Forced Displacement in Conflict Scenarios

Foreword The feeling of being nowhere Forced migration is a consequence of the conflicts between countries or within them and is one of the most visible acts of violence exercised by the actors involved. Recently, its dimension has become more complex with the inputs from the debate on forced migration caused by natural phenomena. These phenomena result from changes in ecosystems due to human intervention and the resulting pressure on existing natural resources.

The issue is complex and involves different dimensions. Iconic images and facts that summarize the drama of this phenomenon can be traced in the famous video of Angela Merkel responding to a Palestinian girl about the nature of the European Union’s political decisions on migrants and refugees; or in the decision to indefinitely prohibit the entry of refugees from Syria to the United States, issued in 2017 by the government of Donald Trump when Syria was immersed in one of the most acute civil wars of the 21st century.

This book offers readers an analysis of forced migration from different perspectives. The chapters analyze aspects that come together when responding to this global problem: legal and ethical challenges emerging in the design of public policies to care for the displaced population, challenges in the conception and attention to the problem when a gender perspective is assumed, or public health challenges when it is understood that the trauma of displacement is not a specific matter of an event that occurred at a specific moment in time, but rather a condition that accompanies those who are forcibly displaced almost to the end of their days.

Due to the exact ephemeral nature that characterizes the phenomenon of displacement, its study entails a high degree of uncertainty. Although the events that cause displacement are most often associated with violence, it takes many different forms, and their consequences depend on the sociopolitical contexts in which they occur. In this sense, understanding what we mean when we talk about forced displacement implies opening our minds and perhaps accepting the frustration that the problem is constantly changing due to the number of factors that intervene in its evolution. The analysis carried out in the subsequent chapters contributes to this broadening of the perspective and identifies new links between the different dimensions of the problem: legal, political, economic, environmental, and health, among others.

A fundamental value of this publication is the attempt of all the authors to claim, directly or indirectly, the right to mobility, asylum, and care for the migrant population. The analysis of cases based on the experiences of migrants and displaced persons allows us to, once again, appreciate the power of agency and resilience of this type of population. Then the analysis is presented not only as an issue resolved within the legal rules, but it manifests itself with all intensity in the ethical plane.

The visibility of migrants or those displaced by force also implies entering the field of registration that allows dimensioning the problem in terms of public policies. Moreover, this exercise, typical