HAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
One of the significant symptoms of human insecurity crises is internally displaced persons. As opined by the United Nations Guiding Principles, these are ‘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 recognized state border’ (Oladeji, 2015, p. 44). Internally displaced persons receive little or no attention from the government of their habitual residence. These persons leave their comfort for a life of uncertainty elsewhere which triggers insecurity from within them coupled with the minimal attention received from government thereby exposing these people to economic threats, health threats, personal threats, political threats, environmental threats and community threats. Great concerns have been generated by both local and international agencies due to the poor living conditions of these persons which in turn, leads to poor sanitations therefore raise in sicknesses and diseases (Emmanuelar, 2015). Importantly, internally displaced persons become dependent on others for basic amenities either on the host community or external intervention (Brookings, 2008). With all these, internally displaced persons’ crises make it very difficult for the government to actualize the Millennium Sustainable Goals (Osagioduwa & Oluwakorede, 2016). Human displacement remains one of the most significant humanitarian challenges facing the world. Of the 33.3 million internally displaced persons in the world (exclusive of the development-induced displacement), 15 million internally displaced persons can be found in Africa, with an increase of 7.5% between 2013 and 2014 and Nigeria hosting over 3.300,000 IDPs (Osagioduwa & Oluwakorede, 2016, p. 194). The issue of human displacement in Africa involves more of internally displaced persons than refugees (United Nations Human Committee on Rights [UNHCR], 2012). This is due to the fact that after the Cold War, armed
conflict took on a new dimension to include wars between non-state actors within the state and the sovereign state unlike the pre-Cold War era which saw armed conflict as conflict between sovereign states (Emmanuelar, 2015). As the number of internally displaced persons continue to increase, attempts at mitigating this crisis becomes more challenging for troubled countries. Notably, global efforts at managing displacement have concentrated more on refugees than internally displaced persons, yet the internally displaced person’s crisis equally constitutes a challenge to global civilization (Osagioduwa & Oluwakorede, 2016).
The forced displacement of civilians from their homes has been on the increase in the recent past. By virtue of lost social and economic ties, displaced persons suffer undesirable physical and psychological hardship. Over the years, thousands of people worldwide have fled their homes and abandoned their means of livelihood by virtue of eruption of violence or other forms of threats. The internally displaced people are people who have fled their homes because of violent conflict and persecution arising from insurgency, communal clashes, natural disasters, inter-ethnic conflict etc. There are two categories of such people: those who flee to foreign countries to seek refuge (the refugees) and those who remain within their national borders (the internally displaced persons). They are internally displaced in the sense that they remain within Nigerian borders. According to IDMC‟s estimate there are almost 2,152,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Nigeria as of 31 December 2015 (IDMC 2016). IDMC reports that the figure is based on an assessment conducted from November to December 2015 by the International Organization for Migrations (IOM) and Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) team in 207 Local Government Areas (LGA) covering 13 States of Northern Nigeria: Abuja (13,481 IDPs); Adamawa (136,010); Bauchi (70,078); Benue (85,393); Borno (1,434,149); Gombe (25,332); Kaduna (36,976); Kano (9,331); Nasarawa (37,553); Plateau (77,317); Taraba (50,227); Yobe (131,203); and Zamfara (IDMC 2015).
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS
The worrisome situation of internally displaced persons is exacerbated by the poor condition of living and hardship that they are exposed to. Over 1.5 million displaced persons are kept in overcrowded school, empty government buildings used as camps across northern regions while others run to other communities/towns to seek refuge. These camps are characterized by inadequate basic amenities and are supervised by the National Emergency Management Agency (Ventures Africa, 2015). Majority of Internally Displaced Persons in Nigeria are women and children with over 50% of the total IDPs. According to IDMC (Internally Displaced Monitoring Centre) 2015 report, there are almost 2,152,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Nigeria composed of 53 % women and 47% men. More than 56% of the total IDP populations are children of which more than half are about the age of 5 years, while 42% are adults. 92% of IDPs were displaced by the insurgency (Biola 2016). These vulnerable categories (women and children) suffer from different problems such as poverty, psychological trauma, malnutrition, sickness, insecurity in the camps, and lack of access to education etc.
1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The broad objective of this study is to examine the impact of internal displacement due to insurgency on women and children in Nigeria. The study will examine;
1. Cases of Violence-Induced Internal Displacement in Nigeria
2. Internal Displacement and Forced Migration
3. Negative Impacts of Displacement on Women and Children
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following research questions will guide the study
1. Cases of Violence-Induced Internal Displacement in Nigeria
2. Internal Displacement and Forced Migration
3. Negative Impacts of Displacement on Women and Children
.