ReliefWeb

By: Luay Shabaneh

Barely had I arrived at the camp for displaced persons in Iraq when a little boy, who seemed to be my daughter’s age welcomed me. “How are you?” he asked, the same way he greets many visitors, usually relief organization workers or international journalists. “My name is Luay,” I replied in Arabic, and his eyes shone brightly before a stream of words poured out of his mouth to tell me his story. Ahmad is ten. He and his family were displaced from Mosul to this camp over a year ago. But this was not his story; the one he meant to share was that of his going back to school this year, after a long interruption since leaving Mosul. Ahmad's delight was palpable, ticking off on his little fingers those school items his father was going to buy him: a schoolbag, notebooks, pens and pencils. Then he recited a roll call of his old friends, although he knew little about them after leaving home for safety's sake, during the battle of Mosul.
I soon realized that a great part of Ahmad's joy in going back to school had to do with its symbolism of a "normal" life for a boy his age, even if the plan did not involve a return home. Ahmad’s father was determined: "I'm not giving up my tent. I'll go out and look for work every day, then come back to you in the tent". The father was not going to relinquish the security of the tent, lacking in comforts as it was, especially as his hometown was still plunged in uncertainty. He couldn’t rule out a confrontation with a militia man or a terrorist, a confrontation he was not willing to engage in, having sacrificed so much to flee Mosul with his family.
The current global discussion on the return of refugees and displaced persons seems to miss a few basics, chief among which is their security, i.e concrete guarantees that, upon return, the displaced person will not face random acts by individuals or organizations. They left their homes in the first place to seek safety for themselves and their families; how can we expect them to go back without guarantees for safe return? For a family who had lost a great deal, a tent, as precarious as it might be, is a place of safety. At least it's far away from the crossfire of gunmen. The mere thought of return, or seeking an alternative to the tent, should be based on the individual's conviction that repatriation is advantageous compared to staying in the tent. The tent suddenly seems safer than going back to the place from which they ran for their lives.
This applies to the displaced and the refugees of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and other countries where conflicts and humanitarian situations forced people away from their homes. The return of Syrian refugees or the displaced of Iraq should be contingent on concrete measures that would guarantee their safety. All those who work in humanitarian assistance and with the displaced know only too well how unsecured and unregulated repatriation can trigger out-of-control violence. Relationships have changed and dynamics shifted, all the more so in states that were unable to curb violence with accountability.
As a worker in the field of humanitarian aid and protection for nearly nigh three decades, I've witnessed countless incidents of violence, borne especially by women, during displacement and while returning, both inside and outside the family context. Situations of conflict often enhance entrenched social trends, and the Arab region, to put it mildly, is not world-leading in the area of women's rights, in spite of paying constant lip service to the status of women and the necessity of honoring them as per religious duty and social custom. We in UNFPA, the UN agency concerned with combating gender-based violence, see a direct relation between conflict and the rise of violence against women and girls. I have been following the global political debate on refugees’ return, but I have yet to come across guarantees to prevent violence against women and girls in case of repatriation, and I have yet to see plans for countering such violence.
As humanitarian organizations that derive their mandate from international laws, it is imperative that we insist on the safe return of refugees and displaced people, and it is imperative that political clamoring for repatriation does not crowd out the basic facts: repatriation has to be safe, especially for women and girls, being more vulnerable to assault on their moral and bodily integrity. A person who was forced to leave home would probably dream of going back and healing from the wounds left by war on their body and spirit. But repatriation would not succeed unless the displaced are convinced it's in their best interest. Anything else seems to me to confirm the decision of Ahmad's father , who is not giving up his tent.