GENEVA - A UN expert warned today that organised criminal activity is fuelling a neglected global crisis of internal displacement.
"Organised criminal activity is an increasingly relevant driver of internal displacement, with the number of people displaced by crime worldwide doubling from 2023 to 2024," said Paula Gaviria Betancur, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons. "Despite this mounting threat, few States have been able to develop effective responses to prevent, address, and remedy displacement in these contexts."
In her report to the 59th session of the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur examines the rise of organised criminal activity as a global driver of internal displacement and violations of the rights of displaced persons. She provides an overview of relevant legal frameworks, evaluates the impact of organised criminal activity on the rights of internally displaced persons, and makes recommendations based on best practices to prevent, address, and resolve displacement in contexts of organised criminal activity.
"Criminal actors not only force individuals and communities from their homes, but subject displaced persons to grave human rights abuses, including violence, extortion, forced recruitment and labour, and sexual violence and exploitation, often in a climate of total impunity," said Gaviria Betancur.
"The totality of these acts erodes the State's legitimacy and undermines social cohesion as communities fracture and factionalize under criminal pressure. These dynamics, coupled with persistent insecurity generated by criminal activity, frustrate the search for durable solutions to displacement."
The Special Rapporteur acknowledges in her report that effectively addressing organised criminality is a complex process, given that the phenomenon spans multiple legal frameworks, including humanitarian, human rights, and criminal law. Organised criminal actors are furthermore not a homogenous group, and have diverse political, ideological, economic, and territorial motivations which must be managed. However, she voices deep concern at the militarised approaches that have tended to dominate State responses to organised criminality.
"Militarised responses may target criminal actors, but often end up punishing the victims, driving new waves of violence and displacement," said the expert. "This is especially true where States derogate from their human rights obligations during declared states of emergency, exposing displaced persons and other victims of organised crime to arbitrary detention, restrictions on their freedom of movement, and other human rights violations."
The report urges States to instead adopt measures address the root causes of displacement and criminality, including poverty, corruption, and weak rule of law, ensure the centrality of protection in responses to criminal violence and displacement, and promote accountability and access to justice, remedy, and durable solutions for internally displaced persons and other victims of human rights violations.
In her statement to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur also presented a summary of her country visit to the Marshall Islands, which took place in October 2024.
