WUNRN
Internal DIsplacement Monitoring
Centre - Norwegian Refugee Council
Direct Link to Full 9-Page 2014 BORN
IN DISPLACEMENT Publication:
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Children make up at least 50% of
displaced persons IDPs worldwide. Neither international law nor the UN Guiding
Principles on Internal Displacement explicitly state that children
born in displacement and their descendants are IDPs.
The principle of non-discrimination
requires that the children of IDPs are treated equally in a
non-discriminatory manner according to their needs and regardless of whether
they physically fled their home. Article 2 (1) of the Convention on the Rights
of the Child requires that: States
Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention
to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind,
irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race,
colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic
or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.This means that the births of the
children of IDPs should be registered as they are
for other children, and the children of IDPs should also be registered as IDPs, where this process exists.
This paper has three aims: (1)To expose the gap in current legal frameworks and guidance on descendants of IDPs, (2)To suggest a human rights-based approach to the protection and assistance of descendants of IDPs, (3)To highlight the impact of the current gap in legal frameworks on national policies, especially in countries that consider descendants of IDPs as IDPs over several generations.