CHAPTER ONE

1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The chapter makes  a comprehensive overview of a research study focused on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). It traces the evolution of the concept of IDPs, providing historical and contextual background essential to understand the current state and challenges faced by these populations. The discussion about the problem that necessitated the research indicates a focus on identifying specific issues or gaps in existing knowledge or policy regarding IDPs, which the study aims to address.

The methodology details doctrinal and analytical techniques used to investigate the problem. This would be crucial in ensuring the research’s validity and reliability. The objectives set out the goals of the study, clarifying what the research intends to achieve or contribute to the broader understanding of IDPs.

Lastly, the significance and justification for the study emphasize its importance. This section argues why this research is vital at this point in time, what gaps it fills in existing literature or policy, and how it could benefit IDPs, policymakers, and other stakeholders. This part of the chapter serves to underline the relevance and potential impact of the research.

• BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Internally displaced persons are mostly seen as a result of armed conflicts. Armed conflict is defined as any organized dispute that involves the use of weapons, violence, or force, whether within national borders or beyond them, and whether involving state actors or nongovernment entities.‍ Examples include international wars, civil wars and conflicts between other types of groups. The definition of  internally  displaced persons (IDPs) most commonly used comes from the United Nation’s (UN) Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. The Guiding Principles 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, 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.”[1]

The effects of armed conflicts are both direct and indirect and are associated with immediate and long-term harm. The direct effects of conflict include death, physical and psychological trauma, and displacement. Indirect effects are related to a large number of factors, including inadequate and unsafe living conditions, environmental hazards, caregiver mental health, separation from family, displacement-related health risks, and the destruction of health, public health, education, and economic infrastructure[2].

Unlike refugees who cross national borders and benefit from an established system of international protection and assistance, those forcibly uprooted within their own countries, by armed conflict, internal strife, systematic violations of human rights, or natural disasters, lack predictable structures of support. There are currently 25 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide in at least 50 countries.[3] No continent has been spared. Internal displacement has become one of the more pressing humanitarian, human rights and security problems confronting the international community[4].

Protection “involves using the law to secure the rights, the security and the welfare of persons.”[5] In  the  case  of  IDPs,  however,  there  is  no  international  legal  instrument  specific  to their plight, which defines the nature and content of protection for them.  For refugees, a body of law  specific  to  their  situation  provides  the  basis  for  their  protection.   Although  refugee  law cannot be applied directly to IDPs, by virtue of its focus on persons who have been displaced (albeit  across  a  border),  it  nonetheless  can  contribute  to  defining,  by  analogy,  the  nature  and content  of  protection  for  IDPs.   For civilian victims of conflict, there is the Fourth Geneva Convention and its Additional Protocols which, though not defining the term “protection” per se, set out guarantees indicating its meaning in situations of armed conflict. Protection under these circumstances, the International Committee of the Red Cross explains, entails “preserving victims of conflict who are in the hands of an  adverse  authority  from  the  dangers,  sufferings  and  abuses  of  power  to  which  they  may  be exposed, defending them and giving them support.”[6]

While the frequent occurrence of internal displacement  in  the  context  of  armed  conflict  makes  the  protection  provided  by  international humanitarian  law  particularly  relevant,  this  legal  standard  does  not  necessarily  apply  in  all situations of internal displacement. The protection provided by human rights law, by contrast, remains relevant in all cases of internal displacement, with IDPs being entitled to enjoy, in full equality,  the  same  rights  and  freedoms  under  domestic  and  international  law  as  the  rest  of  a country’s citizens.[7]

The Guiding  Principles  on  Internal  Displacement represent  the  first  attempt  to  articulate  what protection  should  mean  for  the  internally  displaced.   The Principles identify the rights and guarantees relevant to the protection of IDPs in all phases of displacement: providing protection against arbitrary displacement; protection and assistance during displacement; and providing for safe return or resettlement and reintegration. Protection as elaborated in the Guiding Principles also is comprehensive in scope, covering not only needs for physical security and safety but the broad range of rights provided for in international law (including the right to food, to education and to employment, for instance) which, by virtue of their nature as rights, also falls within the meaning of protection.[8]

In the case of children internally displaced, Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child[9] is to the effect that “States Parties must undertake to respect and to ensure respect for rules of international humanitarian law applicable to them in armed conflicts which are relevant to the child. States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities. States Parties shall refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of fifteen years into their armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of fifteen years but who have not attained the age of eighteen years, States Parties shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest.”

This therefore means that, the principles and provisions to protect internally displaced persons including children in armed conflict are laid out in The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the Geneva conventions (1949) and their additional Protocols (1977), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and its Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict (2000), and the Rome Statute (1998) of the International Criminal Court.

Throughout its history, Cameroon has been confronted with the phenomenon of internal displacement on several occasions.[10] However, since 2013, the forced displacement of populations within the Cameroonian territory has reached unprecedented levels.[11] As of August 2021, more than 1 052 591 internally displaced persons and 466 578 returnees (ex-IDPs) were registered in Cameroon.[12] With these figures, Cameroon appears to be the second country in the Lake Chad Basin region most affected by internal displacement. Moreoverthese figures, which continue to increase over time, would be higher if we consider that insecurity, the refusal of some IDPs to register and the lack of coordination between agencies and institutions dealing with IDPs registration sometimes hinder the efforts to register victims of forced displacement in Cameroon.[13] These large population movements are the result of repeated attacks by the armed group Boko Haram in the far North region (341 535 and almost 123 489 returnees), hostilities between Cameroonian defence and security forces (DSF), and armed groups in the NW/SW regions (711 056 IDPs and 333 900 returnees) and, to a lesser extent, natural disasters[14] (116 000 in 2020).[15]

Whether it is the ongoing armed conflict with Boko Haram in the far North region or the crisis in the NW/SW regions, human rights violations are the main cause of the internal displacement associated with these two major security challenges that Cameroon is facing.[16] Nevertheless, it can be noted that in the period January to November 2019 alone, 275 cases of homicides, including 225 cases against civilians were recorded in the far North region.[17] This figure, which relates solely to the violation of homicide, indicates that the civilian population is the primary target of the abuses committed in the context of this conflict. Similarly, in the NW/SW regions, members of armed groups scour villages and rural areas where they kill,[18] rape[19] and pillage the civilian population.[20] It is estimated, for example, that in the first half of 2018 alone, more than a hundred properties were destroyed by armed separatists.[21] The multiple violations of the right to education are also to be deplored. Schools have suffered and continue to suffer repeated attacks by armed gangs. In 2018, more than 120 schools were burned in the NW/SW regions, thereby depriving thousands of children of their right to education.[22]

These numerous violations committed by the various armed actors involved in the ongoing crises in Cameroon have forced many people to flee their homes to find refuge not only in other towns and villages of the concerned regions, but equally in other regions of the country particularly the West, Centre and Littoral regions. The needs faced by these populations during their displacements are so many and acute that they cannot be analysed exhaustively here. An analysis of the reports of humanitarian organisations active in the field shows that the most urgent needs include basic necessities, such as food, water, shelter and medical care.[23] In order to survive, displaced populations are very often forced to consume cheaper food. Some families are forced to send members of their household to live elsewhere with relatives even if the conditions are not suitable[24]  they just need to find a place to live,while other family members engage in prostitution in order to meet the family’s basic needs.[25]