According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are now a record high of 82.4 million people forcibly displaced by violent conflict, and the majority of deaths in conflicts are among civilians. This makes the protection of civilians from physical harm in contexts of war and other political violence a pressing issue of our time. While the international community has acknowledged the need for protection, the physical safety of civilians is still imaged predominantly as a task of armed actors (UN blue helmets, national police or militaries, armed local self-defence groups, etc.). Yet not only does the demand for protection from physical harm exceed the offer by far; armed actors are often also rather (part of) the problem than the solution.
The originality of the Creating Safer Space research network is its focus on active nonviolent protection provided by unarmed civilians and deployed at the local level of communities, be it by outside specialists or insider/local protection actors. Unarmed civilian protection (UCP)[1] is “the practice of civilians protecting other civilians in situations of imminent, ongoing, or recent violent conflict. It involves trained international civilians protecting local civilians, local civilians protecting each other, and even local civilians protecting international or non-local civilians.”[2] For more information on unarmed civilian protection and self-protection, please visit our website and our UCP research database.
There are over 40 international NGOs and a growing number of national and local organisations currently undertaking protection work in at least 24 countries in conflict, in addition to local self-protection initiatives such as peace communities and weapons-free zones using a range of proactive strategies to create safer space for civilian life amidst violent conflict. They illustrate that the protection of civilians by civilians without the use or threat of force can work to create physical safety and may even do more: by providing a role model, and by not fuelling further violence, UCP can help break cycles of violence and thus contribute to longer-term peacebuilding. Initial research has suggested that UCP may often be more effective than armed protection and indeed, latest UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions mention the potential of UCP, indicating some change in thinking even at the level of governmental organisations.
The focus of Creating Safer Space is on nonviolent (self-)protection of civilians in conflicts in Colombia, South Sudan, Myanmar and the Philippines, but research on other Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) will also be supported (as specified below).
[1] UCP is used here as a shorthand to a wider field of practice. Organisations and communities use different terminologies to denominate their work, and there is a lively debate over this within the community of practice. While unarmed civilian protection and protective accompaniment are the most commonly used terms, the Creating Safer Space research network is interested in all practices of protection from physical harm of civilians by civilians through nonviolent strategies, regardless of their specific denomination.
[2] Oldenhuis, H., Furnari, E., Carriere, R., Wagstrom, T., Frisch, A., & Duncan, M. (2021). Unarmed civilian protection: Strengthening civilian capacities to protect civilians against violence. An introductory course in 5 modules. Second edition. Geneva: Nonviolent Peaceforce.