Socio-economic Consequences of Development-induced Internal Displacement and the Coping Strategies of Female Victims in Lagos Nigeria: An ethno-demographic Study.
Demography
30
Issue: 2
(11 - 2016)
The plethora of violent strife, man-made or natural disasters, economic vicissitudes, and
major development schemes have swelled the number refugees and internally displaced
people, in the developing countries of the world lately. Statistics revealed that there are over
55 million people in this dire situation globally consisting of over 38 million internally
displacedpeople, over 16 million refugees and over 1 million asylum-seekers. This study
highlights the impacts, the socio-economic consequences of development-induced internal
displacement on females in the Lagos urban space, evaluating the coping strategies
employed by them. This is a qualitative study that employed a combination of key informant
and in-depth interview methods to generate primary data from the samples purposively
drawn from the population of interestwhich comprised people forcibly evicted from Badia, in
Lagos State, Nigeria. The interviews were conducted from Tuesday 14th to Thursday 16th
October 2014 using unstructured interview guide. The study establishes thatforcible eviction
and the consequent displacements brought a myriad of economic, social and psychological
hardships on the female victims in Badia, to which they were compelled to devise various
ingenious survival and coping strategies. The study ascertains that women cope better
emotionally and economically than men in such circumstances and it also found that
extended family members are a significant pillar of support to displaced persons.
Keywords: Refugees, Internally Displaced Women, Forced Eviction, Impoverishment,
Coping Strategies
0