At the end of her visit to Mexico, the UN Special Rapporteur* on the human rights of internally displaced persons urged several national and governmental institutions to create the necessary laws to prevent displacement and protect victims.
Cecilia Jimenez-Damary also asked the Government to create a federal registry of victims of internal displacement to raise awareness and allocate a sufficient budget to provide them with comprehensive care.
“Although it is necessary to create a single federal registry of internally displaced persons, in addition to the state-level registries, it must not only include those who have been legally recognized, but also those who do not have that legal recognition, but are displaced. de facto”, said Jimenez-Damary, presenting his preliminary remarks of the visit to the country.
“Registration should not confer legal status, but should have the purpose of facilitate protection and humanitarian assistance according to the individual and collective needs of the internally displaced persons”.
The expert said that it is essential that internally displaced persons participate fully and effectively in the decisions that affect them, and that their specific and differentiated protection needs be considered.
The rapporteur visited the states of Chiapas, Chihuahua, Mexico City and Guerrero. He met with officials from the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches at the federal and state levels, as well as with representatives of civil society organizations, autonomous human rights organizations, the diplomatic corps, and UN agencies and other international organizations.
Meeting with the victims
Jimenez-Damary heard from victims of internal displacement and affected communities how violence, agrarian conflicts, sometimes related to development projects, mining, illegal logging, and disasters forced people to move.
Also, saw the impacts of displacement on women, relatives of disappeared persons, members of indigenous peoples and communitiesjournalists, human rights defenders and members of the LGBTI community.
The full report on the Special Rapporteur’s visit will be submitted to the Human Rights Council in June 2023.
*The special rapporteurs are part of the ‘Special Procedures’ of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name for the independent investigative and monitoring mechanisms established by the Council to deal with specific situations in countries or thematic issues around the world. the world. The experts of the Special Procedures work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent of any government or organization and act in their individual capacity.
**Cecilia Jimenez-Damary was appointed Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons by the United Nations Human Rights Council in September 2016. A human rights lawyer specializing in forced displacement and migration, she has more than three decades of experience in NGOs defending human rights. Her mandate, which covers all countries, was recently renewed by resolution 50/6 of the Human Rights Council.
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