Unfinished business: the IDP land question
The campesino was born with his land; the war took it away. The land is his destiny - life and death. We will not stop being displaced until we have a plot of land to sow and live on. Vidal…
Bhutanese refugees: rights to nationality, return and property
In 1990-91, about a sixth of Bhutan's population was expelled from their homes from the southern districts bordering India. Today over 96,000 reside in seven refugee camps in Nepal, while another 30,000 live outside these camps in Nepal and India.…
Women’s rights to land, property and housing
As a result of activities at local, national and international levels, these rights are finally being recognized and included on the political and legal agendas of national governments and regional and international human right bodies. This article focuses on one…
Forced relocation in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi: emerging policy
There are many conceptual areas of convergence between this and other forms of displacement, notably internal displacement, ethnic cleansing, expulsion, forced removals, house demolition, land expropriation, population transfer, resettlement and slum clearance. The broader term ‘forced evictions’ is used most…
Resolving the issue of war displacement in Lebanon
At the height of the complex seventeen year-long war, up to one million people were internally displaced. Ten years after the Taif Agreement brought an end to conflict there are still some 450,000 IDPs1, almost 14 per cent of the…
People abroad and people at home in societies under strain
This article looks at how diasporas can help or hinder their homelands, particularly those that are suffering from the effects of conflict or other forms of serious socio-economic strain. One concrete way in which those abroad shape the living conditions…
Arable land and internal displacement in Colombia
Large scale forced displacement in Colombia is a consequence of more than thirty years of armed conflict, violent pursuit of economic interests and implementation of infrastructure projects. Competition for control of fertile land has been and continues to be intense.…
Sudanese women acting to end sexual violence
Militarisation and long-standing armed conflicts in many regions have deeply affected the daily lives of Sudanese women, most recently and tragically in Darfur. Fundamentalist interpretations of sharia law are used to control women and are given as reason for not…
Sexual violence in South Kivu, Congo
From 1996 to 2003 war in DRC claimed some 3.8 million lives. Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against women and girls – and some men too – has been one of the conflict’s most horrific aspects, for its viciousness, magnitude…
In their own words
Josephine was eight years old when both her parents died. Left alone, she learned to fend for herself in the hills 20 km from Makamba, a city in southern Burundi. One night her neighbour, a former soldier, crept into her…