Cathrine Brun writes:
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| Cathrine Brun (right) in Kyiv |
More than 100 delegates participated in the forum with representatives
from the internally displaced, from civil society, local and national
governments and international humanitarian organisations. The meeting was part
of a process to draft a new state strategy for durable solutions for the IDPs. Durable
solutions are problematic in many contexts and are often out of reach for
displaced populations (see Brun and Fàbos 2017, CENDEP blog by Richard Carver).
However, Ukraine stands out as a special case because, already after three
years, there is emphasis on local integration rather than return as the
preferred solution that has often been the norm.
We cannot assume that all IDPs in Ukraine prefer integration
over return. Additionally, there is still much to be done to secure people’s
rights to keep connections to the places they fled from and their right to move
on from where they first arrived as displaced. The new national strategy must
make sure that these rights are being accessed. At the same time, the relatively
early emphasis on integration enables a more long-term and better prospect for
people at the places where they are displaced.
When I was first invited to the Forum, I was asked to talk
about integration of IDPs. However,
in my work with local integration processes for IDPs, I have come to understand
integration as what IDPs and their hosts do, I thus changed the title to talk
about integration by IDPs.
In this context, we can understand integration as both an
end-point and a process. As an end-point, integration can be said to be when
the IDPs have become full members of the societies that they have moved to, but
there are many discussions around when displacement ends. Often, these
discussions are related to when displaced are no longer in need of assistance
as a result of their displacement. Some of the legal measures that are currently
being discussed in the Council of Europe project are crucial to put in place
for integration to happen. IDPs must be ensured the same rights as their
co-nationals, but at the moment this is not always happening.
Integration can also be seen as a process, and can be
defined as ‘collective change’: that is the changes that take place in a
society where IDPs and hosts meet and interact (Kuhlman 1994). With integration
as a process, we can focus on how the host communities are actively involved in
integration processes and assistance can be helpful in assisting interaction
that already exists between IDPs and hosts. Rather than a purely legal
perspective or an emphasis on the IDP-category as a status, a focus on
integration as collective change, enables a needs-based approach to assistance:
where the most vulnerable groups among both hosts and IDPs get access to
assistance.
Finally, when dealing with local integration, I want to add a
note of caution. After three years of displacement in Ukraine, the IDP category
is already well established. From my brief encounter with the situation in the
country, it seems to be a category that is taken for granted and used to
separate the displaced from their hosts in essential ways, such as access to rights.
If the situation of displacement becomes protracted, if the local integration
process takes a long time, and if the government continues to treat the people
who were displaced and who are placed in the IDP category as separate from the
non-displaced, there is a danger that the IDP category moves from being a humanitarian category established to
assist people in need of relief due to their displacement to a social category – an underclass or
marginalised group that does not enjoy full membership in the society, which we
have seen in other contexts (Brun et al. 2017).
Local integration will continue to happen in places where
IDPs and hosts co-exist, but without full membership, recognition and
participation in the local communities where they live, displacement may not
come to an end.
References
Brun, C. and A.H. Fàbos. 2017. Mobilising home for long term
displacement: a reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/hux021
Brun, C., A.H. Fàbos, O. El Abed. 2017. Abject citizenship:
when categories of displacement collide with categories if citizenship.
Norwegian Journal of Geography 71(4): 220–232
Carver, R. 2017. An end to refugee protection? CENDEP blog
09.10.17, http://cendep.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/an-end-to-refugee-protection.html
Kuhlman, T. 1994. Asylum or Aid? The Economic Integration
of Ethiopian and Eritrean Refugees in the Sudan. Research Series 2/1994,
African Studies Centre, Leiden.
