Creating Safer Space: Strengthening Civilian Protection Amidst Violent Conflict

“创造更安全的空间”是一个为期四年的国际跨学科研究网络，它支持地方民间进程，为受暴力冲突影响的社区建立可持续的保护结构，使其免受人身伤害。该网络将受冲突影响的社区、保护从业人员、学者、政策制定者和艺术家聚集在一起，共同致力于加强非武装保护实践的愿景，为暴力冲突中的社区和个人创造更安全的空间，提高他们的抵御能力，并帮助防止流离失所。根据联合国难民署的数据，目前因暴力冲突而被迫流离失所的人数达到创纪录的6850万人（联合国难民署2019年），冲突中的大多数死亡是平民。这使得在战争背景下保护平民免受人身伤害成为我们这个时代的一个紧迫问题。虽然国际社会已经认识到保护的必要性，但平民的人身安全仍然几乎完全被视为联合国蓝盔部队等武装外部行为者的任务。该网络的独创性在于其重点是由非武装行为者提供保护并部署在社区的地方一级，无论是由“外部”专家还是“内部/地方”保护行为者。非武装平民保护组织陪同人权维护者，通过其存在和积极参与战略，阻止武装行为者对人权维护者发动攻击。他们利用与冲突的武装和非武装各方建立的关系网络，通过谈判使国内流离失所者安全进入安全营地，或将被强行招募的青年带回家人身边。他们还监督停火和协议。此外，一些受暴力影响的社区通过建立和平社区和无武器区进行自我保护，为暴力冲突中的平民生活创造了更安全的空间。目前有40多个国际非政府组织和越来越多的国家和地方组织在24个冲突国家开展保护工作，此外还有当地的自我保护倡议。它们表明，在不使用武力或以武力相威胁的情况下由平民保护平民可以创造人身安全，甚至可以发挥更大的作用：通过树立榜样，不助长进一步的暴力，统一和平行动可以帮助打破暴力循环，从而有助于长期建设和平。最初的研究表明，联合行动计划可能通常比武装保护更有效，事实上，最近的联合国安理会和联合国大会决议提到了联合行动计划的潜力，表明人们的想法发生了一些变化。“创造更安全的空间”旨在通过让广泛的利益攸关方参与网络、能力建设、研究和影响活动，围绕以下三个主题，加强和扩大UCP的实践：理解暴力冲突中对身体伤害的脆弱性：在需要保护的情况下，哪些不同类型的脆弱性以何种方式相互作用，以及它们需要哪些不同的保护策略？建设地方保护基础设施：社区的外部保护战略和自我保护机制如何协同工作，以取得最佳保护效果，而又不相互损害？发展平民保护能力：如何扩大当地非武装保护的规模/范围，纳入新的行为体和合作，以保护更多的人免受暴力和流离失所，并发展更强大的保护能力？为了解决这些问题，我们的网络为来自全球北方和南方的学术和非学术合作伙伴提供活动，涉及三个方面的工作：建立网络和增强能力；协作和创新研究；知识共享和倡导。总之，这些活动旨在增加全世界受益于平民保护的人数。

"Creating Safer Space" is a four-year international, interdisciplinary research network, which supports local civilian processes that build sustainable structures of protection from physical harm for and with communities affected by violent conflict. The Network brings together conflict-affected communities, protection practitioners, academics, policymakers and artists to jointly work on the vision of enhancing unarmed protection practices, which create safer space for communities and individuals amidst violent conflict, raise their levels of resilience and help prevent displacement.According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are now a record high of 68.5 million people forcibly displaced by violent conflict (UNHCR 2019), and the majority of deaths in conflicts are among civilians. This makes the protection of civilians from physical harm in contexts of war a pressing issue of our time. While the international community has acknowledged the need for protection, the physical safety of civilians is still seen almost exclusively as a task of armed outside actors like UN blue helmets.The originality of this Network is its focus on protection provided by unarmed actors and deployed at the local level of communities, be it by "outside" specialists or "insider/local" protection actors. Unarmed civilian protection (UCP) organisations accompany human rights defenders and deter armed actors from carrying out attacks against them through their presence and proactive engagement strategies. They use networks of relationships built with armed and unarmed parties to a conflict to negotiate safe passage of internally displaced persons to a safe camp or to bring forcefully recruited youth back to their families. They also monitor ceasefires & agreements. Moreover, some violence-affected communities self-protect by setting up peace communities and weapons-free zones, creating safer space for civilian life amidst violent conflict.There are over 40 international NGOs and a growing number of national and local organisations currently undertaking protection work in 24 countries in conflict, in addition to local self-protection initiatives. 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."Creating Safer Space" aims to enhance and broaden the practice of UCP by engaging a wide range of stakeholders in networking, capacity-building, research and impact activities around three broad themes:A. Understanding vulnerability to physical harm in violent conflict: Which different kinds of vulnerabilities interact in what ways in situations that require protection, and which different protection strategies do they require?B. Building local protection infrastructures: How can outside protection strategies and self-protection mechanisms in communities work together for best protection results and without undermining each other?C. Developing civilian protection capabilities: How can unarmed local protection be scaled up in size/scope and include new actors and collaborations with a view to protect more people from violence and displacement and develop stronger protection capacity?To address these questions, our Network delivers activities for academic and non-academic partners from the Global North and South across three strands of work: networking and capacity enhancement; collaborative and innovative research; and knowledge sharing and advocacy. Taken together, these activities aim to increase the number of people benefiting from civilian protection worldwide.