Conflict Induced Migration in Nepal (A Social Inclusion Perspective)

Abstract

Conflict induced internal displacement has been a burning problem worldwide as a result of increasing in-fights (within the country) among the political stakeholders. There are more than 25 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), almost double than the refugees. A common belief is that displacement due to conflict is a political problem and the issues of displacement get resolved with respect to political solution. However, generally the tendency is different. Conflict induced displacement has many characteristics similar to migration and thus the issue of displacement needs to be addressed by observing closely with the characteristics of migration. With respect to the growing conflicts, migration in the 21st century has been an issue of dichotomy between voluntary and forced. Study on migration as a dichotomy between voluntary and forced is rarely found globally despite its increasing scope. Due to conflict, disaster, government projects and other deceptive and undocumented movements of people worldwide, number of IDPs, refugees, persons in trafficking and the smuggled people are growing globally. This research on Conflict Induced Migration in Nepal: A Social Inclusion Perspective is conducted with a major aim of analysing the current situation of the armed conflict induced migrants/displaced persons in Nepal. In Nepal many people turned displaced due to the 10 year long armed conflict between the government and the CPN Maoist. As an aftermath of the peace process initiated in 2006, there was a belief that all the IDPs would easily return to their respective places of origin. Some of the agencies/organisations also initiated their attempts to help return the displaced people. A national policy was made and some relief packages were brought into effect by the government. Some progresses have also been seen, a positive response to the policy. However, all the problems regarding IDPs have not been solved. Those returned have not been rehabilitated properly and those still in the destination areas have to suffer with scarce resources lacking mainly human dignity. These displaced people have been excluded from various policies and programmes of both government and non-government sectors. Lack of coordination among the stakeholders is another problem observed even after the formulation of the IDP policy in 2007. Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction is the main authority on behalf of the government to address the issues of IDPs. The Ministry is overloaded mainly with the political peace process. The issue of IDPs has been a very small part of the activity for the Ministry. The policy gives responsibility of overall coordination to the CDOs in the respective districts who are too overloaded with their other dozens of similar coordinating roles. There is no apex body yet formulated to bring all the stakeholders together and have discourse on the issues of IDPs, which could at least identify the issues of IDPs, and contribute to formulation/amendments in the existing polices and action plans. Such a body needs to be formed involving all the stakeholders, mainly the line ministries, respective departments, UN agencies, bilateral agencies, INGOs, NGOs and also academics who can contribute to the research based issues and discourses. Furthermore, such a body would have documentation on who is doing what; identify the resources, and gaps in them and ways to tackle the challenges. Such an authority would give some visionary inputs with some academic foundation and outcomes of the activism so as to give directives for effective resettlement, rehabilitation and reintegration of IDPs in the days to come.