Whether they have just fled from their homes, have been displaced for a long time or are preparing to return home, displaced people often experience rights violations.
NRC's legal assistance (ICLA) programmes support refugee and IDP women and men in 20 conflict-affected countries to claim their rights. Our aim is to empower people to survive displacement and build new lives.
In 2015, NRC provided information, counselling, legal assistance or training to over 700,000 people.
How ICLA works
Our ICLA activities concentrate on four areas:
- Housing, land and property (HLP) rights
- Access to a legal identity
- Support to apply for refugee status
- Support to register as an internally displaced person (IDP)
Housing, land and property rights
Displaced people face particular challenges in enjoying their housing, land and property rights. Many have lost their homes because they have been destroyed during conflict. They can find themselves in temporary housing, under constant threat of eviction.
Women are particularly affected. They face additional discrimination, and sometimes denied inheritance by their families and evicted from their homes when their husband dies or if they get divorced.
Our ICLA teams work with a range of justice mechanisms – traditional, religious and statutory – to help solve disputes over HLP and promote access to justice.
Read more about our work on housing, land and property rights.
Legal identity
Access to rights and services, such as free movement, food, housing, education and health, often depends on the state recognising legal identity. Displaced people face specific obstacles that prevent them from accessing legal identity.
This has negative consequences for their rights and their access to services, including humanitarian assistance. ICLA assists displaced persons to obtain legal identity so that they can enjoy their rights.
People reached in 2015
Information sessions
62,398
information sessions were provided
Counselling
115,626
people received counselling services
Legal assistance
52,586
people received legal assistance
On the ground, our ICLA teams:
- Provide reliable and updated information on how to claim and exercise rights while in displacement.
- Counselling on how to overcome specific legal problems related to displacement: for example, assisting newborn refugees to obtain a birth certificate.
- Represent displaced people when they need greater support to exercise their rights: for example, claiming inherited land through customary justice mechanisms.
- We also assist with mediatio. For example between a refugee and their landlord to prevent forced eviction.
Throughout, we always:
- Respect confidentiality. We safeguard personal and sensitive information.
- Respect professional and ethical legal standards.
- Provide services free of charge.
ICLA on the ground
Our ICLA teams work in 20 countries around the world. Here are some examples of the difference they make:
AFGHANISTAN | Finding a new home
Returning to Afghanistan after living 13 years as refugees in Pakistan, the people of the town of Kishinde found their homeland in ruins. With no other options, they travelled to the outskirts and settled on vacant land.
LEBANON | Fleeing your home, living stateless
Where over one million Syrian refugees have escaped the conflict, an estimated 36,000 children born to Syrian parents are at risk of becoming stateless.
UKRAINE | Opening a new legal centre in eastern Ukraine
NRC opens a new legal aid centre in the city of Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine. The centre provides free legal advice to internally displaced people and others affected by the conflict.
For more information on NRC's ICLA Programmes please contact:
- Monica Sanchez Bermudez (Asia and East Africa)
- Fernando de Medina Rosales (Latin America and WestAfrica)
- Laura Cunial (Middle East)
For more information on NRC's work on displaced women's HLP rights, please visit the womenshlp.nrc.no , or contact: