Even as the international community is having difficulty meeting the immense humanitarian needs in Pakistan, the number of displaced families is expected to rise throughout 2010, as violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan continues.
However, a large proportion of the country's 2.3 million internally displaced people (IDPs), most of whom hail from the Swat, Lower Dir, and Buner districts, have returned to their homes.
Internally displaced people are different from refugees, who flee from one country into another, whereas IDPs have fled their homes but remain in their country of origin. In this way, they remain under the protection of their government and retain their rights of citizenship in additional to the human rights entitlements afforded them under international conventions.
Most IDPs are civilians, fleeing any number of disasters, from earthquakes and floods to political violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Especially when fleeing violence, there is the possibility that children may get separated from their parents. And, without adequate registration and records management in IDP camps, it can be difficult to reunite them.
Many internally displaced children in Afghanistan and Pakistan lack adequate access to health care, and their education is frequently interrupted. In some situations, children are vulnerable to abuse by insurgents and paramilitaries. More commonly, to make ends meet, children will beg in the streets, hoping to supplement the meagre livelihoods of their families.
According to 2008 estimates, there were 26 million IDPs scattered across the globe. UNICEF estimates that 20 million of the number of displaced people worldwide are children. Many international charities, aid groups, and UN agencies are working tirelessly to provide enough care and protection to IDPs. The UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines on the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons (est. 2000), reaffirms "calls for the strengthening of national and local capacities, and for integrated training activities. It emphasises the need for systematic efforts to support community-based protection and to develop protection strategies for women, children and other vulnerable groups."
Due to prolonged civil or inter-state violence, some refugee and IDP camps have existed for decades (referred to as protracted IDP/refugee situations). Some children have been born in them and have never known life outside them.