Table 2.

Distinguishing features of internal displacement in Colombia, South America

Numbers and Time Trends
1	Colombia has the largest population of conflict-affected internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world.
	5.7 million in 2013
2	Children born to relocated/resettled IDP families are not counted in the total.
3	Colombia accounts for 17 % of IDPs in the world.
	5.7 million Colombian IDPs/33.3 million IDPs worldwide in 2013
4	Colombia accounts for 91 % of IDPs in the Western Hemisphere – geographically isolated from other major concentrations of IDPs worldwide.
	5.7 million Colombian IDPs/6.27 million IDPs in the Western Hemisphere in 2013
5	Colombian IDPs outnumber Colombian refugees 14 to 1.
	5.7 million Colombian IDPs and 394,000 Colombian refugees: 14:1 ratio
6	Internal displacement in Colombia is unidirectional.
	Almost no Colombian IDPs have been able to return to their homes.
7	Colombian internal displacement has continued for decades.
8	Numbers of Colombian IDPs increase each year.
Context of Colombian Displacement
9	Displacement takes place in the context of decades of armed insurgency.
10	IDPs are designated as a protected class of “victims of armed conflict”.
11	Colombian IDPs include a mixture of non-combatant civilians, current/former guerrilla, and current/former paramilitary members.
12	There is a complex relationship between drug trafficking and displacement.
	Colombia is the major world source nation for cocaine.
	Colombia is one of two major suppliers of heroin entering the US. Seized lands have been used for drug crop cultivation, drug processing, transit, concealment of illicit activities, and expansion of the power base for armed actors.
13	The predominant pattern of internal displacement is rural to urban.
	Rural lands are seized. Relative safety is found in urban settings.
Characteristics of Colombian IDPs
14	Seventy percent (70 %) of Colombian IDPs are women and children.
15	Special populations are disproportionately represented.
	Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, low educational attainment, low literacy subgroups
16	Ninety-five percent (95 %) of Colombian IDPs work in the “informal sector”.
17	Resettled IDPs are difficult to locate and identify for services.
	“Invisibility”: No IDP camps or geographically defined neighborhoods
18	In Colombia, IDPs have no defining identity or unifying organization.
19	Colombian IDPs have no safe place to migrate and no safe alternatives to return to communities of origin. Many no longer wish to return.
20	Laws and programs to provide public health, psychosocial, and legal services – and land restitution – for IDPs are in the early stages.