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Series on Women and Children’s Health in Conflict – Children with craniofacial anomalies in the Gaza Strip: treatment options and access to care.

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The French medical mission screens the children after their arrival to Gaza Strip, Palestine.
Photo Credit: © 2019 Abdelazeez Noman, PCRF (used with permission).

This article is part of the Strife Series on Women and Children’s Health in Conflict. Read the Series Introduction at this link.

Craniofacial anomalies (CFAs) are deformities that affect a child’s head and facial bones. These disorders are typically present at birth (congenital) and can range from mild to severe, with the most extreme cases threatening the life of patients and requiring immediate intervention. CFAs are considered a major cause of infant mortality and childhood morbidity. In addition, children born with CFAs often suffer from social anxieties that result from their physical appearance, which ultimately negatively affect their quality of life and psychological well-being. CFAs are complicated and, most of the time, require comprehensive and multidisciplinary care by specialized teams to provide the proper care beginning from early childhood. The emotional and psychological well-being of children with CFAs are just as important as the child’s surgical and medical care. Moreover, families of those children have to cope with the surgical procedure and their child’s speech problems, appearance, and experience of bullying.

In Gaza Strip, protracted conflict has created many obstacles to treatment and to accessing care for children with CFAs and their families. Obstacles include: limited financial resources, travel restrictions, lack of local professional expertise, dependence on outside assistance and foreign surgical missions, and an absence of professional rehabilitation centres. All of these increase the physical and social suffering of patients and their families. Additionally, the protracted conflict and deteriorating economic conditions compound the suffering, which results from obstacles to treatment, through additional detrimental effects to the children’s quality of life and psychological well-being.

Research on CFA in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) is scarce and the incidence of CFA in the Gaza Strip is not reported. However, consanguinity, which is a common phenomenon in the Palestinian community, was found in a study of orofacial clefts (most common form of CFA) to have a high rate among parents of children with orofacial clefts in oPt. In fact, many international organizations made efforts to create projects addressing the lack of data. This sort of database would be useful in spotting demographic trends amongst Palestinian families with birth defects and in helping to detect environmental and behavioural factors implicated in the development of conditions like CFAs.

With a poverty rate exceeding 53 per cent among Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, limited financial resources are the biggest challenge for the families of children with CFAs to pursue treatment abroad. Children with CFAs who need surgical interventions in their treatment plan rely heavily on the foreign surgical missions to operate on them. These missions come from the United States, and Europe (often from United Kingdom,  Germany, France, and Switzerland). Most missions come to show solidarity with Palestinians, and often are of Palestinian descent. These professionals occasionally travel on their own, but more frequently they participate as part of organizations doing humanitarian work in Palestine. Most of these surgeons come sporadically, whilst some others work more consistently in Gaza.

The main philanthropic organization which provides free surgical care for children with CFAs in Gaza is the US-based Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). PCRF’s system for healthcare delivery is bifurcated, either they provide funds for CFA professionals to travel to Palestine to operate on children, or they transport children with complex surgical conditions to the United States for surgery. The foreign missions are hosted by any one of the government hospitals for an average of 5 to 8 days. During their stay, both foreign and local professionals operate together on the patients. As for the cases that require complicated surgical interventions, they join Treatment Program Abroad, where they are sent abroad to receive proper treatment. Following completion of surgery abroad and, sometimes, appropriate rehabilitation, the patients return to Palestine and are followed up with by local professionals.

When the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH)decided to suspend all elective surgical interventions, except for emergency surgeries, to free up personnel and resources to respond to the pandemic and treat patients with Covid-19. Moreover, the borders of the Gaza Strip have been strictly closed and, concurrently, all planned foreign surgical missions have been postponed to mitigate the risk of virus transmission. This was further complicated by political disputes between the Palestinian Authority and Israel leading to a cessation of security coordination, which is needed for obtaining security permits that allow patients to travel abroad to receive treatment. All of these events have had a serious impact on children with CFAs.

For almost one year, and still, to this day,  children with CFAs in the Gaza Strip, unless in a life-threatening condition, have not been able to receive adequate, timely healthcare services. They are left with no other choice but to wait while suffering from pain and dysfunction, which prevents them from living a normal life and practicing their daily activities. This will have serious consequences on their health such as dehydration, loss of appetite, and weight loss. What’s more, these children are at great risk of growing up with psychosocial problems, because their facial deformities expose them to higher rates of social and emotional problems. This has had a damaging effect on their lives and personalities.

Treatment options and access to care for children with CFAs in conflict-afflicted settings like the Gaza Strip is severely restricted and largely dependent on foreign missions. This  limitation was clearly illustrated and accentuated during the Covid-19 pandemic when foreign missions stopped coming to Gaza. This one-year lack of all types of healthcare services and access to care, has caused untold negative impacts on the lives of children with CFAs. In order to avoid these impacts, children with CFA, and patients in general, should be spared from political disputes, their care should always be the first priority.

Series on Women and Children’s Health in Conflict – Maternal and Reproductive Health in the Gaza Strip: the impact of years of blockade and conflict

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A Palestinian woman holds her baby in one of the UNRWA school shelters in the Gaza Strip during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, Photo by UNRWA.

This article is part of the Strife Series on Women and Children’s Health in Conflict. Read the Series Introduction at this link.

Over two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip live in degrading conditions of poverty, food insecurity, and high unemployment. In June 2007, Israel imposed a land, sea, and air blockade on the Gaza Strip, and since 2008, Israeli military forces have mounted several operations against the Strip. Years of blockage compounded by military interventions have led to ruinous consequences on the healthcare system. While reports by health organizations and media outlets focus disproportionately on the numbers of casualties, deaths, and long-term disabilities, much less attention is paid to the conflict’s impact on maternal and reproductive health services.

Since the start of the blockage, the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip has been suffering from a significant shortage of essential services, with maternal and child healthcare services being affected the worst. Mothers and their babies are often discharged early (within 2-3 hours) due to the limited capacity and high demands for healthcare facilities. The quality of maternal services is also compromised due to the high number of deliveries and increasing rates of caesarean section, which further increase the burden on healthcare workers in the field. While the total fertility rate has declined in the occupied Palestinian Territory, it is still one of the highest in the region. At any given time, there are about 45,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip.

The large number of pregnancies in Gaza can be attributed to the uneven and relatively poor access to family planning services. Indeed, women in lower socioeconomic brackets who live in remote and disadvantaged regions are less likely to benefit from them. The unmet need for family planning increases the number of unwanted pregnancies, and therefore, increases the risk of unsafe abortions and maternal complications. According to a family health survey in 2010, high unmet needs for family planning was associated with 30% of unwanted pregnancies. In 2019, two out of the five essential family planning methods (male condoms and progesterone-only pills) have been at zero stock level (available for less than a month) at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and Ministry of Health (MoH) clinics in the Gaza Strip.

Maternal pharmaceuticals have also been affected by the blockade. For example, iron (a drug used to treat anaemia) and folic acid (a drug used to prevent a certain type of congenital defects) have been severely limited. In 2018, according to the MoH in Gaza, nearly 40% of pregnant women were anaemic. Although several organisations have supported the provision of life-saving maternal health drugs, 70% of essential maternal and child health drugs remain at zero stock in the MoH. In a mapping study done by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), all assessed primary healthcare (PHC) facilities reported that essential pharmaceuticals and life-saving drugs were either unavailable or had been experiencing interrupted supply for the last six months. These include iron, folic acid, antibiotics, and methyldopa (a drug used to treat high blood pressure during pregnancy).

Year on year, maternal and reproductive health in Gaza becomes increasingly concerning.  A 2019 situation report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed that maternal deaths increased by 122%  between 2017-2018 (from 8.6 to 19.1 per 100,000 live births), and of these, 63% occurred before childbirth. Several factors can be attributed to this increase. One of these is poor PHC. PHC staff have limited training, and according to the UNICEF report, preconception care (care before the pregnancy) guidelines were not available at any of the assessed PHC centres. The same report also showed that all the interviewed pregnant women were not aware of danger signs during pregnancy.

There is no doubt that the decline in healthcare standards is more significant during and following major military operations: women become unable to access maternal and reproductive healthcare services, and medical resources become incredibly scarce. In July 2014, the Gaza Strip experienced a 51-day military operation (Protective Edge) by the Israeli military, one of four major military operations since 2009. Nearly the entire population in Gaza was involved in the conflict and was affected by the concurrent destruction of infrastructure. The impact of Protective Edge on women specifically was huge. The UN-Human Rights Council (UNHRC) reported that 299 women were killed and 3,540 others were injured. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that over 40,000 pregnant women were unable to access essential maternal healthcare, and accordingly, the neonatal mortality rate doubled from 7% to 14%.

The inability to access healthcare services can be attributed to two main factors. First, many healthcare facilities were damaged, and the remainder were overwhelmed. During the crisis, only 50% of PHC centres were operating, leading to a significant decline in accessing family planning services. Moreover, 17 hospitals were put out of action, and six maternity wards were closed. The high number of casualties meant some remaining wards (including maternity units) were adapted into surgical wards. Thus, women were subject to low levels of care and were discharged early after delivery, resulting in a massive deterioration of their health.

Secondly, there was a near lack of capacity and preparedness to respond to the needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs). OCHA reported that half a million people (28% of the population) were internally displaced in schools and informal shelters which were not equipped to provide maternal and reproductive health services. Throughout the military operation, women who needed these services were instead referred to outside facilities during a time when transportation was severely restricted and highly dangerous even to ambulances. Furthermore, pregnant and lactating women had reduced access to special dietary support and vitamin supplements. The overcrowded shelters, where multiple families had to stay in the same room, were particularly challenging for women due to the lack of privacy and female hygiene products.

In addition to the effect of the blockade and the repetitive military operations on providing essential healthcare services for women, the Great March of Return (GMR) also had significant impacts. The GMR, which catalysed on March 30th 2018, sought to end the Israeli’s illegal blockade on the Gaza Strip. In doing so, however, it has added extra pressure on the already overwhelmed healthcare system. The massive influx of casualties led to the suspension of elective surgeries and the reallocation of hospital beds to serve the injured patients.

About six months after the start of the GMR, the US Trump administration decided to cut off the American financial assistance to the UNRWA. UNRWA plays a vital role in the Gaza Strip’s health sector, delivering free PHC services through 22 facilities. UNRWA clinics serve about 70% of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, providing them with essential antenatal and postnatal healthcare services. In 2018, 39,709 pregnant women attended PHC facilities at the UNRWA. This reflects the tremendous effect of the withdrawal of US financial support on the quality of maternal and reproductive health services in the Gaza Strip.

Maternal and reproductive health in the Gaza Strip is on the edge of the abyss. There is an urgent and immediate need to ease the blockade and improve maternal healthcare infrastructure, both by opening new facilities and increasing medical staff’s capacity. A holistic emergency plan, which prioritises womens’ needs and rights, is indispensable and should be adopted. Every woman has the right to receive full and high-quality maternal and reproductive health services, even during emergencies. Good womens’ healthcare is critical to maintaining a healthy life for every Palestinian in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian society will not be safe unless Palestinian women are safe.

Feature – Climate Change, Conflict, and Children’s Rights Abuses: Syrian Refugees in Turkey

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by Chiara Scissa

In limbo in Lesbos: Doctors without Borders labelled the Mória Refugee Camp as the ‘worst refugee camp on earth’ (Image credit: Getty Images/AFP/F. Perrier)

Introduction

The world is becoming increasingly aware of the interconnections between climate change, human rights, and its implications on affected populations and countries. It is now widely recognised that climate change adversely impacts the right to life, property, and an adequate standard of living by hampering access to hygiene, water, and food but also adequate healthcare, among many basic necessities. This fact has been most visible during the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011.

According to the data of the Syrian Ministry of State for Environment Affairs and the World Bank, the annual temperature in Syria has increased at a rate of 0.8°C per century since the 1950s. This change is reflected in an increased frequency, length, and intensity of droughts and heatwaves. Decades of unsustainable agricultural policies, the consequent overexploitation of water and soil resources, coupled with the effects of climate change resulted in desertification, higher temperatures, and reduced precipitations. These developments dramatically impacted the agricultural industry, at that time representing twenty-five per cent of Syrian GDP.

Although in-depth research studies have so far not confirmed a causal link between climate change and conflicts, other scholars, such as Ingrid Boas, nevertheless stress that drought and water scarcity may be included among the complex and interlinked pressures that characterise the unrest in Syria. To make matters worse, water infrastructure there was consistently under attack. In a country already hit by drought, attacks on water networks cut services for weeks during the armed conflict, with millions of people suffering from long and deliberate interruptions to a water supply.

According to UNICEF, disruptions in Aleppo encompassed a deliberate forty-eight-day shutdown of a water treatment plant that served two million people. Indeed, the organisation  straightforwardly claimed ‘attacks on water and sanitation are attacks on children.’ Without safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), children’s health, nutrition, safety, and education are at risk. They are exposed to preventable diseases including diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera and polio which may potentially disrupt their early development if not treated on time. Children are also at risk of undernutrition and malnutrition, vulnerable to sexual violence and injury as they collect water.

The report continues by noting that children under fifteen are, on average, nearly three times more likely to die than adults from vector-borne diseases, such as diarrhoeal disease, related to unsafe water and sanitation than violence directly linked to conflict. As a matter of fact, seventy per cent of annual children’s death are attributable to diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, and the lack of oxygen at birth. For children under five, this probability increases more than twenty times.

With millions of refugees streaming into Europe since the onset of the war, Turkey, as Syria’s closest and ‘safest’ neighbour has been the focal point of this population movement. However, Turkey’s response to the refugees has been a human rights abomination, particularly when it comes to children and minors. This article will describe the steps Turkey has taken to undermine the human rights of Syrian children and why it should not be considered a safe third country.

Children’s rights abuses in Turkey

It has been estimated that due to the Syrian civil war, as of March 2019, one million Syrian children became orphans, 4.7 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance, and another 490,000 of said children are in hard-to-reach areas. Overall, six million Syrians are internally displaced, while another 5.6 million people have left their home country. Most of them fled to Turkey. In response, Turkey passed two foundational pieces of legislation in 2013. First, the Law on Foreigners and International Protection no. 6458, which entered into force in April 2014, and second, the Temporary Protection Regulation – TPR, in 2014. Given that Turkey is one among very few countries which still has the geographical limitation to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, Syrians and non-European asylum seekers may only be entitled to the weaker standards provided under the TPR.

As pointed out by several authors, temporary protection has a more limited scope than the refugee protection and, in non-compliance with its provisions, health and education services as well as access to social assistance and employment to Syrians are often not delivered. For instance, UNICEF stressed that the situation for refugee children in Turkey remains particularly challenging, given that around 400,000 Syrian children are still out of school and are therefore at likely risk of isolation, discrimination and exploitation. Of 4 million registered Syrians in Turkey, 3.6 million were awarded the TPR, including around 1.5 million children under 18, of which 532,000 are under 5 years of age.

To date, Ankara is yet established a comprehensive human rights framework. Nor does it provide for a specific law addressing (un)accompanied minors. However, under Article 3 of the TPR, (un)accompanied minors are persons with special needs, thus entitled to additional safeguards and priority access to rights and services, such as healthcare, psychosocial support, and rehabilitation. Pursuant to the Turkish Civil Code, unaccompanied minors shall be appointed with a legal guardian, a provision that the Asylum Information Database (AIDA) claims is not respected most of the time.

In this respect, it has been noted that lawyers in Ankara have witnessed difficulties, while in some cases appointed guardians had no qualification for that role. AIDA also noted the persistent coexistence of different procedures applying to the reception and guardianship of unaccompanied minors in Turkey, which gives rise to different standards of treatment. AIDA considers, for instance, that in 2019 the legal assessments of new guardians in Antakya have not been conducted carefully.

Additionally, although Turkey has ratified both the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2001 Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Exploitation and Abuses, Amnesty International claims that, between 2014 and 2018, Turkey has unlawfully deported Syrians to their home country, violating the principle of non-refoulement. According to such peremptory norm, States are not allowed to remove, deport or expel a person to a country where their life and liberty would be threatened, or where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.

This allegation has been also confirmed by Human Rights Watch and questions have been raised by Ambassador Tomáš Boček, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on migration and refugees of the Council of Europe, on the observance of its international obligations. Amnesty showed that episodes of deportation persisted respectively in July 2019 and May 2020. The victims are mostly men, but there is evidence of children and families deported. Moreover, Syrians at risk of deportation are often left without legal recourse or remedy to prevent their illegal removal, and the UNHCR does not have access to immigration removal centres, as also noted by the European Parliament.

Furthermore, Amnesty International, Save the Children, the European Council for Refugees and Exiles, and the Council of Europe accuse Turkey of unlawfully detaining Syrian asylum seekers. In 2017, there were 21 temporary accommodation centres for temporary protection beneficiaries. Some of these have turned into de facto detention centres for Syrians with insufficient food and dire conditions, especially for children. In practice, unaccompanied minors are kept in removal centres in border cities and a number of children begging or selling small objects in the street are detained in police stations, where they often receive documents cancelling their right to stay.

Children with their families are generally detained in removal centres where they are not granted education. For all these reasons, recently, the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey violating Article 3 ECHR (prohibition of torture), Article 5.4 ECHR (right to remedy), Article 5.1 ECHR (freedom of movement), and Article 13 ECHR (fair trial) in the case of detention pending expulsion of a mother and her 3 children, all Russian nationals, arrested for attempting to cross the Syrian border after entering Turkey.

Finally, another severe breach of children’s rights in Turkey concerns the employment of children under the age of 15, which remains a considerable problem in Turkey. The influx of refugees has led to a quickly growing number of Syrian children working especially in textile factories and agriculture. A 2020 Save the Children report finds that often families only pay smugglers for their children’s trip to Turkey. From there the children need to find jobs to continue their journey to Western Europe.

This particular pattern of emigration exposes them to exploitation, abuses, kidnapping, and detention by smugglers as well as by Turkish authorities. According to Save the Children, ‘out of 254 children interviewed in March 2019, almost thirty per cent worked in one of the transit countries before reaching Belgrade. Almost all of these children (97%) worked in Turkey. Based on the testimonies of those willing to provide this information, the prices of transferring migrants from the country of origin to the desired destination ranged from EUR 6,000 to over EUR 10,000’.

Conclusion

In light of the persistent violation of fundamental freedoms and human rights of Syrians and other non-European persons in need of international protection in general and of (un)accompanied minors in particular, the unfilled lack of a comprehensive human rights framework, and the increasing limitation to basic civil and political rights by the central Turkish government, it comes clear that Turkey cannot be considered anymore, if ever, as a safe third country, where international protection applicants may find guarantees of adequate protection standards.

Similarly, the heads of government and state of the EU Member States that in 2016 signed together with Turkey the so-called EU-Turkey Statement cannot shy away anymore from their international obligations and responsibilities. Neither Turkish President Erdoğan’s autocratic regime, nor the absence of a national human rights framework persuaded the EU to consider Turkey as an unsafe country for refugees and asylum seekers. On this behalf, President Erdoğan repeatedly threatened the EU to open the border with Greece as a way to convince the Union to financially support Turkey’s intervention in Syria. In March 2020, the EU refused to increase its financial aid to Ankara, claiming that EU Member States would not bow to President Erdoğan’s threats. A few days later, the Turkish President opened the gate and thousands of migrants stuck at the Turkish-Greek border to exit the country.

Ankara used migration to put pressure on a weak EU, unwilling to take on its responsibilities towards migratory challenges. The externalisation of actions to curb migration through informal agreements with unsafe non-EU countries, which unlawfully impedes people to leave their soil in exchange for financial and economic benefits, leads to human rights abuses, to breaches of international and EU law, and to extremely serious damages against the victims involved. Many scholars have also pointed out the high risk for the parties involved to violate the principle of non-refoulement, since the removal of asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey as the first country of asylum seems not to fulfil the requirement of sufficient and effective protection.

Such a human rights-breaching deal – that trapped over twelve thousand asylum seekers in the Moria refugee camp, which has a capacity to house two thousand – should end immediately. As long as EU Member States will continue to limit the access to international protection in their national territories and to add external barriers to stem migration flows, the Common European Asylum System cannot be more than empty words on the EU Official Journal.

Chiara Scissa is a PhD student in Law at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa, Italy) and Human Rights and Migrant Protection Focal Point at the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (UNMGCY). Her main research interests in migration and refugee studies include the impact of climate change on human rights and environmental migration. Email: chiara.scissa@santannapisa.it

Can a Tropical Bird Take the Jungles of Colombia out of the ‘Conflict Trap’?

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by Andrés Felipe Gómez González

The guianan cock-of-the-rock, endemic to the tropical rainforests of northern South America, abounds in the jungles of Guaviare. (Image credit: Almir Cândido de Almeida)

Well, not only the bird. A pink river, mysterious parietal paintings, and bizarre rock formations may also hold the key towards establishing peace in one of the most conflict-ridden areas of Colombia. In recent years, the people of northern Guaviare – ‘the door’ to the Amazon jungle in Southern Colombia – realised that these treasures, hidden deep in the jungle, can provide a better living than growing coca. However, this story is not just about a group of farmers turning their back on violence-fuelling illicit trade to embrace an alternative source of income; it is also a story of how to re-imagine a territory. Small-scale solutions lead the way to peaceful coexistence in conflict-affected areas.

The drug trade continues as one of the main sources of funding of the illegal armed groups in Colombia. Some regions have even seen an increase in production after the demobilisation of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)—Colombia’s biggest guerrilla group and the subsequent emergence of fragmented armed groups led by ex FARC warlords. This trend reinforces the idea that Colombia has fallen into what Collier & Sambanis coined as the ´conflict trap´ in their article ‘Understanding Civil War: A New Agenda’ (2002), a situation in which war tends to prolong itself by aggravating the political and economic conditions that caused the war. But Guaviare -once Colombia’s main coca producer region- tells a different story as the hectares with coca continues to drop and its inhabitants leave violence behind. Why is this happening? Although this article cannot cover all the possible explanations, it focuses on the lessons that the story of these farmers provides to policymakers looking at how to break the ‘conflict trap’ in other cases.

A window of opportunity in a land of trouble

Originally inhabited by the pre-Columbian Nukak indigenous group, Guaviare was one of the regions colonised during the Amazon rubber boom of the 1910s and 1940s. Many families migrated from the centre of the country, seeking fast revenue and adventure. Nevertheless, the ‘rubber fever’ ended quickly, leaving the new inhabitants of Guaviare alone in an immense rainforest difficult to conquer. A new era of colonisation came in the late XX Century with the boom of cocaine. The population of Guaviare grew exponentially as colonisers migrated from other impoverished regions attracted by the coca revenues.  Following the new wave of colonisers, this territory started growing almost thirty thousand hectares of coca per year.

Cave paintings of ‘Cerro Azul’ (Image credit: Author’s own, A.G.)

Without the strong presence of the State, the region fell into the hands of drug traffickers and the FARC guerrilla group. Under their presence, growing coca was not only about earning revenue but also a matter of survival. Those who refused to risked being hunted down by the new rulers of the territory. New generations grew up having to choose between growing coca – like their parents – or joining the FARC. According to Colombia’s Victims Unit, the conflict in Guaviare has had more than 93,000 victims since 1985, with more than 83,000 displaced and 6,612 dead. In just a couple of decades, the region had fallen into what Collier & Sambanis call the ´conflict trap´ as the political and economic outcomes of the conflict were aggravating it.

The river ‘Caño Sabana’ (Image credit: Author’s own, A.G.)

Several government-led efforts to break the relationship between coca and the communities failed, as forced eradication carried out by the Army caused serious collateral damage and aerial aspersion of glyphosate was suspended by a judicial order due to the potential risk on the health of the inhabitants. Additionally, the geographical location of Guaviare imposed legal, environmental, and economic restraints on the viability of other crops to replace coca. None of these crops could match the level of profit that coca provided. The introduction of cattle to the region has reduced the farmers’ dependence on coca by generating a decent source of income, but deforestation has caused more droughts and a loss of biodiversity that now threatens the stable income flow of the cattle-ranchers.

Fortunately, the signing of the peace treaty with FARC in 2016 opened new opportunities for Guaviare. The demobilisation of more than five hundred guerrilla fighters, as well as the government’s initiatives for the collective elaboration of local development plans, momentarily allowed the people of Guaviare to re-think their territory in ways they have not done before. Suddenly, the lush jungles that for decades hid the laboratories that produced cocaine, were seen as potential ecotourist attractions. Guaviare, which had been tagged as a ‘no go red zone,’ was now attracting birdwatchers, in the search of the Rupicola rupicola (the bird pictured above), and backpackers. Between 2016 and 2019, the arrival of passengers to the airport in Guaviare increased by 247%; and some of the operators of the main tourist attractions reported that the number of visitors had grown by at least ten times over the past few years.

However, not all guerrillas demobilised, and at least 150 men remained in arms in Guaviare when the rest of the FARC demobilised and regrouped into one of the so-called ‘dissident groups’. Since then, they have expanded their control over more territory in the area and continue to traffic drugs.  However, while cocaine production has increased in other Colombian regions under the control of other dissident groups and criminal organisations, the data from Guaviare offers a more optimistic vision as hectares with coca have dropped some fifty-four per cent between 2016 and 2019. This is where this little bird comes into play.

Re-thinking the jungle and the communities

Transitioning from coca to ecotourism has involved a deep paradigm shift for the communities in Guaviare. Most of the inhabitants saw the rainforest as an obstacle to progress, and thousands of hectares were chopped down to plant coca or to introduce cattle. But now, local leaders in Guaviare -particularly in the area of the ´Serranía de la Lindosa´- have taken action to promote more sustainable exploitation of the forests that were once under the control of the FARC. Former coca farmers from communities surrounding the emerging touristic hotspots have created cooperative associations and turned themselves into tourist guides. Their services include taking the tourists to look for the bird, to see the cave paintings, and to take a dip in the river where the plant Macarenia clavigera dyes the water pink. By creating this association, its members have been able to involve their community and assure that everyone benefits from the new trade.

´Don Segundo´ is in the process of turning his coca and cattle farm into an ecological reservation where a 27 metres-tall waterfall is the main tourist attraction. (Image credit: @mateoah)

In a joint effort with Colombian universities and NGOs, local leaders are trying to replicate their success in neighbouring communities. This positive spill-over effect is likely to reduce conflict in the area. It will also have positive implications for local environmental sustainability and reducing greenhouse emissions.  Farmers have learnt that conservation is an essential component of ecotourism, and universities are getting the chance to study the ecology of a previously inaccessible area of rainforest.

The local dissident group’s effort to reclaim the area to grow coca or take control of the booming tourism industry has not prospered: they now face an organised community that is more likely to resist and generate a sustainable income from the forests they used to chop down. For the moment, the efforts of the inhabitants of the ‘Serranía de la Lindosa’ are taking their region on the road towards a more stable peace by breaking with the illegal business that fuelled the worst tragedies of the past. Their enterprise is now creating a more optimistic future for the new generations that, otherwise, would have fallen in the hands of the guerrillas.

Lessons from Guaviare

The positive experience in Guaviare has caught the attention of international donors, think tanks, and journalists in the search for policies that allow Colombia to overcome decades of drug-related violence. Although these changes are still in the early stages, some lessons can be learnt about how to break a ‘conflict trap’, where a region is mired in persistent and entrenched violence:

  1. Local context matters: There is no ‘silver bullet’ in the fight against coca production. The Colombian government has failed to achieve a lasting reduction of hectares of coca through national policies like aerial aspersion. This case shows that the identification of small-scale opportunities in a local area in Northern Guaviare and the presence of potential ecotourist biodiverse hotspots- can be more successful in generating alternative income for farmers linked with coca production. Policymakers who ignore the local context will fail to implement the economic and political measures appropriate for that community and will miss the opportunity to break the ‘conflict trap’.
  2. Communities should be at the centre of the solution: While policymakers arriving from Bogota had failed to impose centrally designed crop substitution plans and convince farmers to drop out from coca cultivation, the direct relationship of local leaders with their communities has been a fundamental motivator of change. Efforts to eradicate coca that incorporate a bottom-up building perspective may be more successful.
  3. Sustainability as a key element: Previous efforts to substitute coca that only considered short-term monetary incentives (e.g., introducing crops that generate as much revenue to the farmers) were implicated in environmental damage. Although the current pandemic has caused tourist numbers to plummet temporarily, it is likely that ecotourism plans in Guaviare will be longer-lasting and generate a more stable income for former coca farmers than other non-sustainable businesses.

While the demobilisation of the FARC has not ended the drug trade or armed violence in Colombia, small experiences like this one in Guaviare offer a glimmer of hope. Local, small-scale initiatives such as in Guaviare, are bringing peace to communities that once suffered the burden of war. They are breaking the perverse incentives that fuelled conflict in their territories. However, the story is not over yet. The successful implementation of these farmers’ plans still requires overcoming several challenges that cannot be fully covered here. Additionally, this initiative by no means tackles all the causes of the Colombian armed conflict, some of which will require different types of interventions. However, it already offers valuable lessons for those concerned in breaking the ‘conflict trap’ in historically neglected territories.

Andrés Gómez, a PG student at King’s College London is currently reading for his MA in International Conflict Studies.

Strife Series on Climate Change and Conflict – Introduction

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by Gemma MacIntyre

Studies show a direct correlation between climate and violent conflict (Image credit: Image: Reuters/Amit Dave)

In recent decades, climate change has been recognised as an important international concern. Scientists and leaders worldwide agree that the pressure of increased temperatures on crop yields, natural capital, and water availability – and subsequent demand for already dwindling resources – is undoubtedly of detriment to global populations. In a recent IPCC report, it was concluded that a predicted 1.5-degree celsius of global warming could significantly impede efforts to achieve sustainable development goals: pushing more people into poverty, exacerbating inter-group equalities, and wreaking global economic disruption. Such acute warnings from scientists, combined with mounting pressure from environmental activists worldwide, has prompted multilateral efforts to curb carbon emissions.

As states have become more aware of the impact of climate change, so too have they come to analyse it from different perspectives. In doing so, an important consensus has emerged: that climate change is not merely an environmental concern; it is a human security challenge too, with the potential to aggravate societal grievances. Further, the impact of increased temperatures on already scarce resources, migration movements, and food security may affect both intra- and inter-state relations: with the capacity to fuel further conflict.

Still, the direct impacts of climate on international conflict and security remain somewhat hazy; and policies to address it, scarce. This is partially due to the empirical difficulties of measuring climate’s impact on violence. Associating casualties with conflict is, at the best of times, challenging: let alone when those causal factors – including changing temperatures, rising sea levels, and depletion of resources – are intangible. Further, while drought and extreme temperatures have undoubtedly exacerbated poverty and forced displacement in regions such as Syria, Sudan, and Bangladesh; in a knotted web of additional political, social, and economic grievances, isolating climate as a cause of conflict is difficult to ascertain.

With that being said, while the empirical evidence remains uncertain, it is critical to treat climate change as not merely an environmental or economic concern, but as an international security issue, as well. To analyse this idea in greater depth, this series aims to form a discussion about the relationship between climate change and conflict. By outlining the impact of climate change on issues including terrorism, migration, and civil strife; this series aims to demonstrate the multifaceted nature of climate change as an international security challenge. It is hoped that, by doing so, it will emphasise the relevance of climate change to contemporary conflict studies, and national security policy more widely.

 

Publication schedule

Part I: Why Has Somalia Proved a Fertile Environment for the Rise of Al Shabaab? The Impacts of Climate Change on the Rise of Islamist Terror by Annabelle Green

Part II: Climate Change and Social Conflict by Professor Anatol Lieven

Part III: Slow Violence: Climate Refugees and the Legal Lacuna of Protection by Ellie Judd

Part IV: Water Conflicts: Climate Change as a Threat Multiplier in Sub-Saharan Africa by Musab Alnour

Gemma graduated from the University of St Andrews in International Relations and Management and is now studying an MA in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London. During her undergraduate degree, she studied a range of post-conflict cases, with a particular focus on intractable conflicts such as Israel-Palestine and Bosnia. Through her academic studies and voluntary experience with VSO in Nigeria, Gemma has developed a strong interest in the relationship between corruption and development. Her experience with VSO Nigeria furthered this interest, as she was made aware of the acute impacts of governance on public services, such as health and education. She hopes to pursue further research on the impact of conflict on health security.