May 29

Displacement in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe: Move in the right direction on issue of rights for those internally displaced.

 

“The House of Assembly has ratified the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons. The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons was signed in Kampala in 2009 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted on December 13 2006”.

This Kampala Declaration, adopted at the AU Summit is the first legally binding instrument specifically designed to assist the IDPs.

This move signals Zimbabwe’s government’s commitment to protect and help the IDPs who become displaced for a number of reasons. As we know globally the numbers of those internally displaced far exceeds the number of the refugees, for instance in Africa there are four times as many IDPs are refugees, who are not protected by international laws unlike the refugees who are protected by UN’s Refugee Convention.

“It reaffirms that national authorities have the primary responsibility to provide assistance to internally displaced people. It comprehensively addresses different causes of internal displacements; conflicts generalised violence, human cause or natural disasters and development projects like building dams or clearing only land for large scale agriculture.”

Sudha: May 20, 2013 2:39pm

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201305200341.html – May 20, 2013

srajput2

Dr. Sudha G. Rajput is the author of Internal Displacement and Conflict: The Kashmiri Pandits in Comparative Perspective (Routledge). Her 31-year career at the World Bank touched on multiple aspects of international development, working on thirteen countries of the former Soviet Union. Her co-authored book chapters appear in Scientific Explorations of Cause and Consequence across Social Contexts (Praeger) and in State, Society, and Minorities in Southeast Asia (Lexington Books). She writes for the Forced Migration Review. Her doctoral research has investigated issues of conflict-induced displacement in Kashmir, with a focus on societal and policy reform, leading her efforts to the development of a graduate course, Refugees and IDP Issues, drawing students from fields of conflict resolution, international development, humanitarian assistance and peacebuilding. She is a Senior Researcher at the Refugee Law Initiative, a U.K. based think-tank. She is a Consultant/Trainer for USAID, designing and conducting capacity building workshops in Khartoum, Sudan, promoting cross-border co-existence. As a Professional Lecturer, at George Washington University, she teaches at the Elliott School of International Affairs, where she brings multi-disciplinary approaches to her course on Refugee and Migrant Crisis. She is a trainer for the Forage Center for Peacebuilding Education, where during a 4-day humanitarian assistance simulation, she coaches students on systematic understanding of protracted displacements. She teaches at the University of Maryland Global Campus, delivering the MBA program for the military students. Her interests on post-conflict issues include her past travels to: Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Sudan, and Ukraine. Sudha’s blog on internal displacement can be found at www.internaldisplacement.info. Dr. Rajput lives in Washington, D.C. and can be reached at sudha_rajput@yahoo.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.