CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF THE DISPLACED PERSONS IN THE COURSE OF NATURAL DISASTERS IN NIGERIA

CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF THE DISPLACED PERSONS IN THE COURSE OF NATURAL DISASTERS IN NIGERIA

Background to the Study

One of the most distressing phenomena in the post-cold war era is the substantial growth of people displaced within their homelands, otherwise known as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).1IDPs constitute the largest group of vulnerable people in the world. It is estimated that an average of 36.4 million people have been displaced from their homes around the world, with the majority of these people in Africa and Asia.2 As at February 2015 in Nigeria, the Displacement Tracking Matrix of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) identified nearly 1.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) living in the northeast states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe, and Borno, though security constraints barred access to large parts of Borno state. In addition, Nigeria‘s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) registered just over 47,000 IDPs in central parts of the country, including Abuja (Federal Capital Territory), Kano, Kaduna, Nasarawa and Plateau states, bringing the number of identified IDPs to more than 1.2 million in northern and central Nigeria.3

Displacement across countries is a common result of insurgency, communal violence, internal armed conflicts and natural disasters such as flooding or soil erosion.4 Today, there have been monumental increases in the reports of internal displacement arising from natural disasters. And Nigeria, like the rest of the world, is exposed to a wide range of natural. While some of these disasters are rapid, others are slow-onset, resulting in catastrophic situations leading to loss of lives and property, degradation of environment. These disasters occur in form of drought, desertification, flooding, epidemics, coastal erosion, and dam failure, building collapse, oil spillage, maritime collision and other harmful effects of global warming amongst others.5 The unprecedented flooding that swept across 32 out of 36 states of the Federation beginning August 2012 displaced an estimated 2.1 million persons and impacted some 7.7 million.6

The plight of displaced persons has in recent years become a formidable problem of global significance and implications.7In every country of the world, internally displaced persons are victims of violations of human rights. These span the whole range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. At the same time, the internally displaced are also a group particularly vulnerable to violations of their rights, both during and after displacement. They face discrimination on account of their status as displaced persons, as well as exposure to discrimination on racial, ethnic and gender grounds. In legal terms, however, internally displaced persons do have rights, the very same rights as other persons in their country. They are protected not only by the human rights treaties in effect for the country where they reside, but also by basic norms of customary international law that bind all states – standards such as th8e prohibition of torture, of racial discrimination, and of slavery.8

The consequences of internal displacement are manifold. They include loss of homes, employment, threat to life and liberty, deprivation of food, adequate healthcare, education, etc. These indeed have the tendency to deprive the displaced persons the essentials they need to survive.9 To ameliorate this, non-state actors and civil societies have played an important role in the area of humanitarian assistance.10 In addition, Nigeria has ratified international and regional instruments for refugee protection including the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees11 as well as the OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa.12Nigeria has successfully domesticated international and African refugee conventions into the National Commission for Refugees Act (NCFR Act).13 The NCFR Act provides the legal and administrative framework for refugee management. It also sets out guidelines for application and determination of refugee status in Nigeria.14 Additionally, Nigeria has ratified the African Union Convention on the Protection and Assistance of IDPs in Africa (Kampala Convention)15. By ratifying the AU convention, Nigeria is committed ensuring the protection of the rights of IDPs‘ within her borders. It has also revised/updated the draft policy on IDPs in July 2012 to incorporate the provisions of the Convention.16 The policy provides a framework for national responsibility towards prevention and protection of citizens and, in some cases, non-citizens, from incidences of arbitrary and other forms of internal displacement, meet their assistance and protection needs during displacement, and ensure their rehabilitation, return, re-integration and resettlement after displacement.

TOPIC: CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF THE DISPLACED PERSONS IN THE COURSE OF NATURAL DISASTERS IN NIGERIA

Chapters: 1 - 5
Delivery: Email

Number of Pages: 79

Price: 3000 NGN

In Stock

Buy the Complete Material Now