ewhere, contribute to the neglect of the remaining IDPs.
Rights and vulnerabilities
IDPs in the region continue to struggle to acquire the documents needed to access their rights. IDP cards were issued in several countries to substitute for lost documents and give access to certain government benefits but some IDPs cannot access rights not covered by the IDP card. Many displaced pensioners receive a lower pension than they are entitled to because the necessary documents and their records were destroyed during the conflicts or they could not prove the number of years they had worked.
More than 15 years after being displaced, a large number of IDPs still live in inadequate and precarious conditions in various types of housing, including makeshift shelters, illegally occupied dwellings, collective centres and apartments shared with relatives. In many cases, conditions are run down and crowded with little protection from the heat and cold. Some IDPs live in shelters that they neither own nor rent and are at risk of eviction. Many IDPs displaced in remote rural areas must also contend with infertile land and distance from job opportunities and essential services. Living conditions of IDPs in private accommodation are largely unknown. Improvement of living conditions has often been avoided because authorities perceived it as encouraging IDPs to integrate locally which does not always serve their political agenda.
Many IDPs continue to encounter problems in repossessing or being compensated for their property, in some countries due to the absence of political solutions to the conflicts there. Both property restitution and property compensation schemes have had reasons for not benefiting all of the dispossessed. People who never possessed title to their property have especially had difficulty with property restitution; this is particularly the case for Roma living in informal settlements and for women whose houses were registered under the names of their husbands. Roma IDPs are disproportionately affected by the lack of documentation since many never had identification documents or a legal residence and so cannot apply for an IDP card, register new births, apply for citizenship, access social benefits and obtain employment or education.
In the Balkans, Roma suffer from widespread discrimination in various sectors of public life. Their treatment and living conditions deteriorated with displacement but there has been some progress recently in better representing and defending the interests of the Roma and improving their living conditions. Other IDPs who are ethnic minorities in their area of displacement face discrimination. It is difficult for ethnic Chechens in Russia and Kurds in Turkey, for example, to lead a normal life in displacement. People who fled areas where they were an ethnic minority and who went to areas where they were part of the ethnic majority face more subtle discrimination as they are often viewed as non-locals even years after their arrival. This treatment of IDPs highlights the outstanding need for further efforts to combat discrimination and promote reconciliation in the region.
The disruption of education for internally displaced children remains an issue mostly in the Caucasus and Turkey. Displaced children are legally entitled to attend school but some children are being educated in schools damaged by conflict that have yet to be repaired while others do not go at all since many IDPs, being poorer than their neighbours, cannot afford associated costs such as transport, textbooks and school supplies for their children. Displaced children in some countries are being educated separately from their non-displaced peers. While in some cases this is for practical reasons, in other cases – in Azerbaijan and Georgia, for example – segregation has been a deliberate policy.
While some IDPs have been vulnerable since the beginning of their displacement, the vulnerability of others has increased over time as a result of family separation, lack of support to address their specific needs, and social stigmatisation; th