Protection of Displaced Children in Somalia

While most Canadians have been thinking about the 6 more weeks of winter they are in for this Ground Hog’s Day, the international community is reeling at the devastating human toll that the violent conflict in Somalia unleashed this past January.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that 258 civilians—at the very least—had been killed in January. More than 250 more were injured. In the capital city of Mogadishu, about 9 000 civilians have died since last May, including many women and children.

At present there are 560,000 Somali refugees residing in other countries like Ethiopia, Kenya and Yemen. Moreover, there are one and a half million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Somalia right now; 80 000 of these IDPs were forced to flee in January. So far, the UNHCR has the capacity to respond to the needs of only 18 000.

Involuntary, or forced, displacement has innumerable social, economic, and political consequences. One among them, however, is most definitely the adverse affect on support for the full development of children’s capacities. For instance, less than 100,000 of the country’s internally displaced children are able to attend school, as their lives are endangered on a day-to-day basis. The humanitarian crisis engendered by armed violence in Somalia since 1991 has been further compounded by drought and widespread hunger, water scarcity, deteriorating child health, and an unraveling of the social fabric that is needed to build strong communities.

Preventing family disintegration in such emergency situations is important.  “Unfortunately, most families can no longer sustain the burden of hosting additional family members,” said Andrea Heath, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Assistance Coordinator for Somalia.

Providing protection to IDPs has been difficult since the early 1990s especially, as internal conflicts in the Balkans, Rwanda, and Somalia itself have proved. Some academics attribute this to the fact that there is no instrument of international humanitarian law that explicitly and comprehensively addresses the protection of IDPs in the way that the 1951 UN Refugee Convention protects refugees.  There are, however, non-binding principles and guidelines, as well as UN resolutions and international human rights law that can be applied to the protection of IDPs.

Both the UNHCR and the ICRC, a neutral and international humanitarian organization that has been around since the 1800s, have been instrumental in protecting civilians during situations of armed violence. They routinely collaborate with other charities and groups working in the field.