Description
Worldwide there are some 120 million people who are violently displaced within their own countries. The main difference between internal displacement and refugee status is that internal displacement occurs within a country's borders, while refugees cross international borders. In a period of rising nationalism and political and social polarization, forced migration is a worrying issue.
No region of the planet is immune to this phenomenon, least of all Latin America. The political and economic crisis in nations such as Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, among others, beset by drug wars and climate change, are just some of the fundamental reasons for human mobility in the region.
IDPs receive less aid and attention since the international community is more concerned with refugee crises than with IDPs. Forced displacement is regulated by the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. This document includes 30 principles that define how IDPs should be treated, setting standards to be followed by states, governments, humanitarian organizations, armed groups and others.
In this panel made up of academics from the Latin American Network on Internal Displacement (LANID, 2020). We will open an interdisciplinary discussion on this phenomenon through the identification and analysis of its root causes, as well as the search for lasting solutions capable of guaranteeing the well-being of displaced people, the restoration of their life projects and the healing of communities fractured by the violent expulsion of their members based on their own narratives and the analyze the discourse of the actors involved. The debate will also address the polarization generated by the powers that be in the context of a humanitarian emergency in Latin American, which has put existing legal frameworks in check. There is an urgent need to find new ways of conceiving and addressing internal displacement in the region in order to develop methodologies of analysis and action that prevent its occurrence and restore the lives and community projects of displaced people.