the migration-displacement nexus, in which people fleeing conflict, violence, and persecution are moving across the border alongside those moving for economic and social reasons. Second, the case of Afghanistan has demonstrated that the migrationdisplacement nexus is not a new phenomenon, although it may be a new concept. Refugees have left Afghanistan for different reasons over the last thirty years even though they are settled in the same camp and covered by a single legal category. Refugees have regularly moved in both directions across the border, often multiple times, and often for economic and social reasons. In this way they have become difficult to distinguish from longstanding cross-border migrants. For many years Afghan refugees have also worked both legally and illegally in Pakistan, at times blurring the distinction between refugee, economic migrant and irregular migrant. Finally, the chapter has demonstrated that the migration-displacement nexus is more simply than an interesting phenomenon with conceptual ramifications. It also can have a direct impact on the migrants concerned and their families, the host populations among whom they settle, and the states between which they move. In the particular case of Afghanistan this has been illustrated through a focus on security, but in other contexts it is possible to envisage implications of the migration-displacement nexus for economic growth and development, for example. As an extension, the migration-displacement nexus also has policy implications. In the particular case of Afghanistan it has even been suggested that it may comprise a nontraditional solution for a protracted refugee situation. In other contexts there are other policy implications, for example in terms of protection in situations of mixed flows.

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References Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). 2007. Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan II, Kabul: AIHRC. Amnesty International. 2003. Afghanistan – Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Fate of the Afghan Returnees, Index No ASA 11/014/2003, June. Asia Foundation. 2008. Afghanistan in 2007: A Survey of the Afghan People, Kabul: The Asia Foundation. Beall, J. and Schütte, S. 2006. Urban Livelihoods in Afghanistan; Synthesis Paper, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, August. CHR Michelsen Institute (CMI). 2008. Return in Dignity, Return to What? Review of the Voluntary Return Programme to Afghanistan, CMI Report. Colville, R. 1997. ‘The biggest case load in the world’, Refugees, 108: 3–9. Ferris, E. 2008. The Looming Crisis: Displacement and Security in Iraq, Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Paper Series, No.5, Washington DC: Brookings Institution. Goodson, L.P. 1998. ‘Periodicity and intensity in the Afghan war’, Central Asian Survey, 17:3, 471–88. International Council on Security and Development (ICOS). 2008. Struggle for Kabul: The Taliban Advance, London: ICOS, December. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). 2008. ‘Afghanistan: Increasing hardship and limited support for growing displaced population’ 28 October 2008. International Crisis Group (ICG). 2008. ‘Policing in Afghanistan: Still Searching for a Strategy’, Asia Briefing 85. IRIN. 2008. ‘Afghanistan mass deportation from Iran may cause crisis, official warns’, http://www.irinnews.org80/Report.aspx?ReportId=76790, 17 February. Koser, K. 2007. ‘Internal displacement in Afghanistan’, presentation at seminar on Internal Displacement in South Asia, Brookings Institution, http://www. brookings.edu/speeches/2007/1108_afghanistan_koser.aspx . 2008. ‘Why migrant smuggling pays’, International Migration, 46(2): 302–32. Koser, K. and Schmeidl, S. 2009. ‘Human development, displacement and security in Afghanistan’, paper presented at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, Doha, February. Kronenfeld, D. 2008. ‘Afghan refugees in Pakistan: Not all refugees, not always in Pakistan, not necessarily Afghan?’ Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(1): 43–79. Lischer, S.K. 1995. Dangerous Sanctuaries, New York: Cornell University Press. Loescher, G. 1993. Beyond Charity: International Cooperation and the Global Refugee Crisis, New York: Oxford University Press, 89. Maley, W. 2007. Rescuing Afghanistan, London: Hurst. . 2009. ‘Afghanistan and its region’ in Thier, J.A. (ed.), The Future of Afghanistan, Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, pp. 81–93. McEwen, A. and Nolan, S. 2007. Water Management, Livestock and the Opium Economy: Options for Land Registration, Working Paper Series, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. Monsutti, A. 2008. ‘Afghan migratory strategies and the three solutions to the refugee problem’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 27: 1–14.

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Rahjo, M.A. 2007. ‘Afghanistan: UNHCR Considerations for Specific Groups Relevant to the Determination of Refugee Status’, in Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum. Research and Documentation (ACCORD) (ed.), Country Report Afghanistan, 11th European Country of Origin Information Seminar (Vienna, 21–22 June 2007), pp. 23–54. Rubin, B.R. 2009. ‘The Transformation of the Afghan State’, in Thier, J.A.(ed.), The Future of Afghanistan, Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, pp. 13–23. Ruiz, H.A. 2001. ‘Afghan refugees in Pakistan at risk’, Refugee Reports, 22(7): 1–8. Schmeidl, S. and Maley, W. 2008. ‘The case of the Afghan refugee population: Finding durable solutions in contested transitions’, in Adelman, H. (ed.) Protracted Displacement in Asia: No Place to Call Home. London: Ashgate, 131–79. Stapleton, B.J. 2007. ‘A means to what end? Why PRTs are peripheral to the bigger political challenges in Afghanistan’, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 10(1): 1–49. Synnott, H. 2009. ‘What is happening in Pakistan?’, Survival, February-March, 61–80. Tribal Liaison Office (TLO) 2008. Land Based Conflict In Afghanistan: The Case Of Paktia; Working Paper, Kabul: TLO. Uehling G. 2004. ‘Unwanted migration’, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper 109, Geneva: UNHCR. UNHCR. 2009. National Profile of IDPs in Afghanistan, 27 August 2008. UN News Service. 2009. ‘Returning refugees to Afghanistan struggle to earn a living wage’, http://www.un.org/apps/mews/printnews.asp?nid=29457 Wily, L.A. 2003. Land Rights in Crisis: Restoring Tenure Insecurity in Afghanistan, Issues Paper Series; Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. . 2004. Looking for Peace on the Pastures: Rural Land Relations in Afghanistan, Synthesis Paper, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. World Bank. 2005. Will formal documents of title and the courts resolve all land disputes? Kabul Urban Policy Notes Series No.5, 2005 http://siteresources.worldbank. org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/223546–1150905429722/PolicyNote5. pdf

The Migration-Displacement Nexus in China Xiao Junyong

Introduction In 2000, the Fifth National Census statistics showed that China had a ‘floating population’ of 140 million, defined as people who have lived away from their normal place of residence for over six months. Nationally, 78 per cent of this population moves from rural to urban areas. Transfers within a single province accounted for 91.46 million people, whereas interprovincial migrants accounted for 33.14 million people. According to 2007 statistics, the peak number of migrant workers arriving in Beijing was about 500,000 people per day. More than two-thirds of the vegetables for urban residents in Beijing are supplied by migrant workers. Beijing’s repair industry has been more or less monopolised by migrant workers and more than 90 per cent of home care is provided by female migrant workers. In many central eastern cities, the inflow of migrant workers has increased year on year. In Guangdong Province, for example, rural-urban migrants accounted for 37.8 per cent of the total population in 2000, 39.2 per cent in 2003, and had surged to 42.6 per cent by 2004. In Guangzhou the ‘floating population’ comprised 44 per cent of the total population in 2006 ( Jian and Hongyu 2006). Floating population in China can be classified into several main groups. Firstly, there is the group of rural to urban migrants who are employed

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as migrant workers and hawkers. The size of this group has increased dramatically in the past three decades, especially in large coastal cities. The second group includes those displaced by government resettlement projects. The approximately 50 million people that comprise this group have become migrants through urban development, water conservation, transport, ecology, or communication construction projects. There is also a population displaced by natural disasters although, as China’s economic strength has increased, the government has improved relief to the groups affected by natural disasters, which has led to a significant decrease in the number displaced by natural disasters in the last 30 years. Other migrants include runaway street children, vagrants living in cities, scavengers who have lost land or jobs, abandoned elders, beggars, mental patients, and persons with disabilities. The size of this latter group is not clear, but it is estimated at about three million people. Although some of this wide range of internal migrants and displaced persons enjoy an acceptable standard of living, many live in miserable conditions. This chapter provides an overview of internally displaced and internal migrant populations in China and their current circumstances, and in so doing emphasises the enormous differences between these groups that are nevertheless often viewed in political and public perceptions as an amorphous mass covered by the catch-all phrase ‘floating population’.

China’s Migrant Workers The main component of the ‘floating population’ is migrant workers. The National Bureau of Statistics’ 2000 survey showed that 113.9 million rural labourers were working in urban settings in 2000, comprising 23.2 per cent of the total rural labour force. Migrant workers in China are a mobile group formed by the surplus rural labour force that has emerged as a result of the rural to urban transition that the country has experienced over the past 30 years. The migrants’ household registration (Hukou) remains in their rural area and they may retain land there, but their main source of income is non-agricultural production in urban areas. From the 1980s onwards an increasingly secure food supply has resulted in the liberalisation of policies on personal movement and created opportunities for farmers to move to cities. This relaxation of the Hukou system – originally used by the command economy to limit rural-urban migration – combined with the widening of the income gap between rural and urban areas, the development of township enterprises, and increasing demand for labour in coastal areas, are all significant factors that contribute to the creation of this mobile population. After the 1990s China’s surplus rural labour force accelerated its inter-provincial, trans-county, and

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regional movements. This flow is variously referred to as min gong chao (‘flow of migrant workers’) or mangliu (‘blind flow’). The growth of the migrant worker population has affected contemporary China’s political stability and social harmony. Migrant workers and urban residents typically comprise two quite distinct groups, with different economic interests and social networks. As a result rural-urban migrants often suffer psychological and cultural isolation. These migrants simultaneously satisfy a labour shortage in urban development while competing with local workers in China’s central and coastal cities. The relatively low level of migrant workers’ wages creates lower costs in urban economies, which results in an increasing demand for migrant workers’ labour. China’s large and medium-sized cities continue to rely on cheap labour from rural areas to launch large-scale infrastructure projects and promote modernisation. Migrant workers make dynamic economic development possible. At the same time their movements have resulted in a labour shortage in some rural areas.

Socio-Economic Characteristics According to a sample survey of population statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2005, the migrant workers population tended to share a broadly similar profile. Young adults of working age compose the largest proportion of migrant workers. Approximately 70 per cent of the group is composed of 15 – 39-year-olds, with 25 – 34-year-olds accounting for the majority. In cities and towns, the large influx of migrant workers has thus resulted in a younger overall demographic profile. The educational level of migrants tends to be higher than that of those who remain in rural areas, but lower than local urban residents. Those who had completed middle school accounted for the highest proportion (52.2 per cent) of migrant workers, followed by primary school completers (24.2 per cent), high school completers (13.3 per cent), and those who are illiterate (10.3 per cent). There is a high percentage of unmarried migrants. Over the age of 15, the unmarried population comprised 20.3 per cent. This rate is 17.6 per cent and 19.4 per cent higher than the urban and rural population respectively. The employment rate of the ‘floating population’ is significantly higher than that of the cities’ and towns’ resident populations – 96.7 per cent compared to 92.5 per cent (Ying, 2002). An important reason for this difference in employment rates is that farmers who cannot find work in urban cities tend to migrate to other places or return to their home areas. Migrants are mainly employed in individual and private companies, rather than the public sector. Approximately 65 per cent works in private enterprises, far higher than the 21 per cent of the urban resident

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population. Self-employed migrant entrepreneurs comprise 33.4 per cent of the migrant worker population, twice the level of resident populations. A large number of jobs are thus generated by migrant workers themselves, which contributes to the expanding capacity of urban employment. This relatively high percentage of self-employed migrants also reflects the fact that there is a professional restriction on migrant labour employment in many large and medium-sized cities. Migrants workers tend to work longer hours than urban resident populations. Some 57 per cent of migrants work over fifty hours per week, and 38 per cent forty to forty-nine hours per week. In comparison, 79 per cent of urban residents work forty to forty-nine hours per week, and only 18 per cent work over fifty hours. Nevertheless migrant household incomes are lower than those of urban residents, although higher than those of residents in rural areas. The average household income of rural to urban migrant families was 9,449 RMB Yuan (about U.S.$ 1350) according to an annual survey in 1999. It was 18 per cent lower than average incomes for urban resident families. Among migrant workers, the annual income of family households from outside the province reached 10,693 Yuan (about U.S. $1520), while intra-province migrant household income was 9062 Yuan (about $1295) (Ying, 2002).

Working and Living Conditions Most of the rural-urban migrant labour force is employed in urban construction, as hotel restaurant workers, hawkers, nursery maids, or in maintenance, property, transport, storage, and sanitation. Compared to non-agricultural urban households, migrant workers are generally employed in the urban informal sector with low wages and poor working conditions. These jobs provide no medical insurance or social security, much less opportunities for promotion. The remuneration for migrants is much lower than that of urban residents. Migrant workers have clearly contributed to urban economic development and modernisation, yet tend to be ignored and marginalised by residents. In terms of social security and medical care migrants are the most vulnerable group in the cities. They have no fundamental rights in the cities in which they work; and their needs are not taken into account by the public budget in sectors such as employment, health care, reproductive health, and children’s education. Migrant workers have low incomes, but rental prices rise every month. Consequently, they can only afford remote or simple places to live in and migrants’ living conditions are generally poor. Cramped housing, lack of sanitation, and poor lighting and ventilation are common problems. With the absence of formal registration (Hukou) in local cities and towns, migrants are not under the protection of the urban housing security system (which

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includes a government-provided minimum level of housing). The following excerpt from an interview of a migrant workers in Beijing by a reporter illustrates the point: ‘Why are you living here?’ ‘Living here is economical, the rental price is too high in Beijing, living here can save water, electricity and gas, it is also convenient to work.’ ‘You are always in this type of housing?’ ‘Yes, I basically do not pay any rent in Beijing, from one house to another.’ ‘But, the pollution is very serious here! When I come in my eyes can barely open. How can you endure it?’ ‘No problem, my health is very good! My body is really well, do not worry.’

On 25 July 2002, the Hunan Morning Post reported on the crowded living conditions of migrant workers as follows: ‘(in) less than 10 square meters, (there) has lived a large group of migrant workers. Yesterday morning, people found that a migrant worker located in North Station Road, Changsha city died from suffocation.’12 Migrant workers are often undernourished. In the absence of supervision by administrative departments and as a result of a lack of public support, the food quality for many migrant workers is deteriorating. In many cases their diets are worse in cities than they were in rural areas. In a Shanghai construction site one migrant worker told me: ‘We’re eating worse than pigs! Doing heavy physical exercises every day, how can we keep vigorous by eating such rubbish!’ In response collective canteens are being built in construction sites in order to lower the cost of food for these workers. There have been several high profile incidents of food poisoning among migrant workers. On New Year’s Day 2001, sixty-two migrant workers ate undercooked food in a construction site in Xi’an, which led to food poisoning and the workers being rushed to hospital. In August 2003, at the Suzhou Industrial Park, nearly 400 workers were sent to the hospital on the same night due to food poisoning. The patients complained that they had all been eating poisoned canteen food. In June 2004, in Wulanhaote City, Inner Mongolia, forty-one migrant workers were poisoned in a construction site. Later investigation concluded that the migrant workers’ vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain and other symptoms resulted from consuming leftover steamed bread that had been stored for up to 20 hours2. In 2006, a kind of rice known as the ‘migrant workers grain’ emerged in the agriculture markets of several Chinese provinces and cities. This particular rice was thus named after a large amount was sold to migrant worker sites because it was more than one-third cheaper than ordinary rice. ‘Migrant workers grain’ is actually rotten grain which contains a large amount of aldehyde, a carcinogen, and aflatoxin, the strongest chemical carcinogen known to man. Discrimination against migrant workers is explicit and widespread. In 2004, a sample survey conducted in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou

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showed that the problem of discrimination against migrant workers was prevalent 3. Of the migrant workers in cities, 55 per cent considered themselves subject to discrimination and unfair treatment, with 20 per cent reporting having experienced severe discrimination. The survey showed workers felt that the most prevalent forms of discrimination were being ridiculed, or being looked down upon (22 per cent) and being detained arbitrarily by officers for a fine (13 per cent). The following anecdotal evidence illustrates the point further: on the eve of the 2008 annual Spring Festival, the slogan: ‘Spring Festival is approaching, and it’s a peak time for migrant workers to return home. It is hoped that the residents strengthen their awareness of vigilance and crime prevention’ appeared in print in many towns and cities. A recently posted real estate advertisement in Beijing read ‘Quiet area, no harassment from migrant workers’. Notices in a public toilet in Beijing read ‘Migrant workers, no entrance’. In Dongguan, Guangdong Province, a notice in front of a park read: ‘Migrant workers prohibited. Offenders will be fined 100 Yuan.’ In 2002, a letter to the local newspaper in the same town proposed the establishment of a ‘migrant workers’ zone’ in public buses. City residents cannot live without migrant workers, yet they resent their presence. Recent survey findings released by the Horizon Research Group found that migrant workers generally have a strong will to integrate into city life. Among them, 72 per cent are willing to interact with local urban residents, 82 per cent ‘like the life of the city’, 69 per cent ‘want to become a part of the city’, and 90 per cent ‘want to be respected by urban residents’. But they are often disappointed: a young man told me ‘I have been in Tianjin for 10 years, and have not yet made friends with a local citizen’. When I asked city residents about their perceptions of migrant workers, some of the replies were: ‘Never thought of making friends with them’; ‘They are so dirty, how can you interact with them’; ‘They have no Hukou, no units, no fixed residence, where can we find them if we are cheated (by them)’; ‘No common language, it is difficult to communicate’; ‘Making friends with migrant workers, are you crazy? But an entrepreneur from a farmer is another case.’ A recent newspaper survey of migrant workers found that, among males, they occupied their spare time ‘doing nothing’ (67 per cent); ‘chatting with a fellow villager’ (40 per cent); ‘playing cards or mahjong’ (19 per cent); and ‘finding prostitutes’ (5 per cent). The main pastimes of female migrant workers in the survey were reported as ‘calling home’ (52 per cent); ‘shopping’ (35 per cent); ‘chatting with a fellow villager’ (28 per cent); ‘reading newspapers’ and ‘watching television’ (27 per cent), and ‘sleeping after eating’ (20 per cent). Few migrant workers chose responses to the questionnaire commonly found among urban residents such as ‘surfing the Internet’, ‘going to bars’, ‘participating in training or self-teaching’, and

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‘being in love’ (Chunfei et al. 2005). In response to the question: ‘What is your strongest feeling when you are in the city?’ 22 per cent of male migrant workers and 30 per cent of female migrant workers chose ‘emptiness and loneliness’. In a construction site in Chengdu, a 53 year-old migrant worker from Sichuan Renshou County, confirmed to me that ‘The greatest feeling of working (as a migrant) in these five years is lonely, lonely, and still lonely!’ A separate survey has found that watching pornographic videos is the main pastime for many male migrant workers, and that for young migrant workers sexual repression has become a serious psychological issue. Traditionally, most people return home for a family reunion during the Chinese Lunar New Year. In the annual Spring Festival travel season, the crowded chaos makes migrant workers bitterly frustrated. To buy a train ticket home, migrant workers often need to line up for twenty-four hours or even longer. To buy train tickets on the ‘black market’ requires additional payment equivalent to up to one month’s wages. Neither does obtaining tickets ensure that they can necessarily return home easily. In recent years, many tragedies on journeys home have been reported. On 18 January, 2004, the official media released a special health bulletin stating: In order to avoid ‘mental breakdown’, as a migrant worker, one should avoid the peak of the Spring Festival travel season as much as possible. You should make full preparations before you ride, if it is long distance travel, you should prepare enough food and water, arrange your trip well, and prepare some emergency medicine. You should eat and rest well to avoid being affected by agitated emotion and exhaustion caused by lack of sleep the day before you depart. You should maintain a normal diet on the train.

China’s Project Resettlements The destruction by government authorities of villages and towns has been a regular feature in China in the last few decades in the name of modernisation, for example to open new economic development zones; to expand transport infrastructure; to construct dams; and to build telecommunications stations, factories, drainage systems for irrigation or hydropower stations, large levee projects for power generation, and sewage systems and waste disposal sites. Although different types of construction projects have different implications for migration, overall such infrastructure projects have displaced an enormous number of people – at least 50 million since the 1950s (Shaosan 2007). These forcibly displaced people have tended to be very vulnerable in negotiations with local government and developers, often because they are not well-organised or effectively represented. Often they are not compensated reasonably for their displacement, especially when long-

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term livelihood effects are taken into consideration. Many people have lost their land and way of living as a result of these construction projects; and while some are resettled, many become part of the ‘floating population’. In recent years petitions by ‘landless peasants’ or ‘townspeople who cannot afford to buy houses’ have become commonplace in provincial cities and the capital. The central government has tended to delegate responsibility to local governments, yet often it is local government that is the source of the migrants’ discontent. The political response to development-induced internal displacement has evolved. In the decade after 1949, the Chinese government attached great importance to hydropower and water conservation. More than 84,000 reservoirs were built on the mainland, and the number displaced as a result of national water conservancy projects was as high as 13 million (Feiqiu 2007). During this era displacement was handled sensitively, and most migrants were resettled within a relatively short period in rural areas where their labour was still in demand. In comparison, between 1958 and 1978, when the total number of displaced people due to water-project-construction was about 2.5 million, and coinciding with a series of significant political stages in China’s development such as the ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958), ‘the people’s commune’ (1958–1982), the ‘three bitter years of natural disasters’ (1960– 1962), and the ‘Cultural Revolution’ (1966–1976), the government’s reliance upon mandatory administration meant that the resettlement of migrants was not bound by the policies of respect and protection of rights found in the traditional planned economy model or in ‘left-wing’ thinking. Migrant compensation was very low, and legal protection to ensure the rights of migrants was lacking. From 1979 to the present day, about eighty large and medium-sized water projects have been constructed, including the Gezhouba Dam, Longyangxia, Nierji, Xiaolangdi, and the Yangtze River Three Gorges Project. In this period, the Chinese government has changed the traditional practice of relief that focused on resettlement to ‘the development of migration’ policy. Significant characteristics of this policy include providing the opportunity to work rather than relief; and strengthening the legal system in particular through the ‘Water Law’ (2002), ‘Land Management Law’ (1998), ‘The rules of large and medium-sized water conservancy and hydropower project construction land compensation and resettlement’ (1991), ‘The Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Resettlement Regulation’(1993, amended in 2002)4, and ‘Interim Procedures of requisition compensation and resettlement on the Construction of the South-North Cross-Country Water-Transfer Project’ (2005). Nevertheless providing appropriate protection and assistance to people displaced by projects remains a serious challenge in China. Resettlement

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projects are hounded by insufficient understanding, ineffective policy implementation, funding gaps, and corruption. As a result in many cases those resettled have suffered declining livelihoods and worse living and working conditions. Many of the resettled have inadequate housing, and poor access to healthcare and education. As a result significant numbers leave resettlement projects and head for the city. To change the situation of those displaced by development projects, it is necessary to improve their source of income, secure their legitimate right to adequate compensation, provide them with satisfactory housing, and ensure them resettlement areas with sufficient water and land resources and public services. To successfully achieve this, the views and suggestions of the resettled themselves must be taken into consideration during the processes of resettlement planning and implementation. The displaced have the right to monitor the implementation of relocation plans and the use of resettlement funds. Their access to legal recourse when their rights are infringed should be protected. In addition, the government should strengthen and support the construction of a social security system for relocated people, and should attend to the protection of cultural traditions and customs of the displaced.

China’s Street Children According to the Fifth National Census in 2000, the number of migrant children in China was close to 20 million, including nearly six million aged between 14 and 18-years-old. Of this total, about one million are so-called street children, living without their parents. In 2006, a sample survey of ten urban junior high schools showed that students who had experienced being a runaway accounted for over 10 per cent of students surveyed. A Ministry of Civil Affairs survey showed that street children were scattered through almost all the provinces of the mainland. Most of them came from areas such as Sichuan, Henan, Anhui, Hunan, and Shandong while others came from the western part and eastern coastal areas of China. The regions with the largest influx of street children were Sichuan, Guangdong, Henan, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. Those regions with the highest proportion of street children to local population were Shanghai, Jilin, Guangdong, Tianjin, and Beijing. A variety of circumstances explain the growing phenomenon of street children. Some have left home because of family conflicts or a bad family environment. Others have left home because of a failure in guardianship in the family, and this category includes orphans, abandoned children, the children of criminals, neglected children, and children whose parents have migrate to work. In addition, there are children who have left home

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in search of work but failed. An important factor in the creation of street children is China’s ongoing social transformation. The acceleration of population movements by migrant workers has resulted either in their children being left at home in the countryside or becoming part of ‘the floating children’ with parents who migrate to cities. The social welfare system, traditionally focused on the family, is also weakening, which has exacerbated rural poverty, another explanatory factor in the growth in the numbers of street children. In addition, a relatively small proportion of street children have been abducted and trafficked by criminal groups. The majority of urban street children originate in rural areas. Most move at least initially to provincial capitals; although some move further afield to major cities on the mainland, especially the most economically developed (in particular Shanghai and Beijing), transportation hubs such as Zhengzhou and Zhuzhou, and tourist cities such as Dalian. In recent years, international street children from Myanmar, Vietnam and other neighbouring countries have also appeared in Kunming and Shanghai, as well as other major cities. The majority of street children – an estimated 70 per cent – are male. The main age group is from 12 to 16-years-old, with the highest proportion being 14-years-old. The children are mainly Han, although there is a growing issue of Uyghur street children too. Nearly 90 per cent of street children have not completed their nine years of compulsory education, and more than half have not finished primary school. More than 30 per cent have signs of injury, disability, and other physical defects. In addition to urban street children there are an unknown number of rural orphans, whose conditions are thought to be even worse than those of urban street children. Another category of concern is the estimated 600,000 child inmates in Chinese prisons, some 460,000 of whom are child perpetrators while the remainder are living with convict parents. Half these parent inmates consider their children’s living conditions to be unsafe ( Ju Qing 2008).

Conclusions China has an enormous and growing population of internal migrants. The overview provided in this chapter has demonstrated that these people move for different reasons, have different socio-economic characteristics, and attract different policy responses. The concept ‘floating population’ does not capture this variety. At the same time the ‘floating population’ does tend to share a number of characteristics, including exploitation, vulnerability, and poverty. While the government is beginning to pay more attention to the needs of the ‘floating population’, existing laws and regulations are still

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inadequate. At the same time, it is important for Chinese people to realise that what is required is not just governmental action, but also far more tolerance and understanding on the part of society as a whole.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

http://www.chain.net.cn/document/20070606154021132348.pdf http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2004-06–30/19282952762s.shtml http://news.xinhuanet.com/focus/2005–10/18/content_3637703_1.htm http://www.3g.gov.cn/ and http://www.ctgpc.com.cn/

References Chunfei, X. 2005. ‘The Chinese migrant workers investigation’, Liaowang Dong fang Zhoukan, October 14. Feiqiu, Y. 2007. People First: Enlightenment from Immigrants’ History of the Three Gorges Project, Chongqing; Chongqing: Publishing House. Jian, F. and Hongyu, W. 2008. ‘The characteristics of the floating population, existing problems and public policy thinking’, Guangdong Economy (3). Qing, J. 2008. The Study of Chinese Street Children, Beijing: People’s Publishing House. Shaosan, Z. 2007. Policies and Regulations for Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Immigration, Shanghai: The Chinese Water Conservancy and Hydropower Press. Ying, L. 2002. ‘An analysis of characteristics about the population from rural to urban areas flow’, China’s Economic and Trade Guide (5).

The Extended Family as a Form of Informal Protection for People Displaced by Operation Restore Order in Zimbabwe Nedson Pophiwa

Introduction In May 2005, the Government of Zimbabwe launched Operation Murambatsvina (Operation Restore Order – ORO) which led to nationwide forced evictions and demolitions and resulted in the internal displacement of at least half a million people. The United Nations (UN) Mission in Zimbabwe reported that displacement severely strained family networks and traditional coping mechanisms such as taking in and caring for orphans (UN 2005). Nevertheless, extended families continue to offer support to many victims even three years later. By studying both the displaced and the recipient families, this chapter shows how both parties coped with displacement and the economic and social problems that resulted from it. The concept of an extended family transformed during the crisis. Extended families played a complementary role to humanitarian organisations as the latter were unable fully to exercise their function due to restrictions by the state. Lessons should be drawn from this experience that there may be benefits in supporting family networks and other traditional coping mechanisms to deliver support and

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assistance to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), especially where more conventional humanitarian assistance fails or is blocked. At the same time, by drawing on a safety net more normally associated with voluntary rural-urban migrants, those displaced by ORO sometimes became hidden from view so that they could not be assisted even where humanitarian actors did gain access. The adoption by different migrant ‘types’ of similar survival strategies is another way that the distinctions between them can blur, and it is in this way that this chapter further illustrates the wider ‘migration-displacement nexus’ which is the subject for this volume. At the same time this outcome suited the government of Zimbabwe, which could divert attention from the scale of internal displacement resulting from ORO by portraying it as a form of internal migration which was not worthy of special international attention or assistance.

Operation Restore Order Operation Murambatsvina, officially known as Operation Restore Order, was a large scale Zimbabwean government campaign to forcibly clear slum areas across the country. The campaign started in 2005 and according to various estimates has displaced at least half a million people, left 700,000 unemployed, and in total affected as many as 2.4 million people. Robert Mugabe and other government officials characterised the operation as a crackdown against illegal housing and commercial activities, and as an effort to reduce the risk of the spread of infectious disease in these areas. The campaign met with harsh condemnation from Zimbabwean opposition parties, church groups, non-governmental organisations, and the wider international community. The UN described the campaign as an effort to drive out and make homeless large sections of the urban and rural poor, who comprise much of the internal opposition to the Mugabe administration. Scholarship on ORO is still in its infancy, and many of the scholarly articles available on the subject are unpublished and are mainly in the form of conference papers. Quite a number of conferences have included individual presentations on ORO and other related displacements in post2000 Zimbabwe (including farm invasions that displaced farm workers and owners). Much of this scholarship builds upon the report of Anna Tibaijukato, special envoy of the UN Secretary-General to Zimbabwe, and policy-relevant research conducted by humanitarian organisations and practitioners (e.g. Action Aid 2005; Mhangami 2005; Sokwanele 2005; Solidarity Peace Trust 2005; ZCTU 2005; and annual reports of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre – IDMC). Perhaps the most important

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topics covered to date have been the health effects of displacement in Zimbabwe (Pincock 2005; Kapp 2005); and its negative impacts on education through disruption of class attendance for evicted children and failure to pay school fees by affected informal traders (Mhangami 2005). The material that has already been published on ORO is written from a variety of scholarly backgrounds but in most cases tries to understand the event within a wider framework of Zimbabwean political economy (e.g. Bracking 2005; Masunungure and Brett 2006; Potts 2006; Primorac 2007), as well as from a town planning or ‘urban clearing’ perspective (e.g. Kamete 2007; Madebwe and Madebwe 2006). Various explanations for the Operation include political retribution on the part of the ruling party, an effort to weaken political opposition, a means of controlling protests, a form of ‘risk control’, a way to regain control over foreign currency exchange (by targeting the informal economy), and as part of the government’s ‘Look East’ policy of strengthening ties with China. In contrast the forced migration literature has still to sufficiently recognise the operation as a form of displacement, including to engage in the debate about whether it qualifies as an IDP situation from a practitioner’s or policy maker’s perspective. Indeed Zimbabwe does not have any of the outward signs of other large displacement crises, such as IDP camps: the displacement crisis in Zimbabwe is, to a large extent, hidden. There are no official government statistics relating to these displaced populations; indeed, the government has consistently failed to acknowledge the reality of the internal displacement crisis in Zimbabwe. Government obstruction also means that no agency has been able to conduct a comprehensive survey to determine the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs). This study borrows from diverse literature within forced migration studies to build upon the existing work on ORO. It tries to critique the responses to the operation in the light of political tensions between the state and humanitarian organisations that denied a significant proportion of displaced Zimbabweans access to protection. It demonstrates how many people had to rely on informal protection in the form of self-settling, especially among kith and kin.

Methods This chapter is based on a qualitative study of a small sample of people. A qualitative study of mainly case narratives was employed in order to bring out personal experiences of the displaced and to try and illustrate how they differed. Atkinson (cited by Palvish 2007) identifies three guidelines for narrative inquiry. In the first instance, the researcher should not judge or analyse the storyteller but should instead focus on establishing connections

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and examining the personal relevance of each story. Second, the life story can stand independently in offering insights into the human experience. Third, each life story reveals something about life (Palvish 2007: 29). Since narratives are based on the respondents’ perceptions and often their interpretations of their lived realities, they provide data that have already been interpreted by the narrator before the researcher reaches the data analysis phase of the research (Palvish 2007: 29). Whilst this method of inquiry is based on subjective ‘truths’ as the storyteller views them, I found it helpful to let respondents speak about their experiences with ORO, and especially about their immediate responses to the event. Relying on narrative interviews also proved the most feasible method in the light of administrative and security obstacles to conducting more systematic and large-scale surveys among the displaced. And as is highlighted in Karen Jacobsen’s contribution to this volume, there are also significant methodological challenges in identifying largely ‘hidden’ populations, especially in urban areas.

Unpacking the Extended Family In his explanation of extended families in Africa, Rapoport (2000) asserts that almost half of the households in the area he studied had a guest in their house, and that this pattern was common across Africa. He defines a guest as ‘… a member of the kinship, that is, generally, brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, so a child of the head of the household, even an adult one, is never considered as a guest’ (2000: 2). For him households are larger in African than in occidental countries not only because fertility is high, but also due to differential household composition. A household may typically have three different kinds of people: a head, his or her nuclear family, and guests (Rapoport 2000: 2). Shared housing may suggest sharing of other resources, and as such social welfare or pension payments towards one sector of the population may find itself in the pockets of relatives living in the same house (Betrand et al. 2001: 2). This resource-sharing depends on ‘sharing rules’ between the target person and the rest of the family members including relatives. The composition and meaning of such household relations evolve over time. Persons sharing the same home can become so close that they forge relations and consider each other as family. Temporarily sharing a home can be the first step towards sharing resources and other forms of support such as helping each other to find employment. The same is true for people who come from the same rural home when they meet in the cities. The ‘homeboy’ concept allows them to interact and operate like one big family. Some landlord-tenant relationships also end up becoming mutual to such

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an extent that relations can be forged and they also act like families. In time of crisis too, the extended family may unite and offer mutual support in tackling a problem. At the same time, blood tends to remains thicker than water and some relations become peripheral. In the case of ORO, for example, the UN reported that some members of extended families became marginalised: ‘Other single mothers explained how family and friends in many cases had proffered shelter at first, but later been obliged to give priority to close family members as the scale of the crisis grew.’ (UN 2005: 43) The same situation was noted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): The recurrence of disasters and subsequent cumulative negative impacts on communities and households has led to a drain of resources and the undermining of cultural norms. Illustrating this change in daily reality, reports indicate that an increasing number of families are refusing to take in orphans or vulnerable children due to their inability to feed their own children, thus breaking ‘extended family’ bonds, and contributing to the erosion of traditional safety nets. (UNOCHA November 2005: 27)

This is unsurprising considering the level of stress the situation brought to already struggling families in the urban areas of Zimbabwe. However, it is of much interest to this study that despite the heavy strain on extended families, a significant proportion of displaced people reported having been accommodated by their relatives when they were evicted. This study draws from baseline data on the effect of ORO which shows that relatives were important as coping mechanisms for the displaced. This reinforces the findings of a survey conducted by Bretton and Masunungure (2006) which found that some 76 per cent of respondents moved in with relatives. The significance of the extended family in offering protection to displaced families was also noted in the Action Aid Survey (cited by Potts 2005), in which 22 per cent of respondents indicated that relatives had offered assistance. Therefore this study illustrates the extended family as a mechanism of informal protection for the displaced populations in Zimbabwe. As a traditional institution this form of safety net showed resilience in a way that made it possible for some evictees to recover, which was critically important in the absence of humanitarian assistance.

The Humanitarian Gap Some Zimbabweans refer to the operation as ‘Zimbabwe’s tsunami’, in reference to the devastation which followed the tsunami caused by the 2004

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Indian Ocean earthquake. The international response, however, could not have been in starker contrast. The ‘humanitarian impulse’ (Sondorp and Bornemisza 2005: 163) in response to the tsunami was diluted by political wrangling. Pledges were not fulfilled, and often the assistance that was provided did not reach those for whom it was intended. One reason for the humanitarian gap was that the international community failed to react with a united front, as had been the case after the tsunami. While political leaders in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and other advanced economies condemned the actions of the government of Zimbabwe, the African Union and South African President Thabo Mbeki stonewalled. And the criticism included in the report of the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy were flatly denied by the government of Zimbabwe. A second reason, reported by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), was that humanitarian access to the displaced on the ground was deliberately blocked by the Government of Zimbabwe. In some cases humanitarian organisations were denied entry into the country. There were also reports of the police tearing down tents erected by agencies. As a result even those humanitarian agencies that could access the displaced had to keep a low profile and were restricted in the extent of their operations. Human Rights Watch also found serious flaws in the UN programme itself, which undermined the fulfilment of its humanitarian objectives. These problems include the UN county team’s ‘ … failure to assess and evaluate the situation on the ground and devise a realistic response strategy that would take existing challenges into account; inattention to protection concerns both in the planning and implementation of programs, and the absence of safeguards against human rights violations within the program’ (HRW 2005: 38). A third obstacle to assisting the displaced was that they were so often hidden. There were no IDP camps established for the displaced. Instead they were forced to fall upon their own coping mechanisms, usually depending on family and friends. This both made them difficult to identify, and also difficult to distinguish from rural-urban and other internal migrants who often adopted the same strategies, and indeed at times stayed with same relatives and in the same homes as did the displaced.

Narratives of the Displaced This section describes some of the experiences of displaced victims of ORO who resorted to family and relatives as their only source of protection. The four case studies included here illustrate the various ways in which people utilised their extended families. They also show how some of the evictees

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were assisted by people who were not their blood relatives, reinforcing the notion that the family in crisis situations is fluid and is constantly reconfigured to suit the demands of that situation.

Case 1: Maruza’s1 Demolished House Maruza, a teacher, had eventually realised her dream of building her own house together with her husband, Tobaiwa, two years before ORO. They had secured a plot under a new co-operative scheme run by war veterans a few kilometres outside Harare. The minister of Local Government and National Housing had attended the ground-breaking ceremony at the launch of the housing scheme. That their enterprise had been officially endorsed by a man of high office gave the couple confidence to spend their hard earned money on a new house. Within the first six months of acquiring the plot, Maruza and her husband erected a structure that they could move into comprising three rooms (two bedrooms and a lounge). Mazura described the way she felt on that day, bidding farewell to her landlord in Harare who had treated them so badly. It was equally emancipating for them to have keys to a property that was a symbol of their achievement. House ownership in Zimbabwe is very valued. When the ORO was launched two years later, Maruza remembers the first few days when the news broke that Harare home owners were being forced to demolish their own houses. She convinced herself that it would never happen to them. At work her colleagues warned her that it was likely the operation would spread to areas in proximity to Harare. But for her, her husband and their neighbours in the same community, they felt reassured by the fact that the co-operative that had developed the area had been commissioned by the government and so it was legal and immune to the demolition exercise. However, one Friday as she prepared to go to work, she heard a commotion in the neighbourhood – the voices of women screaming and loud bangs of what sounded like gun shots. Dust clouds covered the whole area. The moment she went outside her home, a Land Rover pulled up on her doorstep and three officers chanting slogans jumped out and started smashing the windows of her house. The operation had arrived in their neighbourhood and there was no time to negotiate. Everything else was history. Maruza’s husband had already left for work and had to be called back salvage what they could from their furniture that lay exposed outside the frame of their former house. Tobaiwa’s first response was to ask his employer to assist them with transport and storage of their property whilst they looked for somewhere to put up for the night. Fortunately the employer cooperated. Because they had no immediate family or relatives in Harare, the couple decided to leave for Maruza’s rural home which was less than a hundred kilometres from

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Harare to stay with family there. But the following Monday the couple had to return to Harare because that is where they worked, and stayed with their friends there. Every weekend they commuted back to their rural home to rejoin their daughter and live with their in-laws. Tobaiwa had no choice but to accept ‘being a child again’ under the care of his wife’s parents. He explained that it made him feel helpless not being able to find accommodation for his family. It was also deeply embarrassing to rely on his employer to store his furniture at work. A month later when the operation had ended, the couple rented a cottage in one of the untouched areas of Harare. Even though they eventually came through ORO, it was clear that their experiences had deeply traumatised them. By the end of this they wanted to leave Zimbabwe. They had only been home owners for a year and a half and then lost it all, and with it their savings too.

Case 2: Shungu Moves Back Home Having finally married his girlfriend Marble after four years of courtship, Shungu decided to move out of the family home in one of the western suburbs of Harare. The newlyweds relocated to a nearby suburb where they found accommodation in a backyard cottage that was closer to Shungu’s workplace. Moving out of the family house is culturally symbolic in Zimbabwe and it is very important especially for a newlywed couple because it grants the wife independence from her in-laws. Marble cherished their one-room backyard cottage and enjoyed the independence and comfort of her own ‘territory’. A year later the family had grown with the arrival of a baby and they contemplated moving out to a bigger house. But accommodation was not easy to find and so the couple continued to live in the cottage. Their cottage was destroyed during ORO at a time when the couple was now expecting their second child. The only option was to move back to Shungu’s family home. But Shungu’s sister and husband had also been evicted from their cottage and had also moved back. All in all they were three families living under one roof, numbering twenty-two members. While the families apparently had adequate food and water, the new living arrangements still made everyone’s life uncomfortable. For instance, they had to negotiate sleeping arrangements along cultural lines since it was taboo for certain relations to share a bed or sleep in the same room. This was the most challenging aspect for Marble and Shungu because it also meant they had to be divided as a couple since there was no room to accommodate them separately as a husband and wife. They missed each other so much: every time they returned home without having found an alternative place to stay, they became more miserable. Tensions would sometimes rise, badmouthing and gossiping were the order of the day. Basic

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facilities had to be shared which meant that if someone was inconsiderate, for example by spending too long in the bathroom, it would almost turn to a fight. At the same time there were occasions when they all became united as a family and shared their sorrows of displacement. This is when they gave each other moral and psychological support to get through the trying times. Moreover, they were grateful that they did not have to relocate to their rural home which was three hundred kilometres away from Harare. Shungu and his family eventually secured an alternative place to stay.

Case 3: Yeukai’s Experience Yeukai, a single mother, had been living as a tenant in her aunt’s cottage in a residential area in the populous town of Chitungwiza for almost five years when ORO struck their neighbourhood. She recalls how the police came to their house and ordered the cottages to be destroyed by their owners. She helped her aunt-cum-landlady demolish the cottage while the police looked on. Two neighbouring cottages were also destroyed so that three families became homeless on the same day. In response to the situation their landlord allowed them to move in temporarily into the main house where she lived with her two sons. This meant reshuffling sleeping and living arrangements so that they could all fit in the house. Unfortunately there was no space for Yeukai and her aunt’s furniture in the house so it had to be left outside exposed to the weather. The situation continued for at least a week until other relatives of Yeukai offered her some assistance on condition that she send her two children to live with their grandmother in their rural home. The home into which Yeukai moved, without her children, was still under construction. Only two of the seven rooms had been roofed and the floors throughout were still rough and dusty. It had no electricity, sewage or running water, and the windows were makeshifts constructed from plastic and cardboard. From the outset Yeukai knew this place was going to be a health hazard and she continuously suffered from the ‘flu and colds’. Other displaced people came to ask if they could occupy some of the incomplete rooms that were not even roofed. It was not until three months later that she secured decent accommodation elsewhere and moved out, reuniting her family.

Case 4: Mr Mulazi As a pensioner Mr Mulazi had decided to supplement his income by building four cottages in his backyard and charging rent to tenants. For almost six years prior to ORO he had been able to educate his last son who was still in high school. However, when the operation struck his neighbourhood the old man had to bear the pain of seeing his investments razed to the

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ground. The immediate result was that he was stuck with stranded tenants to whom he felt obliged to offer some form of assistance. They moved into his own house, and overnight there were 33 occupants in a house normally inhabited by only six people. The living arrangements were so unbearable and difficult to mange that women slept inside the house and men slept outside around a fire for warmth. Obviously there was no privacy. Mulazi felt uncomfortable and that his personal space had been invaded. Everyday he would sit down with his ‘squatters’, as they had become in his mind, to ask them if they had secured alternative accommodation. A week later one of the families that was living on his property left but still 27 occupants remained in the house. After serious consideration Mulazi made the bold decision to leave his property to live in his rural home. As an old man he felt disillusioned about living in the city where he was unsure whether the operation would return to destroy his house. He made an agreement with his tenants that they would take care of his property and live in it while he lived in his rural home.

Conclusions With the probable exception of Mulazi, all of the people described above would fall within the definition of an internally displaced person provided in the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (1998), namely: persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognised State border.

At the same time, in different ways, their circumstances demonstrate how difficult it is to distinguish them from other internal migrants. One reason was that all four were originally rural-urban migrants. For them internal displacement followed internal migration, and their coping strategies were similar in both cases, namely to fall upon local friends and relatives for support. A related second reason is that they all had homes to go back to, albeit in rural areas. Third, several exercised at least some choice. While none could stay after their homes were destroyed, Maruza for example based herself in her rural family home but effectively commuted during the week to be based in the city close to her work place. Fourth, some adopted the strategy of dividing their families. Yeukai moved into temporary accommodation in the city, but sent her children back to the countryside.

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While none of these circumstances detracts from defining these people as internally displaced persons, they are at the same time not the characteristics normally associated with the internally displaced. This suited the government of Zimbabwe, which portrayed them as rural-urban migrants and illegal squatters, and hampered humanitarian efforts to assist them. On the one hand, assisting traditional coping strategies can be an important method for assisting vulnerable populations, but on the other it can reduce the impact of other forms of assistance and hide the true scale and nature of displacement. Since Operation Restore Order, hundreds of thousands more Zimbabweans have been displaced as a result of the actions of their own government. The government’s fast-track land reform and resettlement programme which started in 2000 continues to displace farm workers and their families. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by political violence following the elections on 29 March 2008. The recent cholera outbreak is displacing still more people. Like the victims of Operation Restore Order, most of these displaced remain ‘hidden’, and are almost certainly also relying on families and friends to fill the humanitarian gap.

Note 1. To safeguard anonymity, pseudonyms are used throughout this chapter.

References Action Aid International, 2005. ‘A study on the impact of ‘Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order’ in 26 Wards of Harare High Density Housing Areas, http://www.globalcrisissolutions.org/libraries/Analysis_of_the_Impact _of_operation.pdf Accessed 6 June 2011. Bertrand, M., Mullainathan, S. and Miller, D. 2001. Public Policy and Extended Families: Evidence from South Africa, Princeton. Bracking, S. 2005. Development denied: Autocratic militarism in post-election Zimbabwe, Review of African Political Economy, 32(104): 341–357 http://www. informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713443496 Accessed 21 July 2008. Bratton, M. and Masunungure, E. 2006. ‘Popular Reactions To State Repression: Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe.’ African Affairs, 106/422: 21–45, doi:10.1093/afraf/adl024 Accessed 21 July 2008. Human Rights Watch. 2005. Zimbabwe: Evicted and Forsaken Internally displaced persons in the aftermath of Operation Murambatsvina, Vol. 17, No. 16(A). Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa. 2005. ‘Operation Murambatsvina: Implications with regards to Zimbabwe’s human rights obligations: An Analysis.’ Harare.

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Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). 2007. Zimbabwe: New evictions likely as humanitarian crisis worsens, A profile of the internal displacement situation www. internal-displacement.org Accessed 15 November 2007. Kamete, A.Y. 2007. ‘Cold-Hearted, Negligent and Spineless? Planning, Planners and the (R)Ejection of “Filth” in Urban Zimbabwe’. International Planning Studies http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713426761 Accessed 21 July 2008. Kapp, C. 2005. ‘Operation “Restore Order” wreaks havoc in Zimbabwe.’ The Lancet; 366, 9492. Mhangami, M. 2005. ‘The impact of Zimbabwe’s urban clean up operation on education. A case of Plan program areas.’ Colloque International Éducation, Violences, Conflits et Perspectives de Paix en Afrique Yaoundé, 6–10 March 2006. Potts, D. 2006 ‘“Restoring Order”? Operation Murambatsvina and the Urban Crisis in Zimbabwe.’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 32 (2), 273–291. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057070600656200 Accessed 21 July 2008. Pavlish, C. 2007. ‘Narrative inquiry into life experiences of refugee women and men.’ International Nursing Review 54: 28–34. Primorac, R. 2007. ‘The Poetics of State Terror in Twenty-First Century Zimbabwe.’ Interventions, 9(3): 434–450. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698010701618687 Accessed 21 July 2008. Rapoport, B. 2000. ‘Consumption Patterns in Extended Families: The Role of Guests in African Economies,’ Papers 2000.86, Paris I - Economie Mathematique et Applications. Sokwanele, ‘Operation Murambatsvina: An Overview and Summary.’www. sokwanele.com/articles/sokwanele/opmuramb_overview_18june2005. html35k - Accessed 21 July 2008. Solidarity Peace Trust. 2005. Interim report on the Zimbabwean government’s ‘urban cleansing’ and forced eviction campaign May/June 2005. Sondorp, E. and Bornemisza, O. (Editorial) 2005. ‘Public health, emergencies and the humanitarian impulse.’ Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 83(3):163. Tibaijuka, A.K. 2005. Report of the Fact- Finding Mission to Zimbabwe to assess the Scope and Impact of Operation Murambatsvina. www.un.org/News/dh/ infocus/zimbabwe/zimbabwe_rpt.pdf Accessed 25 June 2007. Pincock, S. and Gwatidzo, D. 2005. ‘Defending human rights in Zimbabwe.’ The Lancet; ( Jul 30–Aug 5); 366, 9483:363. Madebwe, V. and Madebwe, C. 2006. ‘Demolition Waste Management in the Aftermath of Zimbabwe’s Operation Restore Order (Murambatsvina): The Case of Gweru, Zimbabwe.’Journal of Applied Sciences Research 2(4): 217–221. UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), 30 November 2005, UN Consolidated Appeal for Zimbabwe 2006. http:// ochaonline.un.org/cap2005/webpage.asp?MenuID = 6848 &Page =1332 Accessed 21 July 2008. Zetter, R. 2007. ‘More Labels, Fewer Refugees: Remaking the Refugee Label in an Era of Globalization.’ Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2): 171–192. Zetter, R. 1991. ‘Labelling Refugees: Forming and Transforming a Bureaucratic Identity.’ Journal of Refugee Studies 4(1): 39–62.

Climate Change and Human Migration Robert McLeman and Oli Brown

Introduction The evidence that human activities, including deforestation, the burning of fossil fuels and the production of cement, are fundamentally altering the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere is persuasive. Among the key findings in the most recent report of the Intergovernmental on Climate Change are that average Earth surface temperatures have risen by threequarters of a degree Celsius over the past hundred years, that mean sea levels are presently rising at a rate of 3.1 mm/year, and that ecosystems on all continents and in most oceans show evidence of being affected by regional climatic changes (IPCC 2007b). It is widely agreed that anthropogenic climate change may have serious consequences for human well-being in many parts of the world. This recognition, and the ensuing questions of what to do about it, have occupied government policy-making discussions at many levels, and in April 2007 even reached the agenda of the United Nations Security Council. Much of the world is by now familiar with the dire warnings in Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth and the fact that Mr Gore shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body that advises world policymakers on the current state of knowledge on climate change and its impacts.

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One principal concern is the possibility of future large-scale population displacements as households, communities, and states become increasingly exposed to rising sea levels, more prolonged droughts and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. In recent years, newspaper articles have appeared with titles like ‘Coming Soon: Millions of Refugees Pursued by the Ocean’, while others have engaged in a worldwide competition to identify the ‘first climate change refugees’ (Barthélémy 2002; Verrengia 2002; Bryavan and Rajan 2005; Smée 2005; UNEP 2005; Vidal 2005; Integrated Regional Information Networks 2008). Some have gone so far as to link the current conflict in Darfur and consequent refugee movements in that region with climate change-related drought (Borger 2007). In the United States in 2003, considerable media attention accompanied a Pentagon-commissioned report warning of climate change-driven migrations(Schwartz and Randall 2003). Policymakers in Australia and Europe are already preparing for increased levels of migration from areas especially vulnerable to climate change, while in the U.S. the imperative to act to prevent future global warming in 2008 became for the first time a front-burner election issue (A.A.P. 2006; Traynor 2008; Garber 2008). But while political rhetoric surrounding the potential for large scale migration in response to climate change has grown, one immediate difficulty is that little empirical research exists on the subject. As will be seen in the sections that follow, there is considerable variation and uncertainty as to the potential number of future climate migrants. This reflects a sizeable gap in our knowledge and understanding of the underlying chain of causality, behaviour, and decision-making that plays out when human populations are confronted with severely adverse impacts of climatic change and variability. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the state of knowledge of the linkages between climate change and human migration, and how these issues are currently being framed in international policymaking circles. In particular, this chapter focuses on and is organised around the following central questions: What are the known linkages between climate and migration? How many climate change migrants should we expect? How soon can we expect climate change migrants? From where will climate change migrants come? What social groups from within these areas are most likely to migrate? Where will they go?

These are indeed important questions to begin addressing, given the potential for climate change to alter the habitability of coastal plains and river valleys, to create regional crises in food production, to render fresh water resources scarce and to expose ever larger numbers of people

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to extreme weather events. Intuitively, we know that such changes have a strong potential to generate new migration patterns. The challenge therefore becomes how to project when, where and how climate-related migration may unfold; to work towards developing the capacity to plan for such changes; and to address the economic, social, and institutional consequences that may emerge. This chapter will conclude by reviewing the potential for climate-related migration to contribute to international security concerns, and to flag some additional potential downstream effects of climate migration that currently receive less attention but warrant it in the future.

What are the Known Linkages Between Climate and Migration? The Earth’s climate is continuously changing as a result of processes unrelated to human activity. For millennia, the distributional pattern of human populations on the planet has been shaped by physical changes in the environment. There is evidence and, in some cases, documented accounts from a variety of past civilisations of how climate affected population numbers and distribution. For example, Chinese official records kept by successive imperial dynasties over the past millennia describe how the patterns of nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists responded to shifts in climatic regimes (Smit and Cai 1996). Recent evidence suggests that the abandonment of Anasazi villages in the American southwest during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was linked to persistent droughts that reduced maize yields, while the traditional settlement patterns of some aboriginal peoples on the North American Great Plains prior to European settlement changed on an ongoing basis in response to annual variations in climatic patterns (Benson, Petersen, and Stein 2007; Fixico 2003). The expansion and subsequent abandonment and collapse of Norse colonies in the North Atlantic has been linked to regional climatic conditions related to the Medieval Warm Period, while population decline in Mayan cities during that same period has also been linked to a combination of regional droughts and localised deforestation (Buckland et al. 1996; Haug et al. 2003; Shaw, 2003). Meanwhile some authors have suggested that famines and large-scale population displacements in colonial South Asia and other regions occurred during temporary shifts in climatic conditions attributable to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (Davis 2001; Fagan 2004). In short, there is compelling evidence to suggest that historical human settlement and migration patterns have indeed been influenced by climatic

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change. A number of events that occurred during the twentieth century suggest that such a relationship continues to exist, and that migration patterns may be affected by both sudden events and long term changes in climatic conditions. Contemporary climate-related migration may be categorised according to the nature of the climatic stimulus (sudden-onset climate events versus changes in climatic conditions) or the nature of the migration response (distress migration versus adaptive migration). These are now discussed in turn. ‘Sudden-onset climate events’ are those which create sudden localised or regional changes in environmental conditions, such as extreme storms and floods. Sudden-onset events are often associated with distress migration, where large numbers of individuals and households may be forced to abandon temporarily or indefinitely their place of residence at short notice. Examples of sudden onset events that have stimulated large population movements in recent years include the flooding of the Yangtze valley in 1998 and Hurricanes Mitch, Jeanne, and Katrina in the Caribbean basin (Girot 2002; Morris et al. 2002). The distance travelled by those fleeing sudden-onset events and the likelihood those displaced will return home differs significantly from one event to the next, and can be influenced by a whole range of pre- and postevent political, social, economic, and environmental factors. For example, in less than a year the population of the state of Louisiana fell by more than 250,000 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, (U.S. Census Bureau 2007) with Orleans Parish experiencing the greatest population decline (Figure 1). The current population consists of a mixture of former residents and new migrants. The departure of residents in response to Hurricane Katrina was a mixture of people who evacuated themselves and those who were assisted and provided shelter by federal authorities. Those who received direct evacuation and shelter assistance were drawn disproportionately from lowincome members of the city’s African-American population (Brodie et al. 2006; Eisenman et al. 2007). One Los Angeles Times study conducted a few months following the hurricane suggested that wealthier white residents of the city tended to relocate in the first instance to affluent suburban communities less than a day’s drive from New Orleans, while residents of poorer, predominantly African-American neighbourhoods were more likely to relocate to more distant urban centres (Tizon and Smith 2005). The likelihood of return, however, was seen to be correlated more with factors such as home ownership than with racial divisions; that said, researchers have noted that the city’s ethnic Vietnamese community was able to draw upon far-reaching social networks across the U.S. and rebuild itself relatively quickly in comparison with other groups (Elliott and Pais 2006; Airriess et al. 2007).

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Figure 11.1 Estimated population of Orleans Parish, Louisiana pre- and postKatrina Note: Hurricane Katrina occurred in August 2005. Figures obtained from U.S. Census Bureau American Factfinder, GCT-T1: Population Estimates (Louisiana – Parish) 2007 Data Set. Figures for each year are estimated for July 1.

‘Changes in climatic conditions’, such as rising mean sea level or prolonged drought, require a more extended period of time to emerge and to be recognised by populations exposed to them. They may affect relatively large geographic areas and typically are forces to which migration may not be a first-order response. When prevailing climatic conditions deviate for extended periods of time from the traditional norms under which human systems have developed, changes in migration patterns may eventually emerge as other types of adaptation that are less costly or less disruptive to households fail. Note here that we use the term ‘norm’ in the context of the timeframes in which human beings experience climate (i.e. years or decades) as opposed to the longer periods over which biological adaptation to climate is measured. For example, records gathered from tree rings and lake sediments have shown that severe drought conditions, in which little or no rain falls for up to decades at a time, are a relatively common feature of the North American Great Plains (Sauchyn, Stroich and Beriault 2003). However, agricultural settlement of that region by people of European origin took place in the late nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth century, a period of unusually wet conditions on the Plains in comparison with the longer climatological record. While agricultural populations invariably develop some capacity to adapt to uncertainties in rainfall from one year to the next, when extreme droughts struck the Plains in the 1930s the agricultural system and the small-scale producers working within it had little experience on which to draw and little capacity to cope. Indeed, over large areas where long-term precipitation levels were below the minimum threshold for crops, many farming techniques in use at the time were actually accelerating soil moisture loss and erosion. Meanwhile, the agricultural policies of the

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American and Canadian governments were simply not designed to support farmers experiencing the double blow of drought and the commodity price collapse that accompanied the Great Depression. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of North American families abandoned their farms on the Great Plains and left the region altogether. In Sahelian West Africa, climate in an average year is characterised by a period of several months when no precipitation falls, followed by sufficient seasonal rains to grow row-crops. One of the ways by which rural populations have adapted to such a climate regime is through what can be described as institutionalised, circular, seasonal intra-regional migration, something Rain (1999) describes more vividly as ‘eating the dry season’. What this means is that each year when conditions are too hot and dry to support agricultural production, young men (and depending on the cultural group, young women), leave their households and migrate to regional urban centres in search of wage employment. This serves the twin purposes of relieving pressure on the household’s food resources and generating cash income to be sent home at a time when there may be no other sources of household income. When the rains return, the migrants return home to resume their agricultural labours. In years when there has been a reasonably good harvest, young men from households with large families may take this opportunity to migrate beyond the region, to more distant destinations such as Western Europe. The household needs a good harvest to marshal sufficient money to finance the costs of this trip, and must be able to spare his labour the following year, for he will likely not return in time for the next crop season. If successful, however, the financial returns to the family over the long run may be considerable. In the latter half of the twentieth century, an extended period of severe droughts struck the West African Sahel, a phenomenon consistent with some predictions for future climate in that region. The circular intra-regional migration patterns that had developed over preceding decades became a critical adaptation for rural populations in the region. During particularly dry years, the outflow of people increased as households sent large numbers of their members, especially young children, out of drought-stricken regions to stay with relatives. It is important to note that the option of migration away from an area experiencing extreme climatic conditions (whether sudden onset or slowerdeveloping in nature) may not be available to all members of the exposed population, and that not all those who can migrate may necessarily do so. Autonomous adaptive migration and refugee-like distress migration are part of a continuum (Figure 2). While distress migration is often associated with sudden-onset events and autonomous adaptive-migration with slowerarising phenomenon, as suggested by their relative placements in Figure 2, they may occur simultaneously in response to the same climatic event.

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This combination of migration outcomes occurred in the U.S. southern Great Plains states in the 1930s. Hundreds of thousands of people, disproportionately represented by the rural middle class, migrated out of that region to California, drawing upon preexisting interregional social networks, modest financial means and labour market skills that were in demand in California. At the same time de facto refugee camps sprang up on the outskirts of many Plains cities, collecting thousands of impoverished people and broken families who had been involuntarily displaced from their rural homes but who lacked the ability to leave the region altogether.

Figure 11.2 General continuum of climate-migration relationship

It is also notable that the same type of climatic event will not necessarily stimulate migration each time (or place) it occurs. Not all droughts on North America’s Great Plains have triggered migration responses, even though periodic droughts are a climatological characteristic of that region. This is partly because droughts differ in their meteorological severity, timing, duration and spatial scale; it is also because the nature of socioeconomic systems, land-use practices and adaptation strategies in exposed areas are continually changing. In Eastern Oklahoma, for example, more severe droughts in recent years have not triggered the large-scale distress migration that accompanied 1930s droughts in that region, largely because rural land use has changed from intensive cotton farming to less-droughtsensitive livestock production (McLeman et al. 2008). Today, the greater threat is to the urban population of the region, where municipal water supplies have become perilously low in recent droughts. Indeed, there is growing speculation that climate change-related water scarcity could limit or indeed reverse the large-scale migration into the American southwest that has occurred in recent decades (Whyte 2007). Perhaps the greatest potential for stimulating future climate-related migration comes from the risk of changing sea levels, a phenomenon for which there are few historical precedents or analogues from which to gauge

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the potential impacts. Mcgranahan et al. (2007) have noted that ten per cent of the world’s population lives within ten metres of mean sea level, a large proportion of which could be at risk in coming decades as sea levels change. Human settlements in a number of different regions are already believed to be at risk due to mean sea level rise (MSLR). Small shoreline communities in locations as diverse as Shishmarref, Alaska and Saoluafata, Samoa are already reporting damage to infrastructure attributable to MSLR (NOAA 2006; Sutherland et al. 2005) while numerous scientists are concerned about the potential for saltwater intrusion into groundwater and greater inland penetration of storm surges in the heavily-populated deltas of Egypt and Bangladesh and in many small-island states (El-Raey, Dewidar, and ElHattab 1999; Mirza, Warrick and Erixksen 2003; Bosello, Boson and Tol 2007). One potential type of analogous case from which the processes and patterns of coastal community abandonment may be studied is that of deltaic and estuarine environments where the subsidence of land bearing human settlements has had to be abandoned, such as has occurred in Chesapeake Bay (FitzGerald et al. 2008). A significant shortcoming in the examples of coastal abandonment available to researchers, however, is that they are typically reflective of small, often remote settlements, and provide little insight into the implications should large, densely-populated coastal areas be rendered uninhabitable on a permanent basis due to MSLR. In summary, what can be said with some confidence on the basis of available evidence is that human migration patterns are influenced by changes in climatic conditions. However, it is equally clear that migration is not an automatic outcome of any particular set of climatic conditions. Sudden-onset events and longer-duration climate changes tend to influence migration patterns and behaviours in different ways. Examples such as the Great Plains migrations of the 1930s and West African seasonal labour migrations suggest that migration can be seen as one form of adaptation to climatic change, a conceptualisation that is consistent with the broader body of scholarship that has emerged in recent years that considers how human populations and systems will adapt to the impacts of anthropogenic climate change.�

How Many Climate Change Migrants Can We Expect? A wide range of estimates exists of the number of people globally who may be at risk of forced relocation due to anthropogenic climate change. Such estimates are often couched in (and obscured by) the broader idea of ‘environmental refugees’, a term that usually includes people displaced not only by climatic conditions but also by geophysical events (such as

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earthquakes, volcanoes, or tsunamis), degradation of agricultural land, chemical contaminations or pollution, and flooding associated with the construction of large dams (El-Hinnawi 1985; Westing 1992; Suhrke 1994; Hugo 1996.; Ramlogan 1996; Kibreab 1997; Bates 2002). One commonly cited figure suggested by British ecologist Norman Myers, projects there may be 200 million people by the impacts of climate change before the end of the twenty-first century (Myers 2002). On the UN Day for Disaster Reduction in 2005, the United Nations University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security issued a press release that cited estimates of 50 million environmental refugees within the next five years (UNU-EHS 2005). Similar numbers are cited in various reports of the Worldwatch Institute, an organisation that was one of the early forecasters of a rapid expansion in the number of environmental refugees ( Jacobson 1988). The most ominous published forecast of late was made by the humanitarian organisation Christian Aid, which has long provided assistance to displaced persons and refugees. In their view, there could potentially be as many as 1 billion people displaced from their homes by 2050 as a consequence of climatic and related environmental changes (Christian Aid 2007). To put such figures into context, at the end of 2007, the most recent year for which detailed figures exist at time of writing, 11.4 million people worldwide were officially recognised as refugees by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), with another 26 million involuntarily displaced within their own borders. Meanwhile, the Population Division of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimated in 2006 that a total of nearly 200 million people worldwide live outside their country of birth as voluntary economic migrants. Should they come to pass, estimates of the magnitude made by Myers, Worldwatch, Christian Aid and others would represent a considerable expansion of the current global population of refugees and internally displaced people (Figure 11.3). The scale of such estimates also dwarfs that of previous climaterelated population displacements. For example, during the worst part of the 1930s Dust Bowl years on the American Great Plains, an estimated 300,000 people migrated out of the affected region to California, with a similar number likely displaced within the region (McLeman 2006). Past population displacements in Bangladesh due to floods, droughts and other environmental factors have numbered in the hundreds of thousands per event. In late 1998, over 600,000 Hondurans were displaced from their homes and required at least temporary shelter following Hurricane Mitch (Girot, 2002). Many migrated to neighbouring countries or to the United States. The 1998 Yangtze River floods, which temporarily displaced an estimated 14 million people, approached the scale of that envisaged by Myers and others, although it is not clear what proportion of that 14 million left the flood-affected region permanently (Brown and Halweil 1998).

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1,000,000,000 900,000,000 800,000,000 700,000,000 600,000,000 500,000,000 400,000,000 300,000,000 200,000,000 100,000,000 0 UNU-EHS 2010 Global Forescast Convention Refugees (Actual)

Myers Forecast

Global Migrants (Actual)

Christian Aid Upper Forecast

Figure 11.3 Comparison of current estimates and future forecasts of global number of migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons.

In short, the upper-end estimates of future climate change migrants call for a multi-fold increase of displaced persons worldwide. How accurate are such estimates? That depends on a range of factors that influence the vulnerability of groups and communities exposed to the impacts of climate change, which we discuss below. It also depends upon the speed and nature the climate change itself. If the impacts of climate change occur in a gradual, linear fashion that allows time for adaptations to be implemented, such estimates may be much too high. Such estimates are likely much too low, however, if climate change includes increases in sudden onsets of extreme events, proceeds in a non-linear fashion, or causes threshold shifts in regional or global climatic patterns, such as would occur in response to an accelerated rate of MSLR or a breakdown in thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic (Box 1).

How Soon Can We Expect Climate Change Migrants? Anthropogenic climate change is already underway, but the impacts are not being experienced uniformly across the globe, nor are they expected to be in the future. Increases in average temperatures, for example, are expected to be most pronounced at high altitudes and high latitudes, consistent with observations of changes already being made by scientists and native inhabitants of the Arctic (Ford et al. 2006). Other regions are also experiencing climatic conditions and events that are consistent with computer model-based predictions of changes in climate. For example,

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much of western North America’s coniferous forest is currently being ravaged by insect infestations directly related to increasingly milder winter temperatures (Williams and Liebhold 2002; Carroll et al. 2003: 298). The past decade has seen summer temperatures in Eastern North America and Western Europe routinely exceed long term averages, with severe heat waves becoming more commonplace (Meehl and Tebaldi 2004). Droughts in Sahelian and Sudano-Sahelian Africa appear to be more severe and frequent, and the intensity of tropical hurricanes seems to be increasing (Webster et al. 2005). Observations made at multiple locations suggest that mean sea levels have increased between ten and twenty centimetres over the past century, and ocean heat content is rising (Houghton et al. 2001). Such observations are broadly consistent with the broader changes in climatic patterns expected to emerge in coming decades (Table 11.1). Even if climate should stabilise within the range of known variability, human migration behaviour has been and will continue to be affected by climate. However, there is no reason to expect global climate conditions to stabilise. Quite the contrary, climate change is expected to become even more pronounced. Box 1: A worst case scenario: interruption of thermohaline circulation Thermohaline circulation is a process affecting ocean currents and temperatures. In the North Atlantic, the process is generally referred to as the Gulf Stream, drawing warm waters from the Caribbean up North America’s eastern seaboard and across to Western Europe and Scandinavia, elevating surrounding air temperatures. Its presence is a factor that allows the city of Stockholm, for example, to enjoy a considerably milder climate than Juneau, Alaska, even though both are located at a similar latitude. The process is believed to be driven by dry winds coming off the Canadian Arctic that cause rapid evaporation of ocean surface waters in the North Atlantic. The evaporation makes ocean surface water saltier and denser, causing it to sink. As it sinks, warmer, less dense surface water flows from the south to replace it. The fear among some scientists is that warmer air temperatures may lead to rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet, causing fresh water to flow out as a sheet over the surrounding ocean and bringing the thermohaline process to a rapid stop, similar to thrusting a stick into the spokes of a moving bicycle. There is some evidence to support this theory; ice-core data suggest that a series of rapid shifts in climate occurred during the late stages of the last ice age, attributable to sudden changes in thermohaline circulation.* Current climate models are not predicting a thermohaline failure in the present century, but should this phenomenon reoccur as a result of human-induced climate change, expect Northern Europe to become a large source of outmigration. (*Alley, R.B. 2000. ‘Ice-core evidence of abrupt climate changes.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97(4):1331–1334)

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Table 11.1 Expected impacts of anthropogenic climate change Expected change

Regions to be affected

Increases in annual average river runoff and water availability

High latitudes and some wet tropical areas

Decreases in annual average river runoff and water availability

Mid-latitudes and dry tropics

Increased extent of areas affected by droughts

Regions already susceptible to drought

More intense precipitation events

Will vary by region

Reduced water availability in regions dependent on Mountain snowmelt

South Asia, China, western North America, western South America

Increasing number of plant and animal species at risk of extinction; increased potential for significant ecosystem disturbances

Globally

Decreasing crop productivity; more frequent impacts of drought and floods on crop production

Lower latitudes, dry tropics, seasonally dry regions

Increased risk of erosion; millions more people exposed to flooding and extreme storms

Coastal regions, especially those already exposed to such risks Source: (IPCC, 2007a.: 7–22).

Many of the conditions and impacts identified in Table 1 are ones that are known from past experience to have the potential to cause migration from exposed areas. It is therefore reasonable to expect climate-related migration to increase as these impacts are felt. Given current observations of the pace of climate change and its impacts, we estimate that in many regions it will be no more than ten, perhaps 20 years at the most, before climate-related migrations become observably more frequent.

From Where Will Climate Change Migrants Come? Inhabitants of many regions may be expected to experience adversity as changes occur to the climatic conditions to which they have been accustomed. However, not all populations (and not all members within a given population) will experience similar degrees of loss or harm. It is those nations and communities that have limited adaptive capacity, particularly

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where government institutions are ineffective, torn by conflict, or weakened by corruption that are the most likely sources of future climate change migration. Many such places already experience high rates of internal migration and send large numbers of migrants abroad each year. Countries such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan fit this description, and are perhaps among the first candidates in this respect although, as Hurricane Katrina has demonstrated, even wealthy nations may not be immune. To identify regions, states, or populations where the potential for climate change-related migration is high, it is useful to use the concept of vulnerability, one that has received increasing attention in climate change science in recent years. In its simplest terms, vulnerability refers to the potential for loss or harm (Adger 2006). A universal measure of vulnerability to climate change, either in absolute or in relative terms has yet to be agreed. It is generally accepted that the vulnerability of a given population to the effects of climate change depends upon factors such as the nature of the climatic conditions to which it is exposed; the pre-existing social, political, and economic characteristics of that population and its physical environment; the inherent sensitivity of socio-economic activities practiced by that population to climate change; and the capacity of that population to adapt to changing conditions (Kelly and Adger 2000; Smit and Pilifosova 2003). The interactions between the natural and human processes that affect vulnerability are constantly changing over time; they vary between regions and from one household to the next. Vulnerability varies accordingly. Even though community A may face similar changes in climatic conditions to community B, the vulnerability of residents of one community may not be the same as those in the other, due to differences in the social, economic, cultural, and political systems between the two communities. One classic example is the vulnerability to cyclonic storms between coastal populations in Bangladesh in comparison with residents of the American Atlantic Coast (Burton, Kates, and White 1978). While both populations regularly experience severe tropical storms, Americans tend to experience high amounts of property damage but limited loss of life, while in Bangladesh the opposite is more often true. The divergent outcomes of tropical storm losses are reflective of their different economic, social, and political trajectories. Adaptation, a term that has been referred to several times already, is understood by climate change scientists as being the process of adjusting to changing conditions in order to reduce vulnerability. Adaptation to climate change may be initiated at a variety of scales, from institutionally-driven policies and programmes at national or sub-national levels to householdlevel adjustments and risk management decisions (Smit and Wandel 2006). Migration is an example of an adaptive response that has historically

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been initiated at the household level, occurring when government and community institutions are unable to provide adequate support and assistance to citizens (McLeman, and Smit 2006). Even in historical cases such as the 1930s ‘Dust Bowl years’ on the U.S. Great Plains, when severe droughts coincided with appalling economic circumstances, permanent migration out of the affected areas was undertaken only by a minority of the overall population; other households undertook other forms of adaptation that did not involve migration. Similar patterns may be expected to occur in the future in areas where climatic stresses are severe but do not render a location entirely uninhabitable. In cases such as small island states that do risk becoming uninhabitable as a consequence of sea level rise, we may in the future see increased calls for international coordination among governments to proactively resettle populations at risk (Barnett and Adger 2003). Neverthelss, the overall percentage of the global population residing on low-lying island states most at risk is small. Even if successfully implemented, orchestrated relocations of this type would represent but a fraction of the global numbers of people affected by climate change.

What Social Groups From Within These Areas Are Most Likely to Migrate? Within any given population, the vulnerability of one household will differ from that of the next due to differences in income, family configuration, health, social class, and any number of other characteristics. Not all households will have the option of migrating away from adverse climatic conditions, while those that do have the option may use some other type of adaptation instead. For example, as noted above, a disproportionate number of migrants who fled drought-stricken areas in the Great Plains region during the 1930s came from the rural middle class (McLeman 2006). Many were families who had been renting farms, making them inherently predisposed to moving when their crops failed. A household’s migration destination was chosen on the basis of its access to money, its family configuration and the extent of its social networks. Relocating across long distances was costly and required access to an automobile. It also required family connections at the destination who could be relied upon to provide assistance in finding a place to live and work. Families who lacked the necessary money and social connections to migrate typically had to accept a sharp decline in living standards, and adapted through steps such as seeking off-farm employment (when it could be found), depending more heavily on subsistence food gathering, sharing a single farm among multiple families, relocating to a less productive (and therefore less expensive) farm, or squatting on vacant

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land (McLeman et al. 2008). The smaller, wealthier class of landowners, so long as they were not heavily indebted, relied on their own financial resources and drew upon strong social networks in the local community. Relatively few of them left the region during the drought. This historical example is not unique; the West African example of ‘eating the dry season’ shows similar social differentiations in migration responses to seasonal rainfall. Indeed, as has been shown in the preceding chapters in this volume, human migration patterns display high degrees of social differentiation, regardless of whether the stimuli are environmental in nature or not. When looking at the likely source countries for climate change migration, it is clear that current out-migration from those countries already includes large numbers of young, skilled, and educated workers, whose exodus is often referred to as a ‘brain drain’ (Carrington and Detragiache 1998). It is likely that these highly mobile groups will be heavily represented among future movements of climate-related migrants. In this sense, past experience suggests future climate-related migration may be paradoxical in nature, in that those who are most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change (e.g. the poor, elderly, unhealthy, and other similarly disadvantaged social groups) may be less able (and therefore less likely) to migrate great distances than those who have a greater range of adaptive options and may be therefore considered somewhat less vulnerable. One of the legacies of the 1930s Great Plains migration was that those who fled the drought stricken areas – the young, skilled families with some financial means and extended social networks – were the very types of people that are essential components of successful communities. The places they left behind became increasingly polarized between affluent property owners and an impoverished underclass, a downward spiral from which some communities never recovered. In other words, the emergence of drought-related migration had the effect of reducing the adaptive capacity and future socio-economic trajectory of the communities the migrants left behind. Future climate-driven migration holds a similar potential to have negative long-term consequences for socio-economic stability in affected areas.

Where Will the Migrants Go? Even accounting for the effects that international borders (and in some countries, internal restrictions on mobility) may have as barriers or discouragements to migration, the future effects of climate change on migration patterns will likely become manifest in two general ways. First, in regions especially vulnerable to climate change we expect to

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see increased levels of rural-to-urban migration. Second, there will be a concurrent increase in international migration between countries that are already linked to one another by established migrant networks. However, the increase in long-distance migration may not be as significant as might be expected. As seen in the ‘eating the dry season’ phenomenon in West Africa, speculative, long distance migration is less frequent during periods when climatic conditions are especially unfavourable because of reduced household financial resources and the inability of the household to spare the migrant’s labour. On the other hand, shorter distance intra-regional ruralto-urban migration will occur even in the worst drought years and even if the prospects of finding employment in the urban centre are not great, since the sending household’s resources may permit few other alternatives. When it does occur, long-distance migration out of the region tends to follow the path of established social networks. Where they are large in numbers, these international networks are sometimes referred to as ‘transnational communities’ (Carrington and Detragiache 1998). Hence young men from Niger will travel to French and Belgian cities with large communities of compatriots in search of work, young Nigerians to particular British cities, and so on. These social networks serve several purposes: they help the migrant with the logistics of travelling internationally (with or without the necessary immigration permits from the destination country), are sources of financial support or credit for the migrant, and help the migrant find employment and accommodation on arrival. These patterns of migration have unfolded in some of the other cases described in this chapter, suggesting that future climate-related migration patterns may also unfold in similar fashion. As a result, it is possible to project that climate change will stimulate future increases in migration from vulnerable areas in South Pacific island states to Australia, New Zealand and the United States; from French-speaking West African countries to France and Belgium; from Pakistan and Bangladesh to the United Kingdom. In addition to the significant increases that may be expected within these and other vulnerable nations such as China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. This raises issues related to the question of how the world’s policy makers will respond to climate-related migration. Although one regularly encounters the term ‘environmental refugee’ in both popular and academic literature on the subject, there is at present no formal recognition under international law of persons who are obliged to migrate away from their place of residence due to severe environmental stresses. The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (hereinafter Convention) require that someone seeking protection as a refugee must be outside his/her country of origin and must have fled their home and be unable to return because of a reasonable fear of persecution. People who may be obliged in the future to abandon

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their place of residence because of the negative impacts of climate change would not meet such a definition, and there is no apparent appetite among the world’s refugee-receiving nations to consider expanding the existing definition of a refugee (McLeman 2008). In the absence of revisions to the Convention or specific bilateral agreements, those who autonomously migrate across international boundaries to escape adverse impacts of climate change would be entering as illegal aliens, undocumented migrants, or similar descriptors of uncertain legal status. More problematic still is the question of what would become of those populations and groups that may become displaced by impacts of climate change but who do not cross international boundaries, the category of persons we suggest is most likely to grow in number as a consequence of climate change. Within the global population of climate changed-related internally displaced persons, different types or descriptions are likely to emerge. The most visible will be the populations of small island states, particularly residents of atolls, where rising sea levels will exacerbate shoreline erosion, inland penetration of extreme storms and salinisation of ground water, and eventually render such islands increasingly less habitable (Mimura et al. 2007). Despite popular belief and occasional press reports to the contrary, there is at this writing no formal mechanism to facilitate the relocation of residents from small Pacific-island states to New Zealand or Australia, though such issues are raised periodically in political discussions in those countries (Banham and Macey 2006). Such discussions nonetheless foreshadow a day when the international community will indeed look to Byravan and Challan (2006) regional hegemons to take the lead on providing organised resettlement assistance to residents of island states that are no longer viable.1 Byravan and Challan (2006) argue that, rather than waiting for the need to arise and then respond in an ad hoc fashion, the international community should adopt a system of quotas, whereby the world’s nations would agree in advance to accept certain numbers of displaced coastal residents for relocation based on the historical greenhouse gas emissions of each nation). The likelihood of such a regime being adopted seems poor, but it does raise the issue of the applicability of existing international instruments and agreements to cases of climate-related population displacements. There are few precedents at the international level for a formal, organised system for resettling internally displaced persons caused by climate change, but the idea is not entirely far-fetched. Since 1998 the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, a UN Human Rights Commission framework document, has outlined the rights of internally displaced persons and the obligations owed to them by the international community in terms of assistance. Unlike the UN refugee convention the Guiding Principles explicitly includes those displaced by natural disasters (human-caused or otherwise). Not only would populations displaced by sea level rise therefore seem to be included

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(unless one were to argue that rapid sea level rise is somehow not a disaster), so, too, would be much less visible internal displacements such as increased movements of the rural poor to urban centres. The Guiding Principles would also seem to dovetail nicely with article 4, section 4 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which obliges developed country signatories to assist particularly vulnerable developing nations in meeting the costs of adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change. There are, however, a number of practical limitations in terms of applying the Guiding Principles to the case of future climate change displacements. The Guiding Principles, as the name implies, are not international law. Although they have been formally recognised by regional organisations of states such as the African Union and the Organization of American States, and have on a number of occasions made their way into the language and text of a variety of international agreements, UN member states are not bound by them (Cohen 2004). The Guiding Principles have been at times contested by some UN member states as undermining the sovereignty of states over their own borders, although it should come as little surprise that those states with strong objections include ones such as Burma/ Myanmar and Sudan where the Principles are most needed in the first place (Lanjouw, Mortimer, and Bamforth 2002; Cohen 2006). For example, the 25th of the Guiding Principles declares that states shall grant those who would deliver humanitarian assistance unimpeded access to internally displaced populations, particularly where the host state is unwilling or unable to provide such assistance itself. This conflict between state sovereignty and the 25th Principle was most recently evident in the wake of cyclone Nargis in 2008, when the Burmese junta refused to allow foreign aid workers into the country to assist hundreds of thousands left without shelter, food or water (Lanjouw, Mortimer and Bamforth 2002; Cohen 2006). While the international community could have legitimately ignored Burmese sovereignty pursuant to Principle 25 and sent relief assistance and workers into the country with or without the junta’s blessing, no nations proved willing to go so far on an individual basis, nor was the UN Security Council willing or able to force humanitarian intervention despite public calls to do so (Human Rights Watch 2008). Instead, the UN Secretary General was obliged to travel to Burma to make a direct plea on behalf of the victims, which eventually enabled relief assistance into the country, albeit with onerous restrictions. The case of post-Nargis Burma demonstrates there are clear limits to what actions may be possible under the framework of the Guiding Principles: the ability to exercise national sovereignty seems to trump international responsibilities to assist those in need. That said, the business of providing assistance to displaced populations, be it for reasons linked to climate change or otherwise, will inevitably be conducted in changing milieus

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of hegemony, state power, geopolitics, and international relations. Such realities do not negate the utility of pursuing a framework for protection of those displaced by climate change under the Guiding Principles. Not all those who are at risk of future displacement due to the impacts of climate change live in nations with governments as reprehensible as those in Burma or Sudan, and many might be expected to welcome any and all assistance in coping with internally displaced persons. The Guiding Principles have already been shown to be useful in providing legitimacy and ground rules for UN agencies and NGOs that provide humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons in conflict zones, (Cohen 2004) and would therefore confer a similar legitimacy to those who would act to assist populations affected by climate change. In this respect, the institutional mandate, such as it is, to assist internally displaced populations is actually firmer at present than that to assist people who would cross international boundaries to flee the adverse affects of climate change, given the silence of the UN refugee convention on such situations.

Current Preoccupations: Linkages between ClimateRelated Migration, Security, Stability, and Conflict In recent years, the broader policy-related discussions has often featured a fear that the impacts of climate change of food production, incomes, and migration patterns in vulnerable developing nations may lead to an increased risk of conflict between social groups competing for increasingly scarce resources and ecosystem services (Kaplan 1994; Homer-Dixon 1999). Some, including UN leaders, have gone so far as to attribute the current violence and refugee situation in Darfur to a competition for productive land caused by the impacts of drought (Borger 2007). While the Darfur region has indeed been struggling through an extended dry period, as has much of Sudano-Sahelian Africa, the evidence linking that region’s drought to anthropogenic climate change is incomplete, and in any event, widespread violence has not erupted in other parts of the regions affected by drought. A far more proximate cause of the violence in Darfur has been the government of Sudan’s active supporting and supplying of arms to Arab militias in Darfur (De Waal 2007). By linking Darfur to climate change, the UN is simply reflecting a broader trend among international organisations to describe climate change in increasingly neo-Malthusian terms, and to elevate climate change policy to a national and international security issue. The motive behind this may simply be that in the post-September 11th world, issues that do not have identifiable implications for security tend not to get discussed by policymakers at the highest levels. From the way in which discussion of the issue

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has been framed that the UN Security Council, at G8 summits and at other high-level multilateral venues, it does indeed seem apparent that the security implications argument is being used to convince recalcitrant governments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. That said, a number of influential academic scholars and security analysts have suggested that the linkages between climate change, violence and widespread human population displacements are both real and likely to increase in importance.2 The underlying logic is fairly straightforward and linear in nature. The types of climate change impacts described in Table 1 above are likely to increase scarcities of critical resources in many regions. Such scarcities are likely to inflame pre-existing animosities between rival social/economic groups. This competition for scarce resources may descend into conflict and violence, which could trigger distress migration and further scarcity of resources. This creates a feedback cycle that creates an ever-greater cycle of violence. While the logic is simple and intuitive, actual examples of this sort of environmental stress-leading-to violence dynamic are rather few; those that are pointed to tend to be in Africa, including Darfur, Rwanda, and parts of West Africa (Homer-Dixon 1994; Kaplan 1994; Uvin 1996; University for Peace Africa Programme 2004). Nonetheless, the potential risk of such a dynamic becoming more common has led one panel of highranking U.S. military officers to deem climate change a ‘threat multiplier’ in the context of international security (Global Business Network 2007). One example that may help in assessing the likelihood of climate change-related migration contributing to future security concerns is the case of Pakistan. This is a poor nation with a disproportionate strategic importance given its nuclear capabilities, its long-standing territorial disputes with India, and its role in the NATO intervention in Afghanistan and the United States’ global campaign against terrorism. According to 2007 UNHCR statistics, Pakistan hosts approximately two million Afghans living as refugees or in a refugee-like situation, a number the Pakistani government is actively attempting to reduce through repatriation. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are still recovering from the loss of homes and livelihoods caused by the Kashmir earthquake of 2005. Pakistan’s urban areas are sprawling, burgeoning, and almost ungovernable, with basic services provided increasingly by informal organisations (Hasan 2002). Steady streams of young, educated urbanites look abroad for employment and opportunities. Even though urban growth is rapid, the majority of the Pakistani population still lives in rural areas and is highly dependent on agriculture for its wellbeing. The availability and allocation of water in rural areas is an ongoing problem. With much of its landscape arid or semi-arid, its agriculturalists are highly dependent on irrigation using water from rivers that have their sources in the mountains. Existing dams and reservoirs on

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these rivers are not adequate to capture sufficient water to serve farmers year round, and so the availability of surface water for irrigation is highly seasonal. In years when river levels are below average, hardship and increased potential for conflict ensues in the countryside (Matthew 2001). At the opposite extreme, years with above average flows may cause damaging floods. Rural households may drop in and out of poverty with considerable frequency (Baulch and McCulloch 2002). Climate change poses serious risks for of Pakistan (Khan 2003). Future projections call for more variability in the flow of Pakistan’s rivers, with both extremely high levels and extremely low flow levels likely to become more frequent, with high flows typically not occurring at favourable times in the agricultural production cycle (Khan 2003). At the same time, rising temperatures are expected to increase the demand for irrigation as soils lose moisture content. All of this is developing against a backdrop of rising agricultural commodity and input prices and ongoing countrywide political instability. The expected changes in climatic conditions would put downward pressure on rural livelihoods, create social instability in the countryside, and lead to more migration into urban areas. The extent to which this will undermine the internal security of Pakistan or exacerbate tensions with its neighbours and the international community remains to be seen. However, what is clear is that climate change will place ever more pressure on the central government to provide support and services to rural and urban populations on a scale that the government has already shown itself incapable of providing. Situations similar to that of Pakistan exist in countries like Sri Lanka, Algeria, Somalia, and a number of other developing nations that have persistent internal conflicts and instability, large rural populations that are highly vulnerable to climatic change, rapid urban growth, and extensive international migrant networks. It is not, however, an inevitability that the impacts of climate change will lead to new pulses of distress migration and stimulate new levels of instability in such countries. As has been argued earlier in this chapter, whether climate change stimulates migration at all, and whether such migration would take the form of distress migration or adaptive migration will be closely elated to the capacity of those populations and their political, social, and economic institutions to adapt to new climatic stresses as they emerge. This adaptive capacity is in turn linked to the future development trajectories of such countries, and therefore allows an opportunity for engagement by the international community to assist developing nations to avoid such outcomes. Progress on getting developed nations to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions has been maddeningly slow. Persuading developed nations to assist developing nations with building adaptive capacity has been even worse. The UNFCCC obliges signatories (which

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include virtually every nation on Earth) to work to prevent the dangerous atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases and requires developed nations (described in Annex I of the convention) to provide adaptation assistance to nations that are most vulnerable nations. While the Kyoto Protocol provided a set of specific and voluntarily binding targets for emissions reduction (even if Canada and the United States have chosen to ignore their targets), there is no protocol that describes how and to what extent assistance shall be provided to vulnerable nations. Instead, adaptation assistance has moved forward through a series of ad hoc arrangements, bilateral arrangements, local and regional-scale projects funded through the Global Environment facility, and various statements of good intentions and modest initiatives arising from annual conferences of the Parties to the UNFCCC. If policymakers in developed nations do indeed take seriously their own rhetoric regarding the potential for climate change to create large scale distress migrations and conflict, the next few years should witness a more focused and strengthened attention to building adaptive capacity through increased international development assistance. Yet even if climate migration turns out to have less effect on security than is presently feared, there are other important reasons why the international community should be placing greater emphasis on building adaptive capacity in vulnerable regions. Large scale climate-related population displacements would create a tremendous setback to economic development in many of the world’s poorer regions, by eroding rural livelihoods and swelling the numbers of urban poor. This dynamic would in turn make efforts to control the spread and incidence of communicable and preventable diseases in developing regions ever more difficult, and in some instances exacerbate gender-based inequities. In current policy discussions of climate, western interests tend to be expressed in the context of state security issues, but a more comprehensive and global view of the issue suggests that discussion (and action) needs to be centred more strongly on basic human security and social justice issues. While members of the academic community have begun exploring such issues in recent years, policymakers have so far been slow to follow. 3

Summary There is considerable evidence that environmental change, including changes in climatic conditions, has the potential to influence human migration patterns, and there are a number of historical cases from which to learn more about the linkages between these processes. Under conditions of climatic stress, human populations will undertake a range of adaptive strategies, which may be initiated at a variety of scales and levels

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from the individual or household to higher level institutions. The range of adaptations available to a given population (and individuals within a given population) at a given point in time will vary according to the broader range of interacting social, economic and political processes that influence household wellbeing. Some households will have the option of migrating away from the area at risk; others may not because they lack the social networks, physical wellbeing, economic means, or other factors that influence the viability of migration as an adaptive option. Among those that do have the option of migrating, not all will: where possible, households will employ other types of adaptation that are less expensive or less disruptive to household cohesion. International boundaries or internal barriers to mobility may also influence migration decisions and behaviour. The number of people who undertake migration and the overall nature of the migration patterns that emerge (i.e. the mixture of deliberate, adaptive migration and rapid, distress migration) will reflect the speed with which the climatic stress in question sets on and the degree to which it exceeds the adaptive capacity of the exposed population. Once started, climate-related migrations have the potential to create a negative synergy whereby the overall quality of life in the communities migrants leave behind begins to erode, thereby fuelling further out-migration. Given the mounting evidence of the seriousness of the potential risks climate change will pose to human wellbeing, and given that many regions are already believed to be experiencing adverse effects, there is a pressing need for greater research on the effects anthropogenic climate change will have on human migration behaviour. We appear to have by our own devices entered an era in which environmental stresses are becoming an increasingly important driver of migration, and we will no longer be able to treat climate change as just another matter for environmental scientists to worry about. It is therefore particularly evident that researchers in migration and demography will need to play a more active role in setting the broader scholarly and policy agendas in this area.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Professor Barry Smit for his assistance with previous research on which this paper has drawn. Dr McLeman would like to acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its financial support of research that contributed to this chapter.

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Notes 1. The sources drawn upon for the Sahel case study described in this chapter include: Rain, 1999; Mortimore and Adams, 2001; Hampshire, 2002; Raynaut, 2001; Meagher, 2001; Pedersen, 1995; Nyong, Fiki, and McLeman, 2006. 2. For a review of climate change predictions for West Africa see Nyong, A., Fiki, C. and McLeman, R., 2006. Drought-Related Conflicts, Management and Resolution in the West African Sahel: Considerations for Climate Change Research. Die Erde, 137(3): 223–248. 3. Volume 2 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fourth Assessment Report on Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation provides a thorough review of this broad scholarship; the role of migration as an adaptation to climate change is featured in Chapter 18 of that volume. 4. Visit www.unhcr.org. and www.un.org/esa/population for latest statistics. 5. For further discussion see (Hay and Beniston 2001). 6. For a detailed review, see Brown, Hammill, and McLeman, 2007. 7. For a range of case studies of issues of social justice, equity and climate adaptation see Adger, W.N., Paavola, J., Huq, S. and Mace, M.J. (Editors), 2006. Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

References A.A.P. 2006. ‘We must plan for climate change refugees: Labor’ Sydney Morning Herald, 5 January. Adger, W.N. 2006. ‘Vulnerability.’ Global Environmental Change, 16(3): 268–281. Adger, W.N., Paavola, J., Huq, S. and Mace, M.J. (eds.). 2006. Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change. MIT Press: Cambridge MA. Airriess, C.A., Li, W., Leong, K.J., Chen, A.C.-C. and Keith, V.M. 2007. ‘Churchbased social capital, networks and geographical scale: Katrina evacuation, relocation, and recovery in a New Orleans Vietnamese American community.’ Geoforum 39(3): 1333–1346. Alley, R.B. 2000. ‘Iceocre evidence of abrupt climate changes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97(4): 1331–1334. Arnell, N.W. 2003. ‘Climate change and global water resources: SRES emissions and socio-economic scenarios.’ Global Environmental Change 14(1): 31–52. Banham, C., and Macey, R. 5 January 2006. ‘SOS call as island nations go under.’ Sydney Morning Herald. Barnett, J. and Adger, N. 2003. ‘Climate dangers and atoll countries.’ Climatic Change 61(3): 321–337. Barthélémy, P. 2005. ‘Bientôt, des millions de réfugiés chassés par l’océan.’ Le Monde, 18 December. Bates, D.C. 2002. ‘Environmental refugees? Classifying human migrations caused by environmental change.’ Population and Environment. 23(5): 465–477.

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State and Non-State Actors in Evacuations During the Conflict in Lebanon, July–August 2006 Ray Jureidini1

Introduction In this chapter I detail various actors involved with the humanitarian and evacuation efforts during the Lebanese crisis. “The research for this chapter was conducted with the support of the Arab Families Working Group (http:// www.afwg.info).” It is argued that the assistance and protection of foreign nationals in conflict zones vary considerably. The wealthier countries generally have the willingness and capacity to evacuate their citizens, but the situation for the often larger number of foreign nationals from poorer countries is much more ad hoc and dependent upon international assistance (in the form of donor support and intergovernmental organisations), and local government and NGO willingness and capacity to act. The chaos that followed the Israeli invasion included foreign governments clambering to evacuate their nationals, largely to the exclusion of others. Where foreign governments had no capacity to do so for their citizens, local and international organisations, with external funding, stepped in to assist. For thirty three days, from 12 July to 14 August 2006, the Israeli invasion against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon left much of the country’s infrastructure destroyed: the airport, 109 bridges, 137 roads, 127 factories, and a power station. ‘Housing, water facilities, schools, medical facilities,

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numerous mosques and churches, TV and radio transmission stations, historical, archaeological and cultural sites also suffered massive damage’ (OHCHR 2006: 3; see also UNEP 2007). The conflict resulted in over 1,100 civilian deaths (Human Rights Watch 2007); many thousands were wounded and over 1 million displaced. Around 180,000 managed to find refuge in Syria and another half a million fled to the mountains where they were sheltered in schools and families who took them in (Murphy 2006). The Israeli invasion also created a crisis for foreigners and migrant guest workers in the country. Reportedly, around sixty foreign civilians died and many were wounded (precise numbers of wounded are not available) including nationals from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Palestine, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Syria, Ukraine, and the United States. thirty three farm workers, mostly Syrians, were killed by Israeli air attacks as they were loading a truck with fruit in the Bekaa Valley (IRIN 2006). Drawing on reports from various countries, on 10 August 2006, a list of countries with foreign nationals in Lebanon at that time was posted on the web. Although not exhaustive and by no means reliable, it listed the following: Sri Lanka (80,000), Canada (50,000), Philippines (30,000), Australia (25,000), U.S. (25,000), U.K. (22,000), France (20,000), Bangladesh (20,000), Egypt (15,000), India (12,000), Sweden (7,000), Denmark (4,100), Nepal (4,000), Venezuela (4,000), Germany (2,600), Greece (2,500–5,000), Russia (1,500), Romania (1,200), Armenia (1,200), Ukraine (1,200), Poland (329), Moldova (240), Mexico (216 wishing to be evacuated), Bulgaria (207 wishing to be evacuated), Iran (200), Ireland (161), Cyprus (102), Croatia (58), Slovakia (56), Peru (50), Kazakhstan (31), and Malaysia (1) (Wikipedia 2006a). To this should be added Italy, Ethiopia (20,000) and Sudan, Ghana, Vietnam, Cameroon, Seychelles, and Madagascar (numbers unknown, but see numbers of evacuees below). In total, some 70,000 foreign nationals were evacuated from Lebanon, mostly from around 16 July, four days after the war began. In all, 213 passenger and navy ships, 123 land convoys, and 196 helicopters docked in or travelled through Lebanon during the evacuation period. Despite the huge chaos of cars, buses, trucks, and military vehicles clambering over the damaged highways and bridges, the Israeli military indicated and coordinated approved routes for evacuation convoys throughout the country (Human Rights Watch, 2007: 246). Lebanon is a party to six of the seven major international human rights instruments: (CERD, ICESCR, ICCPR, CEDAW, CAT, and CRC). However, it has not ratified the 2003 Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (MWC), nor it is a signatory to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, nor the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of

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Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (OHCHR 2006a). What are the rights and obligations or responsibilities for protection and evacuation of migrants, or non-nationals in a situation of conflict? The MWC does not specifically mention migrants in crisis circumstances and thus it is a gap in the convention that purports to be overwhelmingly comprehensive on migrant workers’ rights. International humanitarian law does provide a general need for protection of civilians in times of war and foreign nationals are protected as civilians in relation to military decisions that may result in civilian casualties. The Fourth Geneva Convention, 2 Article 35 also stipulates that any person not involved in fighting during a conflict, including aliens in the territory of a party to the conflict (Article 48): who may desire to leave the territory at the outset of, or during a conflict, shall be entitled to do so, unless their departure is contrary to the national interests of the State. The applications of such persons to leave shall be decided in accordance with regularly established procedures and the decision shall be taken as rapidly as possible. Those persons permitted to leave may provide themselves with the necessary funds for their journey and take with them a reasonable amount of their effects and articles of personal use.

Although originally specific to nationals of one of the warring parties who wish to leave the country under occupation, the general terminology employed in the Convention would also make sense in applying it to nonnational civilians residing in a country under conflict. Following from the above, Article 36 stipulates that departures ‘shall be carried out in satisfactory conditions as regards safety, hygiene, sanitation and food.’ Importantly, however, from the point of exit, the responsibility for the costs of repatriation are to be met by the country of destination (in the case the destination is not the country of origin, but a neutral country) or by the country of origin. This is to ensure that the right to leave the territory can be realised despite lack of financial resources. Although there is no provision for the cost of travel to the frontier, it is assumed that the authorities of the host country would facilitate their departure if such costs were an obstacle to their flight (ICRC 2005). Perhaps more indirectly, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) conceives consular functions to include helping and assisting their nationals (Article 5e) as well as ‘protecting in the receiving State the interests of the sending State and of its nationals, both individuals and bodies corporate, within the limits permitted by international law’ (Article 5a). It may be assumed that this applies regardless of conditions of peace or conflict in the host country. Finally, the United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1296 (para.8) also emphasises the need for ‘safe and unimpeded

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access of humanitarian personnel to civilians in armed conflicts’ (UNSC 2000). In large part, most of the above principles were complied with during the Lebanese crisis. The extent to which the actions of the various states did so out of moral or civic responsibility or out of legal obligation may be worthy of research and discussion elsewhere. There was little immediate evidence of direct intervention by the Lebanese government 3 other than a role in coordinating and facilitating the assistance of local and international NGOs and international aid agencies. A somewhat late appeal for humanitarian aid in late July by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) followed a consultative process within the InterAgency Standing Committee (IASC) with the assistance of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. A regional Task Force was established to liaise with the Israeli authorities. The Lebanese Government did establish a Higher Relief Council as the main coordinating body to coordinate crisis activities. Cooperation was also fostered with the considerable Lebanese NGO and civil society presence (over 6,000 organisations) to deliver health, food and nutrition, water and sanitation, logistics, protection, shelter, and common services [particularly for the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced]… In addition to the response inside Lebanon, the Government of Syria and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARC) [took] a lead role in registering, accommodating and assisting the most vulnerable of the people displaced there from Lebanon. (OCHA 2006). The United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) sent emergency mobile teams to the main transit routes between Syria and Lebanon. The World Health Organization (WHO), the Swiss Cooperation, World Vision, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provided various health care facilities and supplies, assisting hospitals throughout the main affected areas of the country and continued after the war assisting those returning or attempting to return to their homes (WHO 2006). While the figures show a large number of foreign nationals being evacuated from Lebanon, it is not clear how many were dual nationals, how many were visiting, on holidays, or how many could have been classified as ‘migrants’ In addition, it is not clear whether the many foreign skilled professionals, including business investors, entrepreneurs, managers of transnational corporations, embassy personnel, UN institutions, international NGO staff, and the like, may be categorised as migrants or migrant workers in Lebanon. It is important, however, to get a sense of the differences in scale of various country operations that were mobilised to evacuate their nationals.

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Foreign Government Actions on Behalf of Expatriates in Lebanon The developed nations, particularly those with close ties to Israel and sophisticated resources that could be activated quickly in the region, acted relatively promptly (although there were critics from many countries who thought they should have moved more quickly). However, each country had set its objective to rescue its own citizens from the conflict in the first instance. Just as sovereign nation states have a right to determine who enters their country, so it was that there were significant differentiations based upon nationality in the evacuation processes from Lebanon. The examples show how states rallied to assist their expatriates in Lebanon, with varying levels of military sophistication. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) ‘Operation Ramp’, led by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, took over 5,000 Australian nationals as well as 1,350 other ‘approved foreign nationals’ from the ports of Tyre and Beirut. In all, Australia charted 17 ships, 22 Australian aircraft, and over 470 buses. Within 24 hours of the first notice being given to the service members, an advance party had departed Australia. The remaining forces departed in the following 24 hours (McDonald 2006). A Hercules air carrier based in Cyprus, for example, transported Australian citizens ‘from Larnaca to regional transport hubs and between Mersin and Ankara in Turkey. Capable of transporting 130 evacuees each flight, the Hercules made its first flight from Cyprus to Turkey on July 23’ (Airforce 2006). Initial evacuations prioritised families with children and the handicapped who boarded a British warship already in the port of Beirut (AAP 2006). The French sea and air mission ‘Operation Baliste’ employed armed forces to evacuate French nationals and conveyed humanitarian aid and engineering personnel as reinforcements for their contingent in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) (including prefabricated steel Bailey bridges immediately after the war ceased). Around 14,500 people were evacuated from Lebanon, including 11,300 French; two thirds using military means (Ministère de la Défense 2006). Two amphibious operation ships and two frigates provided hospital facilities, combat and transport helicopters, and landing craft. The French prioritised those who were allowed to board flights and ships. First preferences were given to those who were only French nationals; second, French who were visiting or on holidays in Lebanon; third, Lebanese residents with dual Lebanese and French passports. Around one third of French evacuees were nationals of other countries which are unknown, but included European and United States citizens (Wikipedia 2006a). With around 12,000 of its nationals in Lebanon, the Indian navy initiated ‘Operation Sukoon’, meaning ‘peace and tranquillity’ in Hindi,

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‘relief’ or ‘succour’ in Urdu (Indian Navy 2006) sending four naval vessels that contained around 115 tons of aid from both the Indian and Cyprus governments: medical supplies, clothing and blankets, antiseptics, food, baby milk powder, and canned goods (Srivatsan, 2007). Some evacuees went to Cyprus and some direct to India through the Suez Canal. Overall, around 2,280 were evacuated – over 1,800 Indian nationals (although some were without valid documents), 379 Sri Lankans, 69 Nepalese, and 5 Lebanese (ibid.). It was argued that most evacuees were middle class expatriates, compared with the mostly unskilled migrant workers who were unwilling or unable to leave and leave their jobs in Lebanon (Wikipedia 2006a). The British ‘Operation Highbrow’ committed approximately 2,500 personnel (including ship personnel) that evacuated approximately 4,500 individuals, using Cyprus as a drop-off point. They mobilised six Royal Navy vessels, a naval air squadron (including helicopters); a Royal Air Force squadron, including Chinook helicopters and four RAF air transport carriers; the army provided a ‘Spearhead Land Element’ (around 800 personnel in total) which included an ‘Infantry Battalion Tactical HQ and Infantry Company Group’ along with ‘Military Operational Reconnaissance and Liaison Teams’ who flew into Beirut on 17 July (Defence News 2006). This was partly in direct support for Dr Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy commissioner, and for the protection and assistance of the British ambassador and embassy staff. British operations ceased on 27 July. Less than half of those evacuated were U.K. citizens (2,000) and the rest (2,500) were made up of some fifty other nationalities (ibid.). The Canadian ‘Operation Lion’ (CF 2008) evacuated around 14,000 Canadians between 19 July and 15 August from Beirut and Tyre to Cyprus and Turkey from where they boarded flights to Canada. With an Emergency Operations Centre in Ottawa, thousands of phone calls and emails per day were made to those who were registered with the embassy in Beirut. From the outset of the crisis, the number of registrations quadrupled to 40,000. The government established an interdepartmental taskforce, chartered aircraft and ships (seven) and deployed over 350 officials to Beirut to assist with the evacuations. The first airlift of 261 evacuees from Cyprus was taken by the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, in his aircraft and the rest were placed with Skylink and Air Canada flights (Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada). The size and the cost ($85 million) of the Canadian evacuations created considerable controversy for some time afterwards, particularly when, by mid-September, half had already returned to Lebanon. Questions were raised regarding the government footing the bill for non-resident and non-taxpaying Canadian citizens abroad – and because an exception was made in this case to the normal requirement that evacuees reimburse the government (CTV 2006).

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The United States, in ‘Operation Strengthen Hope’ established Joint Task Force Lebanon and evacuated around 15,000 of its estimated 25,000 citizens in Lebanon at the time (U.S. Navy 2006). A cruise ship the Orient Queen was leased to ferry evacuees to Cyprus and from there charter flights were arranged to multiple U.S. destinations (CNN 2006). The cruise ship was guarded in the Mediterranean by two U.S. navy destroyers. Claimed to be one of the largest evacuations in military history, it was not without some initial controversy. As evacuees boarded, they were advised of a standard practice of charging individuals for their repatriation. It was unclear what the U.S. government was charging – whether normal commercial fees, or $300 per person. While no one was prevented from boarding aircraft or ships because they did not have the cash or a cheque, there was an expectation that they would be billed for reimbursement later. Following outrage in Washington, on 18 July, the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the charges would be waived (CNN 2006a). Because of their proximity to Lebanon in the Mediterranean, the other countries that were able to mobilize their own naval vessels were Greece, Italy and Turkey. Greece used a fleet of ferries almost immediately and evacuated between 2,500–5,000 people to Cyprus and Piraeus. They included not only Greek nationals but also citizens of the European Union, U.S., and ‘other Western nationals’ (Wikipedia 2006b: 3). On 17 July an Italian destroyer evacuated 350 Italians to Cyprus and then to Rome with Alitalia airlines. And, rather late, on 24 July, a Turkish navy ship, escorted by two gunboats, repatriated some 1,200 Turkish nationals. Although it is likely to be an exaggeration, the Egyptian government estimated the number of Egyptian nationals working and living in Lebanon at around 300,000, mainly working in various services sectors (notably petrol stations) (Egyptian Information Service 2006). The Egyptian embassies in Beirut and Damascus had already established a hotline and a ‘crises-management group’. Although only 5,000 were registered, the two embassies coordinated the evacuation of around 14,000 back to Egypt. Some 500 Egyptians managed to return by car through Syria, Jordan, and the Aqaba Gulf (ibid.). With routes agreed to by the Israelis, the Foreign Ministry sent many military aircraft on an almost daily basis, using an old disused runway that had not been damaged. These brought aid, including medicines (they established a temporary hospital in the south) as well as milk, rice, and oil and returned to Egypt with both Egyptian and Lebanese evacuees. Navy frigates also shipped many tons of drinking water from Alexandria (Ibrahim 2006). One civilian ship arriving for evacuations was hit during the missile exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah off the coast of Lebanon and had to make its way straight to Syria (Spiegel Online 2006). Between 3,000 and 4,000 Egyptians avoided the $1,000

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fine for Lebanese immigration law violations, thanks to their embassy’s negotiations (Ibrahim 2006). Other foreign nationals had their governments arrange buses to Syria and flights to their respective countries. With an estimation of around 80,000 Armenians in Lebanon, mostly Lebanese citizens, around 1,000 went by bus to Aleppo in northern Syria and then airlifted to Yerevan. The Foreign Ministry spokesman for Armenia noted that most were living in largely untargeted Christian areas in Beirut, and concluded, ‘I wouldn’t say there is widespread desire [to escape to Armenia] at the moment’ (Armenia News 2006). Almost 1,000 Brazilians were bussed to Adana, in Turkey where they were provided with evacuation aircraft from Brazil (one being a famous former presidential Boeing 707) (Wikipedia 2006b). By 21 July, almost all of the 7,000 Swedish nationals in Lebanon were transported by boat to Cyprus. Some 5,000 were evacuated almost immediately because of an organised SMS mobile phone messaging system that enabled them to gather in a hotel and leave in an orderly manner to a Malaysian ship waiting for them (Farrell 2006; Whittaker 2006). Finally, cooperation between Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States enabled around 1,400 Russians, 1,100 Romanians, 400 Ukrainians, and 150 Moldovians to reach Damascus by bus and to be airlifted from there to their respective countries (Wikipedia 2006b). In the aftermath, the Canadian government made it clear: The issue of available resources also highlights the need for greater coordination between Canada and its international allies, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and France. The attempt by many countries to unilaterally secure the necessary transport resources for evacuating their nationals created a situation of competition amongst countries for available resources, whether this competition was intended or not. Countries with greater military resources than Canada were able to begin the evacuation of those in greatest need at an earlier time than Canada. There was also a subsequent event where a vessel chartered by Canada for evacuation from the port of Tyre left at half capacity. To improve effectiveness and efficiency, Canada should work with officials bilaterally and through the G8 and NATO to devise strategies to ensure that in future cases of mass evacuation, Canada and its allies cooperate to the maximum extent possible to secure and evacuate their respective nationals.(Canadian Senate Report, 2007)

The competitive situation referred to by the Canadians was evidenced when a ship chartered by the Australians was found to have been double-booked. The Canadians came to the rescue and took 100 of the 300 Australians scheduled to leave to southern Turkey on 19 July (AAP 2006). In the panic for safety, governments with serious evacuation plans and registries with the names and contacts of their nationals in Lebanon were

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better able to manage their protection and eventual evacuation. Diplomatic relations with the invading forces also enabled safe passage for the various means of transport used. The Canadian call for better coordination and cooperation between its ‘allies’ could be developed further in a more universalistic humanitarian sense of protecting and assisting any foreign national in need of evacuation in such crisis conditions. In the Lebanese case, neutral countries were used as transitional drop-off points (such as Cyprus and Turkey). This means that those countries with the means for mass evacuations need not be so xenophobic in allowing any other nationals to board whatever transportation they have garnered without fear of breaching their sovereignty rights of entry restrictions to their own borders. Of course this begs the issue of the willingness and facilities of neutral countries to allow mass entry to their territories while others do not. The question is whether discriminatory policies in such crisis circumstances are morally appropriate.

International Agencies, ngos, and ‘Third Country’ Nationals At least six Sri Lankan domestic workers were killed along with the families who employed them. For example, on 13 July, the first day of massive air strikes, Israeli warplanes destroyed the home of Shaikh `Adil Muhammad Akash, an Iranian-educated Shi`a cleric believed to have a religious affiliation with Hezbollah, killing him, his wife, and his ten children aged between two months and eighteen years, and their Sri Lankan maid (HRW, 2007: 10). At least two Filipina domestic workers died while trying to escape from the high rise apartment buildings where they worked, when their employers refused to allow them to leave (Uy 2006; Docena 2006; Snyder 2006). As many as 10,000 people arrived at the Syrian border each day including tourists from the Gulf States and many poor Palestinians. While only around 1,000 Palestinians were allowed entry to Syria, paying a nominal entrance fee, some 200 were stranded for weeks in no-man’s land at the border, unable to enter, when the Syrians inexplicably required approval from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (Murphy 2006). With around 400,000 Palestinians still languishing in refugee camps around Lebanon (constituting around ten per cent of the population), many thousands were trapped in the south where most of the Israeli bombardments were focussed (along with the southern Shia suburbs of Beirut). The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, attempted to assist by trying to supply water, electricity and food, particularly in Ein El Helwa, the largest camp in the south.

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Although there are no reliable figures (or official records) of the migrant population in Lebanon, estimations suggest that prior to the conflict there were over 160,000 female migrant domestic workers as the largest single occupational group of foreign nationals (100,000 Sri Lankans, 30,000 Filipinas, 30,000 Ethiopians as well as an unknown number of Indians, Bangladeshis, Nepalese, Ghanaians, and Nigerians) ( Jureidini 2005). The key to understanding the plight of these particular guest workers is their lack of access to information and social services, partly because of language problems and partly because they are secreted in homes and apartment buildings, which were targeted in Southern Lebanon and in the heart of the Shia suburbs of Beirut. Under a sponsorship system (kefala), Lebanese employers withhold the passports of migrant domestic workers as insurance from absconding and losing their payment to the agencies. While many employers delivered their employees to their respective embassies for safety and repatriation, many also refused to let them leave. Many simply ran away stating that they were escaping from abusive employers and left without papers or money. Others chose to stay because they did not want to lose their income, because they had not been paid or because they did not consider their situation back home to be any better (Murphy 2006). Reports indicated around five or six women died and others injured while attempting to escape from high-rise apartment buildings. The governments of Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Ethiopia had neither the financial means, nor organisational capacity to arrange for evacuations of their citizens. They relied heavily on the collaboration of the Catholic NGO, Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre (Caritas), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to pay for and arrange relief, accommodation, transportation, and repatriation. Caritas had some years before established a close relationship with General Security, the forces responsible for all foreigners in the country under the Ministry of Interior. The relationship began from a rather controversial agreement at the time to help fund a new detention centre which was to be located under a highway passover, right next to the buildings of General Security in Adliyeh. However, the arrangement did allow Caritas to operate a health and medical office in the detention centre itself and thus was also able to monitor more closely the treatment of those in detention. The detention centre was designed specifically for foreigners who had visa violations for one reason or another. A collaborative emergency action had been experienced following the tsunami in December 2004 that required the Sri Lankan embassy to deal with many hundreds of Sri Lankans. In particular the embassy had to handle those who were illegal residents which had been granted an amnesty by General Security to leave the country without penalty, but on condition that they leave the country and not return for at least five years (AFP 2006).

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Without their passports, they arrived at the embassy which had to issue emergency travel documents which in turn had to be checked and signed by General Security before the illegal residents could leave. Caritas not only assisted in the procurement of exit visas, but also provided funds for accommodation, food, and airfares. Following this experience, Caritas had established a ‘Special Operation Emergency’ response programme. Only two days following the Israeli invasion, the officer in charge of the detention centre offered to release all inmates – around 500 – immediately. An amnesty was declared for all illegal migrant workers on condition they leave the country and not return for at least five years. However, Caritas could not deal with so many at such short notice so gave priority to women domestic workers (around 200) from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia, as they were deemed most vulnerable. Within two hours, the detainees were given release papers. It was assumed that Egyptians and others would be able to garner their own resources. Caritas secured a dormitory from a Catholic order in the mountains, and all the dormitory children were sent home to accommodate the migrants. In conjunction with the Syrian operations of Caritas Austria, a convent on the coast of Syria was also made available for those who travelled north. When these arrangements were made, IOM approached Caritas to offer the required transportation. The IOM received around 11 million euros from the European Union, earmarked initially for the evacuation of 10,000 migrants from developing countries, in part as a security issue. Facilitating the repatriation directly to their home countries would ensure that these migrants did not seek safety in Europe. In addition, they raised $1 million from the United States government, $2 million from Belgium, $600,000 from Australia and $300,000 from a Qatar charity (personal communication, 28 August, 2006). Under IOM auspices, more than 13,000 ‘Third Country’ Nationals were evacuated. The EU delegation in Lebanon wanted Caritas to submit a proposal for the evacuation, but the head office in Brussels decided to commission IOM with the funds they had allocated. The first three buses to Damascus left Beirut on 20 July carrying 112 Sri Lankans. Over the next four weeks convoys travelled almost daily to Damascus through the eastern Masna border. The EU, the IOM and others were in contact with the Israeli military to coordinate safe passage of these convoys. From 22 July to 24 July inclusive, as well as on 4 and 12 August, no buses left Beirut most probably because of safety warnings. When the Masna border was bombed by an Israeli raid, buses were redirected north and went to Tartous on the Sryian coast, before further transportation to Damascus where the charter flights took them to their respective countries. One bus, carrying 78 Columbians on 14 August went a little further north to Latakia, although there is no record of them having been airlifted from Syria home before 22 August. A trilingual booklet (in Sinhalese, Amharic,

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and Tagalog) was produced by the Ministry of Justice and Caritas Lebanon that cautioned domestic workers against possible traffickers. These were distributed at the borders as they left Lebanon. In all, there were 300 buses arranged by the IOM that carried 12,078 passengers from Lebanon to Syria. The countries of origin were the following: Sri Lanka, 4,752; Philippines, 3,762; Ethiopia, 2,396; Bangladesh, 762; Iraq, 154; Ghana, 91; Columbia, 78; Vietnam, 77; Nepal, 24; Cameroon, 10; Seychelles, 4; and Madagascar, 4. Of course many others took buses, cars, and taxis (who were charging up to $500 for the journey) to Syria independently. It is estimated that at least 20,000 migrant workers (not including Lebanese nationals) were able and willing to leave the country by land (interview, Caritas). On arrival in Damascus, they were given 48 hour visas, housed, and placed on charter flights to their respective countries (IOM 2006: 27). Over eighty-five flights, arranged by IOM (two departed from Latakia carrying Sri Lankans) repatriated 13,318 people (90.6 per cent females) (IOM, 2006a). The carriers included Sri Lankan Airways, Sudan Airways (to Sri Lanka), Starjet Air (to Sri Lanka), Qatar Airways (to Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Philippines), Etihad Airways (to Bangladesh, Philippines), MEA (to Ethiopia, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Bangladesh, Cameroon), Orient-Thai Airways (to Philippines), Egyptair (to Ethiopia), Emirates (to Bangladesh) and Kuwait Airways (to Bangladesh, Philippines). The Sri Lankan government offered to provide free airlifts from Damascus to Colombo for its nationals, however it was not clear how many flights to Sri Lanka were paid for by the Sri Lankan government and how many from the EU funds through the IOM. The IOM did offer to reimburse the fuel costs of those flights that were paid for by the Sri Lankans. Up to 2,000 Sri Lankan women camped around their embassy in the foothills of Beirut (although many feared to go there because it is near a major Lebanese military post that came under Israeli air attack). Initially, there was some reluctance of the Sri Lankans to cooperate with Caritas as there were assumptions that it may not be appropriate for them to be housed in a Catholic convent in either Lebanon or Syria. Caritas contracted two bus companies and paid for a number of the buses to Damascus through the eastern Masna border. They also paid for the transportation of many to Tartus and accommodated there. Caritas staff assisted at the borders with the paperwork for General Security. The Caritas shelter in Damascus was also used by the IOM for housing other nationals they were transporting. There was overcrowding, as shelters that would normally accommodate 300 were now required to house 1,000 people. What became clear was that because of the previous crisis experience with the tsunami, the Sri Lankans and Caritas knew more precisely what needed to be done. The IOM entered as a novice to the particular Lebanese

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nuances. Entry of this large organisation created considerable tension with some locals feeling as though they were being marginalised. People at the embassy, in the buses, and in the shelters needed to be fed and the IOM, it seems, was not particularly equipped to deal with these needs. There was also a controversy over IOM staff who had rented Porsche Cayennes to travel around the country, until complaints by the European Union delegation were made. The crisis created dire circumstances for Lebanese families, many of whom lost their incomes. As a result, around one quarter of the domestic workers who were taken by their employers to their respective embassies came from areas that were not affected by the conflict. If their contracts with the workers were about to expire, they took advantage of the evacuations to avoid paying for their transport home. Others, who were not so unfortunate, took advantage of the situation also. One interviewee argued: ‘they could have at least paid them some of the money to help them when they return home’. The Hariri Foundation, with a centre in the south, received scores of migrant workers and sent them on to Caritas as well as to the Philippines embassy. They also provided normal commercial tickets for a number of migrant domestic workers – including 12 employees from the Hariri household – so that the workers did not have to wait for several days in a shelter before leaving Damascus. No one expected the war to last as long as it did. Some families which departed to Syria left their Sri Lankan or Filipina maid in the house, telling her they would return, but didn’t. Others simply left to Syria, leaving the maid behind on the assumption she would not be allowed to accompany them. The figures show that while there was an extraordinary exodus from the country the battered roadways clogged with those fearful for their lives, yet many migrant workers preferred to stay. The motivations for remaining and weathering the crisis were numerous. Some felt they had less to return to: ‘Of course I am scared, but leaving is a luxury. Going back to Sri Lanka is a greater risk for our lives. The war here is much better than dying from hunger at home’ (AFP 2006). Others needed to maintain the remittances to their families at home: ‘What will I do in the Philippines? I cannot leave. I am the only breadwinner for my mother, two young children and two nieces’ (ibid.). Still others remained loyal and kept working as usual as though it was just a phase they had to endure, for which so many Lebanese families were grateful (Attalah 2006). The Philippines Department of Labor and Employment had already insisted on a new minimum set of conditions for contracts of migrant domestic workers to reduce the demand for Filipina workers and improve their conditions, particularly in the Middle East. However, the Sri Lankan

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government was, by contrast, reluctant to encourage their nationals to return home, even in the face of the Lebanese crisis. On 25 July 2006, while evacuations were well underway the Sri Lankan Labour Relations Minister, Athauda Seneviratne, made a public statement that the government was not encouraging Sri Lankans to leave Lebanon, noting concern that families were placing pressure on workers to return home: ‘I don’t think a large number of people want to come back. They are used to (conflict). The problem is that people here telephone them and ask them to return. If these people don’t call, they will not return… I want to make sure that we send another 400,000 workers to the Middle East this year.’ (Peiris 2006) Some of the Lebanese placement agencies played a role also. Many employers called the agencies to either advise that their maids had fled, or to help them get to their embassy (Shalhoub 2006). The plight of migrant workers from developing countries was a tenuous one compared with those whose embassies and governments could make direct contact and make evacuation provisions from the port of Beirut. The vulnerability of developing country nationals was exacerbated by the long transportation overland to Syria and eventually Damascus from the northern or eastern borders of Lebanon. While migrant workers were killed by accident (mistaking commercial trucks for military vehicles) or as ‘collateral damage’ along with Lebanese civilians in civilian areas of the south and Beirut, this does not diminish the lack of care in military attacks on the country which resulted in so many civilian casualties. If it were not for the immediate funds provided by the European Commission and the capacity of Caritas Liban and the IOM, it may be assumed that many more migrants would have been in direct danger. The instrumentalist motivations of the European Commission to provide funds to fend off the possibility of developing country nationals seeking refuge in Europe may not be as important as the resulting humanitarian aid that took many thousands to safety.

Conclusion The civil and moral responsibility of governments to protect their citizens in foreign countries is tempered by their abilities to do so, particularly in crisis conflict circumstances. There are no international provisions to care for all people whose safety is threatened, other than UN institutions such as the UNHCR, which is only mandated in regard to ‘proven’ refugees. As Koser (2008) points out, there is no international law or other humanitarian provisions, or even guiding principles that specifically address the circumstances of displaced migrants residing in or fleeing from a host country in crisis.

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In the absence of international protection countries like the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, who encourage labour emigration and benefit from the billions of remittances each year, should perhaps make crisis plans for their citizens in countries that are at risk. Conflict and others forms of crises often come without warning. Yet some countries may be conflictprone, politically unstable, or exist in hostile regions. It does not require much foresight for country governments to undertake precautionary plans to cater for their citizens abroad. For example, not only should their embassies have access to proper resources, but agreements could also be made with their wealthier allied countries to protect and evacuate nationals if required. The ignominy of the kind of discrimination that occurred in Lebanon is not commensurate with a truly universal humanitarian response. The relief and evacuation arrangements during the Lebanese crisis were largely ad hoc and largely left most citizens and foreigners to rely on their own resources in their flight from danger. Despite the fact that more Lebanese and those of Lebanese descent live outside the country, Lebanon has not ratified the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families. This ratification would presumably have created a consciousness of the rights and needs of migrants in the country, particularly in times of crisis. The Lebanese government saw, for example, that their own citizens with a second nationality from a developed country were promptly honoured with their protection. However, it behoves all embassies of foreign nationals in countries at risk of conflict or invasion to have evacuation plans in hand at all times – many do, but not all. In this Lebanese case, for those citizens of countries that did not have the means to intervene on their citizens behalf, the sophistication of the organisation of IOM and Caritas, as well as the charity of the Syrian population and government meant being able to move many thousands to safety. Citizens in future evacuation circumstances may not be so fortunate. Given the discrepancies between countries in their means and abilities to mobilise emergency evacuation procedures, there is a dire need for the development of international humanitarian law to address and clarify the rights of migrants who are inadvertently placed at risk due to war or other crises in a host country. One of the main lessons to be learned from the Lebanon case is that not only migrant rights need to be addressed, but also obligations on the part of the host government, other parties to the conflict, and all responding governments to come to the aid of non-nationals. It is obvious that such obligations require international agreements that are best ratified under United Nations conventions. The gap in the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families to address the protection and evacuation of migrant workers from crisis or conflict conditions in host countries is a

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major flaw that needs to be rectified. In addition, this convention to date has been rather weak in the number of migrant receiving countries that have ratified it. Other human rights conventions, such as the Geneva Conventions, have no provisions for migrant workers or non-nationals who are not nationals of the warring parties. Given this, there would seem to be justification for a UN convention that specifically addresses the rights and requirements of migrant workers (and/or non-nationals generally) in host countries under all crisis circumstances. As noted, only the Canadian Senate gave some reflection was given to the competitive chaos in the clamber of countries to rescue their own nationals in Lebanon and called for more cooperation. A new convention that takes the spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention and applies it to migrant workers required to flee a host country in conditions of crisis might oblige all nations to allow entry of any nationality to their rescue ships, airplanes, and other means of transportation used for evacuations. Whether and to what extent states will be willing to help nationals other than their own, regardless of citizenship, gender, age, religion, or socio-economic status, remains to be seen.

Notes 1. My thanks to Marise Habib for her assistance as well as Mr Farouque Mohsen, then Sri Lankan Ambassador in Lebanon, Najla Cahda of Caritas Lebanon, representative of the European Union delegation in Lebanon, the International Organization for Migration in Lebanon and many others who gave of their time during hectic schedules. Thanks also to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Geneva, for permission to use material from my short publication on the topic ‘Guest Workers in the Lebanese Crisis’ in the World Disasters Report, 2007. All errors and omissions are, however, the responsibility of the author. 2. Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949. At http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva07. htm 3. Such as it was at the time, with Hezbollah members and their allies boycotting the Parliament during negotiations for certain veto rights.

References AAP. 2006. ‘Australia “gazumped” over ferry’ Sydney Morning Herald, 19 July 2006 http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/aussies-leftstranded/2006/07/19/ 1153166430209.html# AFP. 2006. ‘Asian Workers Fear Losing their Jobs More than Israeli Raids’ Daily Star, 27 July.

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Airforce. 2006. ‘Help at Hand for Evacuees’ Official Newspaper for the Australian Airforce, 48(14), 10 August 2006. http://www.defence.gov.au/news/raafnews/ editions/4814/international/international01.htm Armenia News. 2006. ‘Lebanon Evacuees Arrive in Armenia’ Armenialiberty.org, 18 July 2006. http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2006/ 07/C87EDC63–689E-48B0–A818–CA07B845ECAC.ASP Attalah, Samir. ‘The Tiger Kisses His Servant’s Hand.’ Al Sharq Al Awsat, 21 October 2006. BBC. 2006. ‘U.K. Prepares for Beirut Evacuation’ BBC News Services, 16 July 2006. Canadian Senate Report. 2007. ‘The Evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon in July 2006: Implications for the Government of Canada’, The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, May 2007. http://www. parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/fore-e/rep-e/rep12may07–e. pdf (CF) Canadian Expeditionary Force Command. 2008. ‘Operation Lion: CF Support to DFAIT’ 26 February 2008. http://www.cefcom.forces.gc.ca/site/ ops/lion/index_e.asp CNN. 2006. ‘Pace of U.S. evacuations quickens’ CNN.com, 20 July 2006. http:// www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/20/lebanon.evacuation/index.html CNN. 2006a. ‘U.S. waives fee to flee Lebanon’ CNN.com, 18 July 2006. http:// www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/18/lebanon.evacuation/index.html CTV. 2006. ‘Canadian Evacuation from Lebanon Cost $85m’ CTV globemedia, 19 September 2006. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/ 20060919 Defence News. 2006. ‘Fact Sheet: Emergency in Lebanon’ 20 July 2006 (sic). http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/ FactsheetEmergencyInLebanon.htm Docena, H. 2006. ‘Report on Lebanon’ Philippine Center for Investgative Journalism, 27 August 2006. http://tadamon.resist.ca Egyptian Information Service. 2006. ‘Evacuation of Egyptian Nationals’ 3 August 2006. http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/Politics/Foreign/issues/lebanon/evacuation. htm Farrell, N. 2006. ‘Swedes Use Mobiles for Beirut Evacuation’ The Inquirer, 21 July 2006. http://www.the inquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33167 Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (nd) ‘Lebanon Evacuation: The Largest-Ever Evacuation of Canadian Citizens.’ http://geo.international.gc.ca/ cip-pic/library/middleeast-en.aspx (HRW) Human Rights Watch. 2007. ‘Why they Died: Civilian Casualties in Lebanon During the 2006 War’ 19 5(E), September 2007. Ibrahim, A. 2006. ‘Critical Supply’ Al-Ahram Weekly, 17–23 August 2006 Issue No. 808. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/808/eg9.htm (ICRC) International Committee of the Red Cross. 2005.’ Part III: Status and treatment of protected persons #Section II: Aliens in the territory of a party to the conflict’, International Humanitarian Law – Treaties and Documents. http://www. icrc.org/ihl.nsf/COM/380–600042?OpenDocument Indian Navy. 2006. ‘Op Sukoon – Making Sweet Music’ Report 24 July 2006. http://indiannavy.gov.in/sukoon.pdf

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(IOM) International Organization for Migration. 2007. Report of the Director General on the Work of the Organization for the Year 2006, Geneva. MC/2224, May 2007. http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/about_ iom/docs/DG_annualreport_2006.pdf (IOM) International Organization for Migration. 2006. ‘IOM Accelerates Evacuation of Foreign Nationals’, IOM, Geneva, 7 August 2006. http://www. iom.int (IOM) International Organization for Migration. 2006a. ‘IOM in Lebanon’ Newsletter, 4th Quarter 2006. http://www.iom.int IRIN. 2006. ‘Lebanon: Agriculture in Peril as War Drags On’, IRIN News.org, 6 August 2006, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 13 January 2007. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2006/08/ mil-060806–irin01.htm Jureidini, R. 2005. ‘Middle East Guestworkers’ in Matthew Gibney and Randall Hansen (eds.) Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present, Oxford: ABC-CLIO. Koser, K. 2008. ‘Protecting Displaced Migrants in South Africa’, The Brookings Institution, 29 November 2008. http://www.brookings.edu:80/ opinions/2008/0617_south_africa_koser.aspx McDonald, S. 2006. ‘Welcome Home Ceremony for Lebanon Evacuation Team’ Media Release by Senator Sandy McDonald, Parliamentary Secretary for the Department of Defence, 25 September, 2006. www.minister.defence.gov. au/2006/08506.doc Murphy, C. 2006. ‘The Lebanese Crisis and its Impact on Immigrants and Refugees’ Migration Policy Institute, September 2006. http://www.irinnews. org/report.aspx?reportid=59891 Ministère de la Défense. 2006. ‘French Military Participation in Lebanon’, update 25 August 2006. http://www.defense.gouv.fr/defense Murphy, K. 2006. ‘The Lebanese Crisis and its Impact on Immigrants and Refugees’, Migration Policy Institute, 1 September 2006. National Public Radio. 2006. ‘Syria Warmly Welcomes Lebanese Evacuees’ Transcript 22 July 2006. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript. php?storyId=5575293 O’Loughlin, E. 2006. ‘Lebanon’s Domestic Workers Clamour to Escape’ The Age, 9 August 2006. (OCHA) United Nations Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs. 2006. ‘Lebanon Crisis Flash Appeal 2006’ Geneva, 24 July 2006. http://ochaonline. un.org/cap2005/webpage.asp?Page=1395 (OHCHR) United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2006. Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon Pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolution S-2/1, Geneva, November 2006. http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb. nsf/db900SID/YAOI-6VS3P3?OpenDocument (OHCHR) Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2006a. Third Draft Country Profile of Lebanon and the International Human Rights System, Geneva, March 2006. Peace Mission. 2006. ‘Final Report of the International Civil Society and Parliamentary Peace Mission to Lebanon’ Focus on the Global South, September 10 2006. http://www.focusweb.org/lebanon-aggression-and-resistance.html

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Peiris, V. 2006. ‘Sri Lankan Government Abandons Thousands of Citizens Trapped in Lebanon’, World Socialist Website, 26 July 2006. http://www.wsws. org/articles/2006/jul2006/sril-j26.shtml Shalhoub, B. 2006. ‘How Did Asian Domestic Workers Live Through the War in Lebanon?’, Al Hayat, September 28. Snyder, D. 2006. ‘Getting Home: Migrant Workers Struggle to Evacuate Lebanon’ Caritas Liban, 6 August. Spiegel Online. 2006. ‘Missiles Fly and Tensions Flare’ Spiegel Online International, 17 July 2006. http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,427075,00.html Srivatsan, V. 2007. ‘Indian Evacuations from Lebanon’, Maritime Security Conference, Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. http://centreforforeignpolicystudies.dal.ca/pdf/msc2007 /Srivatsan-Op_Sukoon_Brief.pdf (UNEP) United Nations Environment Programme. 2007. Lebanon: Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya. (UNSC) United Nations Security Council. 2000. Resolution 1296, Adopted by the Security Council at its 4130th Meeting on 19 April 2000. http://www. secur it ycouncilrepor t.org/at f/cf/%7B65BFCF 9B - 6D27– 4E9C -8CD3– CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/Civilians%20SRES1296.pdf U.S. Navy. 2006. ‘JTF Lebanon Assumes Responsibility for “Strengthen Hope” Operations’ 24 August 2006. http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_ id=25240 Uy, V. 2006. ‘Two Filipinas Die Fleeing Employers in Lebanon’ INQ7.net, GMA7, 3 August 2006. http://newsinfo.inq7.net/topstories/topstories/view_article. php?article_id=13301 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) United Nations, Treaty Series 1(596): 261. Done at Vienna on 24 April 1963. Entered into force on 19 March 1967. Whittaker, B. 2006. ‘Mass Evacuation from Beirut Underway’ The Guardian, 18 July 2006. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jul/18/syria.israelandthe palestinians2 (WHO) World Health Organization. 2006. ‘Lebanon Humanitarian Crisis situation report #25’, 15 August 2006. http://www.leb.emro.who.int/crisis/ report/Lebanon_Crisis_health_sitrep_25_15August06.pdf Wikipedia. 2006a. ‘List of Countries with Foreign Nationals in Lebanon’ posted 10 August 2006: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_evacuating_ citizens-from_Lebanon . 2006b. ‘International Reactions to the 2006 Lebanon War by Evacuations and Aid’ posted http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_ the_2006_Lebanon_War_by_evacuations_and_aid

Internal Displacement and Internal Trafficking: Developing a New Framework for Protection Susan Martin and Amber Callaway

Introduction Human trafficking for forced labour and sexual exploitation is one of the fastest growing areas of international criminal activity and one that is of increasing concern to the international community. Human trafficking is generally thought of as the movement of people across national borders, but trafficking within borders is also a common phenomenon and perhaps occurs to an even greater extent than transnational trafficking. The displacement of people within their own borders due to armed conflict, internal strife, human rights violations, natural disasters, or development projects is another issue of growing international concern, and one that shares many common elements with internal trafficking. Both involve forced or involuntary movements within national borders, and the victims represent comparable demographics and suffer similar types of abuses. Furthermore, internal trafficking is a form of internal displacement and, in turn, internal displacement makes individuals more vulnerable to internal trafficking. The victims often end up in a perpetual and reinforcing cycle between displacement and trafficking, which has devastating consequences for the victims and creates challenges for those trying to protect and assist them.

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Existing literature and international attention on both trafficking and displacement has largely focused on those who have been forced to cross borders. Therefore, the intersections between the two have not been widely explored. This paper seeks to fill that gap by examining the connections between internal trafficking and internal displacement in conflict and non-conflict settings. This chapter begins with brief overviews of both trafficking and displacement. Using secondary sources and Martin’s field work in conflict areas, it then provides more detailed discussion of internal trafficking in countries with relatively stable political systems and in situations of conflict, where internally displaced persons are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. It concludes with an analysis of the legal and normative frameworks for addressing internal displacement and internal trafficking. We argue that using a combination of international instruments, particularly the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, creates a stronger framework for protecting and assisting victims of internal trafficking and displacement.

Human Trafficking Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring, or receipt of people for the purpose of exploitation. That exploitation takes many varied forms, including involuntary domestic servitude, debt bondage, prostitution, commercial sexual exploitation, child sex tourism, forced marriage, child soldiering, sexual exploitation in religious cults, and castebased slavery practices. In all cases, however, trafficking leads to forced labour or sexual exploitation for profit or benefit of another. Some of the main causes of trafficking identified by the international community include: unemployment, a lack of economic opportunities, social discrimination, gender inequality, political instability, armed conflict, marginalisation, economic disparities, desperation, ignorance, and an absence of legal instruments to combat trafficking or limited implementation of existing legislation (International Organization for Migration 2005). Trafficking victims are often subject to cruel mental and physical abuse in order to keep them in servitude, including beating and battering, rape, starvation, forced drug use, confinement, and seclusion. Many victims suffer trauma and are exposed to sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. The majority of trafficked persons are believed to be under the age of 25, with many in their mid to late teens. Most are believed to be female. Due to the illicit nature of the crime, the true scope and magnitude of human trafficking is unknown. According to the U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report (2008) (hereafter Trafficking

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in Persons Report), an estimated 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year. When internal trafficking is included, an estimated two to four million people are trafficked annually (Miko 2006). The International Labour Organization (ILO) – the United Nations agency charged with addressing labour standards, employment, and social protection – estimates that 2.5 million people are in situations of forced labour due to trafficking at any given time (Belser 2005). This estimate includes both transnational trafficking and trafficking within countries. Recognising the growth in trafficking operations, States adopted the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Person, Especially Women and Children,1 which supplements the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.2 The Trafficking Protocol entered into force on 31 December 2003. It applies to transnational trafficking and internal trafficking. According to the Trafficking Protocol, trafficking in persons is defined as: The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

It further states that: ‘The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article.’ The Trafficking Protocol goes on to define ‘child’ as any person less than 18 years of age. Therefore, when children are exploited for forced labour or sexual exploitation they are considered trafficking victims – no force, fraud, or coercion is necessary because children are deemed unable to consent to their own exploitation (Brown 2007).

Internal Displacement Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are those who are forced to flee their homes because their lives are in danger but, unlike refugees they seek safety within the borders of their own countries. Around the world, there are an estimated 26 million women, men, and children uprooted by conflict, communal violence, and civil strife (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2008). Many millions more have been displaced as a

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result of natural disasters and development projects. Separated from their homes, communities, and livelihoods, IDPs face immediate threats to their physical security. They struggle to get access to the most basic necessities of life such as food, potable water, basic shelter, and essential medical care. They often live in destitute situations amidst fighting or in remote and inaccessible areas cut off from humanitarian assistance (IDMC 2008). While refugees are entitled to seek international protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the international community is not under the same legal obligation to protect IDPs. For many years, the plight of IDPs was largely ignored by national governments and international organisations (Wyndham 2006). The appointment of Francis Deng in 1992 as the Representative of the Secretary General on Internally Displaced Persons marked a watershed moment in the international community’s search for a solution to the internal displacement crisis. In early 1998, Deng released the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, 3 a set of international standards that outline protection and assistance for IDPs. Although the Guiding Principles are not legally binding, they are based on and consistent with international human rights law, humanitarian law, and refugee law by analogy (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement 2000). According to the Guiding Principles, IDPs are defined as ‘persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular 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 recognised State border.’ The Guiding Principles give national governments the primary responsibility for the security and wellbeing of all displaced people on their territory. In the event that national authorities are unwilling or unable to live up to this obligation, international humanitarian organisations and other appropriate actors have the right, and many would argue the responsibility, to protect and assist IDPs (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement 2000). Despite notable progress by the international community in protecting and assisting IDPs, they remain among the most vulnerable populations in the world – uprooted, dispossessed, traumatised, and often forgotten or neglected (Egeland 2005).

Trafficking and Displacement in Stable Situations People around the world have been trafficked directly from their homes and communities through abduction, coercion, or false promises of wellpaying jobs, a brighter future, or an exciting life in the big city. They often

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lacked employment opportunities at home and did not have access to support networks and social structures that may have helped them survive poverty. Others migrate voluntarily, generally to large cities and new economic zones, but they are subsequently trafficked for forced labour or sexual exploitation by recruiters who exploit their vulnerabilities. In still other cases, poor families may sell their children in exchange for money, food, to pay off a debt, or they apprentice their children to employers who then exploit the child labour. Once trafficked, the victim’s freedom of movement is suppressed. Even if the trafficked persons manage to escape their situation, economic imperatives, and social stigmas may prohibit them from returning home, leaving them vulnerable to further exploitation and abuse. In many ways, internal trafficking victims and survivors fit the description of an internally displaced person in the Guiding Principles. They have been ‘forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence’ and they ‘have not crossed an internationally recognised State border.’ Because of the coercion that often takes place and the exploitative nature of the work that trafficking victims are forced to do, trafficking is universally recognised as a serious violation of human rights, thereby fitting the causal pattern of internal displacement cited in the Guiding Principles.

Internal Trafficking for Labour Exploitation Human trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation is one of the most common, yet difficult to identify forms of internal trafficking (Trafficking in Persons Report 2007). It can occur through the use of debt bondage, domestic servitude, or forced labour. Around the world men, women, and children of all ages work in slave-like conditions as construction workers, street hawkers, and beggars, field workers, fishermen, and factory workers. Unlike trafficking for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation has received relatively less attention from the international community. Yet, the situation of those trafficking for their labour is no less concerning. They are forced to toil under the control of touts and pimps in the streets and marketplaces of large urban areas under conditions that seriously threaten their health, safety, and development. These victims are trapped in the very worst forms of illegal, degrading, and dangerous work.

Debt Bondage Debt bondage – or bonded labour – is probably the least known form of human trafficking, yet millions of people are held in bonded labour around the world. In the 1956 United Nations Supplementary Convention on the

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Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and the Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, debt bondage is defined as the ‘status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or those of a person under his control as security, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined.’4 The most common form of debt bondage in South Asia is collateral debt bondage, whereby the life of the individual debtor and his/her family becomes collateral held against the debt. This creates a form of bondage because the debtor is never able to earn enough to repay the debt with their own labour (Bales 2004). In another form of debt bondage, coercive fraudulent debt bondage, the work of the debtor may ostensibly be applied to the debt, but the employer uses false accounting practices and imposes extortionate interest rates and high charges for food and tools to ensure that the labourer is unable to repay the loan and remains indebted for a infinite period, potentially throughout his or her life (Bales 2004). In some cases, the debt is inherited by the victims’ children. In other instances, individuals place a child or another member of the family in bondage in order to repay a debt or to obtain a loan. Human trafficking through debt bondage occurs in a variety of sectors, including agriculture, construction, quarrying, the carpet industry, factories, and brick making. Women are often forced into prostitution in order to repay their debt. In all cases the victims are forced to live in extreme poverty, isolated from the rest of society, and deprived of their most basic human rights. They are frequently beaten, sometimes sexually abused, and at the whim of a landlord or money-lender, they can be ‘gifted’ from one employer to the next. They become both displaced persons and trafficking victims. Debt bondage is most common among the economically vulnerable and uneducated members of society, such as minority ethnic or religious groups. In South Asia, debt bondage is largely confined to people who are outside the Hindu caste system – Dalits and indigenous communities. Evidence from India, Pakistan, and Nepal suggests that 80 to 90 per cent of bonded labourers are from communities designated as ‘untouchables’ or from indigenous communities (UNICEF 2001). Save the Children (2007) reports that in India, 15 million children could be working to pay off someone else’s debt and in Nepal, there are approximately 200,000 bonded labourers, many of them children. In 2000, an estimated 6.8 million persons were living in conditions of bondage as share croppers in the Sindh province of Pakistan (Save the Children 2007). The same study suggests that across 4,000 brick kilns in Pakistan, up to 700,000 persons were in debt bondage in 2000, over half of them women and children. This figure does not include workers in the carpet weaving factories which,

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according to a 2002 UNICEF study, is responsible for holding an estimated 1.2 million children in debt bondage in Pakistan’s Punjab province alone.

Forced Labour and Domestic Servitude Forced labour is rampant in many countries around the world and hits children in particularly damaging ways. The ILO (2002) estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked every year for forced labour or sexual exploitation. These children are often frightened, extremely vulnerable, and isolated from their friends and family members. Sometime parents are tricked into placing their children with people who promise them a brighter future; and inadvertently expose them to the risk of exploitation. In other cases, parents are fully aware of what will happen to the children, but they sell or rent their children as a survival strategy or to increase their economic status. Sometimes children are persuaded by friends, relatives, or acquaintances to leave their homes with recruiters, or they are driven to take desperate risks in order to survive (Save the Children 2007). Children are trafficked for many types of forced labour. They can be trafficked into domestic servitude, agricultural work, mining, forced begging and stealing, and other illegal activities. No matter the purpose, they are often beaten, starved, verbally and sexually abused, and threatened. Their personal freedom is suppressed and they are denied their right to an education. The number of children engaged in domestic employment is undoubtedly in the millions worldwide. Existing literature suggests that, across the globe, more girls under 16 years of age are employed in domestic service than any other type of work (ILO 2004). Child domestic servants are sold or given to distant relatives or strangers to serve as child-minders, maids, cooks, cleaners, gardeners, and general household helpers. Not all child domestic workers are exploited and abused, but when children are trafficked into domestic servitude, they become some of the most vulnerable and exploited children of all (ILO 2004). They are also the most difficult to protect because they are held behind closed doors in private homes, essentially hidden from the outside world. They generally work extended hours for little or no pay. Save the Children (2007) reports that there are 200,000 child domestic workers in Kenya; 264,000 in Pakistan; 100,000 in Sri Lanka; and 150,000 in the Peruvian capital, Lima. Local studies conducted by the ILO suggests that there are an estimated 300,000 child domestic labourers in Bangladesh; 559,000 between the ages of ten and 17 in Brazil; and 700,000 in Indonesia (ILO 2004). The most prevalent form of internal trafficking in Central and West Africa is the ‘placement’ of children in extended families where they are often exploited not only in domestic work but also in other forms of labour (Fitzgibbon 2003). The Nepalese Youth Foundation estimates that

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there are over 20,000 children trafficked into domestic servitude in Nepal (Trafficking in Persons Report 2008), and Save the Children (2007) reports that an estimated 53 per cent of those children are paid nothing for their services. In Haiti, an estimated 250,000 children, ten per cent of whom are under ten years of age, serve as domestic helpers for affluent city dwellers through the restavek system, a traditional practice in Haiti dating back more than 200 years ago (ILO 2004). Although some children receive adequate care, most of them are abused and denied their freedom of movement. Trafficking in children for forced labour also occurs quite frequently in the agriculture and mining sectors. An estimated one million children are working in mines and quarries in more than 50 African, Asian, and South American countries. These children are forced down mine shafts without safety equipment and confined underground for 24 hour shifts breathing toxic fumes without rest or pay. They are forced to live in squalid and overcrowded mining settlements, often resembling IDP camps, with contaminated water supplies and no medical care. An estimated 18,000 children are working in gold, silver, and copper mines in the Philippines. In the Sahel regions of West Africa, an estimated 200,000 children work in small-scale gold and mineral mines and quarries – making up more than a third of the workforce. In India, children make up an estimated 20 per cent of the workforce in sandstone quarries (Save the Children 2007). Children in rural areas are often recruited into the farming sector to work in remote areas long distances from their homes where they are socially isolated and at complete disposal of their employer. Some children are used as seasonal workers, especially at harvest time. In countries such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, the rural schools are closed during harvest time and children as young as ten-years-old are forced to hand-pick cotton, earning less than $1 a day (Save the Children 2007). In Brazil, internal trafficking of children for forced labour is extremely prevalent due to seasonal unemployment and drought. The children are moved en masse in trucks or buses to labour sites sometimes thousands of kilometres away from their homes. According to the Trafficking in Persons Report (2008), an estimated 25,000 to 100,000 children and men are internally trafficked for forced labour in Brazil and approximately half of nearly 6,000 men who were freed from slave labour in 2007 were found exploited on plantations growing sugar cane for the production of ethanol. In China, an increase in demand for cheap labour in factories and export processing zones, particularly in thriving coastal cities where the majority of the world’s toys, clothes, and electronics are produced, and a decrease in livelihood opportunities in rural areas has resulted in massive internal migration in search of work. In 2003, an estimated 114 million rural labourers migrated internally (China Ministry of Agriculture 2004). Unfortunately, many of these migrants end up trafficked into exploitive

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jobs where they are infrequently fed, paid poorly, and forced to work under threats of physical punishment. According to the Trafficking in Persons Report (2007), internal trafficking affects an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 victims in China, 90 per cent of which are women and children. The Washington Post reported that hundreds of migrants and children were found living in slave-like conditions in illegal brick kilns in China’s Shanxi province, where they were being forced to make cheap bricks for China’s construction boom (Fan 2008). A New York Times report noted that ethnic minorities in China who languish in poor mountainous villages untouched by economic development, many of whom cannot speak Mandarin – the country’s primary national dialect – are particularly vulnerable to internal trafficking (Barboza 2008). According to the report, China is currently investigating whether hundreds, perhaps thousands, of poor children of the Yi ethnic minority group in China’s Liangshan province were trafficked by factory owners in the prime export manufacturing zones of southern Guangdong Province. Residents of Liangshan told the reporters that abject poverty, drug abuse, a lack of jobs, and appalling conditions have left their children with no choice but to leave home and head to the factories (Barboza 2008). A study conducted by the International Labor Organization (2002) on internal trafficking in Nepal suggests that urbanisation and the expansion of transportation to isolated rural communities have fueled an increase in the trafficking of village girls who have migrated to Kathmandu – the capitol of Nepal. Using quantitative and qualitative research methods, the researchers found that 86 per cent of the trafficked children in their sample were internal migrants who left their previous residences out of economic or social compulsion. Once they arrived in Kathmandu, recruiters quickly promised the victims jobs as waiters and subsequently sold them into prostitution, where they were forced to live in brothels and other unfamiliar environments under slave-like conditions. A similar study published by the International Organization for Migration (2007) focuses on internal trafficking in Cambodia among child domestic workers and commercially sexually exploited women and girls. Anecdotal evidence from this study suggests that there are striking similarities between victims of these two forms of trafficking – both involve a family crisis resulting in the woman or girl becoming responsible for financial provision in the household and subsequently migrating into urban centres in search of work. One respondent was trafficked as a child domestic worker after she migrated to an urban centre, and was later trafficked for forced sale of her virginity. The study also found that some small Cambodian communities join groups of short-term migrants who travel in and out of cities in search of work. These groups do not have access to credit and they lack the support of extended family, the basic unit of social construction in Cambodian society. Entire communities were found

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to be trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. Those who manage to escape their situation continue to migrate within Cambodia and are often re-trafficked upon reaching a new destination. In some African countries, such as Niger, Mali, and Mauritania, castebased slavery rooted in ancestral master-slave relationships is practiced in isolated areas. An estimated 8,800 Nigeriens are reported to live under conditions of traditional slavery (Trafficking in Persons Report 2007). In Gambia, Mauritania, and Senegal, boys called talibe are trafficked within the country by religious leaders and forced to beg on the streets of large urban cities (U.S. State Department 2006). Children in Mauritania are also trafficked within the country by street gang leaders who force them to steal, beg, and sell drugs (Trafficking in Persons Report 2008).

Internal Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation Human trafficking for sexual exploitation comprises a significant amount of overall trafficking. The victims, many of whom are children, are sold, induced, tricked, or enticed into prostitution, commercial sex trade, or child sex tourism. They are held in confinement where they are abused into submission and forced to perform sexual services. The often suffer severe health consequences, such as exposure to HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, forced abortions, and physical and psychological distress. Most victims are lured by recruiters, who promise jobs in the hotel industry, restaurants, bars, or cafés, for example, and they are subsequently trafficked for sexual exploitation. Each year, an estimated two million children are trafficked into the global commercial sex trade (Trafficking in Persons Report 2008). There is a trend towards greater demand for younger children in the sex industry, particularly in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, which is partially attributed to the perception that younger girls are less likely to carry the HIV virus (Fitzgibbon 2003). In some countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and India, brothels specialize in the prostitution of young virgins. In Lithuania, 20 to 50 per cent of prostitutes are believed to be minors (ILO 2001). Among hill tribes in Thailand, who are not granted Thai citizenship and have limited educational and employment opportunities, an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of girls aged 11 and older are engaged in the sex industry (U.S. Department of Labour). On the borders between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, an estimated 3,500 children are confined to brothels and clubs for commercial sexual exploitation (Save the Children 2007). In India, the Ministry of Home Affairs estimates that 90 per cent of sex trafficking is internal (Sayre 2007). An estimated 40 per cent of the 3 million sex workers in India are children, many of whom have been trafficked from rural to urban areas under false promises of legitimate jobs (Sayre 2007).

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Additionally, an estimated 10,000 young Indian girls are dedicated each year to become devadasi – ritual slaves of god – in temples. Once they reach puberty they are sold off to the highest bidder who retains the right to ‘deflower’ them, or they are auctioned directly to brothel procurers (U.S. Department of Labour). In Ghana’s eastern Volta region, young girls, usually less than ten years of age, are given to a fetish shrine and its priest to ‘atone’ for an alleged crime of a family member, whereby they are sexually exploited and confined within the shrine (U.S. State Department 2006). Forced marriage, either through outright abduction, for purposes of receiving a bride price, or debt forgiveness is one of the most widespread, yet hidden forms of human trafficking (U.S. Department of Labour). Endemic poverty results in young girls being regarded as an economic burden to the family and early marriage to an older man becomes a survival strategy. Girls as young as four are removed from their homes and families, and taken to the living quarters of their new husbands where their freedoms are removed. Around the world, an estimated 100 million girls will be forced into marriage before their 18th birthday over the next decade (Clarke 2004). In Nepal, seven per cent of girls are married before they are tenyears-old, and 40 per cent are married before they are 15-years-old. In Niger, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, 70 per cent, 54 per cent, and 51 per cent, respectively, of girls are forced into marriage before they are 18-yearsold (ILO 2001). Forced child marriage often results in destitute poverty and situations of re-trafficking after the girl is divorced or abandoned by her husband. In countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia, girls in failed marriages run away and end up in poor urban communities where they are displaced and often re-trafficked into brothels (UNICEF 2001). In the Middle East and North Africa, girls are purchased for ‘temporary marriages’ under the siqueh system, which is reported to be a front for commercial sexual exploitation facilitated by the females’ parents and marriage brokers (U.S. State Department 2006). In China, the gender imbalance is a significant factor in the prevalence of forced marriage. Since China adopted a onechild policy in 1979, the number of females has dropped due to selective abortion or infanticide. In some parts of rural China, males outnumber females by 20–40 per cent. Consequently, many girls and women are sold to poor farmers who have difficulty finding a wife. Some estimates show that more than 50,000 Chinese girls and women have been sold as brides (PBS 2003). In summary, internal trafficking is a global phenomenon that threatens millions of victims worldwide. Traffickers prey on poor and destitute populations and force them to provide services for the benefit or profit of another. In some cases, victims have made the choice to migrate within their own borders, but they are trafficked upon reaching their destination.

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In other instances, the victims are trafficked directly from their homes and communities through abduction, false promises, or because they are sold by a family member. Although trafficking takes a variety of forms, it inevitably leads to forced labour or sexual exploitation, and sometimes both. The victims may be physically prevented from leaving, or be bound by debt or the threat of violence to themselves or their family. Coerced or deceived to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, they are unable to return because one of their most basic rights, the freedom of movement, has been stripped away by their exploiters. Like other internally displaced persons, the internally trafficked have the right to reside wherever they would prefer within their own country, but too often they are unable to exercise this right. In many cases, particularly when women and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation, social stigmas, and economic imperatives prohibit them from returning home. The vulnerabilities they face as a result of being trafficked and displaced, such as a lack of social structures and community networks, leave them at risk of being re-trafficked if they ever manage to escape their situation. These victims become trapped in a cycle between trafficking and displacement within their own borders.

Trafficking and Displacement in Conflict Situations Human trafficking becomes more commonplace in areas where conflict strips away economic opportunities and breaks down systems of law and order. Conflict is often marked by violence that indiscriminately kills, violates, abducts, terrorises, and explicitly targets civilian populations, leaving millions of men, women, and children internally displaced and extremely vulnerable to traffickers. In 2007, conflicts in Colombia, Sudan, and Iraq produced the largest number of IDPs, accounting for nearly 50 per cent of the world’s 26 million IDPs (IDMC 2008). In several countries, government armed forces, government-backed militias, rebels, and other non-state armed groups displaced civilians as a deliberate strategy to further their economic, military, or political goals (IDMC 2008). While all conflict-affected persons are vulnerable to trafficking when they lose their means of livelihood and community protection, those who have already been displaced by conflict are particularly vulnerable to being internally trafficked. Displacement strips away economic opportunities, terminates dependable employment and educational opportunities, induces extreme forms of isolation and poverty, and destroys social structures. Many IDPs struggle to survive with inadequate shelter, little or no access to food or basic healthcare and no protection. They are cramped together in makeshift dwellings, often in unhygienic conditions, leaving them

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disoriented and less able to resist exploitation as they desperately search for a means of survival. Although internal trafficking during conflict takes many forms, the trafficking of children into armed groups and the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation are two of the most common. Opportunists take advantage of an environment of conflict and lawlessness to prey on the most vulnerable populations – women and children who make up the majority of IDPs around the world. Without adequate protection, these women and children are at risk of becoming both internally displaced and trafficked.

Child Soldiers As noted by the Trafficking in Persons Report (2008), child soldiering is a unique and severe manifestation of human trafficking that involves the unlawful recruitment of children through force, fraud, or coercion to be exploited for their labour or to be abused as sex slaves in conflict-affected areas. Child soldiers are generally defined as any person below the age of 18 who is a member of or attached to any regular or irregular armed force or armed political group, whether or not a war is currently taking place. They are forced to perform a range of tasks, including: active combat; laying or clearing land mines; scouting; spying; acting as decoys, couriers or guards; training; performing logistics and support functions; portering, cooking and domestic labour. Child soldiers are also subjected to sexual slavery and other forms of sexual abuse. Although it is impossible to accurately estimate the number of children who are trafficked as child soldiers, UNICEF reports that approximately 300,000 children under the age of 18 are currently being exploited in more than 30 armed conflicts worldwide. While some children join armed groups voluntarily as a means of survival, to seek revenge, or to defend their families, most are abducted and forcibly exposed to the brutality of war. They suffer grave consequences including drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, psychological and physical trauma, and sometimes death. Children have been trafficked as child soldiers in Burundi, Colombia, Cote d’Iviore, Chad, Iraq, Burma, Nepal, Philippines, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan (IDMC). Children who are separated or displaced from their families and communities are at the greatest risk of recruitment and abduction by armed forces and rebel groups. A quantitative analysis based on intra-state conflicts in Africa between 1975 and 2002 suggests that a key factor in explaining child soldier recruitment rates is the degree of access to displaced camps by belligerent parties (Achvarina and Reich 2006). In DRC, many displaced children have been forced into the ranks of armed groups, and thousands remained in fighting militias in 2007 (IDMC 2008).

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In northern Uganda, where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has waged war against the Ugandan People’s Democratic Forces (UPDF) and the people of northern Uganda for over 20 years, the abduction of an estimated 66,000 displaced children and youth has been particularly widespread (Annan et al. 2006). Often, children may appear to join the military voluntarily but subtle (or not so subtle) coercion is usually at work. Interviewing an aid worker in Burundi about the effects of conflict on children, Martin and her colleagues were told ‘Children follow the soldiers because they want to get something to eat.’5 At the same time, however, children who have been abducted or coerced into the ranks of government or rebel groups are internally displaced as well. They are physically relocated, often at great distances from their homes, and placed in harm’s way. They lack both the freedom and the means to return to their family or community, and, if they are able to return, they are at risk of subsequently becoming displaced. In some cases, families and communities may reject former child soldiers due to crimes they were forced to commit, perceived alliances with enemies, or social consequences arising from psycho-social trauma, pregnancy, or HIV/ AIDS. Former child soldiers are also at high risk of being re-trafficked as child soldiers by the same group or by opposing groups. This leaves thousands of children around the world doubly at risk of recruitment and displacement, and sometimes trapped in a vicious cycle between the two (Alfredson, 2002).

Sexual Exploitation Displaced women and children are particularly vulnerable to internal trafficking for sexual exploitation. Since women and children make up 80 per cent of camp populations, they often become the sole source of income for their families. A lack of income-generating activities forces them, either on their own accord or on that of their parents and/or husbands who barter their bodies, into prostitution and trafficking as a means of survival. Armed conflict causes an amplification of the factors that make women and children vulnerable to trafficking in non-conflict situations. In conflict-affected areas, sexual violence is often deliberately employed as a war strategy. When women and children are forced to languish in IDPs camps with no opportunities for work and inadequate protection, they are particularly vulnerable to being trafficked internally for sexual exploitation (GTZ 2004). Women and girls may be trafficked and used for a variety of purposes, including as combatants, labourers, spies, or trainers. Yet no matter the purpose, sexual violence is almost always part of their exploitation.

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In the camps straddling the Thai-Cambodian border in the 1980s, girls were routinely trafficked by insurgent groups to be servants, ‘wives’ and porters. In a particularly chilling case, girls were also believed to be trafficked to clear mines – that is, the girls were forced to walk in front of columns of soldiers so they would detonate mines instead of the combatants.6 Other girls were trafficked from Site 2, the largest of the displaced persons camps, to brothels in Bangkok. In the Chiapas State of Mexico, the displacement of 40,000 indigenous peasants led to a 50 per cent increase in internal trafficking of women and young girls into forced prostitution between 1992 and 2002. In some cases, these women and girls were lured on false promises of employment and shelter, while in others they are abducted or sold by their parents in an effort to escape poverty and hunger (Acharya 2004). The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (2007) reports that in Colombia, where an estimated 3.9 million people are internally displaced, women and girls as young as 12 are victims of sexual slavery, which often involves forced birth control and abortions. In Kenya, women collect firewood in the Kieni forest for cooking; if caught by rebel groups they are subjected to imprisonment and forced sexual slavery. In Guatemala, and many other countries around the world, some internally displaced parents have sold their own children into prostitution in order to feed the rest of their family. In many cases, abducted women are ‘married’, or forced into sexual slavery, to soldiers or militia men. During the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, Indonesian army officials and militias abducted women and sent them to camps in West Timor, where they were ‘married’ to Indonesian soldiers (GTZ 2004). In northern Uganda women and girls who are abducted by the LRA are given to commanders as ‘wives’ in return for good behaviour. During the war in Sierra Leone, which lasted from 1991 to 2001, a report by Physicians for Human Rights (2002) found that approximately one third of the women who reported sexual violence had been abducted and 15 per cent were subject to sexual slavery. In several conflicts, including those that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Liberia, Uganda, and Sudan, rape and forced pregnancy of abducted women were used as a tool for ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, trafficking for sexual exploitation does not stop when the conflict ends. In fact, post-conflict regions offer ideal conditions for traffickers, as they are frequently characterised by the absence of law, political instability, increased criminal activity, and dysfunctional law enforcement institutions. This highly volatile environment, coupled with social disintegration, destruction of livelihoods and a lack of economic activities following a war, offer a large collection of highly vulnerable people who are struggling to reconstruct their lives. Former militia, excombatants, or war lords may turn to trafficking in human beings as a way to replace revenue losses caused by the cessation of the war (GTZ 2004).

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Additionally, demobilisation programmes force ex-combatants to turn in their weapons, causing an income loss in small arms trafficking which may be filled with trafficking in women and children. At the same time, post-conflict countries generally do not have the government systems in place to combat trafficking. Establishing the rule of law through functioning policing and judicial systems often takes some time, particularly if trained personnel are not available. For example, newly appointed government officials in Serbia, following the fall of the Milosevic government, identified trafficking as one of their most serious problems, but they had neither the resources nor the expertise to prevent trafficking. Nor did Serbia have a legal code that would permit prosecution of traffickers. Police did not understand the problem, and in many cases, received bribes from the traffickers. In the prior regime, informants stated, trafficking was not only tolerated but encouraged because it was a source of revenue for the government. Moreover, with all of Serbia’s other problems, officials stated, combating trafficking was a low priority.7 A sudden increase in trafficking for sexual exploitation often occurs when foreign or international peacekeeping or civilian forces are deployed to a war zone. Foreign soldiers bring money and time to post-conflict settings where both are regarded as priceless commodities. With an increase in demand for sexual services comes an increase in supply. The arrival of peace support missions often directly coincides with an increase in local sex markets around military and peacekeeping camps. Traffickers and local authorities in post-conflict regions are quick to enter and benefit the emerging lucrative market, which represents an economic opportunity in a situation where few other opportunities to earn an income exist. The deployment of peacekeeping forces to Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Eritrea, and Bosnia, for example, created huge local sex markets (GTZ 2004). In Bosnia and Herzegovina an explosive growth in ‘sex slaves’ was fuelled by the arrival of tens of thousands of predominately male NATO and UN personnel in the wake of the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords by Bosnia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia in 1995. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that 30 per cent of those visiting brothels in Bosnia were UN personnel, NATO peacekeepers or aid workers. Other research estimates that since 1995, 70 per cent of traffickers’ income in Bosnia came directly from peacekeepers (Refugees International). Amnesty International reported that international personnel represented 20 per cent of the people using trafficked women and girls less than three months after the deployment of international forces and police officers, even though they comprised less than two per cent of Kosovo’s population. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the international media reported allegations of a soldier-run prostitution ring involving girls as young as 15 in the South Kivu area. In Mozambique, following the signing of the peace treaty in 1992, soldiers of the United Nations Operation in Mozambique

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(ONUMOZ) reportedly recruited girls as young as 12 into prostitution. In six of the 12 countries investigated in a United Nations (1996) report on trafficking for sexual exploitation, the arrival of peacekeeping forces was associated with a rapid increase in child prostitution. Whether the victims are trafficked within their own borders for child soldiering or sexual exploitation, they are displaced as a result. Similar to internal trafficking in relatively stable situations, they are ‘forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence’ and are unable to return because one of their most basic rights, the freedom of movement, has been taken away. Because armed conflict destroys livelihoods, economic opportunities, infrastructure, and sometimes entire communities, people who are trafficked during conflict have nothing to return to after the conflict ends and are likely to remain displaced within their borders. Furthermore, populations who are displaced during conflict are the most vulnerable to being trafficked. Conflict exacerbates vulnerabilities and often sends entire populations into an inescapable cycle between displacement and trafficking.

Framework for Protection This analysis of the strong interconnections between internal trafficking and internal displacement argues for a new approach to the protection of the victims of this exploitative criminal activity. Taken together, the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the Trafficking Protocol provides for a broader framework for addressing the needs of internal trafficking victims than either does on its own, as each instrument has strengths and weaknesses that are balanced by the other.

Trafficking Protocol As binding international law ratified by more than 90 countries, the Trafficking Protocol requires states to take specific actions to prevent trafficking and prosecute traffickers, including those who prey on the internally displaced. The Trafficking Protocol contains provisions related to the protection of trafficking victims, but the language is fairly weak in assigning responsibilities to governments. The Protocol states, for example, that governments ‘shall endeavour to provide for the physical safety of victims of trafficking in persons while they are within its territory.’ It also specifies that ‘in appropriate cases and to the extent possible under its domestic law, each State Party shall protect the privacy and identity of victims of trafficking in persons, including, inter alia, by making legal proceedings relating to such trafficking confidential.’ In this context:

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each State Party shall ensure that its domestic legal or administrative system contains measures that provide to victims of trafficking in persons, in appropriate cases: (a) Information on relevant court and administrative proceedings; (b) Assistance to enable their views and concerns to be presented and considered at appropriate stages of criminal proceedings against offenders, in a manner not prejudicial to the rights of the defence.

The Trafficking Protocol is, however, more specific in regards to potential compensation, presumably from traffickers: ‘Each State Party shall ensure that its domestic legal system contains measures that offer victims of trafficking in persons the possibility of obtaining compensation for damage suffered.’ Additionally, the Protocol encourages but does not require state parties to adopt provisions to help trafficking victims to recover: ‘Each State Party shall consider implementing measures to provide for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking in persons.’ Among the areas to be considered are: appropriate housing; counselling and information; medical, psychological and material assistance; and employment, educational and training opportunities. For victims that are trafficked transnationally, the Protocol also encourages states to ‘consider adopting legislative or other appropriate measures that permit victims of trafficking in persons to remain in its territory, temporarily or permanently, in appropriate cases.’ Also in the case of transnational trafficking, the Protocol includes specific provisions regarding return and reintegration of trafficking victims to their home countries. By contrast, it includes no provisions related to the return or reintegration of internal trafficking victims to their home communities.

Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement The Guiding Principles, on the other hand, are not binding international law (although drawn from human rights and humanitarian law) but they are more detailed than the Protocol in setting out the type of measures that are needed to protect and assist those who have been internally displaced by traffickers. They also include principles related to long-term solutions such as return, local integration or resettlement. The Guiding Principles specifically call for protection of internally displaced persons from many forms of trafficking, including: acts of gender-specific violence, forced prostitution, slavery (including sale into marriage, sexual exploitation and forced labour of children), and recruitment of displaced children to take part in hostilities.

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The Guiding Principles also have important provisions regarding the rights of the internally displaced that are particularly important for internal victims of trafficking. For example, the Guiding Principles specify that ‘internally displaced persons shall be protected from discriminatory arrest and detention as a result of their displacement.’ Since internal trafficking victims who are forced into prostitution and other illegal activities are often arrested and detained for these coerced actions, this provision would help establish the principle that the victims, as distinct from the perpetrators, should not be subject to prosecution. Interestingly, the Trafficking Protocol is not specific on this point. The Guiding Principles also specify that internally displaced persons have ‘the right to be protected against forcible return to or resettlement in any place where their life, safety, liberty and/or health would be at risk.’ This would benefit internal trafficking victims who may be returned to their home communities without an adequate assessment of the risks that they may face. The Protocol encourages States to take these factors into account in determining whether to repatriate international victims, but it has no comparable language for internal victims of trafficking. The Guiding Principles also specify that ‘internally displaced persons who have returned to their homes or places of habitual residence or who have resettled in another part of the country shall not be discriminated against as a result of their having been displaced. They shall have the right to participate fully and equally in public affairs at all levels and have equal access to public services.’ This provision is particularly important for internally trafficked victims that suffer from social stigmas after being forced into prostitution. Other provisions in the Guiding Principles relate particularly to children who have been trafficked internally: ‘Families which are separated by displacement should be reunited as quickly as possible. All appropriate steps shall be taken to expedite the reunion of such families, particularly when children are involved. The responsible authorities shall facilitate inquiries made by family members and encourage and cooperate with the work of humanitarian organisations engaged in the task of family reunification.’ The Guiding Principles also reiterate the right of children to an education, which is important both in preventing trafficking for labour exploitation and to help victims gain access to education once rescued from traffickers. Since traffickers often take documentation from their victims in order to enforce their control, the Guiding Principles that relate to the responsibilities of States in this regard are also useful: the authorities concerned shall issue to them all documents necessary for the enjoyment and exercise of their legal rights, such as passports, personal identification documents, birth certificates and marriage certificates. In particular, the authorities shall facilitate the issuance of new documents or the replacement of documents

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lost in the course of displacement without imposing unreasonable conditions, such as requiring the return to one’s area of habitual residence in order to obtain these or other required documents. Taken together, the Protocol and Guiding Principles provide a good normative framework for protecting trafficked persons but they still lack strong legal enforcement measures. The Protocol’s provisions related to protection of trafficking victims are far more tentative than those related to the prosecution of traffickers. Even where States are encouraged to take measures to protect the victims, the language is very general and is often framed in a way that refers more specifically to those trafficked across borders, leaving much greater government discretion with regards to internal trafficking victims. The Guiding Principles fill many of the gaps in setting out a legal framework for addressing the protection of the internally trafficked, but they are not legally binding, except to the extent that the Principles are based on existing international law. Enforcing compliance in the case of internal trafficking runs into the same sovereignty constraints as is true with other forms of internal displacement.

Conclusion In some respects, internal trafficking is to transnational trafficking what internal displacement is to refugee movements. Although the numbers of those displaced internally are larger than those forced to move internationally (and the same is probably true for trafficking), international attention, legal frameworks and institutional responses have typically been focused on those who are forced to cross borders. Certainly, far greater attention has been paid to those who have been internationally trafficked, particularly for sexual exploitation, than has been given to the often even more hidden forms of internal trafficking. Constraints of sovereignty undoubtedly make it far more difficult to address trafficking when it occurs within national boundaries. However, there is a lesson to be learned from the advocacy that occurred around promulgation of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. During the past ten years, governments with large IDP populations increasingly find themselves challenged to improve the protection of all of their citizens, including those who have been internally displaced. Although the Guiding Principles are not binding, they have great normative value in pushing States towards adhering to the protection principles incorporated into them. Similar advocacy on behalf of the internally trafficked is needed. Understanding the interconnections between internal trafficking and internal displacement is a first step towards developing a more

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comprehensive approach to combating internal trafficking and providing more effective protection to those who have been trafficked.

Notes 1. G.A. Res. 55/25, U.N. GAOR 55th Sess., Annex II, U.N. Doc. A/RES/55/25 (2001) [hereafter Trafficking Protocol]. 2. U.N. GAOR, 55th Sess., Annex I, Agenda Item 105, at 25, U.N. Doc. A/55/383 (2000). 3. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement: Report of the Representative of the SecretaryGeneral, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1998/53, (Feb.11, 1998). 4. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/30.htm 5. Interview, October 5, 2000. 6. Based on interviews that Martin conducted in the camps in 1986. 7. Interviews conducted by Martin in Belgrade, June 3–5, 2001. For more analysis of trafficking in Serbia, see ‘Philip Martin, Susan Martin and Patrick Weil, Managing Migration: The Promise of Cooperation’, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006.

References Acharya, A.K. 2004. ‘Agrarian Conflict, Internal Displacement, and Trafficking of Mexican Women: The Case of Chiapas State’, Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, 1–3 April 2004. Boston: Population Association of America. Achvarina, V. and Reich, S. 2006. ‘No Place to Hide: Refugees, Displaced Persons, and the Recruitment of Child Soldiers’. International Security 31(1): 127–164. Alfredson, L. 2002. ‘Child Soldiers, Displacement, and Human Security’. Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. Amnesty International. 2004. ‘“So does it mean that we have the rights?” Protecting the Human Rights of Women and Girls Trafficked for Forced Prostitution in Kosovo’. London. Annan, J., Blattman, C. and Horton, R. 2006. The State of Youth and Youth Protection in Northern Uganda: Findings from the Survey of War Affected Youth. Kampala: UNICEF Uganda. Anti-Slavery International. 2001. ‘Discrimination on the Basis of Work and Descent: The Enslavement of Dalit and Indigenous Communities in India, Nepal and Pakistan Through Debt Bondage’. Report submitted to the UN SubCommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Bales, K. 2004. Disposable people: new slavery in the global economy. University of California Press. Barboza, D. 2008. ‘Child Labor Cases Uncovered in China’, The New York Times, 1 May 2008. Retrieved 30 April 2008 http://www.nytimes.com Belser, P., de Cock, M. and Mehran, F. 2005. ‘ILO Minimum Estimate of Forced Labour in the World’. Geneva: International Labour Office.

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Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 2000. The Handbook for Applying the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. Available at http://www. brookings.edu/projects/idp/gp_page.aspx Brown, E. 2007. ‘The Ties that Bind: Migration and Trafficking of Women and Girls for Sexual Exploitation in Cambodia.’ IOM. Clarke, B. 2004. ‘The Implications of Early Marriage for HIV/AIDS Policy’. New York: WHO,UNFPA, Population Council Technical Consultation on Married Adolescents. Egeland, J. 2005. ‘Towards a Stronger Humanitarian Response System’, Forced Migration Review, Supplement October 2005: 4–5. Fan, M. 2008. ‘A Desperate Search for Stolen Children’, The Washington Post, 10 March, A11. Fitzgibbon, K. 2003. ‘Modern-day Slavery: The Scope of Trafficking in Persons in Africa’, African Security Review 12(1): 81–89. GTZ. 2004. ‘Armed Conflict and Trafficking in Women: Desk Study’. Eschborn: Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH. Hoge, W. 2005. ‘Report Calls for Punishing Peacekeepers in Sex Abuse’, The New York Times, 25 March 2005. Retrieved 10 May 2008 http://www.nytimes.com Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. 2008. ‘Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2007’. Geneva: Norwegian Refugee Council. ILO. 2002. ‘Every Child Counts: New Global Estimates on Child Labour’. Geneva. ILO. 2004. ‘Helping Hands or Shackled Lives: Understanding Child Domestic Labour and Responses to it’. Geneva. International Organization for Migration (IOM). 2004. ‘Trafficking in Persons: An analysis of Afghanistan’. Afghanistan. IOM. 2005. Data and Research on Human Trafficking: A Global Survey. Geneva. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. 2001. The Responsibility to Protect. Canada: International Development Research Centre. Miko, F. 2006. ‘Trafficking in Persons: The U.S. and International Response.’ Congressional Research Service Report for Congress. Washington, DC. PBS. 2003. ‘Dying to Leave: China’. Retrieved on 5 April 2008 http://www.pbs. org/wnet/wideangle/shows/dying/map_china.html Physicians for Human Rights. 2002. ‘War-Related Sexual Violence in Sierra Leone’. Retrieved on 2 March 2008 from http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/ Ping, H. and Shaohua, Z. 2005. ‘Internal Migration in China: Linking it to Development’, Regional Conference on Migration and Development in Asia, 14–16 March 2005. China: IOM and Department for International Development. Refugees International. 2004. ‘Conflict, Sexual Trafficking and Peacekeeping’. Retrieved on 15 October 2007 http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/ article/detail/4146/ Save the Children U.K. 2007. ‘Modern Day Child Slavery’. London. Sayre, K. 2007. ‘India Struggles Against Trafficking: Many Women, Girls Sold into Prostitution’, The Washington Post, 17 June, A12. Suwal, B. and Amatya, T. 2002. ‘Internal Trafficking Among Children and Youth Engaged in Prostitution in Nepal.’ Geneva: ILO.

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UNICEF. 2002. ‘Unbearable to the Human Heart: Child Trafficking and Action to Eliminate It’. Geneva. UNICEF. 2001. ‘Profiting from Abuse: An Investigation into the Sexual Exploitation of Our Children.’ New York. U.S. Department of Labor. ‘Forced and Bonded Child Labor’. Retrieved on 29 November 2007 http://www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/iclp/sweat2/ bonded.htm. U.S. State Department. 2008 Trafficking in Persons Annual Report. Washington, DC. U.S. State Department. 2007 Trafficking in Persons Annual Report. Washington, DC. U.S. State Department. 2006. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Washington, DC. Wyndham, J. 2006. ‘A Developing Trend: Laws and Policies on Internal Displacement’. Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement: Washington, D.C.

The Impact of Global Migration Governance on UNHCR Alexander Betts

Introduction The migration-displacement nexus has mainly been used to describe the increasingly inextricable relationship between groups of people on the move. It has been commonly invoked to highlight the intersection of the motives and migratory routes of voluntary and forced migrants, and the undifferentiated nature of national policy responses towards people who cross international borders (Castles and Van Hear 2005; Koser and Martin, this volume). However, an important and neglected aspect of the nexus is at the level of global governance, where it is becoming increasingly difficult to clearly separate institutional responsibility for migration and displacement. A new and complex institutional marketplace is emerging within which regimes and international organisations compete and the boundaries between policy fields and mandates are becoming increasingly blurred. At the time of its creation, the refugee regime was relatively isolated in the terrain of international institutions regulating aspects of human mobility. It was created in a post-Second World War environment with relatively few international institutions and a relatively clear division of inter-agency responsibilities. However, the emergence of new challenges in the context of globalization and interdependence has led to states creating a range of new institutions to address an emerging array of trans-boundary

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challenges. Within the broad area of human mobility, Koslowski (2009) has argued that a travel regime, which regulates the ability of people to cross borders, has evolved and strengthened and a labour migration regime is beginning to emerge. Outside the area of human mobility, international institutions have developed in the area of human rights, humanitarianism, security, development, and peace-building, for example (Betts 2009). Many of these new regimes have important implications for the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) because they overlap (i.e. intersect in the areas over which they have authority) with the refugee regime. In some cases, these overlaps may be complementary to the scope and purpose of the regime. The human rights regime, for example, has offered sources of ‘complementary protection’ that reinforce the regime (Gorlick 2000; McAdam 2007). In other cases, however, these overlaps have contradictory implications, competing with and potentially undermining international cooperation on refugee protection. This is particularly the case in relation to some areas of the global migration governance in which states have created new illiberal forms of institutionalised cooperation that enable them to bypass the obligations created by old agreements (Betts 2009). Global migration governance remains embryonic but is characterised by its predominantly informal, regional, and inter-regional nature. Regional and inter-regional trans-governmental policy networks known as Regional Consultative Processes (RCPs) have emerged among groups of ‘likeminded states’ (Koehler 2008; Nielsen 2007; Slaughter 2004). Many of these, such as the Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC) which have a focus on irregular migration and have contributed to coordination and standardization on travel security. On a formal regional level, the European Union (EU) has developed a ‘global dimension’ to its asylum and migration policies, through partnerships with third countries (Garlick 2006; Guild 2006; Haddad 2008). Meanwhile, at the global level, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) now plays a significant role in enabling states to collaborate on migration management, and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) plays a growing role in the standardisation of measures to strengthen border security (Koslowski 2009; Salter 2006). Within the context of this institutional proliferation, it no longer makes sense to speak of a refugee regime so much as a refugee regime complex, within which different institutions overlap, exist in parallel to one another, and are nested within one another in ways that shape states’ responses towards refugees. One of the key overlaps to emerge is between the refugee regime and the emerging migration regime in the area of spontaneous arrival asylum. In many parts of the world, refugee protection relies upon refugees’ ability to travel independently to the territory of an asylum

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state. Yet a significant proportion of the new institutional proliferation has implications for spontaneous arrival asylum. In particular, new institutionalised cooperation in other areas of global migration governance has had the effect of enabling states to bypass their obligations under the 1951 Convention but without overly violating the Convention. This ‘bypassing without violating’ has been possible because of the new international institutions. New institutional mechanisms such as the development of travel document security through ICAO, action to reduce the role of smugglers through IOM, EU third country partnerships on border management, the IGC’s development of readmission agreements, and even the development of new cooperation on the protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs) all represent institutional mechanisms through which states are able to bypass without violating the 1951 Convention. This is because the core obligation of the 1951 Convention – non refoulement – only kicks-in once refugees reach the territory of an asylum states. Consequently, states can engage in forum-shopping or regime shifting to avoid triggering this norm and so avoid incurring Convention obligations. The key challenge for UNHCR, as the international organisation with responsibility for overseeing states’ implementation of the 1951 Convention, has been how to react and respond to this increasingly competitive institutional environment. This chapter argues that, faced with the risk of being bypassed, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) response has been proactive. While states have engaged in ‘regime shifting’ (Helfer 2004) – moving from addressing problems through one regime to addressing those problems through an alternative parallel regime – UNHCR’s response has been to pursue states into those alternative regimes. In particular, UHCR has increasingly engaged with the politics of the wider humanitarian and migration regimes. It has adopted three strategies in particular that have in common that they are an attempt to engage in the politics of these other regimes beyond the boundaries of the refugee regime: firstly, mandate expansion; secondly, becoming an ‘itinerant actor’; thirdly, using issue-linkage. However, the chapter suggests that these strategies have not been risk free, and engender tradeoffs which fundamentally alter the nature of UNHCR’s work and relationship to the refugee regime. This chapter divides into three main parts. Firstly, it draws upon an emerging literature in International Relations on regime complexity to examine the implications of institutional proliferation for the refugee regime. It argues that it no longer makes sense to speak of a ‘refugee regime’ so much as a ‘refugee regime complex’. Secondly, it explains the consequences that this institutional proliferation has had for the politics of refugee protection, suggesting that it has created opportunities for states to engage in regime shifting and has relocated the most relevant politics for

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refugee protection from the refugee regime to other regimes. Thirdly, it explains UNHCR’s response to regime shifting, and examines the tradeoffs that emerge from its increasing attempts to pursue states into the regimes into which they are shifting.

The Refugee Regime Complex At first glance, the norms, rules, principles, and decision-making procedures that comprise the refugee regime appear relatively straightforward. The main treaty that regulates states’ behaviour towards refugees is the 1951 Convention, which sets out a definition of who is a refugee and what obligations states have towards refugees. Meanwhile, UNHCR was created to oversee implementation of the 1951 Convention. UNHCR’s Statute gives it a core mandate of focusing on ensuring refugees’ access to protection and durable solutions, and the Convention explicitly accords UNHCR supervisory responsibility for ensuring the compliance of states parties to the Convention. Over time, however, the refugee regime has become ever more complex, intersecting with a number of other regimes in a range of complementary and contradictory ways. Initially, the emergence of new parallel international institutions, either within the refugee regime or in the human rights regime, was complementary to the existing regime, reinforcing its core norms. A number of regional agreements on refugee protection have emerged that reinforce the refugee regime – the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention (Africa), the 1984 Cartagena Declaration (Latin America) and the 2004 European Council Directive (Europe). These have generally reinforced the refugee regime insofar as they have been explicitly based on expressing a regional commitment to the 1951 Convention and in some cases, such as the OAU Convention, offered an even more generous interpretation of the conditions under which protection can be provided. Beyond the refugee regime, though, institutional proliferation in other issue-areas has had implications for the politics of refugee protection. Over time, there has gradually been a proliferation in international institutions in other issue-areas. With globalisation and growing interdependence, states have developed institutionalised cooperation in an increasing number of new areas. This has led to the creation of a dense tapestry of international institutions at the multilateral, regional, and bilateral levels. The literature on regime complexity attempts to explore the political consequences of this institutional proliferation (Raustiala and Victor 2004; Alter and Meunier 2009). Complexity refers to the way in which two or more institutions intersect in terms of their scope and purpose. Three main concepts describe different aspects of complexity. Firstly, institutions may be nested: regional

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or issue-specific institutions may be part of wider multilateral framework. Secondly, they may be parallel: obligations in similar areas may or may not contradict one another. Thirdly, they may be overlapping: multiple institutions may have authority over the same issue. Complexity has been explored as an independent variable in world politics (Alter and Meunier 2009). Where more than one institution exists in a given issue-area, the institutions may have a complementary or a competitive relationship. In terms of competitive relationships, Alter and Meunier (2009), identify three types of cross-institutional strategy that might be enabled by the existence of regime complexity. Regime shifting occurs when states move from addressing problems through one regime to addressing those problems through an alternative parallel regime, possibly relocating the most relevant politics for a given issue-area from one regime to another (Helfer 2004; Betts 2009). Forum-shopping occurs where actors select the international venues based on where they are best able to promote specific policy preferences (Abbott and Snidal 1998; Hafner-Burton 2005; Busch 2007). Strategic inconsistency, occurs where contradictory rules are created in a parallel regime with the intention of undermining a rule in another agreement (Raustiala and Victor 2004). Given the proliferation of competing institutions in relation to the refugee regime, these concepts have immense relevance for understanding the emergence and consequences of the refugee regime complex. Some forms of institutional proliferation have had a complementary impact on refugee protection. This is particularly the case in the area of human rights, in which it has been recognised that a number of international human rights instruments offer sources of ‘complementary protection’ (i.e. legal sources of refugee protection that come from outside of international refugee law) for refugees fleeing persecution (Gorlick 2000; McAdam 2007). Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and of the Convention Against Torture (CAT), in particular, reinforce the principle of non-refoulement – that states cannot forcibly return an individual to a state in which he or she may face persecution – which is set out in the 1951 refugee convention. These complementary sources of protection have been used by UNHCR and have served to elevate non-refoulement to the level of a non-derogable customary international norm. However, in contrast to the complementary nature of the human rights regime, a new form of potentially contradictory institutional proliferation has taken place since the 1990s. Since the end of the Cold War three trends in particular have to a renewed state interest in migration control: the increase in South-North migration fuelled by globalisation; the renewed focus on the so-called ‘new wars’ in the South and their security implications for the North; and the increasing securitisation of immigration accelerated in the post 9/11 era. Within this context, international institutions have begun to

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emerge in two areas that were previously unregulated at the global level: international migration and humanitarianism. Although neither migration governance nor humanitarian governance have a direct institutional relationship to refugee protection, the creation of these parallel institutions has led to significant implications for the politics of refugee protection. This is because both overlap with the areas of authority of the regime in fundamental ways. In the first instance, there has been the gradual emergence of international institutions purporting to regulate international migration (Crisp 2004). Although there is still no formal, coherent multilateral institutional framework regulating migration, nor a UN Migration Organisation, the contours of global migration governance have begun to emerge through a range of informal, regional and inter-regional governance structures. This gradual proliferation in global migration governance has occurred as states have recognised international migration to be of growing political importance and that migration can only be addressed through international cooperation. The most significant new migration institutions have appeared on a regional level. The European Union’s common Justice and Home Affairs ( JHA) policy, in particular, has, since the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, attempted to develop a common asylum and immigration policy (Garlick 2006). This has led to the development of a range of common policies relating to border control and the standardisation of asylum and immigration procedures. Regional cooperation on migration has also begun to emerge in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS), and Southern African Development Community (SADC) contexts, for example. As well as regional governance mechanisms, a number of inter-regional summits have been convened. In an EU-African context, notable recent meetings have been held in Tripoli and Rabat in 2006, providing forums for inter-state dialogue on trans-Mediterranean migration. At the level of informal networks, a range of Regional Consultative Processes (RCPs) have emerged. The Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (the IGC), founded in 1985, was the first of these. It is based upon a group of likeminded Northern states with a secretariat in Geneva and it facilitates informal dialogue on asylum and immigration policy outside of traditional multilateral forums such as UNHCR (Schuster 2005). Based upon this model a number of RCPs have emerged in different parts of the world, enabling states to engage in informal discussion and develop cooperative agreements outside of the formal multilateral context (Nielsen 2007). Meanwhile, although there is little formal migration governance at the global level, Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM)

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was set up by the UN Secretary-General in 2003 to report on the state of international migration and the prospects for institutional reform. This culminating in the 2005 UN High Level Dialogue in Migration and Development and the subsequent Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), convened in Brussels in 2007 and Manila in 2008. Alongside these emerging structures, the International Migration Organization (IOM) has played an increasingly prominent role in relation to global migration governance, despite existing outside of formal UN structures, while the International Labour Migration (ILO) has played a more vocal role in advocating for the human rights of migrant workers. These emerging structures have mainly existed in parallel to the global refugee regime, but with some significant elements of overlap, insofar as actors such as the EU, IGC, and IOM have addressed asylum as a migration issue. In particular, the new migration institutions overlap with the refugee regime insofar as they have influenced refugees’ access to spontaneous arrival asylum. In the second instance, a new institutional framework for addressing humanitarian crisis, centred on the UN Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) has emerged and evolved since the 1990s. The post-Cold War era witnessed a concern by Northern states to engage in humanitarian assistance in the South, partly as a means to address human needs and partly as a means to mitigate the potential spill-over of transboundary security threats. Over time the development of a humanitarian architecture has created what is increasingly referred to as a ‘humanitarian market place’ within which a range of international organisations and NGOs are competing to be the favoured service providers of states. There are a range of ways in which the humanitarian architecture potentially overlaps with the refugee regime, but the main overlap focuses on the protection of IDPs. The issue of IDPs has emerged since the 1990s (Phuong 2005; Weiss and Korn 2006). A new normative and institutional framework has emerged to address IDP protection, which has gradually been incorporated into the wider issue of humanitarian reform. The framework is based upon the creation of the position of the UN SecretaryGeneral’s Special Representative for IDPs and the 1997 Guiding Principles of Internal Displacement, which represents in soft law the relevance of existing human rights law and international humanitarian law standards for IDPs. This shift towards a new multilateral framework for IDPs was based partly on the recognition that in contrast to refugees, internally displaced people rarely received access to international protection. In 2005, IDP protection was incorporated within the debate on ‘humanitarian reform’ within the UN system. In this debate, the UN IASC agreed to create a ‘cluster’

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approach within which responsibility for humanitarian relief would be divided across agencies, beginning initially with IDP protection. Although driven by recognition of protection needs, the new institutional framework for IDPs has also served a migration control agenda. For example, a number of Northern states have used the notion of ‘internal flight alternative’ as a means to ensure that individuals fleeing persecution either do not need to leave their countries of origin or can be returned to that country. The ‘internal fl ight alternative’ represents one way in which the new IDP regime overlaps with the refugee regime. This is because it implies that in situations in which would-be refugees are able to fi nd protection within their own state they may be refused asylum and returned to their country of origin. The way in which the human rights, migration, and humanitarian regimes overlap with the refugee regime is illustrated in the diagram below (Figure 14.1). It shows that as the additional parallel regimes have emerged in the aftermath of the creation of the refugee regime they have overlapped in a number of ways: the human rights regime has overlapped through the concept of complementary protection; the migration regime through its influence on refugees’ access to spontaneous arrival asylum, and the humanitarian regime through IDP protection, for example. The refugee regime has therefore gradually become increasingly complex. The politics of refugee protection are not only influenced by what

Refugee Regime -UNHCR -1951 Refugee Convention -Regional Treaties

Humanitarian Regime -IASC -OCHA

(The humanitarian regime also overlaps with the human rights regime e.g. through human rights law being the basis of the Guiding Principles)

IDP Protection

Access to Spontaneous Arrival Asylum

‘Complementary Protection’

Human Rights Regime -OHCHR -Human Right Treaties (e.g. ECHR)

Migration Regime -IOM/ICAO -RCPs -Regional Structures (e.g. EU)

(The migration regime also overlaps with the human rights regime e.g. through the Convention on Migrant Workers’ Rights)

Figure. 14.1: The refugee regime complex. Diagram illustrating the main actors and institutions in the global refugee regime and how the regime exists in parallel to and partly overlaps with the migration, IDP and human rights regimes. The intersections of the Venn diagram illustrate some of the ways in which the refugee regime overlaps with other regimes.

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occurs within the refugee regime but is also influenced by other parallel regimes. Complexity has both complementary and contradictory effects for the refugee regime. Some overlaps, such as with the human rights regime are more complementary; others, such as with the migration and IDP regimes appear more contradictory. The next section explains how the new institutional proliferation and the resulting regime overlaps have altered the politics of refugee protection.

The Impact of the Complex on the Politics of Protection As Alter and Meunier (2009) recognise, regime complexity has been inadequately explored as an independent (or intervening) variable in world politics and in-depth empirical case studies are required to examine its impact upon the politics of particular regimes. The proliferation of new international institutions which exist in parallel to and partly overlap with the refugee regime has had two major and related implications for the politics of refugee protection. Firstly, it has created opportunities for states to engage in cross-institutional strategies, most notably regime shifting and to some extent also forum-shopping to address issues relating to asylum. Secondly, it has led to the relocation of the most relevant politics for refugee protection from the refugee regime to other regimes in which the central focus has been migration or humanitarian relief. In the first instance, the new institutional proliferation has created opportunities to address states’ concerns with asylum while bypassing the 1951 Convention and UNHCR. In particular, it has enabled states to engage in regime shifting, addressing asylum in parallel regimes, rather than within the refugee regime. The new institutions have been particularly useful for states because they have allowed them to limit their legal liability to provide protection to refugees by reducing access to spontaneous arrival asylum, but without overly violating the 1951 Convention. The refugee regime was originally created because asylum served two purposes for states: it provided security by ensuring that people forced to leave states were reinserted within the Westphalian state system and it served a humanitarian purpose, upholding a set of liberal values held by states. Providing asylum imposes a cost upon individual states but the reciprocity in provision yielded the collective benefits of the regime. This logic led states to commit to 1951 the Convention and to avoid overtly violating the principle of non-refoulement. However, since the creation of the regime, the perceived costs of a state providing asylum have risen in the context of growing South-North migration and increasing state concerns with the relationship between immigration and security. Many Northern states have therefore wanted to minimise their commitment to

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provide spontaneous arrival asylum but without overtly violating the 1951 Convention. Doing so requires international cooperation because it relies upon other states collaborating to reduce either asylum seekers’ access to their territory or the underlying need for would-be asylum seekers to move onwards to Northern states. The new institutional proliferation has consequently created opportunities for Northern states to engage in new forms of cooperation that reduce asylum seekers’ access to spontaneous arrival asylum in the North while not overtly violating the principle of non-refoulement set out in the 1951 Convention. For example, European states have increasingly addressed asylum issues as part of the EU’s new common migration policy framework, within which asylum in seen as a part of migration. In relation to the so-called ‘internal dimension’ of the EU’s common asylum and immigration policy, common asylum standards have been created and policy harmonised as part of an overarching attempt to create a common market with internal freedom of movement while securing Europe’s external border. Although many of these have been created in conformity to the 1951 Convention and UNHCR standards, these standards have been created outside of a UNHCR framework and as part of migration policy. The EU has also attempted to develop an ‘external dimension’ to its asylum and immigration policy. Within this context, asylum has been addressed as part of wider attempts to develop border control mechanisms. For example, the EU has engaged in interception in Mediterranean to prevent would-be spontaneous arrival asylum seekers arriving on European territory. The EU has also developed migration partnerships with states on the periphery of the EU. These partnerships have included provisions to strengthen neighbouring countries’ asylum policies as a means to remove the need for the onward movement of refugees to Europe. Northern states have also increasingly addressed their asylum concerns through IOM, using the organisation as a service provider in relation to functions that would once have been the domain of UNHCR – refugee return and the care and maintenance of asylum seekers and refugees, for example. However, in contrast to UNHCR, IOM has been outside of the UN framework and therefore unencumbered by same human rights obligations and state scrutiny as UNHCR. Meanwhile, the IGC has been used by states concerned with migration control – such as the U.K., Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia – as a forum for inter-state dialogue on asylum and immigration. In contrast to UNHCR’s Executive Committee, destination states have preferred to use this behind-closed doors forum because it has allowed them to address asylum as an immigration issue and to develop new policy approaches within an informal network of states. States have also used the institutional frameworks relating to IDPs as a substitute for refugee protection. IDP protection is of instrumental value to

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Northern states because it allows them to provide protection to would-be refugees before they leave their country of origin. This removes the need for cross-border movement. The existence of international recognition for IDP rights has been increasingly used in domestic asylum cases as justification for refusing refugee status for those fleeing political persecution. In relation to the cases of Sudan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Burundi, for example, the concept of ‘internal flight alternative’ has been used by Northern states to deny refugee status to those fleeing the country (Prosser 2008). In the second instance, and related to the first trend, the most relevant politics for refugee protection are increasingly located outside of the refugee regime. The main venues where refugee issues are addressed are now in other regimes, with the result that the most relevant politics for refugee protection has not taken place within the refugee regime itself but increasingly in the areas of migration and humanitarian relief. States have rarely been interested in refugee protection for altruistic reasons. During the Cold War, the US and Western European states offered asylum to refugees fleeing Communism as a means to discredit Communist regimes, and they contributed to supporting refugees who fought Communism in the proxy conflict of the developing world (Loescher 2001; Rosenblum and Salayean 2004). In the post Cold War era, Northern states’ primary concern in relation to refugees was with managing migration and upholding national security. On a domestic level, the issue of asylum and refugee protection has shifted from state departments to governmental units that deal with migration and security issues such as justice and home affairs. In the post 9/11 era, refugee concerns have been subordinated to security concerns. On an international level, a range of venues relating to migration and security have become the most relevant sites within which the politics of asylum and refugee protection evolves. Now, the most relevant international politics for refugee protection takes place not within UNHCR, as a forum, but in a range of alternative forums such as the EU’s Justice and Home Affairs debates, the IGC, the GFMD, the Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as well as a range of venues that address aspects of refugee protection in relation to security – the UN Peacebuilding Commission, the UN Security Council, and the World Bank, for example.

UNHCR’S Strategic Response and its Consequences The new regimes have therefore enabled Northern states to implicitly redistribute the costs of the refugee regime without formally renegotiating the regime. By using the alternative regimes to develop cooperation that limits spontaneous arrival asylum seekers’ access to their territories states

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have bypassed incurring the core obligations of the 1951 Convention. This has shifted the distribution of burdens in the refugee regime from Northern states to Southern states. In response, many Southern states have recognised this strategy of implicit burden-shifting by the North and, in many cases, reduced their levels of commitment to refugee protection. The proliferation of new, alternative regimes has thereby contributed to a net reduction in international cooperation in the refugee regime. UNHCR has consequently faced an increasingly competitive institutional environment in which states have increasingly used regimes outside of the refugee regime in order to develop illiberal forms of cooperation in addressing asylum and refugee protection. In the changing institutional context, UNHCR has faced the challenge of how to ‘make itself relevant’ to states. This poses the important yet unexplored question of how an IO responds when its principals start to shift to alternative regimes to address the core problems which that IO (and the regime it was set up to oversee) were created to address. In response to regime complexity and the resulting regime shifting by states, UNHCR has adopted three strategies: mandate adaptation, itinerant political actor, and issue-linkage.

Response 1: Mandate Adaptation The new parallel institutions and states’ cross-institutional strategies have contributed to changing the work of UNHCR. In order to compete with the other emerging institutions and to ‘make itself relevant to states’ UNHCR has gradually expanded into the areas in which it faces institutional competition. Since 2000, UNHCR’s work has grown to incorporate a greater focus on both migration and humanitarianism. Its traditional mandate was confined to providing protection and durable solutions to refugees. In response to the wider competitive environment, it has brought consideration of the issues of both international migration and aspects of humanitarianism within the scope of its work. In the early 2000s, UNHCR has increasingly recognised that states respond to refugees in the broader context of international migration and has tried to engage in the politics of migration. Although UNHCR has shunned the idea that it is a migration organisation and has repeatedly stated that it ‘refugees are not migrants’, its work has increasingly touched upon migration. Under High Commissioner Antonio Guterres, it has made one of its priorities engaging with asylum in the context of international migration and attempting to ensure that refugee protection is offered in the context of broader migratory movements. For example, UNHCR has developed a 10–point plan in relation to international migration, made the so-called ‘asylum-migration nexus’ one of its core priorities, and become engaged in a range of migration-related debates (UNHCR 2007a).

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Examining asylum in the context of migration represents a new departure in UNHCR’s work that is based on recognition that the majority of states now perceive asylum as a migration issue. Furthermore, UNHCR has increasingly sought to play a broader role in relation to migration. High Commissioner Guterres has argued that in the context of ‘people on the move’, there is a need for protection for a number of groups other than refugees. UNHCR’s Jeff Crisp quotes from a report of the proceedings at the UN General Assembly on 8–9 November 2007, which summarises the position of the High Commissioner: Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, explained that while UNHCR has a precise mandate in relation to refugees, the complexity of today’s displacement goes well beyond the asylum-migration nexus. More and more people are forced to move because of extreme deprivation, environmental degradation and climate change, as well as conflict and persecution. Meeting the needs of people who have left their country to find food and sending them back to extreme deprivation if they are not refugees are some of the complex questions that arise. While the answers go beyond UNHCR’s mandate, it is UNHCR’s duty to alert states to these problems and to help find answers to the new challenges they present (Crisp 2008: 1).

In December 2007, UNHCR convened the High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges with the theme of ‘Refugee Protection, Durable Solutions and International Migration’ partly to facilitate discussion of the wider protection needs of migrants (UNHCR 2007b). This has led to subsequent debate on UNHCR’s potential role in relation to stranded migrants, trafficked persons, and climate change ‘refugees’ (Crisp 2008). UNHCR has consistently drawn the line at playing an operational role in the area of migrant protection or changing its mandate. However, the shift in position and the attempt by UNHCR to play a ‘convening role’ in this area nevertheless represents recognition of the need to engage with migration in ways that fundamentally transform the focus of the organisation (UNHCR 2007c). The willingness to facilitate on issues unrelated to refugees is partly driven by need but is also a response to the increasing competitive institutional environment and the risk of UNHCR being bypassed. As the High Commissioner has recognised, facilitating this discussion is necessary simply in order to ‘effectively exercise its mandate for refugee protection and solutions’ (UNHCR 2007c). In relation to IDP protection, UNHCR has often taken on an occasional and ad hoc role. Throughout most of its history it selectively engaged with the specific situations that had a direct relationship to its core mandate of refugee protection. During the 1990s, the gradual emergence of an institutional framework led to the question of which organisation should have overall responsibility for IDP protection. Initially, the UN established

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a so-called ‘collaborative’ approach, coordinated by the Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in which UNHCR served as the ‘lead agency’ amongst a group of agencies that shared responsibility for protection. After 2005, however, UNHCR took on full responsibility for IDP protection as part of a new ‘cluster’ approach within which a number of other organisations, such as the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF took on roles for other aspects of humanitarian provision such as food provision and child protection. High Commissioner Guterres proclaimed that UNHCR must aspire to be the UN’s ‘protection agency’ rather than simply its ‘refugee agency’ if it is to retain relevance (Loescher, Betts, and Milner 2008). There could, of course, be alternative factors that explain why UNHCR has expanded its mandate into the areas of humanitarianism and migration. A number of plausible hypotheses exist. Firstly, it could be suggested that mandate expansion has taken place because the original problem for which UNHCR and the refugee regime was created has disappeared. Yet the number of refugees in the world has remained relatively constant since the late 1990s and UNHCR still struggles to meet the needs of refugees and to fulfil its core obligations towards protecting refugees and finding solutions to their plight. Secondly, it could be suggested that the preferences of the most powerful donor states have changed and so they have redirected UNHCR’s work. Yet there is no evidence of this and, on the contrary, there have been repeated calls by large donor states for UNHCR ‘not to exceed its mandate’. At UNHCR’s Executive Committee meetings, the large donors repeatedly warn against UNHCR ‘becoming a migration organisation’, and the United States is particularly focused on ensuring UNHCR does not exceed its mandate. The more plausible explanation of mandate expansion is linked to the need for UNHCR to compete within an increasingly competitive institutional environment. Indeed those close to High Commissioner Antonio Guterres have acknowledged that the Office is engaged in a strategy of ‘expansion by stealth’, attempting to acquire greater responsibility, despite facing potential opposition from within and outside the Office.

Response 2: Itinerant Political Actor International organisations (IOs) have been conceived in a range of ways – including as a forum, as a service provider, as decision-making procedures or as secretariats. However, irrespective of this variation, the conventional conception of an IO regards it as formally linked to a specific regime and its work as largely confined to that regime. This assumed relationship between an IO and a specific regime appears to apply in the case of UNHCR, which it formally linked to the refugee regime through the 1951 Convention:

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Article 35 of the Convention gives UNHCR ‘supervisory responsibility’ for the Convention. However, the consequences of regime shifting have contributed to a de-coupling of the link between the IO and the regime and have led UNHCR to become a political actor beyond the confines of the regime. As states have bypassed the refugee regime, UNHCR has taken on a broader role, becoming what might be referred to as an ‘itinerant political actor’, no longer working purely within the confines of the regime. In order to advocate for refugee protection, UNHCR has increasingly recognised the need to engage in the politics of other regimes, itself attending forums in other regimes in which the politics of refugee protection is now a part. For example, UNHCR has followed and participated in the GFMD, regularly attends EU Justice and Home Affairs meetings, and has engaged in humanitarian and peace-building forums such as OCHA and the UN Peace-building Commission. This participation in the wider debates in the migration and IDP regimes is part of a broader trend in which UNHCR has also begun to participate in, for example, the development regime, joining the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) in 2005 and regularly attending the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Development Assistance Committee.

Response 3: Issue-Linkage The recognition that the most relevant politics for refugee protection now takes place beyond the confines of the refugee regime has meant that UNHCR has needed to find new ways in which the appeal to states’ interests and channel them into a commitment to refugee protection. Recognising that Northern states’ core interests in relation to asylum are migration and security, UNHCR has attempted to find a way to link these wider interests to refugee protection. Whether through tactical or substantive issue-linkage it has thereby attempted to win back its departing principals by appealing to the very interests that led them to engage in regime shifting (Aggarwal 2000; Haas 1990; Young 1996). For example, recognising that the 1951 Convention was not adequate to address states’ contemporary concerns with asylum and refugees, UNHCR conceived the Convention Plus initiative in 2003 (Betts and Durieux 2007). Its aim was to supplement the aspects of refugee protection inadequately addressed by the Convention. The initiative attempted to facilitate a ‘grand bargain’ on the allocation of responsibility for refugee protection, whereby Northern states could meet their interest in limiting irregular migration through contributing to refugee protection in the South. The initiative thereby attempted to use issue-linkage to connect Northern states’ interests in migration to refugee protection. Central to this initiative was the

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notion that ‘protection in the region of origin’ could serve as a substitute for spontaneous arrival asylum and an implicit recognition that so long as Northern states funded protection in the South they could legitimately control immigration. Regime complexity offered UNHCR an opportunity to engage in issuelinkage as a means to channel states’ wider interests in other issue-areas back into a commitment to refugee protection. This is because the institutional connections across different regimes made it more plausible to states that a relationship between refugee protection, and the other issues existed. However, these attempted linkages were not always successful because the states did not always accept that their wider interests in migration and security could be met through re-engaging with the refugee regime (Betts 2008).

Pursuing Principals vs Pursuing Principles The ‘principal-agent’ relationship has often been used in International Relations to describe the relationship between states, on the one hand, and IOs – such as UNHCR – on the other hand (Hawkins et al. 2006). In the present context the concept provides an appropriate play-on-words. Collectively, the three strategies described above amount to an attempt by UNHCR to pursue its principals into the regimes into which they have been shifting. Given the competitive environment and the risk that the Office of UNHCR and the refugee regime will be bypassed, UNHCR has had little option other than to engage in the politics of the regimes into which states are shifting. However, the Office needs to be aware of what the potential tradeoffs are that accompany such a strategic change. There is a risk that in pursuing its principals into parallel regime, the Office undermines its own principles. This problem may arise if and when the three strategies contradict and even undermine UNHCR’s core mandate of refugee protection and solutions, which has historically been the basis of its legitimacy. Firstly, mandate change has had a potentially contradictory relationship to UNHCR’s core mandate of refugee protection. The organisation’s new role in relation to IDP protection has watered-down UNHCR’s ability to uphold refugee protection insofar as the Office has been given no additional staff or financial resources to engage in IDP protection, diverting existing resources from refugee protection. IDP protection and refugee protection may also be inherently contradictory insofar as the former represents an obstacle to UNHCR effectively advocating for the rights of refugees to cross an international border in search of international protection. This tension was evident during UNHCR’s involvement in IDP protection during the 1990s. The creation of ‘safe zones’ or ‘humanitarian corridors’ in

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Bosnia, Iraq, and Somalia, for example, not only led to in-country protection failures but were widely recognised as situations in which UNHCR’s involvement compromised its refugee protection role (Dubernet 2003; Barutciski 1996). The gradual expansion of UNHCR’s work to the area of international migration also has a potentially contradictory relationship to refugee protection insofar as it potentially legitimates the very policies that undermine spontaneous arrival asylum seekers’ access to protection. For example, UNHCR’s attempts to ‘uphold protection in the context of mixed migratory flows’ between Sub-Saharan Africa and the EU led it to openly advocate for so-called offshore processing centres to screen wouldbe asylum seekers before they reach the EU, which was widely argued by NGOs and even some states to violate the 1951 Convention. Secondly, UNHCR’s emerging role as an itinerant political actor also changes its role in ways that may have ambiguous consequences for refugee protection. As it becomes an independent political actor engaged in the politics of other regimes, it risks undermining its supposedly ‘nonpolitical character’, as set out in the organisation’s Statute. Indeed although UNHCR’s ‘non-political character’ does not imply it should not be aware of the political context of its work, the specifically humanitarian nature of the Office is one of the bases on which it maintains its legitimacy and hence its ability to influence states. If it comes to be seen as a political rather than specifically humanitarian actor, this may risk its ability to effectively advocate on behalf of refugees. Thirdly, although issue-linkage represents a potentially effective tool for re-engaging states in the politics of refugee protection, it also has potentially perverse consequences for UNHCR’s core mandate. By actively appealing to states’ migration control and security concerns as a basis for contributing to refugee protection, UNHCR is departing from the logic of humanitarian appeal and is legitimating the notion that states’ contributions can reasonably be made on the basis of their strategic interests. This may be in tension with UNHCR’s core mandate if, for example, the linkage to security lead to the securitization of asylum seekers, and so further reduces states’ willingness to provide asylum. For example, attempting to appeal to a Northern donor state’s security concerns in the context of the ‘war on terror’ may lead it to contribute to refugee protection in a state’s region of origin – such as Somali refugees in Kenya – however it may also securitise asylum seekers from that region in a way that undermines their access to spontaneous arrival asylum in the North. The idea that UNHCR’s strategies for responding to state regime shifting may undermine its core mandate not only has implications for refugees’ access to protection but is also significant because of its consequences for UNHCR’s ability to influence the behaviour of states. It may be problematic because, in absence of significant material power, UNHCR’s

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ability to influence states is based upon two key tools: its moral authority and its appeal to states’ interests. These two tools are potentially in tension with one another. The former is based on the organisation’s legitimacy which comes directly from its core refugee protection mandate and from continuity. The latter is based on engaging with and meeting states’ interest and comes from adaptation. While both of these are central tools, UNHCR has historically had to strike a delicate balance between continuity and change in order to maintain relevance while not undermining the basis of its moral authority. The danger is that its response to the new competitive institutional environment may have transformed it in ways that, ironically, risk undermining rather than reinforcing its relevance. However, equally, the danger of not engaging means that UNHCR potentially risks being bypassed and becoming irrelevant.

Conclusion Concerned about irregular migration as a threat to security, Northern states have increasingly tried to avert their legal obligations to accept refugees who reach their territory through policies aimed at limiting asylum seekers’ access to their territory. In this context, they have created new institutional structures in relation to migration and humanitarianism, which exist in parallel to the refugee regime. These emerging regimes have some areas of overlap with the refugee regime. Both have implications for refugees’ access to asylum channels: the humanitarian regime, for example, implies an internal flight alternative to protection in another country and creates a competitive ‘humanitarian marketplace’; the migration regime has implications for refugees’ mobility and hence access to spontaneous arrival asylum. The new institutional proliferation has affected states’ strategies, enabling them to bypass UNHCR and the 1951 Convention, using the alternative regimes as a means to limit the arrival of asylum seekers onto their territory. The new institutions have allowed states to avoid their obligations under international refugee law but without overtly violating its central tenets. They have offered states alternative forums and implementing partners for addressing asylum in a way that meets those states’ related migration and security concerns. Without the new institutions these strategies would have been less viable for states because there would have been fewer means for Northern states to foster the levels of international cooperation required to limit asylum seekers’ ability to reach the borders of their territory. In turn, the institutional proliferation and states’ consequent regime shifting have affected UNHCR’s strategy as it has struggled to maintain its relevance. As the organisation’s principle have shifted from ‘its regime’

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to other regimes, it has adopted three strategies in order to maintain its relevance: adapting its mandate to compete with the emerging regimes; becoming a political actor in the other regimes; using issue-linkage to connect refugee protection to the politics of the other regimes. In other words, it has attempted to pursue states into the regimes into which they have shifted. In doing so, however, UNHCR has radically changed its own role, in ways that may threaten the basis of its moral authority. The case study offers insight into the unexplored question of the implications of regime complexity for IOs. It suggests that regime complexity represents a potentially important factor in influencing change in the role and strategy of IOs. As the institutional environment became increasingly competitive, UNHCR chose to adapt in order to maintain its relevance in the context of state regime shifting. In their work on IOs, Barnett and Finnemore (2004) also use UNHCR as a case study for exploring the process of IO adaptation and change. They argue that UNHCR has reinterpreted its mandate to become an organisation more focused on refugee repatriation than on refugee protection. They note specific ways in which the mandate gets reinterpreted. They attribute much of this change to the organisation’s own internal dynamics – or organisational pathologies. Contra Barnett and Finnemore, this chapter suggests that an important factor in driving change in UNHCR’s role and mandate has been the external environment. UNHCR has needed to adapt, not only to an increasingly complex world but also an increasingly complex and competitive institutional environment. As the Office continues to adapt, it will have to walk a tightrope between maintaining its relevance and upholding its core principles and the clarity of its mandate.

Notes 1. For example, in the cases of Tapia Paez v Sweden at the Committee Against Torture and Chahal v U.K. at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the states against which the cases were brought were prevented from deporting asylum seekers excluded from refugee status under the exclusion clauses of the 1951 Convention if they were likely to face torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment upon return. Tapia Paez v Sweden, CAT, Communication No. 39/1996; Chahal v United Kingdom (22414/93) [1996] ECHR 54 (15 November 1996). 2. For example, Sweden has used ‘internal flight alternative’ to return and reject refugees and asylum seekers from Iraq, The U.K. has done similarly in relation to refugees and asylum seekers from Afghanistan.

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References Alter, K. and Meunier, S. 2008. ‘The International Politics of Regime Complexity’, Manuscript under review, Perspectives on Politics. Barnett, M. and Finnemore, M. 2004. Rules for the World: International Organizations and Global Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Barutciski, M. 1996. ‘The Reinforcement of Non-Admission Policies and the Subversion of UNHCR: Displacement and Internal Assistance in BosniaHerzegovina (1992–94)’, International Journal of Refugee Law 8(1–2):49–110. Betts, A. 2008. ‘North-South Cooperation in the Refugee Regime: The Role of Linkages’, Global Governance, 14(2) (April-June): 157–178. Betts, A. 2009. ‘Institutional Proliferation and the Global Refugee Regime’, Perspectives on Politics (March), 7: 53–8. Betts, A. and Durieux, J.-F. 2007. ‘Convention Plus as a Norm-Setting Exercise’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(1): 509–535. Busch, M. 2007. ‘Overlapping Institutions, Forum Shopping, and Dispute Settlement in International Trade’, International Organization 61(4): 735–761. Castles, S. and Van Hear, N. 2005. ‘The Migration-Asylum Nexus: Definition and Significance’, Lecture given at COMPAS, University of Oxford, 27 January. Crisp, J. 2004. ‘A New Asylum Paradigm? Globalisation, Migration and the Uncertain Future of the International Refugee Regime’, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper No. 100, UNHCR: Geneva. Crisp, J. 2008. ‘Beyond the Nexus: UNHCR’s Evolving Perspective on Refugee Protection and International Migration’, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper No. 155, UNHCR: Geneva. Dubernet, C. 2003. The International Containment of Displaced Persons: Humanitarian Spaces Without Exit, Zed Books: Aldershot. Garlick, M. 2006. ‘The EU Discussions on Extraterritorial Processing: Solutions or Conundrum?’ International Journal of Refugee Law, 18(3): 601–629. Gorlick, B. 2000. ‘Human Rights and Refugees: Enhancing Protection through International Human Rights Law’, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper No. 30, UNHCR: Geneva. Haas, E. 1990. When Power is Knowledge, California: Berkeley. Hafner-Burton, E. 2005. ‘Forum Shopping for Human Rights: The Transformation of Preferential Trade’, Paper read at American Political Science Association Conference, September 1–4, 2004, at Washington DC. Hawkins, D. et al. (eds.) 2006. Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, New York: Cambridge University Press. Helfer, L. 2004. ‘Regime Shifting: The TRIPS Agreement and the New Dynamics of International Intellectual Property Making’, Yale Journal of International Law 29:1–81. Koehler, J. 2008. ‘What States Do and How They Organize Themselves in Regional Consultative Processes (RCPS)’ Paper presented at workshop on ‘ Migration and International Cooperation’, 7–8 August 2008, IOM Headquarters, Geneva. Koslowski, R. 2009. ‘Global Mobility Regime’, paper presented at the Global Mobility Regimes Conference, 27 April, the Levin Institute, New York City. Krasner, S. 1983. International Regimes, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY.

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Loescher, G. 2001. UNHCR and World Politics: The Perilous Path, Oxford: Oxford. Loescher, G., Betts, A., and Milner, J. 2008. UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection into the Twenty-First Century, Routledge: London. McAdam, J. 2007. Complementary Protection in International Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nielsen, A.-G. 2007. ‘Cooperation Mechanisms’, in Cholewinski, R. et al. (eds.) 2007. International Migration Law: Developing: Paradigms and Key Challenges (T.M.C Asser: Hague), pp. 405–426. Phuong, C. 2005. The International Protection of Internally Displaced Persons, Cambridge: Cambridge. Raustiala, K. and Victor, D. 2004. ‘The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources’, International Organization 58(2): 277–309. Rosenblum, M. and Salehyan, I. 2004. ‘Norms and interests in US asylum enforcement’, Journal of Peace Research 41(6): 677–697. Rudolph, C. 2006. National Security and Immigration, Stanford: Stanford. Salter, M. 2006. ‘The Global Visa Regime and the Political Technologies of the International Self’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 31(2): 167–189. Schuster, L. 2005. ‘The Realities of a New Asylum Paradigm’ COMPAS Working Papers Series, WP-05–20. Slaughter, A.-M. 2004. A New World Order, Princeton: Princeton. UNHCR.2007a. Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration: A 10-Point Plan of Action, UNHCR: Geneva. UNHCR. 2007b. ‘Discussion Paper: Refugee Protection and Durable Solutions in the Context of International Migration’, UNHCR/DPC/2007/doc.02. UNHCR. 2007c. ‘Chairman’s Summary, High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges’ Geneva, 12 December 2007. Weiss, T. and Korn, D. 2006. Internal Displacement: Conceptualization and its Consequences, Routledge: London. Young, O. 1996. ‘Institutional Linkages in International Society: Polar Perspectives’, Global Governance 2(1): 1–24.

Notes on Contributors Oliver Bakewell is a Senior Research Officer and James Martin Fellow at the International Migration Institute in the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. He has a PhD and MSc in development studies from the University of Bath (UK) and a BA in mathematics from the University of Cambridge. His research has focused on different forms of migration within, to and from Africa, with a particular interest in cross border movements between Zambia and Angola. Alexander Betts is the Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations at the University of Oxford, where he is Director of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Global Migration Governance project. He is author or editor of numerous books on the international politics of asylum and migration, including Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime (Cornell University Press), Global Migration Governance (Oxford University Press), and Refugees in International Relations (with Gil Loescher, Oxford University Press). Oli Brown is the Environmental Affairs Officer for the United Nations in Sierra Leone. Previously he was a Senior Researcher with the Environment and Security programme of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. In that role coordinated an Expert Advisory Group working with the United Nations Environment Programme on ways to integrate environmental and natural resource concerns such as climate-induced migration into the UN’s conflict prevention and peacebuilding work. Amber Callaway has worked as an information officer for USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) for the last two years. During that time, she has deployed to Pakistan, the Philippines, Kenya, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Amber received her B.A. in Sociology from Southwestern University in 2000 and her Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University in 2008.

Notes on Contributors   |   261

Michael Collyer is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Sussex. From June 2006 to July 2009 he was Marie Curie Outgoing International Fellow at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Karen Jacobsen is Associate Professor and Academic Director at the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, and teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts). She is also the director of the Refugees and Forced Migration Program at the Feinstein Center. Jacobsen’s current research focuses on urban refugees and IDPs, on livelihoods and financial practices in conflict-affected and disaster-affected areas. Ray Jureidini is Associate Professor of Sociology and the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. His research is on migration, xenophobia and human trafficking, with specific reference to the rights of refugees and female migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, Egypt and the Middle East generally. Xiao Junyong is the Director and Associate Professor at the Law Department at the University of International Relations in Beijing. Dr Xiao specializes in Constitutional and Human Rights Law and has published monographs on civil rights protection and the safeguarding of the rights of the vulnerable. Khalid Koser is Academic Dean and Head of the New Issues in Security Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and Non-resident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. Sang Lee is currently the Director of the Environmental Leadership Pathway and a Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests lie at the intersection of economic development and migration between countries in the global south. Philip Marfleet is Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies at the University of East London, UK. He has published widely on migration issues and Middle East affairs. Recent books include Refugees in a Global Era (Palgrave 2006); Museums, the Media and Refugees (with Goodnow & Lohman, Berghahn 2008); and Egypt: the Moment of Change (with El Mahdi, Zed 2009). Susan Martin holds the Donald G. Herzberg Chair in International Migration and serves as the Director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr Martin also directs the university’s Program on Refugees

262   |   Notes on Contributors

and Humanitarian Emergencies. Her publications include Refugee Women, The Uprooted: Improving Humanitarian Responses to Forced Migration, and numerous monographs and articles on immigration and refugee policy. Robert McLeman is Associate Professor of Geography and Coordinator of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Ottawa, Canada. A former diplomat and Associate of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, he has an active research programme that investigates the linkages between climate, environmental change, conflict and migration in a variety of regions. Robert Muggah is the Research Director of the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey and a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland. He is also a research fellow at the Centre for Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (Switzerland) and the Instituto de Relações Internacionais (Brazil) and an Associate of the Households in Conflict Network (UK), the Conflict Analysis Resource Centre (Colombia) and The SecDev Group (Canada). He routinely advises the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and has worked for multilateral and bilateral agencies in more than twenty countries. Nedson Pophiwa is a Research Specialist on Sustainable Development at the Africa Institute of South Africa. He previously worked as an Institutional Researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand, and prior to that as a Postgraduate Student with the Forced Migration Studies Programme at the same institution. He has conducted research on a variety of issues around migration in Southern Africa.

Index

Abbott, K.W. and Snidal, D. 243 Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire 11, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94n3, 94n7 Acharya, A.K. 230 Achvarina, V. and Reich, S. 228 Action Aid Survey 160 adaptive options 180–81, 190 Adger, W.N. 180, 191n7 Afghanistan 5, 6, 10, 11, 131–42 absorption capacity of 140 assistance and protection for returnees, inadequacies in 141 child-labour and trafficking 136 closing refugee camps, Pakistan policy of 134–5 complexity of internal displacement 137–8, 142 cross-border movements, ‘mixed flows’ of 139 displacement, overlap between security issues and 133 dynamics of Afghan displacement 132–3, 141–2 Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA) in Pakistan and 141 forced return, policies of 135 geopolitical struggle in, refugees as pawns in 140 Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) 135, 136 infrastructural deficiencies 136 instability in 131–2 insurgent activity in 132 Internal Displacement Monitoring

Centre (IDMC) 133, 137 internally displaced persons (IDPs) classification as 131, 135–7, 142 deterioration of conditions for 140 diversity in 142 increases in numbers of, reasons for 137–8 International Crisis Group (ICG) 136 Iran, Afghan refugees in 132, 135 irregular migrants, classification as 134–5 Kabul, infrastructure deficiencies in 140 land ownership and tenure, disputes over 136 migration-displacement nexus and continuity in 133, 142 and security in 139–41, 142 migration strategies 138–9, 142 natural disasters, proneness to 138 Pakistan, Afghan refugees in 132, 133, 134–5, 138–9, 141–2 political relations, IDPs and strains in 141 potential for migration from in climate change scenario 180 radicalisation in refugee camps 133 recycling, UNHCR programme of 138 refugee destinations 132 refugee permits, withdrawal of 135 repatriation, waves of 133, 134 returnees to, difficulties for 135–6

264   |   Index

security concerns in, climate change and 187 UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) 135–6 unemployment among returning refugees 140 ‘voluntary’ repatriation, halt to 140–41 Africa ‘eating the dry season’ in 173, 182, 183 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 244 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Protocol (1967) 14–15 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Refugee Convention (1969) 2, 242 resettlement in 40–41 Sahelian Africa, climate and migration from 173, 178 University for Peace Africa Programme 187 Aggarwal, R.K. 253 Agresto, J. 104, 114n14 Airriess, C.A. et al. 171 Akash, Shaikh ‘Adil Muhammad 205 Alfredson, L. 229 Algeria, potential for migration from 180, 188 Allawi, A. 102, 103, 104, 107, 115n18 Alter, K. and Meunier, S. 242, 243, 247 American Friends Associations 39 Amnesty International 139–40 Anfal campaign against Kurds in Iraq 99 Annan, J. et al. 229 anthropogenic climate change 168, 175, 177–8, 179, 186, 190 Appell, G. and Appell-Warren, L. 48n3 Apthorpe, R. 35 Arab Families Working Group 197 Argentina, sex trafficking in 225 Armenian evacuees from Lebanon 204

Asian Development Bank (ADB) 31 Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) 244 asylum concerns of Northern states 248–9 Atkinson, J. 158 Attalah, S. 209 Australian Defence Force (ADF), Operation Ramp 201 autonomous adaptive migration 173–4 Baker, G. and Chapman, D. 43 Bakewell, Oliver 14–28, 82, 260 Bakhet, O. 40 Bales, K. 221 Bangladesh floods in 176 migrants in Lebanon 206 potential for migration from 180 Banham, C. and Macey, R. 184 Barboza , D. 224 Barnett, J. and Adger, N. 181 Barnett, M. and Finnemore, M. 257 Barrows, H. 43 Barthélémy, P. 169 Barutciski, M. 255 Batatu, H. 98 Ba’th Party in Iraq 96, 99 DeBa’thification of Iraqi Society (CPA) 103, 104–5 Baulch, B. and McCulloch, N. 188 Beall, J. and Schütte, S. 136, 137 Belser, P. 218 Benson, L. et al. 170 Benthal, J. 44 Bertrand, M. et al. 159 Betts, A. and Durieux, J.-F. 253 Betts, Alexander 239–59, 260 Betts, R. 41 Black, R. 21, 39, 40, 45, 46, 61 Bloch, A. 18, 26 Boano, C. et al. 16 bonded labour 220–27 Borger, J. 169, 186 Bracking, S. 158 Brah, A. 113

Index   |   265

Brazil migrants from, evacuees from Lebanon 204 sex trafficking in 225 Bremer III, L. Paul 102, 104, 105, 106, 114n13 Bretton, M. and Masunungure, E. 160 Brigham, R. 101 Britain colonial fighting in Iraq 97–8, 114n5 Operation Highbrow in Lebanon 202 patronage, British encouragement in Iraq of relations of 98 Britton, N. 43 Brodie, M. et al. 171 Brokenshaw, D. and Scudder, T. 34 Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement labelling migrants, entitlement and 61–2 trafficking and internal displacement 219 Brown, E. 218 Brown, L.R. and Halweil, B. 176 Brown, O. et al. 191n5 Brown, Oli 168–96, 260 Bryavan, S. and Rajan, S.C. 169, 184 Buckland, P.C. et al. 170 Burma, post-Nargis 185–6 Burton, I. et al. 180 Busch, M. 243 Byravan, S and Rajan, S.C. 184 Cahda, N. 212n1 Callaway, Amber 216–38, 260 Cambodia sex trafficking in 225 trafficking of women and children in 224–5 Canada, Operation Lion in Lebanon 202 Caritas 108, 109, 206–7, 210, 211, 212n1 Carlos, Juan 125, 126, 127 Carrington, W.J. and Detragiache, E. 182, 183

Carroll A.J. et al. 178 Cartagena Declaration (1984) 242 Castles, S. 18, 21, 46 Castles, S. and Van Hear, N. 239 categorization checkpoints, categorization of ethnicity at 72 classification systems (and artificial nature of) 2–4, 7, 8, 9 condition and category, change over time in 25 evolution of migrationdisplacement nexus 23–5 ‘in-place,’ categorization as 73 irregular migrants in Afghanistan, classification as 134–5 ‘migrant,’ categorization as 73 migration and displacement, relationship as categories 24–5, 26 ‘out-of-place,’ categorization as 74 problems in Nicaragua 128 settlers and resettlers, labelling of 32 Catherwood, C. 97 Cernea, M. 29, 30, 31, 36, 37, 46, 48, 48n3 Cernea, M. and Mathur, H. 31, 33 Cernea, M. and McDowell, C, 34 Chambers, R. 29, 30, 32, 34, 35 Chambers, R. and Colson, E. 36 Chamier, J.A. 114n5 Chandrasekaran, R. 102, 103, 104 Chiapas, Mexico, sexual exploitation in 230 child domestics 222–3 child marriage, forced 226 child soldiers 228–9 China city residents need for migrant workers 150 demand for cheap labour in 223–4 development-induced internal displacement, political response to 152 discrimination 149–50 Dongguan, Guangdong Province 150

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employment rates 147–8 ‘floating population’ in 145–6, 147, 152, 154 food poisoning 149 gender imbalance in 226 Gezhouba Dam Project 152 Horizon Research Group 150 Hunan Morning Post 149 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in, variety of 145–6 Land Management Law (1998) 152 living conditions 148–51 Longyangxia Project 152 migrant worker population, growth of 147 migrant workers in 146–51 migration-displacement nexus in 1, 6, 11–12, 145–55 natural disasters, migrants displaced by 146 Nierji Project 152 North-South Cross-Country WaterTransfer Project 152 project resettlements in 151–3 protections for displaced workers, challenge of 152–3 resettlement projects, migrants displaced by 146 returning home 151 rural to urban migrants 145–6, 146–7 socio-economic characteristics 147–8 spare time activities 150–51 Spring Festival 150, 151 street children in 146, 153–4 Suzhou Industrial Park 149 undernourishment 149 Water Law (2002) 152 working conditions 148–51 working hours 148 Wulanhaote City, Inner Mongolia 149 Xiaolangdi Project 152 Yangtze River Three Gorges Project 152 Christian Aid 176

Chunfei, X et al. 151 Churchill, Winston 97, 113 Ciezadlo, A. 115n15 Civil Monitoring Commission 75–6 civil war in Nicaragua 120 Clarance, W. 62 Clarke, B. 226 Cliggett, L. 22 climate change and human migration adaptive options 180–81, 190 Afghanistan potential for migration from 180 security concerns in 187 Algeria, potential for migration from 180, 188 anthropogenic climate change 168, 175, 177–8, 179, 186, 190 areas vulnerable to climate change, plans for migrants from 169 autonomous adaptive migration 173–4 Bangladesh floods in 176 potential for migration from 180 barriers to mobility 190 Burma, post-Nargis 185–6 Christian Aid 176 climate change, estimates of impact and timing of migration resulting from 177–9, 190 climate-related migration political rhetoric surrounding 169 world policymaking responses 183–4 climate-related population displacements 176 climatic conditions, changes in 172 coastal community abandonment, patterns of 175 conflict, links between climaterelated migration and 186–9 Darfur, problem of 186–7 destinations of climate change migrants 182–6 displacements, current estimates and future forecasts compared 177

Index   |   267

distress migration, triggers of 187, 188 drought conditions, common in North American Great Plains 172–3, 174 ‘eating the dry season in Africa’ 173, 182, 183 environmental change, population patterns and 170 environmental refugees, idea of 175–6 flight from ‘sudden-onset’ climate events 171 future climate-related migration patterns 183 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN, 1998) 184–6 historical human settlement, migration patterns and 170–71 Human Rights Watch 185 Hurricane Katrina 171–2, 180 Hurricane Mitch in Honduras 176 An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore film) 168 Institute for Environment and Human Security (UN University) 176 Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) 168 internally displaced persons (IDPs), climate change resulting in 184 international level resettlement 184–5 limitations on application of UN Guiding Principles 185–6 linkages between climate change and migration 170–75 long-distance migration 182–3 mean sea level rise (MSLR) 175, 177 migration patterns, climate change and 189–90 natural and human processes, interactions between 180 North American Great Plains 172– 3, 174, 176, 181 numbers at risk of forced

relocation, estimates of 175–7 Pakistan potential for migration from 180 security concerns in 187–8 population displacements, possibility of 169–70 populations likely to suffer from climate change 179–81, 181–2, 190 Refugee Convention (1951) 183–4 refugee-like adaptive migration 173–4 refugees officially recognized by UNHCR 176 relocation mechanisms, lack of 184 risks to human wellbeing, evidence of seriousness of 190 Sahelian Africa, climate and migration from 173, 178 scarcities of critical resources, problem of 187 sea level rises, exposure to 169, 174–5 security, links between climaterelated migration and 186–9 shoreline, communities, risks to 175 social groups most likely to suffer from climate change 181–2 social networks, transnational communities and 183 Somalia, potential for migration from 180, 188 Sri Lanka, potential for migration from 180, 188 stability, links between climaterelated migration and 186–9 study of, central questions for 169 Sudan, potential for migration from 180 ‘sudden-onset’ climate events 171, 175 thermohaline circulation interruption 178 UN Day of Disaster Reduction (2005) 176

268   |   Index

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 185, 188–9 University for Peace Africa Programme 187 Worldwatch Institute 176 Yangtze River floods 176 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq 103, 104–5, 106, 113 coastal community abandonment, patterns of 175 Cockburn, P. 105, 107, 113, 114n11, 114n13 Cohen, R. 15, 185, 186 collateral debt bondage 221 Collyer, Michael 61–78, 260 colonial state of Iraq 97–9 Colson, E. 22, 30, 32, 34, 35, 37, 40 Colville, R. 132 communalism 106–7 complexity of internal displacement in Afghanistan 137–8, 142 international responses to migration-displacement nexus 242–3 conflict conflict-affected trafficking 227–8 Conflict-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (CIDR) 38–42, 47–8 evolution of migrationdisplacement nexus and 18 links between climate-related migration and 186–9 operations in, labelling migrants and 63 Contras (counter-revolutionaries) in Nicaragua 120 Convention Against Torture (CAT) 243 Costa Rica, Nicaraguan migration to 119–29 Crisp, Jeff 26, 27, 38, 40, 244, 251 Darfur, problem of 186–7 Davis, M. 170 Davis, M. and Seitz, S. 43, 44, 45

De Jong, G.F. and Fawcett, J.T. 18 De Waal, A. 186 de Wet, C. 48n3 debt bondage 220–27 sectoral prevalence of 221 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 18 Deng, Francis (Representative on IDPs) 219 Development-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (DIDR) 34–7, 47–8 DeWind, J. 15 displacement circumstances of, fate of IDPs and 112 as condition difference from migration 22 experience of 23 current estimates and future forecasts compared 177 displaced and recipient families In Zimbabwe, study of 156–7 dynamics of Afghan displacement 132–3, 141–2 economic migrants, forcible displacement and classification as 81 fate of displaced people in Iraq 109–12 health effects in Zimbabwe 158 migration and displacement, concepts used differently at different times 18–19 migration processes and 21 multiple displacement, family disintegration and 123–4 narratives of displaced in Zimbabwe 161–5 overlap between security issues in Afghanistan and 133 patterns of, complex nature of 99–101 population displacements, climate change and possibility of 169– 70 potential neglect of new solutions to problems of 26

Index   |   269

pressures for 108–9 reversal possibility for 23 Dissolution of Entities (CPA) in Iraq 103 distress migration, triggers of 187, 188 Docena, H. 205 domestic servitude 222–5 Dongguan, Guangdong Province 150 Drabek, T. 44 drought conditions in North American Great Plains 172–3, 174 Dubernet, C. 255 Dunham, D. 32 Dwivedi, R. 36 The Economist 103 Egeland, J. 219 Egyptian evacuees from Lebanon 203–4 Eisenman, D.P. et al. 171 El-Hinnawi, E. 45 Elliott, J.R. and Pais, J. 171 employment profiling urban IDPs, arbitrariness and 89–90 rates for migrant workers in China 147–8 Engel, S. and Ibáñez, A.M. 18 Enríquez, L.J. 120 environmental degradation climate change and, need for NIDR research in light of 45–6 population patterns and 170 environmental refugees, idea of 175–6 Ethiopians in Lebanon 206 ethnic cleansing in Iraq 107–9 ethnic conflict in Iraq 98–9 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 243 European Union (EU) Council Directive (2004) 242 ‘external dimension’ of 248 Justice and Home Affairs ( JHA) policy 244 Evans, M. 80 evolution of migration-displacement nexus 10, 14–27

agency levels 20–21 categorization 23–5 change, degree involved 20 clarity in use of terms, need for 26 condition 22–3 and category, change over time in 25 conflicts driving movement 18 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 18 displacement migration processes and 21 potential neglect of new solutions to problems of 26 reversal possibility for 23 displacement as condition difference from migration 22 experience of 23 forced and ‘voluntary’ migrants, mobility of 18 forced migration, study of 14, 15 Gwembe Tonga Research Project 22 human rights protection 15 human suffering 15 institutional engagement level 20 Inter-Agency Standing Committee 16 internally displaced persons (IDPs) 15, 23, 26 Journal of Refugee Studies 14–15 Kariba Dam 22 mapping migration process 21 migration and displacement concepts used differently at different times 18–19 relationship as categories 24–5, 26 relationship as conditions 22–3, 25–6 relationship as processes 19–20, 25–6 migration as condition, experience of 23 migration-displacement nexus, contradictions within 17 migration extent 20

270   |   Index

migration induced by climate change 16 migration rationales 20 migration timescales 20 OAU Protocol (1967) 14–15 policy concerns, focus of 15 process 19–22 Refugee Convention (1951) 14–15, 16 refugee studies 14–15 refugees, distinctive status of 17 refugees and migrants, UNHCR distinction between 16 South Africa, Zimbabweans in 26 theoretical outlook, choice of 21 Fagan, B. 170 Fan, M. 224 Farrag, M. 119 Farrell, N. 204 Fawcett, J. and Tanner, V. 114n1 Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA) in Pakistan and Afghanistan 141 Feinstein International Centre (FIC) 80 Feiqiu, Y. 152 Feller, E. 16, 24 Ferris, E. 141 Filipinas in Lebanon 206, 209–10 Fisk, R. 115n15 FitzGerald, D.M. et al. 175 Fitzgibbon, K. 223, 225 Fixico, D.L. 170 ‘floating population’ in China 145–6, 147, 152, 154 food poisoning in China 149 Forbes, S. 46 forced labour and domestic servitude 222–5 forced marriage 226 Ford, J. et al. 177 Foster, M. 17 French sea and air mission, Operation Baliste in Lebanon 201 Gambia, talibe boys trafficked in 225 Garber, K. 169

Garlick, M. 240, 244 General Security in Lebanon 206–7 Geneva Convention on protection of non-combatants 199 Georgia 82 Gezhouba Dam Project in China 152 Ghana Ghanaians in Lebanon 206 sex trafficking in 226 Girot, P.O. 171, 176 Glantz, M. 43 Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) 244–5 Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) 245, 249 Goodson, L.P. 132 Gore, Al 168 Gorlick, B. 240, 243 Grabska, K. and Mehta, L. 31 Guatemala, sexual exploitation in 230 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN, 1998) 2 climate change and human migration 184–6 internal displacement, trafficking and 217, 219, 233–5 international responses to migration-displacement nexus, UNHCR and 245–6 labelling migrants, entitlement and 62, 74 limitations on application of 185–6 resettlement 38, 42 Zimbabwe, extended family protection in 165 Guild, E. 240 Guterres, Antonio 250, 251, 252 Gwembe Tonga Research Project 22 Haas, E. 253 Habib, M. 212n1 Haddad, E. 240 Hafner-Burton, E. 243 Haldane, Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer L. 114n6 Hammond, L.C. 23 Hampshire, K. 191n1

Index   |   271

Hansen, A. 26, 41 Hansen, A. and Oliver-Smith, A. 44 Hariri Foundation 209 Harper, A. 115n20 Harper, Stephen 202 Harrell-Bond, B. 36, 38 Hasan, A. 187 Hathaway, J. 15, 25, 39, 42, 45 Haug, G.H. et al. 170 Hawkins, D. et al. 254 Helfer, L. 243 Herring, E. and Rangwala, G. 107 Hewitt, K. 43, 44 High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges (UNHCR, 2007) 251 history evolution of resettlement 30 human settlement, migration patterns and 170–71 HIV/AIDS 217, 225, 229 ‘homeboy’ concept in Zimbabwe 159–60 Homer-Dixon, T. 46, 54, 186, 187 Hoole, R. et al. 65 Horizon Research Group 150 host communities, importance of good relations with 93 Houghton, J.T. et al. 178 household relations in Zimbabwe, composition of 159–60 human rights instruments of 198–9 Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq 108 protection for 2, 15, 39, 42, 61–2, 71–2, 212, 219–20, 245–7 regime of, complementary nature of 243 violation of 71–2, 74, 75–6, 77, 85, 161, 216 Human Rights Watch (HRW) climate change and human migration 185 labelling migrants, entitlement and 71 Lebanon, evacuations during conflict in (2006) 198

Zimbabwe, extended family protection in 161 human trafficking see internal displacement, trafficking and Hunan Morning Post 149 Huq, S. 191n7 Hurricane Katrina 171–2, 180 Hurricane Mitch in Honduras 176 Hussein, Saddam 102, 105, 106, 113 Ibrahim, A. 203, 204 An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore film) 168 Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in Afghanistan 135, 136 India Indians in Lebanon 206 naval evacuation from Lebanon, Operation Sukoon 201–2 sex trafficking in 225–6 Institute for Environment and Human Security (UN University) 176 institutional proliferation 240–41, 242–3, 243–4, 248, 256–7 Instituto Agrario Nacíonal (IAN) in Nicaragua 122 Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 16 international responses to migration-displacement nexus 245–6 labelling migrants, entitlement and 70 Lebanon, evacuations during conflict in (2006) 200 interdependence, challenges of 239– 40, 242–3 Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC) 244, 249 Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) 168 internal displacement, trafficking and Argentina, sex trafficking in 225 bonded labour 220–27 Brazil, sex trafficking in 225 Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement 219

272   |   Index

Cambodia sex trafficking in 225 trafficking of women and children in 224–5 Chiapas, Mexico, sexual exploitation in 230 child marriage, forced 226 child soldiers 228–9 children in domestic employment 222–3 China demand for cheap labour in 223–4 gender imbalance in 226 collateral debt bondage 221 conflict-affected trafficking 227–8 debt bondage 220–27 Deng, Francis (Representative on IDPs) 219 domestic servitude 222–5 economic vulnerability, debt bondage and 221–2 forced labour and domestic servitude 222–5 forced marriage 226 Gambia, talibe boys trafficked in 225 Ghana, sex trafficking in 226 Guatemala, sexual exploitation in 230 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN, 1998) 217, 219, 233–5 HIV/AIDS and 217, 225, 229 human trafficking 217–18 India, sex trafficking in 225–6 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) 218–19, 227, 228, 230 internal trafficking global phenomenon of 226–7 for labour exploitation 220 internally displaced persons (IDPs) 218–19 International Labour Organization (ILO) 218, 222, 223, 224, 225 International Organization for Migration (IOM) 217, 224–5

international peacekeeping, sexual exploitation in conditions of 231–2 Kenya, sexual exploitation in 230 Lithuania, sex trafficking in 225 Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda 229 Mali, caste-based slavery in 225 Mauritania caste-based slavery in 225 talibe boys trafficked in 225 migration-displacement nexus and 6, 9, 13, 216–36 Nepal, trafficking of village girls in 224 Nepalese Youth Foundation 222–3 Niger, caste-based slavery in 225 Paraguay, sex trafficking in 225 post-conflict sexual exploitation 230–31 protection, framework for 232–5 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2003) 217, 218, 232–3 Refugee Convention (1951) 219 rural children, recruitment of 223 Save the Children 221–2 sectoral prevalence of debt bondage 221 Senegal, talibe boys trafficked in 225 sexual exploitation internal trafficking for 225–7 vulnerability to 229–32 sexual slavery, forced ‘marriage’ and 230 Thai-Cambodian border, sexual exploitation on 230 Thailand, sex trafficking in 225 trafficking and displacement of children for forced labour 223 in conflict situations 227–32 in stable situations 219–20 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and the

Index   |   273

Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956) 220–21 UNICEF (Childrens Fund) 221–2, 226, 228 US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report (2007) 220, 224, 225 US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report (2008) 217–18, 223, 225, 228 victims of trafficking 217–18 Vietnam, sex trafficking in 225 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC, Norwegian Refugee Council) Afghanistan 133, 137 internal displacement, trafficking and 218–19, 227, 228, 230 profiling urban IDPs, arbitrariness and 79–80 Zimbabwe, extended family protection in 157–8, 161 internally displaced persons (IDPs) categorization of 61, 62 in China, variety of 145–6 classification in Afghanistan as 131, 135–7, 142 climate change resulting in 184 definition as 77 deterioration of conditions for 140 differential treatment for 62 difficulties of making distinctions between 79–80 diversity in 142 emergence of issue of 245–6 evolution of migrationdisplacement nexus 15, 23, 26 hidden aspects of crisis in Zimbabwe 158, 161 increases in numbers of, reasons for 137–8 institutional frameworks for, use of 248–9 internal displacement, trafficking and 218–19 invisibility of urban IDPs 82

marooned and vulnerable, prey to weak government 112–13 and non-IDPs, differences between 83, 87, 88, 92 political relations in Afghanistan, IDPs and strains in 141 protection of, issue of 251–2 receptiveness in Iraq to 111–12 recognition as 66–7 resettlement 33 settlement of, UNHCR perspective on 33 uneven distribution in Iraq of 99–101 urban migration strategies 80–81 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 199 International Crisis Group (ICG) Afghanistan 136 Iraq, displacement and state in 108–9 International Disaster Assistance, Committee on 42 International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) 42 international institutions, relationship with UNHCR 240 International Labour Organization (ILO) internal displacement, trafficking and 218, 222, 223, 224, 225 international responses to migration-displacement nexus, UNHCR and 245 international level resettlement 184–5 International Organization for Migration (IOM) internal displacement, trafficking and 217, 224–5 international responses to migration-displacement nexus, UNHCR and 245 Lebanon, evacuations during conflict in (2006) 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211 international peacekeeping, sexual exploitation in conditions of 231–2

274   |   Index

international responses to migrationdisplacement nexus, UNHCR and 13, 239–57 Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) 244 asylum concerns of Northern states 248–9 beginnings of refugee regime 239– 40, 247–8 Cartagena Declaration (1984) 242 competitive institutional environment, UNHCR and 241 complexity 242–3 Convention Against Torture (CAT) 243 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 244 emergence of issue of IDPs 245–6 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 243 European Council Directive (2004) 242 European Union (EU) ‘external dimension’ of 248 Justice and Home Affairs ( JHA) policy 244 Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) 244–5 Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) 245, 249 global migration governance 240 globalization, challenges of 239– 40, 242–3 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN, 1998) 245–6 High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges (2007) 251 human rights regime, complementary nature of 243 institutional frameworks for IDPs, use of 248–9 institutional mechanisms 241 institutional proliferation 240–41, 242–3, 243–4, 248, 256–7 Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 245–6

interdependence, challenges of 239–40, 242–3 Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC) 244, 249 international institutions, relationship with UNHCR 240 International Labour Organization (ILO) 245 international migration, regulation of 244 International Organization for Migration (IOM) 245 issue-linkage 253–4 itinerant political actors 252–3 mandate adaptation 250–52 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 244 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention (1969) 242 politics for refugee protection, location of 249 politics of protection, impact of refugee regime complex on 247–9 protection of IDPs, issue of 251–2 pursuit of principals vs pursuit of principles 254–6 Refugee Convention (1951) 241, 247, 248, 256 refugee regime complex 242–7 Regional Consultative Processes (RCPs) 244 South African Development Community (SADC) 244 South-North migration, globalization and 243–4, 247–8 spontaneous arrival asylum 241 strategic response of UNHCR and consequences 249–56 UN High Level Dialogue in Migration and Development (2005) 245 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) 245, 249, 252 UN Peacebuilding Commission 249 UN Security Council 249

Index   |   275

World Bank 249 World Food Programme (WFP) 252 Iraq, displacement and state in 1, 11, 96–115 Afghan refugees in 132, 135 Anfal campaign against Kurds 99 assault on state 101–3 Ba’th Party control 99 Ba’thist regime, forced migration as policy of 96 borders, dividing lines within 113 Bremer’s reallocation policies 102–3 British colonial fighting in Iraq 97–8, 114n5 Christians, flight of 108 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) 103, 104–5, 106, 113 colonial state 97–9 communalism 106–7 corroded and corrupt state 112–14 cumulative causation of displacement 109 DeBa’athification of Iraqi Society (CPA) 103, 104–5 desperation of migrants 111 development state structures, aim to erase Arab socialism and 102 displacement, pressures for 108–9 displacement circumstances, fate of IDPs and 112 Dissolution of Entities (CPA) 103 ethnic cleansing 107–9 ethnic conflict 98–9 eviction of illegal settlers in Baghdad 110 fate of displaced people 109–12 forcible population movements 97–8 immiseration and ill-health among IDPs 111 impoverished conditions if IDPs 110–11 independence for Iraq 98–9 intelligentsia, disintegration of 105 internal borders, enforcement of 109

International Crisis Group (ICG) 108–9 invasion aftermath, new conflicts in 104–5 living conditions, decline in 108–9 marooned and vulnerable IDPs, prey to weak government 112–13 mass displacement, profits from 113 mass population movements in Iraq 96–7 migration crisis, new displacements and 99–101 Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq 108 national culture, state and 105 neo-con visions of post-invasion Iraq 102 Ottoman Empire, break-up of 97 patronage, British encouragement of relations of 98 patterns of displacement, complex nature of 99–101 population ‘exchanges’ 109 pre-displacement measures 109 professionals, murders and ‘disappearances’ of 105 Public Distribution System (PDS) 103, 110–11 Qasim, expectations of General Abel-Karim 98–9 receptiveness to IDPs 111–12 Repatriation and Reintegration Plan (UNHCR, 2003) 106–7, 115n16 repression and penalisation of ethno-religious groups 96–7 Return Advisory Regarding Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Refugees (UNHCR) 108 scarce resources, tensions over access to 111–12 sectarian militias, proliferation of 107–8 UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) 110

276   |   Index

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) 103, 111 uneven distribution of IDPs 99–101 ‘unmixing’ communities 97, 113 visa requirements of neighbouring states, tightening of 109–10 World Food Program (WFP) 103 Israeli invasion against Hezbollah in Lebanon 197–8 issue-linkage 253–4 itinerant political actors 252–3 Jacobs, J. 34 Jacobsen, Karen 33, 79–95, 159, 261 Jacobson, J.L. 176 Jaffna, instability in 65 Jeganathan, P. 72 Jian, F. and Hongyu, W. 145 Jonakin, J. and Enríquez, L. 121 Journal of Refugee Studies 14–15 Jureidini, R. 206 Jureidini, Ray 197–215, 261 Kabul, infrastructure deficiencies in 140 Kadiragama, Lakshman 65 Kamete, A.Y. 158 Kanapathipillai, V. 72 Kaplan, R.D. 186, 187 Kapp, C. 158 Karakat, P. and Hannurkar, S. 33 Kariba Dam 22 Kelly, P.M. and Adger, W.N. 180 Kenya, sexual exploitation in 230 Khan, S.R. 188 Khartoum, Sudan 11 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) 84 Darfur 84 definition of IDPs in 84–5 North-South Civil War (1982–2005) 84 profiling urban IDPs, arbitrariness and 82, 83, 84–5, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94n1 Transitional Zone/Three Areas 84

Kibreab, G. 25, 31, 32, 37, 41 Klein, N. 102, 104, 115n17 Koehler, J. 240 Koser, K. and Schmeidl, S. 131 Koser, Khalid 1–13, 61, 131–44, 210, 239, 261 Koslowski, R. 240 Kronenfeld, David 18, 132, 133, 138, 139 labelling migrants, entitlement and 9, 10–11, 61–77 abuse of migrants 71–2 Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement 61–2 categorization of IDPs 61, 62 ceasefire violations 65, 71 checkpoints categorization of ethnicity at 72 house searches and 70 citizenship in Sri Lanka, contradictions in 72–3 Civil Monitoring Commission 75–6 concentrations of migrants in Colombo 68 conflict operations 63 definition as IDP 77 differential treatment for IDPs 62 disappearances of ‘out-of-place’ migrants 75–6 districts of origin of migrants to Colombo 63–4 evictions and ‘voluntary return’ from Colombo 70 factors influencing migration to Colombo 69–70 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN, 1998) 62, 74 human rights abuses in Colombo 71 Human Rights Watch (HRW) 71 ‘in-place,’ categorization as 73 Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 70 intimidation of Tamil migrants 70–71 Jaffna, instability in 65

Index   |   277

kidnapping 71 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 65, 66, 70, 75, 76 life in Colombo, expense of 76–7 lifetime migrants in Colombo 63 ‘migrant,’ categorization as 73 migration to Colombo historical and political contexts of 63–7, 76 vulnerability, security and 67–72 mobility 62–3, 72–6, 77 to Colombo, registering and recording 72–6 National Identity Card (NIC) 72–4 organised violence, episodes of 65 ‘out-of-place,’ categorization as 74 recognition as IDP 66–7 research aims and methodology 67–9 Resettlement Ministry 66–7 security 67–72, 73, 76 Sri Lankan Army (SLA) 66 Tamil exodus from Colombo 66 terrorist attacks 70 torture 71 vulnerability 62–3, 67–72, 74–5, 76, 77 of ‘out-of-place’ migrants 74–5 labelling of resettlement 31–3 land is work in Nicaragua 124–5 Land Management Law (1998) in China 152 land ownership and tenure in Afghanistan 136 land utilisation in resettlement 34 Lanham, M.D. 236n7 Lanjouw, S. et al. 185 Latin American Migration Project (LAMP) 122 Leach, M. and Fairhead, J. 46 Lebanon, evacuations during conflict in (2006) 2, 12–13, 197–212 Akash, Shaikh ‘Adil Muhammad, destruction of home of 205 Arab Families Working Group 197 Armenian evacuees 204

Australian Defence Force (ADF), Operation Ramp 201 Bangladeshis in Lebanon 206 Brazilian evacuees 204 British, Operation Highbrow 202 Canadian, Operation Lion 202 Caritas 108, 109, 206–7, 210, 211, 212n1 collaborative emergency actions of NGOs 206–7 cooperation rather than competition, need for 204 Egyptian evacuees 203–4 Ethiopians in Lebanon 206 evacuation of foreign nationals 198 exodus, extraordinary nature of 209–10 Filipinas in Lebanon 206, 209–10 foreign government actions on behalf of expatriots 201–5 foreign nationals caught in conflict 198 French sea and air mission, Operation Baliste 201 General Security 206–7 Geneva Convention on protection of non-combatants 199 Ghanaians in Lebanon 206 Hariri Foundation 209 human rights instruments 198–9 Human Rights Watch 198 Indian Navy, Operation Sukoon 201–2 Indians in Lebanon 206 Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 200 international agencies and ‘third country’ nationals 205–10 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 199 International Organization for Migration (IOM) 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211 international protection for labour emigrants, need for 211 Israeli invasion against Hezbollah 197–8

278   |   Index

Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) 200 Mediterranean naval forces, mobilization of 203 migrant population, extent of 206 Moldovian evacuees 204 Nepalese in Lebanon 206 Nigerians in Lebanon 206 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and ‘third country’ nationals 205–10 Palestine refugees, problems of 205 panic for safety 204–5 protection of migrants (or nonnationals) during conflict, rights and obligations in 199 Red Crescent Movement 200 Red Cross Movement 200 Regional Task Force, establishment of 200 Romanian evacuees 204 Russian evacuees 204 Sri Lankans in Lebanon 205, 206, 208–9, 210 Swedish evacuees 204 Swiss Cooperation 200 Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARC) 200 Ukrainian evacuees 204 UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (MWC, 2003) 198–9, 211 UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) 201 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) 200 UN Security Council Resolution 1296 (para.8) 199–200 UNHCR emergency teams 200 United States, Operation Strengthen Hope 203 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) 199–200 World Health Organization

(WHO) 200 World Vision 200 Leiderman, S. 46 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 65, 66, 70, 75, 76 Lischer, S.K. 133 Lithuania, sex trafficking in 225 living conditions decline in Iraq of 108–9 migrant workers in China 148–51 Loescher, G. 140, 249 Loescher, G. et al. 252 Lomo, Z.A. 17 long-distance migration 182–3 Longyangxia Project in China 152 Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda 229 Los Angeles Times 171 McAdam, J. 240, 243 McDonald, S. 201 McDowell, C. 48n3 Mace, M.J. 191n7 McEwen, A. and Nolan, S. 136 Mcgranahan, G. et al. 175 McLeman, R. and Smit, B. 181 McLeman, R. et al. 174, 176, 182 McLeman, Robert 168–96, 262 McNamara, D. 106 McPherson, P. 104 Madebwe, V. and Madebwe, C. 158 Magdalena Department, Colombia 86 Maley, W. 131–2, 134, 139 Mali, caste-based slavery in 225 Malkki, L. 22, 28, 41, 55 Manawadu, L. 67 mandate adaptation 250–52 mapping migration process 21 Marfleet, Philip 96–118, 261–2 Martin, P. 236n7 Martin, Susan 1–13, 216–38, 236n7, 239, 262 Massey, D. and Zenteno, R. 120 Matagalpa department in Nicaragua 120, 121, 122, 123–4, 125–6, 127, 128 Mathur, H. 48n3

Index   |   279

Matthew, R.A. 188 Mauritania caste-based slavery in 225 talibe boys trafficked in 225 Mbeki, Thabo 161 Meagher, K. 191n1 mean sea level rise (MSLR) 175, 177 Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) 200 Mediterranean naval forces, mobilization of 203 Meehl, G.A. and Tebaldi, C. 178 Messina, A.M. and Lahav, G. 119 Mhangami, M. 157, 158 migration and displacement categories, relationship as 24–5, 26 concepts used differently at different times 18–19 conditions, relationship as 22–3, 25–6 phases of migration and displacement 2–3 processes, relationship as 19–20, 25–6 migration-displacement nexus in Afghanistan 5, 6, 10, 11, 131–42 causes of 6–8 in China 1, 6, 11–12, 145–55 classification systems (and artificial nature of) 2–4, 7, 8, 9 climate change, migration and 10, 12, 168–91 complexities of 1–2 concept of 4–6 consequences of 8–10 contradictions within 17 evolution of 10, 14–27 geographical categorization 3 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement 2 institutional ‘proliferation’ and 9–10 internal displacement, trafficking and 6, 9, 13, 216–36 internally displaced persons (IDPs) 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 international responses to, UNHCR and 13, 239–57

in Iraq 1, 11, 96–115 irregular migrants 5 labelling migrants, entitlement and 9, 10–11, 61–77 in Lebanon 2, 12–13, 197–212 mandates for dealing with 3–4 mixed flows 4–5 motivations of individual migrants 4 in Nicaragua 4, 11, 119–29 OAU Refugee Convention (1969) 2 phases of migration and displacement 2–3 profiling urban IDPs, arbitrariness and 11, 79–94 resettlement 3, 8, 10, 29–48 in Sri Lanka 9, 10–11, 61–77 status changes by migrants 5 survival strategies of migrants 5 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) 2 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 2, 5, 13 Zimbabwe, extended family protection in 12, 156–66 Miko, F. 218 Mimura, N. et al. 184 mobility to Colombo, registering and recording 72–6 forced and ‘voluntary’ migrants, mobility of 18 labelling migrants, entitlement and 62–3, 72–6, 77 and relocation within cities 90, 91 modernization theory, resettlement and 30 Mohsen, F. 212n1 Moldovian evacuees from Lebanon 204 Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq 108 Monsutti, A. 139 Mooney, E. 15, 23 Morales, A. and Castro, C. 127 Mordt, M. 122

280   |   Index

Morgan, T. 105 Morris, S.S. et al. 171 Morris, T. 16 Mortimore, M.J. and Adams, W.M. 191n1 Mugabe, Robert 157 Muggah, Robert 29–60, 262 Muravchik, J. 102, 114n10 Murphy, K. 198, 205, 206 Myers, N. 45, 176 narratives of displaced in Zimbabwe 161–5 National Basic Foods Enterprise (ENABAS) in Nicaragua 121, 123 National Development Bank (BANADES) in Nicaragua 121, 122–3 National Identity Card (NIC) 72–4 natural and human processes, interactions between 180 Natural Disaster-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (NIDR) 42–7, 47–8 natural disasters developmental challenges and 47 as field of enquiry 43 migrants displaced in China by 146 mono-causal understandings of 43 proneness in Afghanistan to 138 Neldner, B. 41 neo-con visions of post-invasion Iraq 102 Nepal Nepalese in Lebanon 206 Nepalese Youth Foundation 222–3 trafficking of village girls in 224 New York Times 224 Nicaragua, neoliberal reform and residues of war in 4, 11, 119–29 agricultural production, institutional support for 121 agricultural transformation 120 case studies and methods 121–2 categorization, problems of 128 civil war 120

Contras (counter-revolutionaries) 120 credit gap, filling of 121 crop market dynamics 121 Instituto Agrario Nacíonal (IAN) 122 international migration dynamics, complexities of 128 land is work 124–5 Latin American Migration Project (LAMP) 122 Matagalpa, department of 120, 121, 122, 123–4, 125–6, 127, 128 migration patterns and processes 122–8 multiple displacement, family disintegration and 123–4 National Basic Foods Enterprise (ENABAS) 121, 123 National Development Bank (BANADES) 121, 122–3 Nueva Guinea 120, 121, 122, 123– 4, 125, 126, 128 poverty, production of 127–8 return migration, patterns of 124 rural economics, stagnation of 129 rural-rural migration 129 Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), triumph of 120 seasonal migration 123 socialist economic development plans 120 Southern Autonomous Region (RAAS) 122 structural adjustment program (SAP) 120–21 violence, persistence of 125–7 Nielsen, A.-G. 240, 244 Nierji Project in China 152 Niger, caste-based slavery in 225 Nigerians in Lebanon 206 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 244 North American Great Plains 172–3, 174, 176, 181 North-South Cross-Country WaterTransfer Project in China 152

Index   |   281

Nueva Guinea, Nicaragua 120, 121, 122, 123–4, 125, 126, 128 Numayri, President 81 Nyong, A. et al. 191n1, 191n2 Oliver-Smith, A. 44, 45, 46 Operation Restore Order (ORO) in Zimbabwe 156, 157–8 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Protocol (1967) 14–15 Refugee Convention (1969) 2, 242 Ottoman Empire, break-up of 97 Paavola, J. 191n7 Pakistan Afghan refugees in 132, 133, 134– 5, 138–9, 141–2 closing Afghan refugee camps, policy of 134–5 Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA) in Afghanistan and 141 potential for migration from 180 security concerns in 187–8 Palestine refugees, problems of 205 Palmer, G. 29, 35 Palvish, C. 158, 159 Paraguay, sex trafficking in 225 Partridge, B. 36 Pederson, J. 191n1 Peiris, V. 210 Phuong, C. 245 Picciotto, R. et al. 48n3 Pincock, S 158 politics of protection impact of refugee regime complex on 247–9 location of 249 protection, framework for 232–5 Pophiwa, Nedson 156–67, 262 Portes, A. 23 post-conflict sexual exploitation 230–31 Potts, D. 158, 160 Prevost, G. and Vanden, H.E. 120 Primorac, R. 158 principals vs principles pursuit of 254–6

profiling urban IDPs, arbitrariness and 11, 79–94 Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94n3, 94n7 assistance and protection for urban IDPs, justification for provision of 92–3 case studies 83–93 demographics 87–8 economic migrants, forcible displacement and classification as 81 education 89 employment 89–90 ethical challenges 81–2 Feinstein International Centre (FIC) 80 findings 87, 92–3 future migration and return, hopes for 91–2 gender, importance of 88–90 Georgia 82 host communities, importance of good relations with 93 households 87–8 humanitarian response to urban IDPs, issue of 80–81 implications of findings 92–3 insecurity, indicators of 90 institutional obstacles 86 internal displacement, patterns of 80–81 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (Norwegian Refugee Council) 79–80 internally displaced persons (IDPs), difficulties of making distinctions between 79–80 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and non-IDPs, differences between 83, 87, 88, 92 invisibility of urban IDPs 82 Khartoum, Sudan 82, 83, 84–5, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94n1 limitations of surveys 86–7 logistical challenges 81–2 methodological obstacles 86 methodology 94n4

282   |   Index

mobility and relocation within cities 90, 91 patterns of urban migration, exploration of 83 preselection of IDPs for interview 82–3 Refugee Law Project 80 response bias 87 Santa Marta, Colombia 82, 85–6, 88, 89, 90, 91 South Sudan 81 standard of living 90, 91 Tufts-IDMC Profiling Study 82–3, 94n2 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) 83 urban IDPs, studies of, feasibility of 93 urban migration strategies 80–81 vulnerability, indicators of 90 project resettlements in China 151–3 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2003) 217, 218, 232–3 Public Distribution System (PDS) in Iraq 103, 110–11 Qasim, General Abel-Karim 98–9 Qing, Ju 154 radicalisation in refugee camps 133 Rahjo, M.A. 136 Rain, D. 173, 191n1 Rapoport, B. 159 Ratha, D. and Shaw, W. 119 Raustiala, K. and Victor, D. 242, 243 Raynaut, C. 191n1 Red Crescent Movement 200 Red Cross Movement 200 refugee aid and development (RAD), concept of 41 Refugee Convention (1951) climate change and human migration 183–4 evolution of migrationdisplacement nexus 14–15, 16

internal displacement, trafficking and 219 international responses to migration-displacement nexus, UNHCR and 241, 247, 248, 256 resettlement 38, 45 Refugee Law Project 80 refugee-like adaptive migration 173–4 refugee regime complex 242–7 refugee studies 14–15 Regional Consultative Processes (RCPs) 244 Regional Task Force in Lebanon, establishment of 200 Repatriation and Reintegration Plan for Iraq (UNHCR, 2003) 106–7, 115n16 resettlement 3, 8, 10, 29–48 action research on DIDR 36 adversarial approach to monolithic authority 36 African resettlement 40–41 American Friends Associations 39 Asian Development Bank (ADB) and 31 Cernea’s approach to DIDR 37 Cold War international relations and 38 collaborative experimentation on DIDR 36 conceptual resettlement models 35 Conflict-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (CIDR) 38–42, 47–8 contemporary resettlement specialists 36–7 conventional approaches to NIDR, influences on 44 destructive potential of 31 deterministic understandings of natural disasters 43 Development-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (DIDR) 34–7, 47–8 developmental solutions, agitation for 41 environmental degradation and

Index   |   283

climate change, need for NIDR research in light of 45–6 failures of 31 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN, 1998) 38, 42 historical evolution of 30 human-centred approach to NIDR, adoption of 47 internally displaced persons (IDPs) 33 International Disaster Assistance, Committee on 42 International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) 42 labelling of 31–3 land utilisation in 34 linear models of, criticism of 35–6 literature on CIDR, emergence of 38–9 misunderstood concept 29 modernization theory and 30 mono-causal understandings of natural disasters 43 Natural Disaster-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (NIDR) 42–7, 47–8 natural disasters developmental challenges and 47 as field of enquiry 43 in northern Colombia 37 Oliver-Smith’s perspective on NIDR 45–6 as permanence 33–4 pessimism about 35–6 preventative measures and earlyearning systems 44 refugee aid and development (RAD), concept of 41 refugee camps 40 Refugee Convention (1951) 38, 45 research on DIDR, methodologies for 35 research on NIDR, difficulties of 43, 44–5 resettlement schemes, refugee

camps and 41 risks accompanying 37 rural resettlement schemes 40–41 safe havens 41–2 SAIS/CUNY-Brookings Project 39 self-reliance, aim of 33–4 settlement of IDPs, UNHCR perspective on 33 settlers and resettlers, labelling of 32 social and spatial parameters 29–30 as social engineering 30–31 studies of natural disasters, disciplinary approaches to 43–4 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 34 third-country resettlement 39–40 transformative aim of 31 UNHCR role in CIDR 39 unitary approach to research on, potential for 47–8 United Nations Quakers Office (QUNO) 38–9 United Nations (UN) and 31 vulnerability, focus on 46–7 World Bank and 31 response bias 87 Return Advisory Regarding Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Refugees (UNHCR) 108 Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC) 86 Rew, A. et al. 48n3 Rice, Condoleezza 203 Richmond, A.H. 18, 20, 61 Roberts, A. 40 Rocha, J.L. 121 Romanian evacuees from Lebanon 204 Romer, K. 45 Rosenblum, M. and Salehyan, I. 249 Rubin, A. 105 Rubin, B.R. 132 Ruiz, H.A. 134 rural-rural migration 129 rural-urban migration

284   |   Index

in China 145–6, 146–7 in Zimbabwe 157, 161, 165 Russian evacuees from Lebanon 204 safe havens 41–2 safety net of voluntary rural-urban migrants 157 Sahelian Africa, climate and migration from 173, 178 SAIS/CUNY-Brookings Project 39 Salter, M. 240 Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Nicaragua 120 Sang Lee 119–30, 261 Santa Marta, Colombia 11, 82, 85–6, 88, 89, 90, 91 Sassoon, J. 111 Sauchyn, D.J. et al. 172 Save the Children 221–2 Sayre, K. 225 scarce resources climate change and problem of 187 tensions over access to 111–12 Schmeidl, S. and Maley, W. 133, 134 Schmidt, A. 40 Schrijvers, J. 72 Schuster, L. 244 Schwartz, P. and Randall, D. 169 Scudder, T. 22, 30, 31, 35 Scudder, T. and Colson, E. 22, 30, 35 sea level rises, exposure to 169, 174–5 seasonal migration 123 sectarian militias in Iraq, proliferation of 107–8 security labelling migrants, entitlement and 67–72, 73, 76 links between climate-related migration and 186–9 self-reliance, aim of 33–4 Senegal, talibe boys trafficked in 225 Seneviratne, Athauda 210 sexual exploitation internal trafficking for 225–7 post-conflict sexual exploitation 230–31 sexual slavery, forced ‘marriage’

and 230 vulnerability to 229–32 Shalhoub, B. 210 Shaosan, Z. 151 Shaw, J.M. 170 shoreline communities, risks to 175 Siddharthan, M. 66 Slaughter, A.-M. 240 Smée, V. 169 Smit, B. and Pilifosova, O. 180 Smit, B. and Wandel, J. 180 Smit, B.and Cai, Y. 170 Snyder, D. 205 social networks, transnational communities and 183 Soguk, N. 113 Sokwanele 157 Solana, Dr Javier 202 Solidarity Peace Trust 157 Somalia, potential for migration from 180, 188 Sondorp, E. and Bornemisza, O. 161 South Africa South African Development Community (SADC) 244 Zimbabweans in 26 South-North migration, globalization and 243–4, 247–8 Southern Autonomous Region (RAAS) in Nicaragua 122 Spencer, J. 70 spontaneous arrival asylum 241 Spring Festival in China 150, 151 Sri Lanka citizenship in, contradictions in 72–3 concentrations of migrants in Colombo 68 districts of origin of migrants to Colombo 63–4 evictions and ‘voluntary return’ from Colombo 70 factors influencing migration to Colombo 69–70 human rights abuses in Colombo 71 intimidation of Tamil migrants 70–71

Index   |   285

Jaffna, instability in 65 life in Colombo, expense of 76–7 lifetime migrants in Colombo 63 migration to Colombo historical and political contexts of 63–7, 76 vulnerability, security and 67–72 mobility to Colombo, registering and recording 72–6 potential for migration from 180, 188 Resettlement Ministry 66–7 Sri Lankan Army (SLA) 66 Sri Lankans in Lebanon 205, 206, 208–9, 210 Tamil exodus from Colombo 66 Srivatsan, V. 202 stability, links between climate-related migration and 186–9 Stansfield, G. 98, 106 street children in China 146, 153–4 structural adjustment program (SAP) in Nicaragua 120–21 Sudan potential for migration from 180 South Sudan, profiling urban IDPs in 81 ‘sudden-onset’ climate events 171, 175 flight from 171 Sutherland, K. et al. 175 Sutton, K. 29, 31, 35 Suzhou Industrial Park, China 149 Swedish evacuees from Lebanon 204 Swiss Cooperation 200 Synnott, H. 132 Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARC) 200 Tavernise, S. 109 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 34 Thai-Cambodian border, sexual exploitation on 230 Thailand, sex trafficking in 225 thermohaline circulation interruption 178 third-country resettlement 39–40 Tibaijukato, Anna 157

Tizon, T.A. and Smith, D. 171 trafficking and displacement of children for forced labour 223 in conflict situations 227–32 in stable situations internal displacement, trafficking and 219–20 see also internal displacement, trafficking and transformative aim of resettlement 31 Traynor, I. 169 Tripp, C. 97, 98 Troeller, G. 39 Tschannen, R. 110 Tufts-IDMC Profiling Study 82–3, 94n2 Turton, D.and Marsden, P. 140 Twigg, J. 45, 46, 47 Uehling, G. 141 Ukrainian evacuees from Lebanon 204 United Nations (UN) Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) 110 Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) 135–6 Childrens Fund (UNICEF) 221–2, 226, 228 Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (MWC, 2003) 198–9, 211 Day of Disaster Reduction (2005) 176 Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 185, 188–9 High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) 2, 5, 13, 16, 33, 106–7, 108, 115n16, 138, 176, 240, 251 competitive institutional environment and 241 emergency teams in Lebanon 200 role in CIDR 39

286   |   Index

High Level Dialogue in Migration and Development (2005) 245 Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) 201 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) international responses to migration-displacement nexus, UNHCR and 245, 249, 252 Iraq, displacement and state in 103, 111 Lebanon, evacuations during conflict in (2006) 200 profiling urban IDPs, arbitrariness and 83 Zimbabwe, extended family protection in 160 Peacebuilding Commission 249 Quakers Office (QUNO) 38–9 resettlement and 31 Security Council international responses to migration-displacement nexus 249 Resolution 1296 (para.8) 199–200 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and the Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956) 220–21 see also international responses to migration-displacement nexus, UNHCR and United States Operation Strengten Hope in Lebanon 203 State Department Trafficking in Persons Report (2007) 220, 224, 225 State Department Trafficking in Persons Report (2008) 217–18, 223, 225, 228 University for Peace Africa Programme 187

Uy, V. 205 van Damme, W. 39, 40 Van Hear, N. 15 Verrengia, J. 169 victims of trafficking 217–18 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) 199–200 Vietnam, sex trafficking in 225 vulnerability indicators of 90 labelling migrants, entitlement and 62–3, 67–72, 74–5, 76, 77 of ‘out-of-place’ migrants 74–5 resettlement focus on 46–7 Washington Post 224 Water Law (2002) in China 152 Webster, P.J. et al. 178 Weil, P. 236n7 Weiss, T. and Korn, D. 245 White, G.F. 43 Whittaker, B. 204 Whyte, M. 174 Wigley, B. 39 Williams, D.W. and Liebhold, A.M. 178 Wily, L.A. 136, 140 Wolde-Selassie, A. 41 World Bank 140 international responses to migration-displacement nexus, UNHCR and 249 resettlement and 31 World Food Programme (WFP) 103, 252 World Health Organization (WHO) 200 World Vision 200 Worldwatch Institute 176 Wulanhaote City, Inner Mongolia 149 Wyndham, J. 219 Xiao Junyong 145–55, 261 Xiaolangdi Project in China 152 Yangtze River

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floods on 176 Three Gorges Project 152 Ying, L. 148 Young, H. et al. 81 Young, O. 253 Zetter, R. 14, 24 Zimbabwe, extended family protection in Action Aid Survey 160 blood ties 160 demolished house, personal experience of 162–3 displaced and recipient families, study of 156–7 extended families heavy strain on 160 unpacking of 159–60 fast-track land reform and resettlement programme 166 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN, 1998) 165 health effects of displacement 158 ‘homeboy’ concept 159–60 household relations, composition of 159–60 Human Rights Watch (HRW) 161 humanitarian access to displaced, blocking of 161 humanitarian gap 160–61 Internal Displacement Monitoring

Centre (IDMC) 157–8, 161 internal migrants, difficulties in distinguishing differences among 161, 165–66 internally displaced persons (IDPs), hidden aspects of crisis of 158, 161 investment in cottages, personal experience of destruction of 164–5 methodology for study 158–9 migration-displacement nexus 12, 156–66 moving back home, personal experience of 163–4 narratives of displaced 161–5 Operation Restore Order (ORO) 156, 157–8 respondents’ perceptions, narratives based on 159 rural-urban migrants 157, 161, 165 safety net associated with voluntary rural-urban migrants 157 Solidarity Peace Trust 157 tenant affected by ORO, personal experience of 164 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) 160 Zoepf, K. 108 Zolberg, A. et al. 132, 133