Why Do People Flee During War? The Answer Is More Complicated Than You Think. - 0 views
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If humanitarian agencies show they are willing to offset the costs of uprooting civilians, they could perversely incentivize armed groups to engage in these practices. This is not hypothetical. There are multiple instances where international aid, while providing crucial life-saving assistance to people in conflict zones, has also enabled combatants to implement, sustain, or expand policies of forced displacement.
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Ed Webb on 29 Jul 20This is the essence of the "moral hazard" discussed here: providing perverse incentives. In plain language, the willingness to help displaced people may make their displacement more likely.
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The widespread use of sorting displaced people demonstrates that fleeing in wartime can be perceived as a political act. But the presumption of guilt by location is often embraced by combatants and civilians alike, and not just in cases where displacement is used as a weapon of war. As Stephanie Schwartz argued in a previous article in Foreign Policy, post-conflict societies commonly experience hostility between people who fled during a conflict and those who stayed.
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Conflict resolution and reconciliation efforts need to treat displacement and return as a political phenomenon, not just a humanitarian one
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