Forced migration

Forced migration (also called deracination - originally a French word meaning uprooting) refers to the coerced movement of a person or persons away from their home or home region. It often connotes violent coercion, and is used interchangeably with the terms "displacement" or forced displacement. According to Speare, "In the strictest sense migration can be considered to be involuntary only when a person is physically transported from a country and has no opportunity to escape from those transporting him. Movement under threat, even the immediate threat to life, contains a voluntary element, as long as there is an option to escape to another part of the country, go into hiding or to remain and hope to avoid persecution." However this thought has been questioned, especially by Marxians, who argue that in most cases migrants have little or no choice.[1] A specific form of forced migration is population transfer, which is a coherent policy to move unwanted persons, perhaps as an attempt at "ethnic cleansing". Someone who has experienced forced migration is a "forced migrant" or "displaced person". Less formally, such a person may be referred to as a refugee, although that term has a specific narrower legal definition.

The International Organization for Migration defines forced migration as any person who migrates to "escape persecution, conflict, repression, natural and human-made disasters, ecological degradation, or other situations that endanger their lives, freedom or livelihood.”[2][3]

Contents

Overview

Forced migration has accompanied persecution, as well as war, throughout human history but has only become a topic of serious study and discussion relatively recently. This increased attention is the result of greater ease of travel, allowing displaced persons to flee to nations far removed from their homes, the creation of an international legal structure of human rights, and the realizations that the destabilizing effects of forced migration, especially in parts of Africa, the Middle East, south and central Asia, ripple out well beyond the immediate region.

Development-induced displacement is a subset of forced migration. Such displacement is the forcing of communities and individuals out of their homes, often also their homelands, for the purposes of economic development. It has been historically associated with the construction of dams for hydroelectric power and irrigation purposes but also appears due to many other activities, such as mining. The most well-known examples of development-induced displacement is a result of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China, and also the previous German expulsions.

Causes

Causes for forced migration can include:

Further reading

Migration of people from Mirpur(AJK) for construction of Mangla Dam

See also

References

  1. ^ "FORCED MIGRATION IN INDONESIA : HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES". graeme hugo. http://www.conflictrecovery.org/bin/Graeme_Hugo-Forced_Migration_in_Indonesia-Historical_Perspectives.doc. Retrieved 18 October 2011. 
  2. ^ http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_160632.pdf
  3. ^ http://www.iom.int/jahia/jsp/index.jsp
  4. ^ http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Oliver-Smith/
  5. ^ http://repository.forcedmigration.org/show_metadata.jsp?pid=fmo:1158
  6. ^ Conventions No. 29, 105, 138 and 182; Convention No. 97 (Art. 3, Annex I; Art. 8 and Annex II, Art. 13); Convention No. 143, Part I; 1990 International Convention (Art. 21)

External links