Combating forced displacement in sub-saharan Africa: rethinking Africa’s position on illegal trafficking in firearms

Abstract

United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) annual global trend study shows that as at the end of 2017, 68.5 million people have been, forcefully displaced around the world chiefly as a result of war, violence and persecution. Sub- Saharan Africa hosts the largest states on the African continent beset with displacement of persons across the continent. These displacements have been attributed to internal armed conflicts, poverty, famine, drought among other plaguing issues. This paper examines the problem of insecurity caused by internal armed conflicts as an overarching cause of displacement. Internal armed conflicts are fuelled through the dynamics of arms trafficking. In a bid to curb the growing trend of displacement of persons, there is an urgent need to tackle the issue of proliferation of firearms through illegal trafficking. The weapons in themselves are not the cause of internal armed conflicts but their availability within a polity and easy access to them fuel armed conflicts and discourage peaceful resolution of such conflicts. This paper advocates for multilateral co-operation among African states to place a moratorium on the proliferation of firearms within the continent. States need to be more proactive in their approach to combating illicit trafficking in firearms across their borders and prosecution of perpetrators within and across their territories.