From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

Benchmark 2 Raise National Awareness of the Problem of Displacement
in Turkey. One of the main recommendations of Francis
Deng during his mission to Turkey in 2002 was to collect
data on the nature and scale of the problem of internal
displacement. In 2005, the Turkish government commissioned
a survey conducted by the Institute of Population
Studies at Hacettepe University to assess the size and
needs of the internally displaced population. Begun
in 2004 and launched in 2006, the Turkey Migration
and Internally Displaced Population Survey found that
there were an estimated 950,000 to 1,200,000 conflictinduced
IDPs between 1986 and 2005 in fourteen provinces
during a declared state of emergency. The survey
examined the socioeconomic characteristics of IDPs
before and after migration/displacement, their reasons
for migration/displacement, and their intentions regarding
return and future migration. The survey also asked
IDPs whether they were aware of the Return to Village
and Rehabilitation Program and compensation laws and
whether they had filed for compensation. The government’s
delay in releasing the results of the Hacettepe
survey was criticized by NGOs such as TESEV and the
immediate release of the results was one of RSG Walter
Kälin’s recommendations following his working visit to
Turkey in September 2006. The minister of foreign affairs,
discussing the survey, said that “Turkey’s sole priority
is not to come up with a figure of IDPs, but rather
to correctly identify them and devise policies to remedy
the problems of these people.” He added that a “holistic
approach should be taken towards the issue” to ensure
that the social, economic and cultural needs of IDPs are
comprehensively addressed. 29 It is worth noting that the
results of the qualitative component of the study had yet
to be released at the time of writing.
Even in countries where the government’s recognition
of internal displacement and its will to address it have
been evident over the course of several or more years,
that will does not necessarily translate to tangible action
29 Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Internally
Displaced Persons (IDPs) and the ‘Return to Village and
Rehabilitation Program’ in Turkey’” [date unknown,
but after December 2006]. (www.mfa.gov.tr/internallydisplaced-persons-_idps_-and-the-_return-to-villageand-rehabilitation-program_-in-turkey.en.mfa).
39
to benefit IDPs. This is true for Colombia, where significant
progress has been made since 1994, when the
government was taking an ad hoc approach to IDPs.
Following the first visit of RSG Deng in 1994, the government
began to recognize the existence of internal
displacement and its responsibility to address it as a
national priority at all levels of government through
policies, laws, national plans of action and ministerial/municipal/departmental
institutions adopted since
1995. However, Colombia’s Constitutional Court, in its
landmark Decision T-025 of 2004, concluded that the
state of assistance to and protection of IDPs in Colombia
constituted an “unconstitutional state of affairs” 30 reflected
in part in the government’s lack of implementation
of the public policy for assisting IDPs contained
in Law 387 of 1997, including the policy’s provision for
awareness-raising activities for civil society about the
magnitude of internal displacement. The Court also
found that “the displaced population lacks timely and
complete information about its rights, the institutional
offer, the procedures and requirements to gain access to
it, and the institutions in charge of its provision.” 31
Pakistan has become more engaged in raising national
awareness of natural disaster-induced internal displacement
in recent years, but it has been inconsistent in the
way in which it has raised awareness of those displaced
by conflict. Throughout much of 2009, for example, the
government referred to many of those displaced in the
fighting in South Waziristan as “dislocated” rather than
displaced persons 32 and there has been a reluctance to
30 Republic of Colombia, Colombian Constitutional Court,
Decision T-025 of 2004, adopted by the third chamber of
the Court, composed of Manuel José Cepeda-Espinosa,
Jaime Córdoba-Triviño and Rodrigo Escobar-Gil.
31 Ibid., 6.3.1.v.b, d. For full text of Decision T-025 and for
further analysis, see Rodolfo Arango Rivadeneira, Judicial
Protection of Internally Displaced Persons: The Colombian
Experience (Washington, D.C.: Brookings-Bern Project on
Internal Displacement, November 2009) (www.brookings.
edu/papers/2009/11_judicial_protection_arango.aspx).
32 See, for example, People’s Daily Online, “12,700 families
in NW Pakistan dislocated as troops advance on
Taliban,” 19 October 2009 (http://english.people.com.
cn/90001/90777/90851/6787316.html).