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Africa plans landmark convention on internal refugees
Written by: Emma Batha
African countries are set to adopt a ground-breaking convention providing rights to millions of people forced to flee their homes because of conflict. Africa has some 12 million internally displaced people (IDPs) who have been uprooted within their own country. Unlike refugees - people who have fled to another country - IDPs benefit from little or no protection. The convention, the brainchild of the African Union, will for the first time provide them with similar rights to refugees, according to a draft seen by AlertNet. U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres welcomed the initiative and hoped other regions would follow suit. "This will be the first international legally binding instrument in relation to internal displacement and we hope that this can become an example to be followed in other parts of the world," he told AlertNet. "We are talking about ... a full range or rights that up to a certain extent are similar to those granted by the 1951 (U.N.) convention to refugees when they live in a foreign country." The African Union, which groups 53 countries, expects the convention to be adopted at a special summit on refugees and IDPs opening in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Oct. 19. DARFUR UNDERLINES NEED FOR CHANGE Although refugees and IDPs have often fled their homes for the same reasons, there are crucial differences in how the two groups are treated. Once they cross an international border, refugees will normally receive food, shelter and a place of safety. They are protected by international laws and have a specialist U.N. agency to help them. By contrast, IDPs remain at the mercy of their government, which may view them as enemies of the state. They may also fall prey to rebels and militias operating inside or outside camps. The draft convention obliges states to prevent displacement and bans the use of displacement as a method of warfare or for collective punishment. Signatories are required to protect IDPs' human rights and prevent war crimes, arbitrary killing and detention, abduction, torture, rape, slavery and the recruitment of child soldiers. IDP Action, a London-based campaign group, said the situation in Sudan's Darfur region, where some 2.7 million are displaced, highlighted the urgent need for the convention. It said displaced Darfuris were often attacked by government and rebels, with women raped and children recruited to fight. IDP Action director Jeremy Smith said Khartoum's expulsion of 13 international aid groups this year would also contravene the convention which obliges states to facilitate access for humanitarian agencies. Africa is home to around half the world's IDPs. Smith said the number of displaced in five African countries alone - Sudan, Congo, Uganda, Algeria and Somalia - was greater than the global total of refugees. "The number and plight of IDPs in Africa is a scandal," he added. "(The convention) sends a potentially hugely significant signal to the rest of the world that Africa takes the issue of internal displacement very seriously." But Smith said he was concerned that the convention was too vague on the subject of monitoring and compliance. What the draft convention says:
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