Whose Rights Count? National and International Responses to the Rights of IDPs in the Sudan.
Abstract
This reports looks at the national and international policy responses toward internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Khartoum. It specifically endeavours to find out how and in what ways such policy responses enable IDPs to pursue and realise their rights. It also probes into domains of responsibility (national and international) with regard to safeguarding the rights of IDPs enshrined in the UN Guiding Principles. Questions of who is doing what and IDPs' attitudes toward their future are among the core issues in the report.
The report is a theoretical-cum-empirical engagement that attempts to address the following three interrelated themes: (1) to critically examine the question of IDPs in the Sudan. The thrust here will be a historical contextualisation, with key characteristics, including the nature of movements (forced/voluntary), and the politics of displacement; (2) to look at rights versus needs through a discussion of international and national policy contexts, local politics of IDPs (their civil society organizations, key rights and the ability to exercise/attain them); and (3) to examine the question of return and its consequences for rights (e.g. education and livelihoods), and the perspective of institutions concerned with return.
This report is a continuation of an earlier engagement of the author with the question of IDPs in Khartoum. It is based on information gathered from a variety of sources. Published materials, UN and NGOs reports, and official reports were consulted. Substantive parts of the report are based on fieldwork data gathered by the author and a research assistant in Al Salam camp during December 2005 and January 2006.
Read the id21 Research Highlight: Citizenship, not charity: rights for internally displaced Sudanese
Citation
DRC Research Reports, Sussex, UK, DRC on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, 48 pp.
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