Identifying Victims of Civil Conflicts: An Evaluation of Forced Displaced Households in Colombia
| Author | Andrea Velásquez,Ana María Ibáñez |
| Date | 01 May 2009 |
| Published date | 01 May 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343309102661 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
431
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vol. 46, no. 3, 2009, pp. 431–451
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi,
Singapore and Washington DC) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343309102661
Identifying Victims of Civil Conflicts: An
Evaluation of Forced Displaced Households
in Colombia*
ANA MARÍA IBÁÑEZ & ANDREA VELÁSQUEZ
Department of Economics, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Given that forced migration subjects households to extremely vulnerable conditions, the need to design
particular policies for displaced populations is unquestionable. However, forced displacement poses
several challenges to policymakers. In connection with low-intensity conflicts, such as in the case of
Colombia, the main obstacle concerns the identification of households’ victims of forced migration,
so as to know to whom one should funnel aid. In such cases, inasmuch as victims migrate individually
and tend to spread throughout a territory, identifying victims is difficult and channeling aid through
supply-driven mechanisms is prohibitively expensive. To locate the households’ victims of low inten-
sity conflicts, an alternative – one adopted by the Colombia government – is to provide aid through
demand-driven programs. This article evaluates whether demand-driven approaches aimed at assisting
displaced households do in fact reach the entire displaced population. The study employs a survey
applied to 1,553 households located in 48 Colombian municipalities. The authors identify to what
extent a demand-driven approach excludes particular groups of households within the displaced popula-
tion, examine what household characteristics determine the decision to declare one’s eligibility for and
final registration in RUPD, and analyze whether the exclusion of some groups of households is caused
by the behavior of the relevant displaced households or by the deliberate targeting of these households
by government offices. Results reveal that the exclusion of households from Colombia’s RPUD pro-
gram is mainly caused by lack of information regarding RUPD, with institutional determinants playing
a lesser role.
Introduction
Because armed groups directly target civilian
populations as part of their war strategy, dur-
ing the last decades, forced displacement has
risen parallel with the growing incidence of
internal conflicts. During intrastate conflicts,
attacks on civilian populations have come
to constitute an effective war strategy for
consolidating territorial strongholds, weak-
ening civilian support among opponents,
terrorizing civilian populations at minimum
cost, and augmenting one’s loot (Azam &
Hoeffler, 2002). A noteworthy indication
of the growing prominence of these attacks
has been the increasing numbers of forced
displacements during the last decades, up
from 17.5 million in 1997 to 25 million
people in 2005 (UNHCR, 2006).
The need to design particular policies
for displaced households is unquestionable.
* Corresponding author: aibanez@uniandes.edu.co. Support
from GDN, Microcon, and USAID is gratefully acknowl-
edged. We express our gratitude to the Colombian Bishop’s
Conference, Klaus Deininger, Andrés Moya, and Pablo
Querubin, our partners in this research project. Comments
from four anonymous referees, Tilman Brück, Gary McMa-
hon, María del Mar Palau, Fabio Sánchez, and participants
in the Second Annual Workshop of the Households in
Conflict Network helped to improve this study. The data-
set, codebook, and do-files for the empirical analysis in this
article can be found at http://www.prio.no/jpr/datasets.
journal of PEACE RESEARCH volume 46 / number 3 / may 2009
432
Forced displacement constitutes an overt
human rights violation; thus, its victims
are entitled to protection and reparation.
Furthermore, forced displacement subjects
households to extremely vulnerable condi-
tions. The loss of assets, a limited access to
social services, the destruction of social net-
works, the disintegration of families, high
unemployment rates, and poor conditions
in reception sites are among the many con-
sequences of displacement (Cohen & Deng,
1998; Ibáñez & Querubín, 2004; Ibáñez,
Moya & Velásquez, 2006; Mooney, 2005;
Brück, 2007).
However, forced displacement poses sev-
eral challenges for policymakers. The first
obstacle to overcome concerns the actual
identifying of the victims of forced migra-
tion. During high-intensity conflicts, dis-
placement tends to occur on a massive scale,
with victims largely being relocated to refugee
camps – under such conditions, the track-
ing of the households’ beneficiaries of aid is
straightforward. On the other hand, locating
displaced households during low-intensity
conflicts is difficult, as victims rarely migrate
on a massive scale. Such migration tends to
be done individually, with victims spread-
ing throughout related territories. Authori-
ties generally find it difficult to detect such
forced migrants.
In the latter case, identifying those dis-
placed populations to whom aid should be
funneled is complicated. Instead of provid-
ing aid through supply-driven mechanisms –
as in the former case – programs tend to be
demand-driven. These programs require
households to approach government offices
and prove that they are victims of forced dis-
placement. By relying entirely on households
decisions, demand-driven approaches must
overcome two obstacles. First, displaced pop-
ulations usually live in marginal areas where
the spreading of information is costly. More-
over, given that the related ‘weak’ state was
unable to prevent their expulsion in the first
place, many displaced households mistrust
the respective government’s programs and
officials. Second, the existence of entitle-
ments for displaced populations creates
incentives for other vulnerable groups of
the population to identify themselves as dis-
placed victims in order to receive aid. The
design of demand-driven programs must
include incentives to encourage displaced
households to approach government offices;
at the same time, there should exist enough
safeguards so as to restraint the access of
other groups.
Colombia offers an interesting example
of this conundrum. Colombia has faced
a longstanding civil conflict for the last
40 years. Escalation of the conflict during
the last 15 years heightened attacks on the
civilian population, causing the displace-
ment of more than 3.5 million people during
the period 1995–2008. Forced displacement
occurred in 90% of Colombia’s municipali-
ties and most migrations were individual1
(79.7% from a total of 2,452,152 displaced
individuals).2 To mitigate the impact of
forced displacement, the country developed a
progressive legislation which potentially pro-
vides a complete aid package for the victims
of forced migration. Access to the benefits
defined in the Colombian legislation is con-
tingent upon registration in a system called
RUPD – Unique Registration System of Dis-
placed Population, in Spanish. The objective
of RUPD is to legally recognize displaced
households and thus quantify the demand for
aid. RUPD is a demand-driven instrument,
wherein displaced households must approach
government offices to declare, under oath,
the circumstances of their displacement.
After making such a declaration, government
officials validate whether it is truthful and, if
so, the legal status to be granted the members
of the displaced household.
1 According to the Red de Acción Social, it may be con-
sidered that a massive displacement has occurred when a
group of ten or more households, or a group of 80 or more
individuals, have migrated.
2 Red de Acción Social (http://www.red.gov.co), 1 March
2008.
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