Legal discrepancies: Internal displacement of women and children in Africa.

摘要

My thesis examines the plight of internally displaced women and children in Africa from the perspective of international and regional laws to investigate whether these legal frameworks are effective in protecting and assisting these people. The research uses both empirical and theoretical methods, borrowing from several disciplines -- health, education, philosophy, psychology, and epidemiology. Researching this topic, from a legal perspective, requires a law-in-context approach, which examines the multifaceted nature of forced displacement in Africa. It also requires close dissection of the various laws, treaties and policies of host countries, as well as critical examination of the responsibility of international and regional institutions in assisting and protecting internally displaced women and children in Africa, in addition to close consideration of the role of local civil society groups and non-state actors in these legal processes is also considered. Noteworthy is the fact that my research acknowledges the immense suffering faced by refugees and internally displaced men, however, given the vulnerability of internally displaced women and children, couple with their special need for protection and assistance, my research chose to focus on legal challenges pertinent to internally displaced women and children in Africa.;The key finding of this research is that the creation of new laws (e.g., the AU Convention on the Assistance and Protection of Internally Displaced Persons) does not guarantee adequate protection of IDPs in Africa as the establishment of the AU 1969 Refugee Convention has not done much to curb the flow of refugees in Africa. Also worth mentioning is that on 23 October 2009, the AU made history by adopting the first legal instrument ever to protect and assist internally displaced people during its Summit in Kampala, Uganda -- the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Africa. Against this backdrop my Thesis argues that regional institutions should invest more in preventing mass movement of people on the continent as well as developing long term strategies to promote good governance, participation, and state compliance to legal instruments in order to reduce violent leader transition which is significantly associated with internal conflicts. Albeit, to address the current situation of displacement, the Thesis suggests further examination of how implementation of a "Decentralized United States of Africa" may offer some hope.;This research endured several challenges. They include the on-going struggle to find high quality evidence-base resources on protection and assistance of internally displaced women and children in Africa mainly due to the fact that the majority of the case scenarios used are not recognized as internally displaced communities internationally. Their experiences are poorly documented and are therefore not included in data collected by the United Nations, national governments, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and other relevant organizations. Secondly, due to lack of funding and time, fieldwork for this research was not possible. As a result, access to primary data set that could have been obtained through direct contact with internally displaced people (which could have provided an opportunity for IDPs to tell their stories) was replaced by conducting an academic exercise in Osgoode Hall Law library and online.;The severe lack of research in this subject area with respect to Africa, confirms this research contribution in helping to fill a major gap pertinent to understanding the legal position of internally displaced women and children in Africa, as most literature to date have extrapolated international refugee law to protect internally displaced persons, rather than conducting "on the ground" research to reflect protection needs of IDPs.