Internal displacement, North Kivu, DRC. Photo: AuthorsDisplacement is at its highest level since records have been kept –
over 60 million people world-wide are currently displaced from their homes and
communities. Most media and popular attention in the developed world is focused
on the Syrian refugee crisis which has produced 4.8 million
refugees in its neighbouring region alone in the five years since violence
erupted. While Europe struggles to decide how to respond to the 1.1 million Syrian
refugees that have so far arrived on its shores since 2011, there is another
population, hidden from view, that makes up two thirds of the forced migration iceberg.
People internally displaced, that is, forced from their homes and communities
but still within the borders of their country, make up slightly more than 40
million of the 60 million figure cited.

Internally displaced people (known as IDPs in the field of forced
migration) have similar experiences to refugees – their departure was forced by
conflict or disaster, there was rarely time to plan their move, take
possessions with them, say good-bye to loved ones or plan a destination. IDPs
may end up in IDP camps (we are familiar with the images of tents and
tarpaulins emblazoned with humanitarian logos) or less visibly dispersed among
urban slums such as Birere in Goma (DRC) eking out a living however they can.

The urban displaced generally receive little help. They rely on conflict-affected
social networks and are often exposed to exploitation,
homelessness and violence. People displaced into camps often get basic aid
from international NGOs, but are subject to the regime of camp organisers –
sometimes an NGO, as is most
common in DRC, and sometimes the
military as was more common in northern
Uganda and Sri Lanka. Encamped IDPs often have restricted mobility and
little opportunity for autonomy or income-generation – factors which often lead
to despair and dependency with long term impacts. 

International responses tend to focus on geographical displacement
and respond to immediate survival needs, including when displacement last years
or even decades as in Colombia, Uganda and DRC. What is under-recognised is
the social displacement – the expulsion from social and kinship networks which
make life both possible and worthwhile. When we look at displacement through a
social rather than geographic lens, we begin to see how displacement differs
for men and women.

During fieldwork conducted in 2014 and 2015 for a research project exploring women’s experiences of justice
after mass violence in DRC, Kenya and Uganda we met a great many displaced and
formerly displaced women. They prompted us to think differently about
displacement.

Gender norms trigger the displacement
of women

Internally displaced women in eastern DRC (where a recent
study estimated that 1,152 rapes occur every day) explained that
pre-existing gender norms mean that families may disown a woman who has
experienced sexual violence. A 41-year old mother described her experience of social
exclusion ‘…before being raped my health was very fine and I had sufficient
means. After rape, my husband left me… Even if he comes, I am unable to satisfy
his needs, so I
am nothing in the society.’

The social meaning attributed to a ‘raped woman’ causes catastrophic
consequences and frequently means that she is rejected by her spouse, family and
community. In patriarchal and fragile states such as the DRC, women’s welfare
is not seen as a state concern, but rather is determined by their relationships
with fathers, husbands and sons. It is the men in their lives that enable them
to access food, shelter, protection and a secure place in society. Rejection by
families, some women explained, means expulsion from social networks essential
for life. 

As a group of women in an IDP camp in Rutshuru commented, ‘When the
family gets aware that you have been a victim of that act, no one can draw near
you… they will only be rebuking you saying they do not want you to approach in
order not to contaminate [them]…
they hated us because of the act we were victim of.’

NGOs are spreading information about the ‘72-hour-rule’
– that getting medical help within 72-hours of rape can avert pregnancies and
infections, and women are taking great risks to reach a medical clinic within
the time-frame. But there is little evidence of attempts to engage community
and religious leaders in beginning the long, slow process of attitude change so
that women who have been raped need not be victimised again through social
expulsion and stigmatization. The focus is on physical, not social needs.

Damaged social relations
last for years

Broken or damaged social networks caused by experiences of
persecution and displacement can have a long-term impact on women’s place in
communities. Uganda’s twenty-year war between the government and Joseph Kony’s
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) caused massive internal displacement – 1.84
million people at the height of conflict. The Ugandan government forced
almost the entire population of Acholiland, the epicentre of LRA activity, into
over-crowded, poorly serviced IDP camps for over ten years. Men and women were
not permitted to farm their lands and were dependent on aid from international
agencies for survival. Camps were usually erected around military bases and followed
strict rules such as curfews and restrictions on movement which made it
impossible to continue important family and cultural rituals. The focus was on
meeting the material survival needs that resulted from losing their homes,
farms, businesses and livestock. Little or no attention was paid to the immense
damage done to the social fabric of Acholi communities.

Alternate economies emerged in the IDP camps, economies that centred
on alcohol, violence and sex. Elders lost their status and sometimes their
lives (around
1000 people died each week in camps at their peak, many of whom were
infants and elderly). Years of encampment have taken a profound toll on people,
one woman described feeling like ‘a
prisoner of war
in my own homeland’.

The war has now ended, the camps have closed and people have returned
to their land. But, in the words of ‘Annabel’, a 40-year old widow, most
villages in Acholiland today are struggling with men who ‘continuously drink
and they don’t do anything productive and they don’t do anything to help
their families.’ Everywhere we visited women told us that their male
relations are ‘deeply addicted to alcohol’, refuse to work in the fields, and
that domestic and public violence is ‘rampant’. Women traced a direct causal
line between encampment and their present experiences. As Faith, a widow and
mother of four children explained: ‘Yes,
indeed there is a great link between the experiences of camp life and the
problems the people are facing up to today.’

Camp life shattered social and cultural norms which would previously
have prohibited much of the drinking and violence, as well as profoundly
damaging the social institutions that today are failing to restore justice,
dignity and order. 

While there has been some assistance for returning IDPs to resume
livelihood activities, there has been little attention paid to the repair of
social relationships. This has left women and children bearing the burden of
work, violence, and poverty, with little power to establish a political voice.

How we think about displacement guides how we respond to it. The
geography of displacement is important, but it is only one part of the
experience. The social elements of displacement are too easily relegated to the
category of ‘higher needs’ or a luxury to be addressed when conditions permit. But
social relationships are fundamental, and if we want to reduce displacement and
ensure successful return and healing, the international community needs to
think and act differently.

Read more in-depth articles on migration on oD 50.50's platform edited by Jennifer Allsopp: PEOPLE ON THE MOVE