Guatemala has a complex dynamic of human mobility. It is a country of origin, return, and transit of people on the move but government assistance  is primarily  directed toward refugees and asylum-seekers who have crossed international borders looking for protection. This overlooks internally displaced people (IDPs). Those who have been forced to flee their homes but haven’t left Guatemala find themselves living in the shadows of protection, invisible and ignored. 

Unlike “conventional refugees,” IDPs haven’t crossed international borders, meaning that their country of origin is responsible for their protection. Moreover, in contrast to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its Protocol, there are no legally binding international instruments on internal displacement. Existing instruments like the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement provide a soft law tool that detail the protections available for IDPs, their rights and guarantees. These Guiding Principles also reinstate that IDP,  unlike refugee status, is not a legal status that may be granted, refused or ceased. Therefore, because of the nature of internal displacement, countries around the world have adapted these guiding principles into national legislation. 

Historical Resistance 

Central American governments have been reluctant to recognize and respond  to internal displacement. In Guatemala, it has been seen as a state driven phenomenon strongly tied to the 36-year long internal armed conflict (1960-1996) and repressive military regimes. Today, internal displacement in Guatemala is driven by a combination of factors, including structural violence, climate change, social conflict, and lack of legal certainty on land tenure and use by Indigenous communities, as well as by actors holding economic and political power, such as gangs, drug cartels, and large-scale businesses and megaprojects.

This has resulted in a lack of data and an absence of responses tailored to the IDPs’ protection needs. According to data published in 2025 by the Guatemalan National Institute of Statistics (INE) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there are approximately 1.2 million IDPs in the country, representing around 7% of the population. This is the first time data on IDPs has been updated since 1997, where the caseload used to refer to those internally displaced by the civil war. 

Even if governments have long resisted acknowledging the existence of internal displacement in their countries, there has been significant improvements in the last decade. Honduras first recognized IDP in 2013 and later passed the Law for the Prevention, Response, and Protection of Internally Displaced People in 2022. This was followed by El Salvador, which recognized it through a 2018 ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice, followed by the approval in 2020 of their own law for the response and protection of IDPs. 

Guatemala remains the only country in Northern Central America without an IDP law. The latest effort to shed light on the issue was the Legislative Initiative 6292: Law for the Prevention, Protection, and Comprehensive Response for People in Conditions of Forced Internal Displacement. This initiative, aimed at recognizing internal displacement and providing protection responses and policies, was brought forward by a coalition of center and left-leaning parties. These parties, including Movimiento Semilla, submitted the initiative to the Legislative Directorate of Congress in September of 2023 and formally presented it in April of 2024. However, there has been no significant progress since.  

Advancing a Legal Framework for Internally Displaced Persons

Initiative 6292 has not moved forward, in part, because of its scope of ambition. It takes the general definition of IDP from the UN Guiding Principles and expands it to include, “natural or human caused disasters, projects or mega projects, climate change, generalized violence, criminal violence, political violence, organized crime, gender-based violence, human right violations, and others in accordance with international human rights law,” as drivers of displacement. This is the most comprehensive definition on IDP among the three countries. The Initiative also introduces the issue of land use, indigenous communities and displacement, explicitly containing an article to, “guarantee the right and respect for collective or ancestral property,” recognizing the State’s role in protecting and guaranteeing access to ancestral land for indigenous groups and touching upon the unresolved issue of collective land ownership. 

These aspects are highly controversial among the country’s predominantly conservative and right-leaning sectors who hold strong economic and political power in Congress and indirectly control other state institutions, including the high courts. Even if effectively present in the country, these drivers of displacement involve powerful large-scale industries, including members of the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial Associations (CACIF), who will push back if singled out in the law. 

Broader language should be used on Initiative 6292 or any future law if it wants to successfully respond to internal displacement. A more general definition, such as the ones included in El Salvador and Honduras’ own IDP laws, is needed. This does not mean that it can’t be localized to include specific issues found in the Guatemalan context. A future initiative can follow El Salvador’s example and include that those who have been internally displaced have the right to be, “protected against forced recruitment by gangs and other organized crime groups.” This would allow it to gain political support from both sides of the ideological spectrum in Congress. 

Framing the IDP issue on the country’s efforts against gang violence could be a way forward. By singling out gangs and organized crime as drivers for displacement, members of the incumbent party of Movimiento Semilla could link it to the recently approved “anti-gang” law Decree 11-2025 and set it in the agenda. This would allow the initiative to move through the institutionality of Congress and would be a much-needed win for Semilla, who have struggled to govern since taking office in 2024 through promises of ensuring a human rights approach. 

Recognizing internal displacement has been long overdue. Thousands of people are internally displaced annually, and in Guatemala, they are just regarded as victims of violence, social conflict and natural hazards. However, IDPs have specific protection needs and they must be recognized as such. Without this recognition, it is impossible for the Guatemalan government to plan and implement comprehensive protection policies to respond to displacement, but most importantly, to prevent it from happening in the future.

While Honduras and El Salvador are imperfect success stories, at least they have begun the conversation around internal displacement in their own countries. Even without operational frameworks, they have a foundation to build from. Guatemala, on the other hand, lacks all of this. To continue healing its wounds from a civil war that ended 29 years ago, it must reopen the conversation around internal displacement, recognize its modern existence and pick up its efforts on passing a comprehensive IDP response and prevention law. It’s time to bring the internally displaced population out of the protection shadows.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s only and do not reflect an official position of the University of Minnesota, the Human Rights Program, or the College of Liberal Arts. As an institution of higher education that values and promotes free speech, civil discourse, and human rights, we welcome a variety of perspectives and opinions from our student contributors that are consistent with these values.