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Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 80
- Paragraph text
- The way in which the status and rights of migrants are recognized determines their degree of integration in the country of destination. Legal and administrative restrictions imposed in the field of housing affect the living conditions of migrants and prevent them from living a dignified life, fully integrated into the community that hosts them. Patterns of discrimination and segregation are witnessed in cities across the world, where migrants are excluded from the essential structures and interactions that constitute urban life. Moreover, the present tendency towards migration is one of greater controls, physical barriers and the pursuit of migrants' invisibility.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 81
- Paragraph text
- Migrants, however, have a number of rights in their country of destination that must be recognized and respected by public authorities and private individuals. Regardless of their immigration status, all migrants must be afforded essential levels of protection with regard to their access to adequate housing and living conditions. Accordingly, States are under the obligation to adopt all necessary measures to progressively ensure the realization of the right of non-citizens under their jurisdiction to adequate housing and to protect them from discriminatory, unfair and degrading treatment. It is worth recalling that, as part of their core obligations and with immediate effect, Governments should ensure access to basic shelter and housing to all migrants in their territory. To fulfil this obligation, the Special Rapporteur provides a number of recommendations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 83
- Paragraph text
- States should elaborate and adopt a national housing strategy that establishes the objectives and available resources, time frame and responsibilities for the development of appropriate housing conditions that include the needs of migrants. In addition, States should ensure that laws, strategies and plans of action are implemented in such a way as to address discrimination by public and private actors, in particular with regard to the right to adequate housing, and take account of the situation of documented and undocumented migrants. State policies should include special measures and incentives to change the attitudes of public and private actors towards migrants. States should frequently review the regulations governing housing allocation in the public and private spheres and adopt effective inspection and enforcement mechanisms.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 84
- Paragraph text
- Measures to ensure access to adequate housing for migrants require effective universal housing policies, in addition to specific policy measures addressed to migrants. Targeted policies are necessary to make up for deficiencies in the market and the public provision of housing and to ensure equal access where embedded discriminatory practices prevent this from happening. Effective targeted policies require a reliable assessment of the housing needs of migrants, conducted in consultation with them. Matching the elaboration of universal policies inclusive of migrants with the adoption of special plans to address their particular housing challenges is thus recommended to help foster the real integration of migrants into the community and to promote the enjoyment of their right to adequate housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 85
- Paragraph text
- As part of social and cultural integration policies, States should involve migrants in decision-making processes and promote their active participation in public life through adequate representation and participation mechanisms. States should also inform migrants of their rights and duties in the country and promote their active exercise. Migrants are at a particular disadvantage as a result of lack of information. The need for appropriate housing information and advice to prevent housing exclusion and homelessness of migrants is essential, and States have the responsibility to provide it. They should ensure that information and advice on rights and duties relating to housing is available to migrants, including in their native languages. Furthermore, States should foster mutual understanding among local communities and ensure mutual respect for cultural diversity.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 86
- Paragraph text
- The effective monitoring of the housing situation is an immediate obligation of States. Governments should take the measures necessary to ascertain the full extent of homelessness and inadequate housing within their jurisdiction. The indicators used to assess the housing situation must be disaggregated on the basis of the prohibited grounds of discrimination, including national origin (and citizenship), so as to ensure an accurate description of the housing and living conditions of particularly vulnerable groups, such as migrants. Housing strategies should assess the needs of migrants through periodic housing surveys and monitor housing indicators related to equal opportunity.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 89
- Paragraph text
- Discrimination and xenophobia affect the living conditions of migrants and their coexistence with the local community. They have thus been identified as key factors in the exclusion of migrants from adequate housing. States need to combat xenophobia and discrimination as a matter of urgency and ensure that no legislative or administrative acts reinforce discrimination against migrants with regard to their access to social or private housing. Moreover, States should take effective measures to ensure that housing agencies and private landlords refrain from engaging in discriminatory practices.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 90
- Paragraph text
- States must protect migrants from discrimination in access to housing by public and private actors, through appropriate judicial and administrative procedures, and guarantee redress to victims. Accordingly, States should adopt all necessary administrative and legislative measures and provide the appropriate mechanisms to prosecute and sanction discrimination and unfair and degrading treatment against migrants regarding their access to housing and should offer effective grievance mechanisms and remedies to the victims.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 4
- Paragraph text
- International migrants worldwide are estimated to number over 200 million, representing 3.1 per cent of the world population. Ninety million of them are migrant workers. Forty-eight per cent of all international migrants are women. While the larger proportion of migrants moves from low- and middle-income countries to high-income countries, representing a total flow of 80 million persons, it is estimated that South-South migration accounts for 47 per cent of all migration from the South. Migration between developing countries may be even higher if undocumented migration is considered, as official numbers are for the most part unknown, but it is estimated to be around one third of documented migration.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- The growing number of international migrants can be considered a by-product of globalization. As a result of the declining cost of transportation, reduced barriers to trade and business and increased awareness of opportunities through the mass media and communications technologies, migration patterns have undergone a profound transformation in terms of intensification and geographical diversification. However, while international flows of capital and goods find few restrictions in the globalized world, a number of obstacles and requirements constrain international migration. In recent decades, the world has witnessed an increase in government-imposed barriers to movement, especially for low-skilled migrants. Restrictions on migration are found in regulations on entering or staying in a host or transit country and can both directly and indirectly affect a migrant's access to housing. Nonetheless, evidence has shown that while such policies are ineffective in reducing the number of migrants, they certainly contribute to their vulnerability.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 7
- Paragraph text
- Besides globalization, two recent phenomena affect global migration patterns. As expressed in the annual report of the Special Rapporteur to the General Assembly in 2009 (A/64/255), climate change is a factor influencing migration. As a consequence of environmental degradation, depletion of natural resources and natural disasters, many people around the world find their lives and health threatened, their houses and land destroyed and their sources of livelihood taken away. Affected populations are then forced to migrate to other regions within their countries or to other countries. Migrants may leave voluntarily in search of better lives or may be forcibly evacuated during disasters.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- Migrants are particularly vulnerable to human rights violations, the enjoyment of housing being among the most endangered rights. The duties of migrants to the host State are equal to those of locals from the moment that they enter the host community, as they are bound by its laws. However, migrants do not enjoy equal rights and usually endure inferior conditions in every social sphere. Although several international instruments oblige States and other agents to ensure the right to adequate housing, migrants are frequently victims of discrimination in that respect.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- The realization of the right of migrants to adequate housing is often limited owing to a number of factors, such as marginalization and intolerance, inadequate housing policies or inadequate coverage of social housing schemes, cultural barriers and obstacles stemming from the legal status of migrants. In most migration processes, it is common that migrant status represents a clear disadvantage when one is looking for a place to live. A number of factors usually combine to create this circumstance: the urgency of newly arrived migrants to find a home; their lack of information; the legal insecurity in which migrants find themselves in the host country; and the stereotyping and intolerance shown towards migrants in the public and private spheres. As a consequence, among underprivileged groups, migrants face added difficulties and are less likely to find adequate housing. In this context, the undifferentiating character of most housing policies respond imperfectly to this structural inequality and allow discriminatory practices to flourish.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- States are under an obligation to ensure non-discrimination and equal treatment to migrants in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to adequate housing. Moreover, the high degree of vulnerability that migrants experience as a mere consequence of their status requires the adoption of special measures to counter the cumulative negative effect of systemic marginalization and discrimination. Regrettably, many States have explicitly indicated that they do not wish to provide the same degree of protection to migrants as to their own citizens and even less to undocumented migrants.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- In the present report, the Special Rapporteur pays particular attention to the situation of migrant workers employed in low-skilled and informal work as well as undocumented migrants, not only because their housing situation is of grave concern, but also because they represent the largest proportion of migrants worldwide, and thus their human rights situation is regrettably replicated across the globe. The situation of migrant workers belonging to minority groups and migrant women and children is also explored, in the light of the multiple forms of exclusion these vulnerable groups experience. Before referring to the challenges faced by migrants in their right to adequate housing and the public policies affecting them, the report analyses the legal framework applicable to migrants regarding their access to adequate housing and evokes the importance of the principle of equality and non-discrimination in this context.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- Article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination sets out the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour or national or ethnic origin, to equality in the enjoyment of the right to housing. Article 43 of the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families requires States to ensure the same treatment regarding access of documented migrants to housing as is afforded to nationals, including social housing schemes and protection against exploitation in respect of rent. Moreover, article 64 requires States to promote sound, equitable and humane conditions in connection with international migration and to pay due regard not only to labour needs and resources, but also to the social, economic, cultural and other needs of migrant workers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- Article 6 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Migration for Employment Convention (Revised) of 1949 requires parties to the Convention to apply, without discrimination in respect of nationality, race, religion or sex, to immigrants lawfully within its territory, treatment no less favourable than that which it applies to its own nationals in respect of accommodation. Similarly, the ILO Workers' Housing Recommendation of 1961 calls upon the competent authorities to pay particular attention to the particular problem of housing of migrant workers and their families and to ensure as rapidly as possible equality of treatment between migrant workers and national workers in that respect.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- At the regional level, article 13 of the European Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers, requires States to accord to migrant workers treatment not less favourable than that accorded to its own nationals with regard to access to housing and rents; to ensure that standards of fitness of accommodation are kept up for migrant workers as for its own nationals; to protect migrant workers against exploitation in respect of rents; and to ensure that the housing of migrant workers is suitable. In addition, article 19 (4) (c) of the European Social Charter requires States to secure documented migrant workers and their families treatment not less favourable than that of their own nationals regarding accommodation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- In General Comment No. 20 on non-discrimination in economic, social and cultural rights, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stresses that the rights enshrined in the Covenant, including the right to adequate housing, apply to all people, including non-nationals and migrant workers, regardless of their legal status and documentation. It thus affords equal protection to documented and undocumented migrants. Accordingly, it requests States to adopt measures, including legislation, to prevent and eliminate formal and informal discrimination and to ensure that individuals and entities in the private sphere do not discriminate on prohibited grounds.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- General recommendation No. 30 of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination calls on States to remove obstacles that prevent the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing to non-citizens and to guarantee them equal enjoyment of this right with citizens. In particular, the Committee requests States to guarantee the equal enjoyment of the right to adequate housing for citizens and non citizens as well as to avoid segregation in housing and ensure that housing agencies refrain from engaging in discriminatory practices. In its decision on F.A. v. Norway (see A/56/18, annex III), after learning that housing advertisements in Norway contained requirements such as "non-foreigners desired", the Committee urged the State to adopt measures to ensure that housing agencies refrain from discriminatory practices and to guarantee to citizens and non-citizens the right to adequate housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 19
- Paragraph text
- In its concluding observations of 25 May 2007 on Egypt (CMW/C/EGY/CO/1), the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families expressed its concern about reports that some migrant workers suffer from discrimination, inter alia, in the area of housing, and encouraged the State to ensure that the rights provided for in the Convention are enjoyed without discrimination. The Committee expresses similar concerns with regard to non-Arab migrants in the Syrian Arab Republic in its concluding observations of 2 May 2008 (CMW/C/SYR/CO/1).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- In its conclusions on Albania of 2006, the European Committee of Social Rights recalled that according to article 19, paragraph 4, of the European Social Charter, States must eliminate all legal and de facto discrimination concerning access to public and private housing for migrant workers and that, accordingly, no legal or de facto restrictions on subsidized housing may be implemented. In its conclusions on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Committee noted that there were no objective, pre-established and easily understandable eligibility criteria to qualify for housing benefits, and requested information from the Government on the number of foreign nationals who had been refused any form of social assistance on the grounds that they did not satisfy the habitual residence condition. Furthermore, in its decision on the case DCI vs. the Netherlands, the Committee stated that the State must provide adequate shelter to undocumented migrant children under its jurisdiction.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- Discrimination is any differential treatment that is based on prohibited grounds of discrimination and that creates or maintains inequalities and disadvantages suffered by certain groups in society with respect to the enjoyment of human rights (see E/C.12/GC/20, para. 7). Direct discrimination exists when legislation or policies are adopted with a view to overtly privileging some groups in society to the detriment of others. However, when looking at discrimination, States should also look at indirect discrimination, which concerns measures that, without explicitly discriminating on certain grounds, might have a disproportionate impact on the exercise of human rights by a particular group (ibid., para. 10). Such apparently neutral measures, which de facto favour dominant cultures, are illegitimate and must be outlawed by States in order to ensure the full realization of the equality and non discrimination principle (ibid., para. 12).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- Discrimination is often a precondition and by-product of the marginalization to which certain groups and individuals are subject and is the root of many inequalities in society. On many occasions migrants suffer multiple forms of discrimination on the basis of national origin, culture, religion or sex. The multiple layers of discrimination and exclusion faced by migrants affect their access to adequate housing. This marginalization is often a manifestation of larger forms of structural discrimination that extend through the institutional, cultural, social and economic fabric of society, adversely affecting the housing conditions and overall well-being of migrants.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- Non-discrimination and equality provisions are thus critical components of the right to adequate housing and crucial for the advancement of migrants. As a key principle of international human rights law, non-discrimination is central to a human rights approach to housing, especially considering the often inadequate housing conditions of migrants. The effective realization of the right to housing through the enforcement of non-discrimination and equality principles is essential to allow migrants to lead dignified lives and participate fully as members of society.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 26
- Paragraph text
- With regard to the responsibility of private actors to respect human rights, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, John Ruggie, has developed a framework to guide the business and human rights agenda, which is based on three principles: the State duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and the need for more effective access to remedies for victims. Corporate responsibility requires specific human rights due diligence (to become aware of, prevent and mitigate the adverse human rights impact of activities and relationships of companies), and the provision of grievance mechanisms for victims of human rights abuses (see A/HRC/11/13).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- Non-discrimination and equality also imply that States have the obligation to recognize and care for the differences and specific needs of groups that suffer particular housing challenges or that have been historically discriminated against in terms of access to housing and essential services by the State or private actors. Therefore, the obligation to ensure non-discrimination requires positive measures of protection to be applied to particular groups, even in times of emergency or financial constraint (see E/C.12/GC/20, paras. 9, 12 and 13).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- Migrants' access to housing is deeply affected by their economic status. It is important to make the distinction between: (a) migrants entering the host country as highly skilled professionals, with formal employment, high or middle incomes and access to pension and other social security schemes; and (b) migrants employed in low-skilled, irregular, seasonal and hazardous work, with low wages and no social security. The first group of migrants often have legal and economic access to purchase or rent high-quality accommodation in well-located neighbourhoods with full access to services, infrastructure and facilities. For migrants working in low-paid informal jobs, mostly in construction, tourism, care and domestic work, the situation is very different, as their salaries and irregular working conditions usually hamper their access to the housing market on the same footing as locals. The following section will focus on the housing conditions of the latter group of migrants.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- Migrant workers often live in small private rented rooms or flats, properties arranged or provided by employers, slum dwellings, overcrowded houses of relatives and friends or sometimes social housing. They usually face discrimination and numerous obstacles in accessing private and public housing. Lack of information about housing alternatives and schemes, bureaucratic procedures, regulations in the housing sphere and tenants' rights often combine to make it difficult for migrants to pursue adequate housing even when national and local legislation does not prevent them from doing so. Moreover, on many occasions language constraints make these tasks harder or even impossible.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- In the private sector in most countries, it is difficult for low-income migrants to rent private housing, as homeowners often avoid renting to them because of xenophobic sentiments, fear of insolvency or uncertainty of income, inadequate legal documents, short-term stays or lack of an employment record. Moreover, migrants are often asked to provide guarantees that they cannot access in the hosting country. When migrants manage to rent a private home, they are usually requested to pay onerous rents and make advance payments. Migrants may also face discrimination when trying to purchase a property and are sometimes barred by laws and regulations from doing so.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- In the public sphere, insufficient information and inadequate advice, discrimination in the allocation of dwellings or financial assistance, laws restricting the access of non-citizens to public housing, cumbersome bureaucracy and lack of access to grievance mechanisms restrict the access of migrants to public housing. In many countries migrants are not entitled to housing assistance or to public housing, which are reserved for long-term residents. Financial mechanisms supported by the State are also often off-limits for migrant workers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- Many migrant workers live in accommodations provided by their employers. In some countries, employers of migrant workers are required to provide them with housing. Such housing often lacks the necessary infrastructure, space and maintenance, however. In some cases migrant workers are housed in unfinished buildings, in shacks, in the open air or in metal containers with insufficient ventilation, electricity and sanitary infrastructure. On occasion, employers request a high percentage of the worker's salary to cover accommodation costs, even if the housing is substandard.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- The segregation within the urban structure of the hosting territory is another dimension of migrant housing conditions: stereotyping, xenophobia and suspicion against migrants and the erection of barriers to keep them away from the local community foster the exclusion of migrants from the urban space. Segregation is also a consequence of insufficient access to social housing and services, which denies migrants access to fully serviced neighbourhoods, confining them to unserviced and unplanned areas with poor conditions and insufficient infrastructure and further fragmenting cities and fostering spatial clustering. Moreover, the need for undocumented migrants to remain invisible to authorities and the desire of all migrants to increase protection among members of each national community and to receive assistance from relatives and friends encourages ghettoized urban spaces.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- For example, in Johannesburg, South Africa, insufficient affordable housing has led to the concentration of West African migrants in a few inner-city areas and highly skilled migrants in gated neighbourhoods in the north of the city. In Padua, Italy, a fence 3 metres high and 80 metres long was built to separate the Via Anelli neighbourhood, where many migrants concentrated after being denied access to social housing elsewhere. In Berlin, Germany, Turkish "guest workers" are often found in certain neighbourhoods. In Istanbul, Turkey, undocumented migrants tend to be concentrated in a few run-down neighbourhoods in the centre of the city where there are more informal employment opportunities and greater invisibility.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 46
- Paragraph text
- Violence and forced evictions targeted towards migrants also raise serious concerns in this regard. Migrants living in informal settlements are often victims of forced evictions in the context of urban renewal projects. When no alternative accommodation is provided by the government, undocumented migrants, who often lack access to social security and services, are rendered homeless, forced to move in with friends or relatives or pushed to the outskirts of the city. In some cases, forced evictions are followed by deportation (see A/HRC/14/30, para. 52).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- Undocumented migrants are those who lack legal status in the host or transit country. Some of them entered the country illegally, while others entered legally but their permission to remain was not extended or they lost their work permits together with their jobs. In addition, asylum-seekers whose refugee status has been denied, as well as victims of trafficking, often have irregular status. Indeed, it is not unusual for migrants to switch status during their stay in the host country. The United Nations has estimated that undocumented migrants represent 15 to 20 per cent of all international migrants, ascending to 30 million to 40 million persons. In Asia and Latin America, it is estimated that 50 per cent of migrants are undocumented. Despite the data, it must be borne in mind that the majority of this group does not show up in statistics, since they are forced to live clandestinely for fear of deportation or detention.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- Because of the restrictions in access to housing in the private market and in public schemes, undocumented migrants live in overcrowded public or private dormitories or rented private houses, which are often in substandard condition and insufficiently equipped. Moreover, they are sometimes forced to live in squatter settlements and slums, given the lack of alternative affordable housing. Cases have also been reported of undocumented migrants sharing flats with many others, with the same beds being used according to the work schedule of individuals, with 5 or 10 beds allocated to one room.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- Undocumented migrants are also often lodged by family members or rely on diaspora networks for housing. Families often feel the obligation to host migrants from their own countries, even if they lack the space or facilities for them. When none of those alternatives is possible, migrants are left on the streets and need to be accommodated in shelters for homeless people. As space in the shelters is often limited, conflicts have emerged between national and non-national homeless people. In some countries, public shelters do not accommodate undocumented migrants, while others provide such opportunities for one or two nights only.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 55
- Paragraph text
- A further impediment results from the adoption of legislation to curb irregular migration through law enforcement and criminalization. The irregular movement of migrants and their stay in a country has been turned into a criminal offence in many countries, punishable by fine and even detention. The European Union directive on the return of illegal immigrants adopted in 2008 provides for the detention of undocumented migrants for 6 to 18 months, even if the person has not committed a crime. In several countries across the world, civil servants and public officials, including health and education workers, are obliged to report undocumented migrants to the police or else face criminal charges. In some countries, renting property to undocumented migrants is considered a crime punishable by detention.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- In some cases, non-citizens are subject to double discrimination as both migrants and members of minority groups. During her missions, the Special Rapporteur has encountered numerous cases of migrants from minority groups who have been denied residency permits even though they have lived in the host country for decades or even generations. The lack of regularization obstructs their access to housing in private markets as well as housing assistance from local governments. The Special Rapporteur also received numerous complaints of forced eviction of migrants belonging to minority groups.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- For example, between 15,000 and 20,000 Roma people are currently living in the Italian capital. Most of them have Romanian citizenship or originate from countries of former Yugoslavia - Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In 2008, Roma families were victims of assaults and discrimination, including eviction from illegal settlements across Rome. These evictions were characterized by the indiscriminate destruction of their huts and lack of provision of alternative housing, which left hundreds of Roma, including women and children, without shelter.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- Newly developed building programmes in Serbia also led to the forced eviction of hundreds of Roma. In 2009 more than 100 Roma families living under the Gazela Bridge in Belgrade (many of whom were migrants from Kosovo and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as well as from southern Serbia) were evicted and accommodated in metal containers on the outskirts of the city or in remote areas in the southern part of the country. The containers were overcrowded and cold and lacked proper access to water and sanitation. The evictions were part of a project for reconstructing and rehabilitating the Bridge, financed by the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, on the condition that the affected people would be supplied with alternative housing and that international safeguards would be respected (A/HRC/13/20/Add.1, para. 75).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- In France, the Government ordered 300 illegal camps of travellers and Roma to be dismantled and the undocumented migrants residing there to be deported. The Government indicated that new legislation would be drafted before the end of 2010 that would make it easier to expel illegal Roma travellers "for reasons of public order". There are hundreds of thousands of Roma and travellers living in France. Some of them are part of long-established communities, while others are recent immigrants, mostly from Romania and Bulgaria. Travellers from those countries have the right to enter France without a visa, but must have work or residency permits to settle in the long term.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- Migrant women often find themselves in a situation of vulnerability owing to the multiple forms of discrimination that they suffer as both migrants and women, their limited access to social security, their predominance in informal employment and their prevalent role in family care. Women tend more frequently to find themselves in vulnerable employment or to be unemployed. In a situation of recession and rising unemployment, both documented and undocumented migrant women are forced to accept inadequate terms and conditions of employment and are particularly vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and trafficking. Women often work in informal and temporary jobs, such as in domestic work, care activities and other informal jobs, with no social security, few rights and lower wages than their male counterparts. In such conditions, migrant women often find it difficult to find private accommodation for themselves and their families when they are the primary caregivers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 67
- Paragraph text
- The housing situation of children is directly connected to the status of their migrant parents. When parents, and especially migrant single mothers, have no access to employment, social benefits or other sources of livelihood in the host country, children may end up living in substandard conditions or being homeless alongside their parents. On many occasions, migrant women heads of families, sometimes in charge of several children, have had great difficulty in finding employment and caring for their children, finding reduced opportunities to provide adequate shelter and essential food.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 68
- Paragraph text
- When children do not have documents they face triple discrimination: as children, as migrants and as being undocumented, and thus they constitute one of the most vulnerable groups. Their right to adequate housing, as well as other economic, social and cultural rights, are often severely affected in those circumstances. Among undocumented children, a particularly difficult situation is that of unaccompanied migrant children, who, because their parents are unable to work or they have no parents to look after them, are forced into poverty and exclusion. Often living on the streets, in parks and in front of shops, these children are excluded from child protection services and are denied adequate housing. In certain countries, unaccompanied children are detained for living on the streets and are institutionalized in prison-like conditions or deported to countries where they have no family to care for them (see A/HRC/14/30, paras. 58 and 59).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 75
- Paragraph text
- The adoption of legislation recognizing the State's obligation to ensure equal access to housing and social services to migrants regardless of their immigration status is a good practice that allows all migrants to be on an equal footing with nationals when accessing essential services facilitated by the State. Those practices assist in combating substandard, unhealthy and overcrowded living conditions of migrants and promote the enjoyment of their right to adequate housing. In Argentina, the 2004 migration law established the State's obligation to guarantee access to shelter, social services and public goods under equal conditions to all migrants regardless of their immigration status (A/HRC/14/30, para. 61).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 76
- Paragraph text
- Regulations requiring employers to assist migrant workers in finding accommodation can have a positive impact, as long as the employers are also required to ensure that the essential components of the right to adequate housing are respected, specifically, affordability; habitability; availability of services and infrastructure; accessibility; and appropriate location. Effective monitoring of the housing conditions of migrants accommodated by their employers is essential to guarantee the realization of this right. In Singapore, the law requires employers to be responsible for and to bear the costs of foreign workers' upkeep, as well as to provide them with acceptable accommodation (although actual practice may not be in compliance with this regulation).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 77
- Paragraph text
- In some cases, local governments have established programmes to assist low-income migrant families in paying their rents, obtaining a house or doing maintenance work on their residences and to give both documented and undocumented migrants access to social policies. As a result, migrant families have equal opportunities to enjoy adequate housing and living conditions. Since migrants often represent a significant proportion of the poor, non-restrictive policies addressed to the entire low-income population can have a real impact on the living conditions of migrants. In Spain, the municipalities of Salamanca and Valladolid provide financial assistance to low-income populations, including migrants, to rent their homes. Similarly, in Catalonia, the provincial immigration office, the Fundación Caixa Catalunya and a network of non-governmental organizations assist in the provision of housing for documented and undocumented migrants, as well as for asylum-seekers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Migration and the right to adequate housing 2010, para. 79
- Paragraph text
- A good practice witnessed in certain cities entails the involvement of migrants in local decision-making processes concerning urban planning and city projects affecting their neighbourhoods or areas of residence. Such approaches not only guarantee that the needs of migrants are taken into consideration when urban strategies are decided, but also foster a sense of the integration of those groups into their local communities. In Vancouver, Canada, the City Plan Initiative, undertaken from 1993 to 1995, entailed the participation of 20,000 people, including diverse cultural communities and migrant groups in the city-planning process, which subsequently became the City Plan Neighbourhood Visions process.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 19
- Paragraph text
- Recovery efforts, by overlooking or directly discriminating against some groups, can perpetuate and even reinforce pre-existing patterns of vulnerability and disadvantage. This is often the case with women. In the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, it was reported that the international response on many occasions strengthened "those who were better off and/or more articulate … while marginalizing those who had few assets, notably women". Relief efforts and policies, for instance, excluded women from livelihoods assistance and on occasion directly undermined women's pre-existing rights, such as their rights to housing or land in matrilineal communities. When women also happen to have insecure tenure - as they often do because their access to housing and land frequently hinges on a relationship with a man, or because they face additional hurdles as sole head of a household, they are particularly vulnerable.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- Disaster response appears to differ greatly according to whether it addresses the situation of individual, formally registered, property owners or that of all those with other types of tenure arrangements. It has been noted that in most housing reconstruction programmes, tenure documentation and legal proof of rights are prerequisites for establishing beneficiary eligibility, with the consequence of excluding the poorest and most vulnerable, including those residing in informal settlements with temporary or informal rights of tenure. In a number of countries, displaced renters and squatters often find themselves excluded from permanent housing schemes designed to replace the assets of homeowners.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- Similar limitations have been seen in post-disaster needs assessments. While conditions pertaining to tenure and land ownership may be discussed and recognized as important at the level of principle, they are not always addressed in policies, strategies and sectoral priorities in practice. For instance, in the disaster needs assessment carried out by international financial institutions and the Government of Pakistan following the floods, the proposed housing and reconstruction strategy made no mention of land ownership or tenure issues, but only focused on the techniques and costs of housing reconstruction. In addition, policy priorities for other sectors relevant to land, such as agriculture, were said to favour landowners.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- Often, multiple factors of vulnerability and discrimination have a compounding effect. Post-Katrina responses by the federal and state governments in the United States generally were found lacking when it came to supporting lower-income renters - predominantly African American - and addressing the range of obstacles that prevented them from accessing affordable housing. Despite a federal programme of housing vouchers, in practice, families with rent vouchers had difficulties finding rental units. Reasons included public and rental housing shortages (due to storm damage but also to subsequent decisions to massively cut down public housing), rent increases, discrimination by landowners, the slow pace of rental housing construction and the decision by states in the Gulf coast to direct the bulk of federal funds towards repairing homeowner units rather than rental ones. With a very limited option to rent, an important number of families were de facto denied return to their city and former homes; which resulted in a rise in homelessness.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur notes the centrality of tenure security in the right to adequate housing. Tenure security does not equate to a right to private ownership, nor is it limited to the conferral of formal legal titles. There is a multiplicity of legitimate tenure arrangements besides private ownership, such as public or private rental accommodation, cooperative housing, lease, occupation/rent of land or property in informal settlements, and other user or occupancy rights through customary or traditional arrangements all with varying degrees of formality. It follows that only a minority of victims of natural disasters may in effect have individual, formally registered, ownership rights to their housing or land.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- The Principles, in their specific formulation and the mechanisms suggested to determine claims over property or land, are not entirely clear on the recognition of all forms of tenure rights. While some take an expansive view of the Principles, others have criticized them as being overly focused on individual property ownership and contexts of formal and registered claims. By referring "the rights of tenants and other non-owners" in a separate provision (principle 16), the Principles may be seen to question whether these are on an equal footing with individual property owners. Equally, the call in the same principle for mechanisms of property restitution to recognize, "to the maximum extent possible", those with rights to housing and land other than formal ownership needs clarification, although it could be seen as a practical suggestion rather than implying limitations to the entitlements of non-owners.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- The Principles must also be read against the particular context in which they were developed. While drawing on a number of sources, they were shaped by the experience of formal restitution mechanisms operating at the time, in particular in Bosnia and Herzegovina - a context of largely formal registration of private property and of what Yugoslav law called "socially-owned" apartments. The restitution mechanism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, like others, has been criticized for doing little for those who did not own property or did not have recognized formal titles to them, and for being unable to deal with complex, informal systems of tenure with a plurality of customary, state or religious laws.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur suggests that housing and property restitution must be understood as the restitution of any right to tenure related to housing or land prior to disaster, irrespective of tenure status or whether the land or housing is formally registered. An example of such an approach can be found in the South Africa Restitution of Land Rights Act, and in recent operational guidance on durable solutions. Without pre-empting deeper discussion and clarification of their provisions, the Pinheiro Principles should be systematically viewed to embrace a wide ambit of situations and tenure rights. A number of elements in the Principles already point to an appropriately expansive conception of restitution, such as the systematic use of the term "housing, land and property" rather than only property.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 64.3
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur makes the following recommendations:] The tenure rights of "non-formal owners", namely those without individual, formally registered, property ownership, should be honoured: For those with insecure tenure, measures should aim at strengthening their security of tenure, for instance by granting rights to housing or land at places of origin, either immediately or in incremental stages. When restitution or return is not desirable for the affected persons or is not possible owing to land having disappeared or to compelling safety reasons that prevent the return, alternative housing or land should be granted at another location.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- The right to adequate housing is most clearly recognized by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (article 11). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights underlined the importance of interpreting the right in broad terms, identifying seven aspects of the right that States must progressively realize: security of tenure; availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure; affordability; habitability; accessibility; location; and cultural adequacy. All the aspects and safeguards pertaining to eviction and resettlement derived from the right are relevant to disaster response, as are the human rights principles of participation and non-discrimination and equality.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 6
- Paragraph text
- However, existing guidance with respect to disaster situations has given little attention to the right to adequate housing. When reference to the right is made it is limited, with the right narrowed down to the need to provide shelter, housing or to aspects related to protection. The few attempts to discuss the right in a more comprehensive manner have remained at the level of an individual organization's guidance and not in the form of authoritative policies of broad application. Equally, United Nations human rights mechanisms have, with notable exceptions, not addressed the specificities of disaster situations and their impacts on the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing or other human rights, remaining at the level of generalities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 8
- Paragraph text
- The 2005 Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons ("Pinheiro Principles") go one step further by recognizing a distinct "right to restitution" (covering housing, land and/or other property) for refugees and displaced persons. An important question is whether the Pinheiro Principles apply to post-disaster situations. The intention seemed to have been that they should apply, the central idea behind principle 1.2 being that people who are displaced - regardless of the reason for their displacement - are similarly situated and have a right to return to their places of habitual residence and thereby to restitution. On that basis, some interpret the Principles as applicable to all situations of natural disaster. However, others point out that the Principles are explicitly limited to the "arbitrary or unlawful deprivation" of people's former homes, land or places of habitual residence following displacement.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- This is not to say that the Pinheiro Principles are irrelevant to natural disaster situations. First, they fully apply in actual cases of arbitrary or unlawful deprivation or destruction of housing or land occurring in post-disaster situations, including, arguably, when displaced persons are denied their right to return to their homes (see section IV below), and in cases of unreasonable State failings with respect to disaster preparedness, mitigation or early warning systems. Second, taken as a specification of existing standards pertaining to the rights of displaced persons and refugees to return to their homes, the Principles provide relevant guidance on how best to manage the technical and legal issues associated with housing, land and property restitution, guidance which has since been reflected to varying degrees in policy and practice.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- On many occasions, vulnerability is compounded by direct or indirect discrimination, impacting on the ability of individuals and communities to protect themselves from disasters and to recover. The relevance of discrimination to disasters and disaster response may not be immediately apparent. Indeed, the term "natural disaster" could be taken as precluding responsibility, which may imply, in turn, the impossibility of discrimination. However, it is well accepted that the magnitude of impacts and distribution of losses from natural hazards are to a large extent man-made (see A/60/227). Disaster preparedness, mitigation and response are all subject to or conditioned by State action or omission, and may therefore be discriminatory.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 13
- Paragraph text
- The principles of equality and non-discrimination are firmly rooted in international human rights law. Attention to non-discrimination and equality requires Governments and aid organizations to pay particular attention to vulnerabilities and inequalities in pre-disaster contexts, and, in the aftermath of disasters, to address inequalities and protect the most vulnerable. United Nations treaty bodies have noted that even in times of severe resource constraints - as is typically the case in the wake of a disaster - States have a particular obligation to protect vulnerable members of society. States should also take special measures to secure for disadvantaged groups the full and equal enjoyment of their human rights. In post-disaster situations, such measures might translate into special assistance to support return of the most vulnerable groups or find land/housing for landless or homeless families.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, African Americans and poor people (with the two categories to a large extent blurred) bore the brunt of the devastation because, for the most part, they lived most often in the lower-lying, more flood-prone sections of the city. In addition large numbers of the metropolitan area's population (being generally poor) lacked the means to escape the flood. The particular impacts and costs of the hurricane were therefore intimately linked to pre existing social, economic and land use patterns, directly related to housing and urban planning policies.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- In Honduras, in the wake of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the groups disproportionately affected included poor women, peasants and indigenous groups, many of whom had been living under insecure tenure conditions and in vulnerable areas exposed to strong winds, flooding and landslides (see A/HRC/16/42, para. 32). In Colombia, the floods throughout 2010 and into 2011 were said to have disproportionately affected those already displaced by conflict, particularly indigenous and Afro-Colombians, who tended to live in remote areas subject to violence from armed groups.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- The earthquake in Haiti exacerbated and made visible a hitherto relatively invisible problem, namely, the dire conditions characterizing informal settlements in which the majority of the Port-au-Prince population lived. The settlements, as many others elsewhere, had been created spontaneously and had never been recognized formally by the authorities. They had no or little access to basic infrastructure and services. With the earthquake, many of the residents moved to camps, either because their homes or neighbourhoods had been destroyed or damaged, or in order to be able to receive food or medical assistance, to take part in cash-for-work programmes, to save on rent (in the case of renters) or in the hope of receiving a house.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- This mindset is evident among many organizations operating in Haiti. As evident in one assessment: The condition of land markets is chaotic and essentially lawless. Land ownership records are non-existent or ambiguous. Lack of clear title to a plot of land or written approval from a verified owner makes it difficult to supply a potential beneficiary with a new house or to support re-occupancy of prior homes. Clearly, this has been one of the reasons for the delay in reconstruction and return in Haiti. Similarly, in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, the promulgation of contradictory policies and restrictions on land use at various levels of government and the contention surrounding these were said to have created obstacles to international recovery work and severely undermined efforts to pursue disaster risk management.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- One step further are "community" or "participatory" enumeration practices. Such participatory processes have been implemented in various countries for various aims, for instance to determine and strengthen tenure rights in informal settlements or for land adjudication. In the absence of land records, in case of their destruction following disaster, or in context of multiple tenure arrangements, community enumerations offer promising and flexible alternatives to identify the state of occupancy and tenure pre-disaster or pre-conflict, thus ensuring a certain level of certainty and security of tenure in informdurable solutions. Community enumeration projects were implemented in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami, and have been started in Haiti. Lessons should be drawn from experience in defining key elements and prerequisites of successful community mapping processes, applied to post-disaster situations, including their relationship with more formal or Government-led validation or land management processes, and the need to complement them with conflict resolution mechanisms.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was seen by many as providing major opportunities for redevelopment, sometimes under the guise of public safety and disaster risk mitigation. In the tsunami's aftermath, zones prohibiting housing reconstruction along the coast (buffer zones) were in fact introduced in a number of countries affected by the tsunami; they ranged from 100 to 500 metres and, in some cases, if implemented fully, would have required the relocation of over 100,000 houses. The zones were purportedly declared to protect residents from future disasters. They also had major impacts on the livelihoods of residents, especially those who relied on the sea for a living.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- At the same time, ambitious plans for "redevelopment" and luxury tourism emerged, including for those coastal areas closed off to residents for safety reasons. One tourism board announced at the time that the tsunami offered an opportunity to make of its country a "world class tourism destination". It was reported that while displaced persons were prohibited from returning to their homes, the same prohibition did not apply to hotel complexes. In some places, land developers simply used the opportunity to grab land, especially from the most vulnerable communities. Luxury hotels sprang up in many coastal areas. Communities and civil society organizations complained that the creation of zones was used to arbitrarily evict poor coastal dwellers and indigenous communities to the benefit of businesses and new tourism facilities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- The destruction of much of the housing stock in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was also seen as an opportunity to fundamentally change the housing and urban characteristics of the city. Notably, the four largest public housing complexes in New Orleans (the "big 4"), mostly inhabited by African Americans, were demolished to give way to planned redevelopment of mixed-income communities and other uses. Although in some cases there may have been no feasible alternatives because of the severity of the damages, the demolitions were mainly justified as essential to the city's recovery and necessary for health and safety reasons. Problematically, the planned developments were to include a small number of public housing units compared to the total available before Hurricane Katrina. Their demolition was another obstacle preventing lower income residents from returning to New Orleans (see sect. III above).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Health
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- Similar distortions were seen with respect to the construction market. In one case, it has been reported that in some cities a few companies were given a monopoly over construction materials, to the detriment of local small businesses, and in another, the reconstruction process led to increased prices by suppliers and construction companies, stymying individual reconstruction efforts. Likewise, the outsourcing of transitional shelters by humanitarian agencies to international contractors might divert potential financial resources for displaced persons who could be supported to build their own shelter. The results in the latter instances are also less likely to be culturally appropriate.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- In the examples discussed above, post-disaster reconstruction has had negative impacts on the poorest. In the worst cases, disasters provided a clean slate and excuse for powerful actors to destroy housing or grab land, which would not have been possible in the pre-disaster context, where legal procedures would have had to be followed and affected households consulted and given access to remedies. At best, States did not adequately monitor the operation and regulation of the post-disaster housing and reconstruction markets, nor did they take measures to ensure that people retained access to affordable housing and were not in effect forced to leave their places of origin. While nothing prevents States from asking for the support of private companies in reconstruction efforts - and indeed private sector contributions can be essential to recovery - Governments must be mindful of their role to monitor private sector delivery and ensure that reconstruction does not benefit only a privileged few to the detriment of others.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 46
- Paragraph text
- In cases where public security and safety concerns are legitimate and compelling, decisions over land use or housing regulations must nonetheless be subject to human rights standards - in particular the strict procedural requirements relating to the conduct of evictions, the right to redress and remedy and an opportunity for judicial review, and the economic, social and cultural rights of affected communities. Evictions should not result in individuals being rendered homeless. Where those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the State must take measures to ensure that alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land is available.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- Restrictive measures must also conform to the principle of proportionality. This calls for a balancing act between the rights of those affected with the interests of the State in mitigating the damage and ensuring public safety. With respect to tsunami prevention for instance, any regulation preventing residents from returning to beachfront areas must be shown to be the least restrictive means of achieving public safety objectives. A State would have to show that other safety measures such as warning systems or dykes are not available or effective.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- Finally, experience with respect to land use restrictions compels consideration of a range of factors, including that resettling people involves large costs in terms of infrastructure and services and may also severely disrupt people's livelihoods and community lives. Settlement and housing patterns are not random but reflect a specific economic and social fabric that may be difficult to replicate elsewhere. Thus, both human rights standards and an assessment of the social and economic costs of displacement call for a more restrictive approach to the application of land/housing use restrictions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 49
- Paragraph text
- Beyond the more obvious protection aspects discussed above, it is important to address reconstruction from a broader view of adequate housing - including seeing housing as a social asset - and with the aim to progressively realize the right. Ensuring recovery and durable solutions, seen in this light, means rebuilding communities and neighbourhoods and ensuring an adequate standard of living, of which housing unit construction is only one part, sometimes not the most important or urgent. Disasters do not take place in a vacuum: it is important to assess and address the wider housing context in which disasters take place.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 51
- Paragraph text
- The well-known slogan, "Build Back Better", seems to, and certainly should, aspire to address the broader living conditions of affected communities. The special envoy of the Secretary-General to the Indian Ocean tsunami noted that the financial resources, international focus and openness to political and policy reform that often characterized a post-crisis period should allow for "build back better" and break out of inequitable development patterns in a sustained way. Similar calls were made to consider the Pakistan floods as "an opportunity to build back better lives and to step up to the task of bringing dignity to the millions who live on the margins of society". However, implementing this inspiring idea is often reduced to its most technical meaning, for instance building houses using flood- and seismic-resistant standards.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- As mentioned above, the earthquake in Haiti highlighted the largely inadequate housing conditions and the precariousness and insecure tenure of informal settlements. The international community, by focusing on people displaced in camps, and by offering conditions superior to those enjoyed by many Haitians, inadvertently made camps attractive places. While systematic reconstruction accompanied by the provision of services in neighbourhoods of return is not forthcoming, there is thus little reason for poor families to leave the camps where housing and services are provided free of charge. Although understandable from an emergency perspective, a narrow focus on the plight of internally displaced persons and temporary solutions becomes, amidst a difficult socio-economic and tenure context, an obstacle to long-term recovery, and in some cases may result in further development problems. Such situations are bound to become more frequent, with increased urbanization, much of which occurs in an unplanned manner (see A/64/255, paras. 13-21).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- The situation in Haiti also serves as an example of the challenges facing the basic rationale for reconstruction and property restitution: in contexts characterized by massive poverty and grossly inadequate living and housing conditions, the question remains as to whether the final goal of reconstruction should be to provide high-quality houses for those who lost their dwellings in the disaster. The Special Rapporteur believes that interventions must instead aim to progressively realize the right to adequate housing for all. In Haiti, reconstruction and recovery have less to do with the construction of new houses for individuals directly affected by the disaster than with the improvement of the overall living and housing conditions in the unplanned and unserviced settlements affected by the disaster. The approach should thus focus on settlements and communities, not individual constructions, and the aim to create places where people can have an adequate standard of living.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- From a human rights perspective, investment in upgrading settlements characterized by grossly inadequate living conditions as part of disaster response is not only legitimate but also indispensable, bearing in mind the obligation of non discrimination and attention to the most vulnerable. Moreover, for principled and pragmatic reasons, in a number of contexts it would be important to address the situation from a longer-term perspective: in the context of Haiti, this means a focus on improving conditions in settlements not damaged by the disaster (provided they are not in disaster-prone areas) but with the same urbanistic and vulnerability characteristics as those affected by it.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- A focus on individual beneficiaries and on "deliverables" - food, shelters, health kits - as ends in themselves might divert from the fundamental responsibility to respect, protect and fulfil rights (to housing, water, health, for instance), and the requirement to think of the long term. In Haiti, it was reported that immediate needs had dominated the international community's response and that specific pledges to support permanent housing requirements had therefore been less significant. The Haiti Shelter Cluster of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee reported on the risks of institutionalizing camps and of consuming scarce resources in emergency measures at the expense of more durable permanent solutions were recognized.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Humanitarian
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- Similarly, the massive construction of transitional shelters might not always be required or appropriate and in some cases might impede durable solutions, such as in dense, urban settings where people might be prevented from incrementally building permanent housing due to lack of space. The production of these shelters might unintentionally divert resources from the reconstruction of permanent housing and neighbourhoods, in a context of diminishing attention and aid flows over time. It is thus not uncommon, regrettably, for people to live in transitional shelters many years following a disaster (see A/HRC/13/20/Add.4, para. 31). States and international organizations should not automatically assume the need for transitional shelters without considering whether alternative solutions can be supported.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- Integrating the right to adequate housing into disaster response has broad implications. In practice, however, comprehension of the right to adequate housing and its application to disaster response has been limited to only some aspects of the right, most notably linked to physical structures and individual property ownership. In some cases, reconstruction and recovery efforts - by omission or commission - have had a detrimental impact on victims of disasters and their enjoyment of the right to adequate housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- In the view of the Special Rapporteur, making comprehensive efforts to realize the right to adequate housing in reconstruction efforts is not only an obligation but also an opportunity. While disaster response will not - and should not - replace development efforts, it provides an occasion to redress the inequalities that either exacerbated the natural disaster's impacts or were made visible by it, and to contribute to efforts to progressively realize the right to adequate housing for all, notably by improving tenure security.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- The recommendations below outline the fundamental elements of an approach to disaster response that is fully based on the right to adequate housing. They are meant to complement existing guidance when it comes to ensuring protection and realization of the right to adequate housing. Unless stated otherwise the recommendations are addressed to Governments, and international donors and organizations. Finally, recommendations for follow-up are provided, bearing in mind that the framework only outlines general principles that will need to be further refined and operationalized.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 64.2
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur makes the following recommendations:] No harm should be caused by or to others in respecting and protecting the right to adequate housing, including tenure security: Health and safety regulations as well as disaster risk reduction measures, which may call for land use or housing restrictions, must be subject to human rights standards: their impacts on the human rights of individuals and communities must be assessed, and due process rights, and the rights to information and participation, must be upheld in all circumstances.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to adequate housing in disaster relief efforts 2011, para. 64.3
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur makes the following recommendations:] The tenure rights of "non-formal owners", namely those without individual, formally registered, property ownership, should be honoured: In contexts where property and ownership are not formally registered, fast-track mechanisms to determine tenure rights, notably community-led processes (community enumeration), should be considered an essential element of and prerequisite to the implementation of restitution, reconstruction and recovery programmes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- A rapid assessment and analysis of pre-existing tenure and property rights systems should be conducted in the immediate aftermath of a disaster or conflict. The aims of this assessment should be: (1) to guide on urgent steps to be taken to protect the right to adequate housing and tenure security of all, but particularly the poorer and marginalized members of society; (2) to identify areas of opportunity where, with the presence and support of bilateral and multilateral international agencies, opportunities could arise for improvement and innovation (for example securing of previously unavailable housing-related rights and entitlements for women); (3) to identify and warn against risk areas where poorly informed actions would result in further housing rights violations. This rapid assessment should be an essential step towards the formulation of a more detailed and comprehensive land management, allocation and registration strategy for sustainable rehabilitation and reconstruction.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- Dedicated funding mechanisms or channels should be established to provide resources to initiatives aimed at respecting, protecting and fulfilling the right to adequate housing from the very outset of humanitarian operations. In addition, structured capacity-building networks should be created at field level, accompanied by focused operational support. A documented body of evidence on past violations (and their causes) should be produced, made available and developed into guidelines for action.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- The right of all people displaced as a result of conflict or disaster (refugees or IDPs) to voluntarily return to their land and homes or any other location within their country should be recognized and all possible steps should be taken to assist them to exercise that right. In cases where the displaced have settled and begun to build new lives and communities, their preference to remain should also be respected and supported. Further, in cases where secondary occupants are in possession of the land and houses of people displaced, sustained efforts should be made to achieve a negotiated agreement that satisfies all parties, prior to any legal action being taken.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- Armed conflicts and natural disasters are a massive and growing problem worldwide. They have devastating consequences for the people affected and cause daunting challenges on a massive scale. Each year conflicts result in dislocation for hundreds of thousands of people. According to calculations by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the total number of people forcibly uprooted through conflict and persecution stood at 43.3 million at the end of 2009, "the highest number since the mid-1990s". This included 15.2 million refugees, 983,000 asylum seekers, and 27.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). At the same time the world is facing natural disasters on an unprecedented scale. During the period 2000-2008 an average of 392 disasters per year occurred worldwide. During 2009 a total of 335 disasters were reported, killing 10,655 and affecting more than 119 million persons, and causing more than US$41.3 billion in damages.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 7
- Paragraph text
- The impacts of both conflicts and disasters for the individuals, families and communities affected can be devastating. These include the loss of life and livelihoods; destruction of homes, property and infrastructure; disruption or termination of essential services; and the prolonged and sometimes even permanent forced displacement from land, home and community. Although wealth and power do not offer any immunity from these impacts, it is in most cases the poor and socially disadvantaged who are worst affected; and it is also they who are least able to withstand economic shocks and so generally take the longest to recover.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Movement
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 8
- Paragraph text
- The poor often stand to lose most in disaster contexts because they often have to settle on fragile and exposed land that is highly susceptible to the effects of disasters. When a disaster strikes, their pre-existing vulnerabilities are exacerbated, with women, children and marginalized groups bearing the brunt of the impact. After the disaster, the poor often also find their attempts to return to their homes officially denied on the grounds that return would be unsafe, and/or not permissible as they did not have official proof of a right to live there in the first place. This can have dramatic consequences for the livelihoods of individuals, families and entire communities. In the case of conflicts, the displacement and dispossession of specific groups are often deliberate strategies of one group or side in the conflict against another. This can result in the total destruction and/or secondary occupation of their lands and homes, and obstruction of their attempts to return and reclaim what was theirs.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- In addition to facing serious humanitarian problems and challenges, victims of disasters and conflicts are often exposed to grave human rights violations, invariably including the right to adequate housing. Humanitarian crises are human rights crises. Notwithstanding, given the concentration of international and national attention, resources and effort they often receive, such crises can also present important human rights opportunities. The World Bank has noted that "…while conflicts unleash horror and suffering, they also destabilize old ways of doing things and create new openings for poor people to get ahead. However, there is a narrow window of opportunity in the aftermath of conflict before old barriers begin to surface."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- Since the 1990s there has been a growing recognition of the importance of adopting a human rights approach (and the use of human rights enforcement mechanisms) in the resolution of conflicts and peacebuilding. The Secretary-General emphasized that the promotion of human rights is the common thread in the Organization's work in peace and security: "Human rights bodies are involved in early-warning and preventive activities, and human rights considerations are increasingly embodied in our response to crises." He also announced that the United Nations had commenced implementation of a rights-based approach to development, which "describes situations not simply in terms of human needs, or of developmental requirements, but in terms of society's obligation to respond to the inalienable rights of individuals. It empowers people to demand justice as a right, not as charity, and gives communities a moral basis from which to claim international assistance where needed". He then issued guidelines to his Special Representatives on how human rights standards should guide peace negotiations. In 2000 the Report on the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (the "Brahimi Report") emphasized the importance of incorporating human rights into the work of peace missions. The Panel's key recommendations on a peacebuilding strategy for the United Nations included "a doctrinal shift in the use of civilian police, other rule of law elements and human rights experts in complex peace operations to reflect an increased focus on strengthening rule of law institutions and improving respect for human rights in post-conflict environments". It also recommended that "the ability of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to plan and support the human rights components of peace operations needs to be reinforced".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- Another important development was the formulation of the Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons, generally known as the "Pinheiro Principles". These were the culmination of a shift that commenced in the early 1990s "from what were essentially humanitarian-driven responses to voluntary repatriation to more rights-based approaches to return […] increasingly grounded in the principle of restorative justice and of restitution as a legal remedy which can support refugees and internally displaced persons in their choice of a durable solution (whether return, resettlement or local integration)".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- It has taken longer for the human rights implications of post-disaster responses to be clearly recognized. According to the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), natural disasters have traditionally "been seen as situations that create challenges and problems mainly of a humanitarian nature". although the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its general comment No. 4 had explicitly included victims of natural disasters and people living in disaster-prone areas among a list of disadvantaged groups that "should be ensured some degree of priority consideration in the housing sphere ". During the past decade there have been important and welcome shifts in this approach. According to IASC: "Increasingly, it has come to be recognized that human rights protection also needs to be provided in these contexts. The tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes, which hit parts of Asia and the Americas in 2004/2005, highlighted the need to be attentive to the multiple human rights challenges victims of such disasters may face. All too often the human rights of disaster victims are not sufficiently taken into account. […] Often the human rights violations are not intended or planned. Sometimes they result from insufficient resources and capacities to prepare and respond to the consequences of the disasters. More often, they are the result of inappropriate policies, neglect or oversight. These violations could be avoided if both national and international actors took the relevant human rights guarantees into account from the beginning."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- The right to housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living is internationally recognized. "[T]he right to housing should not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive sense which equates it with, for example, the shelter provided by merely having a roof over one's head or views shelter exclusively as a commodity. Rather it should be seen as the right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity". In line with this interpretation, "adequacy" is measured against a list of key factors including: legal security of tenure; availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure; affordability; habitability; accessibility; location; and cultural adequacy. Housing is therefore not simply a shelter commodity. It is much more than a physical structure for protection from the elements, and its value extends beyond what it will cost to buy, sell or rebuild. Housing has inherent social value.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- These tasks are all the more challenging in cases of prolonged, mass displacement. Displacement is a notorious driver of human and particularly housing-rights violations. According to displacement and resettlement experts there are eight major displacement impoverishment risk areas: landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, increased morbidity and mortality, food insecurity, loss of access to common property resources, and social/community disarticulation. While the impacts of displacement are devastating for all who are affected, they are most acutely felt by those groups more vulnerable to discrimination, including women, minorities, children and persons with disabilities. If not mitigated through intensive, concerted effort, the consequences are long-term, entrenching patterns of poverty, exclusion, dependency and disempowerment.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Persons on the move
- Persons with disabilities
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- The process of return, recovery and reconstruction is regarded as an urgent priority in post-disaster and post-conflict contexts. According to IASC: "Experience has shown that the longer the displacement lasts, the greater the risk of human rights violations. In particular, discrimination and violations of economic, social and cultural rights tend to become more systemic over time." The guiding principles put forward in a recent Handbook for Reconstructing After Natural Disasters suggest that a good reconstruction policy helps reactivate communities and empowers people to rebuild their housing, their lives, and their livelihoods and that reconstruction begins the day of the disaster.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- In both post-disaster and post-conflict situations there is an inevitable tension between the pressing need to act quickly and decisively in order to facilitate the return of the displaced to their lands and homes, and the need to be comprehensive and thorough in dealing with what are in fact very complex questions. In post-conflict situations this can become particularly complicated, with the tension playing itself out between short-term peace demands and compromises, and the longer-term needs of a sustainable reconciliation and reconstruction process. Finding practical and locally appropriate ways to resolve the dilemma is very important. Given the expansive content of the right to adequate housing, protecting and realizing that right is never a clear-cut, linear process where an obvious causal link can easily be established between action on the ground and ultimate impact. Massive displacement, frequent destruction of records related to land and property, the equally frequent absence of documentation to prove the prior occupation history of long-term informal users and occupants of land, the emergence of "rights in conflict" (such as occupation versus restitution), inadequate legal frameworks governing land management, the actions of powerful interest groups keen on capitalizing on the opportunity for profitable investment; are all factors which would in principle call for caution and careful analysis of strategic options. In crisis situations, where the initial, overriding objectives for Government and for those external actors engaged on the ground would first and foremost be of an emergency shelter and basic livelihood support nature, housing rights and land tenure challenges may therefore seem impossible to address.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- How should governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other support institutions respond to these complex situations and difficult challenges? The Special Rapporteur has identified three key issues that she regards as crucial entry points to incorporate the right to adequate housing in the reconstruction efforts: security of tenure, participation and coordination, considering the impact they have on other elements of the right to adequate housing which are usually neglected or overlooked, including location, cultural adequacy and availability of services, facilities and infrastructure.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- Security of tenure is a fundamentally important dimension of the right to adequate housing. It is included in the list of factors comprising adequacy of housing and offers important guidelines to institutions responding to post-conflict and post-disaster situations. According to general comment No. 4 "Tenure takes a variety of forms, including rental (public and private) accommodation, cooperative housing, lease, owner-occupation, emergency housing and informal settlements, including occupation of land or property. Notwithstanding the type of tenure, all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats. States parties should consequently take immediate measures aimed at conferring legal security of tenure upon those persons and households currently lacking such protection, in genuine consultation with affected persons and groups ".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 26
- Paragraph text
- The outcome was a situation of widespread tenure insecurity and tensions over land, property and housing during the period of transitional government under the United Nations and in the first years of the Government of the newly independent Democratic Republic of Timor Leste. In spite of urgent calls from 1999 onwards from a variety of actors, and the formulation of proposals by various agencies and Government units, the key tenure issues were never fully addressed. This failure is seen as one of the drivers of the violence that subsequently occurred in 2006-7, in the course of which 150,000 people (15 per cent of the total population of Timor-Leste) fled their land and homes; 65 IDP camps and transitional shelters were set up; secondary occupants inhabited many of the abandoned properties; an estimated 6,000 houses in Dili were destroyed or severely damaged; and in rural areas there were cases of entire villages being burned down.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- This subsequent wave of violence and dispossessions prompted a well-considered and ambitious set of remedial actions in the form of a National Recovery Strategy (NRS) called Hamutuk Hari'I Futuru (Together Building the Future) launched in December 2007. The five pillars of this strategy focused on: IDP return and resettlement; establishing a social security system for the most vulnerable groups in society; addressing security issues including working with communities to identify and address sources of conflict; creating livelihood opportunities through job generation schemes; and building trust within communities and between the people and the government. However, various aspects of the strategy were not implemented. For example the range of options that was initially stated to be available to returning IDPs was drastically cut - essentially limited to the mass payout of cash compensation amounts. Ultimately these payments, combined with a reconciliation and dialogue process (discussed below), constituted the extent of the programme implemented to return or resettle IDPs and reconstruct housing. As of July 2010 payments were still being made and in total there had been approximately 17,000 recipient households. Under the circumstances of potential further disturbances and lack of State capacity there were good arguments for giving people the funds with which to address their own housing and immediate livelihood needs. The approach also allowed for individually tailored solutions for housing and livelihood restoration. However there were a number of problems from a human rights perspective, including the following: (a) most payments went to male heads of households, with no measures in place to ensure that the funds would be spent on housing for the whole family; (b) families under severe financial stress could be under pressure to use the cash payments to cover more urgent, short-term expenses instead of housing; (c) through resorting to cash payments, the State missed an important opportunity to channel funds towards the provision of properly serviced sites for housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- An even more serious concern was the fact that the NRS had to be implemented in the ongoing absence of a legal framework on land and property ownership and dispute resolution, in spite of many calls for action and proposals on establishing such a framework in order to bring certainty in a situation of profound tenure insecurity. Despite some commendable efforts to deal with the land tenure puzzle by a number of dedicated Timorese government officials and international advisors, visible progress towards such certainty only started during 2008. A "Decree on the Cadastre" was passed in July 2008, which authorized the restructured National Directorate for Land, Property and Cadastral Services and the Ita Nia Rai programme to undertake land tenure data collection around the country; and a draft Transitional Land Law was approved by the Council of Ministers on 10 March 2010 and as of September 2010 awaits consideration by Parliament.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- Similar lessons can be learnt from post-disaster situations. Disasters occur in a social context framed by complex issues of power, politics and longstanding vulnerability and poverty, including widespread tenure insecurity. Understanding this complexity is fundamental to developing and implementing successful responses. This is illustrated in the case of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras in October 1998. According to official estimates Hurricane Mitch left 21 cities severely damaged, 82,735 houses damaged, 66,188 houses destroyed and 44,150 people homeless. In addition 123 health centres and 531 roads were damaged and eight health centres and 189 bridges were destroyed. As a result, an estimated 1.5 million people were negatively affected.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- A number of successful rehabilitation and reconstruction initiatives in Honduras, where undisputed land was available at a reasonable distance from livelihood opportunities and facilities, illustrated how settlement development could be an appropriate means to support disaster-affected populations and introduce better practices in areas such as site planning, house design, use and production of building materials, water supply and sanitation and environmental protection. Cases such as El Progreso and Choluteca also included direct involvement by local authorities working in collaborating with other support institutions as well as members of the beneficiary community, all with the help of unprecedented levels of support from donors and relief organizations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- Given the urgent, crisis nature of post-conflict and post-disaster situations, the approach of collecting and analysing detailed information, and of direct participation by the people affected, may seem difficult to achieve. This approach is likely to contradict powerful humanitarian and political pressures that emphasize speedy resettlement, rebuilding and re-housing. In post-conflict and post-disaster situations, "quick wins" easily become equated with rapid physical delivery, often with scant consideration, or even awareness, of possible counterproductive longer-term consequences. Getting "policy choices" right in the field of land and housing requires, in normal circumstances, the undertaking of complex analytical processes. In the midst of crises, the need for speedy decisions and practical livelihood support-oriented action may run counter to the need for caution and for intensive consultation with those directly affected.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- In spite of these challenges, it is very important to ensure that time and opportunity are made for gathering of information, analysis and assessment of policy choices; and for intensive consultation with, and the involvement of, those affected. People directly affected by conflicts and crises are not mere helpless victims. They are invariably the first people "on the scene" and are often the first to take some form of action. In Honduras following the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch the immediate post-disaster processes of rescue, relief and stabilization were characterized by remarkable personal determination and great displays of social solidarity, with private and public buildings opening their doors to the displaced and homeless. Communities in different parts of the country self-organized and developed their own survival strategies. Citizens joined neighbourhood or community solidarity groups, which, because of insufficient official assistance and their isolation, frequently carried out emergency tasks on their own initiative. Some of the most basic emergency interventions implemented included search and rescue operations, provision of temporary shelter, sanitation programmes such as the disposal of human and animal remains, and the distribution of water, food, blankets, and domestic items. This was in contrast to the Government's response to the crisis which included immediate centralization of State power and, two days later, the announcement that plans to draft a national plan for reconstruction had been initiated, conducted without transparency in a secretive fashion.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- Research conducted by the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) and the ProVention Consortium in the wake of the 2005 South Asia earthquake found "accumulated evidence that people affected by disasters want to participate fully in the response, even if this means a slower implementation process. However, disbursement pressure - the need to get money out of the door - has in the past partly determined response mechanis."While emphasizing the importance of participation, the study also cautions: "When considering communities […] it is important to remember: not to romanticise the coping capacities and resilience of local people and communities - they often face insurmountable difficulties when responding to major disasters; that often 'communities', particularly in areas of high inequality, are made up of different interest groups, and include marginalised groups who may well have difficulty getting their views represented; cultural 'norms' may also, for example, work against women's rights."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- Studies have demonstrated the potential negative effects of failing to follow this approach. One example is research done in Gujarat, India, in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake which left 1.2 million people homeless and damaged 1.7 million properties including 15,000 schools, affecting a total of 490 towns and 8,000 villages. This was met with a comprehensive, generally successful and internationally acclaimed relief and rehabilitation effort managed by the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority. The response was coordinated through a system of "village adoption", whereby NGOs and other entities took on responsibility for the reconstruction of the villages. Most affected households were offered two options: owner-driven reconstruction and donor-driven reconstruction. In the process different approaches were followed, allowing for flexibility, with varying success. A number of the lessons drawn from the study emphasized the importance of the involvement and active agency of the affected people, as well as the influence of location on the lives of affected communities. In one case, a new township constructed three kilometres from the original village that had been destroyed was found six years after the earthquake to be empty but for one or two houses occupied by migrant workers renting the properties from the intended owners. The intended inhabitants of this settlement, who had initially accepted the offer of houses built for them, had returned to the original village and built their own: "[The villagers said] that they did not want to leave their village, '…it is the home of our ancestors'. When asked who built the village, the proud response is that they did it themselves". In another village, while people had occupied the houses that had been built for them, they described their new settlement in "wholly negative" terms such as: "It is dead"; "We are bored"; "There are no shops ".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- The Gujarat study points to some of the dangers of resorting to rushed, donor-driven programming, which can neglect the social capital of the affected residents, and to contractor-driven reconstruction projects, which are rarely developmental in nature. The authors conclude that "The drive to rebuild quickly inevitably leads early on to the decision to hire commercial contractors. At this point projects such as these usually cease to be developmental initiatives and become construction projects. The participation of residents is relegated to mixing concrete or making building blocks, or worse. […] Fundamentally, the contractor-driven approach to shelter is focused on the construction of housing units. Yet shelter is far more than that ". They also warn that: "When powerful external agents are driving the process within an affected village, the social capital present within long-standing communities can be ignored or even damaged".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- These and other proposals to address housing, land and property rights through the active participation of the affected people, and to build on existing community processes, were not taken up by the transitional authorities or the newly independent Government. In the aftermath of the later wave of violence, destruction and displacement of 2006-7, the need for such involvement became prominently recognised. The five pillars of the National Recovery Strategy included one aimed at building trust within communities and between the people and the Government. This was in the context of urgent attempts to achieve the reintegration and return of IDPs displaced by the violence to their communities, with the incentive of cash compensation from the State with which they could repair their homes or settle in alternative areas in cases where reintegration proved impossible. As part of a Dialogue, Communications and Outreach Programme, dialogue teams were established to manage the necessary conflict resolution, mediation and negotiation processes. This required the participation of local authorities, youth leaders and other groupings. The programme, which was still continuing in some communities in May 2010, incorporated the use of customary dispute resolution practices and peacebuilding ceremonies. It is widely regarded as having been successful and necessary for peacebuilding and the safe return of IDPs. Women reportedly participated far more actively than men in the community dialogue and reconciliation process. This was in contrast to the compensation payment process, which had been male-dominated.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- The Rwandan imidugudu model was not simply about provision of shelter in an emergency context, the underlying vision was of a drastically re-engineered rural society, Consultation was limited, and participation mainly took the form of required "obligatory labour participation in construction activities". In spite of these obvious problems, and of lessons learnt in previous villagization projects in East Africa, the "emergency" status of post-1994 Rwanda secured the involvement of some international agencies. However by 1999 international pressure and a related lack of donor funds essentially put a stop to the villagization programme.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- The process started in 1991 with General Assembly Resolution 46/182 designed to "strengthen the United Nations response to complex emergencies and natural disasters" as well as "aiming at improving the overall effectiveness of humanitarian operations in the field". Crises in subsequent years (above all the Rwanda genocide in 1994 where the international community was explicitly faulted for inability to predict, prevent and respond) accelerated the pace of reform. The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) was established in 1998, as a department of the United Nations Secretariat with the mandate of co-ordinating humanitarian response, policy development and humanitarian advocacy. It merged all humanitarian functions of the United Nations until then performed by the United Nations Disaster Relief Organization (UNDRO) and the Department of Humanitarian Affairs under a single United Nations Focal Point, the Emergency Relief Co-ordinator (ERC). General Assembly Resolution 46/182 further established important inter-agency mechanisms and operational tools. These include: the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), gathering all humanitarian partners from United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, the World Bank, the Red Cross and the main international NGOs to function as an inter-agency decision-making body in response to complex emergencies; and, structured in clusters and phases related to specific funds and plans of action: the Flash Appeal (FA), the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP), the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Part of the problem is an as yet incomplete understanding of the concept of "Recovery" (in its defined two phases of "Early" and "Long-term") and of its programmatic implications in the course of humanitarian assistance. The earlier conceptualization of the transition from "relief" to "development" was not useful. The problem was that it attempted to establish a rigid sequential logic, which tended to overlook certain essential "non-humanitarian" actions that would need to commence from the very start of humanitarian assistance and carry through into the resumption of normal development processes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- Given the lessons of the past two decades, and the institutional reforms already initiated, humanitarian agencies, and one would assume bilateral donors, are now much more aware of the risk of doing unintended long-term harm through well-meaning early action which ends up increasing the vulnerability of the poor. In the area of the right to adequate housing and particularly on the issues of security of tenure, location, cultural adequacy and availability of services, facilities and infrastructure, at least, the time has come for "Do no harm" guidelines to move to a next step where specific tools for timely analysis and proactive interventions ("Do the right thing") are provided at the field level.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- [Violations of the right to adequate housing can both contribute to and result from armed conflicts and natural disasters. The poorer and marginalized members of society are disproportionately affected. Addressing existing vulnerabilities can play an important role in both preventing and mitigating the impacts of disasters and conflicts. States should therefore:] Urgently step up their efforts to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate housing, in all its dimensions, in both urban and rural contexts;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- [Violations of the right to adequate housing can both contribute to and result from armed conflicts and natural disasters. The poorer and marginalized members of society are disproportionately affected. Addressing existing vulnerabilities can play an important role in both preventing and mitigating the impacts of disasters and conflicts. States should therefore:] Develop and implement land tenure reform policies and programmes that make suitably located, secure, safe and affordable housing accessible to all;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- [In preparing for reconstruction and development, all relevant parties and actors should acknowledge that housing has an inherent social value of vital importance for social stability, alleviation of poverty and development. Any response to the impacts of conflicts or disasters on the right to adequate housing should go beyond a focus on the damage, loss or destruction of shelter and infrastructure and should seek to address, inter alia:] The disruption of social and economic relationships and networks;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- [In preparing for reconstruction and development, all relevant parties and actors should acknowledge that housing has an inherent social value of vital importance for social stability, alleviation of poverty and development. Any response to the impacts of conflicts or disasters on the right to adequate housing should go beyond a focus on the damage, loss or destruction of shelter and infrastructure and should seek to address, inter alia:] The specific rights and concerns of women and other groups particularly vulnerable to discrimination;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- [In preparing for reconstruction and development, all relevant parties and actors should acknowledge that housing has an inherent social value of vital importance for social stability, alleviation of poverty and development. Any response to the impacts of conflicts or disasters on the right to adequate housing should go beyond a focus on the damage, loss or destruction of shelter and infrastructure and should seek to address, inter alia:] Compromised access to facilities, amenities and livelihood opportunities;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Post conflict and post disaster reconstruction and the right to adequate housing 2011, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- [In preparing for reconstruction and development, all relevant parties and actors should acknowledge that housing has an inherent social value of vital importance for social stability, alleviation of poverty and development. Any response to the impacts of conflicts or disasters on the right to adequate housing should go beyond a focus on the damage, loss or destruction of shelter and infrastructure and should seek to address, inter alia:] The loss of tenure security, particularly by those who had been living under customary or informal tenure systems prior to the disaster or conflict.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- Housing finance policies directly affect the affordability component of the right to adequate housing (article 11, paragraph 1, of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). States should establish laws, policies and programmes to ensure that the percentage of housing-related costs is commensurate with income levels and that the attainment and satisfaction of other basic needs is not threatened or compromised. States are also required constantly to monitor the impact of their housing policies on the realization of the right to adequate housing and to control unreasonable increases in housing costs.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- When designing, implementing and monitoring housing policies, States must ensure that they not only promote access to affordable housing, but also access to housing that is habitable, accessible and adequately located, and ensure the availability of services (such as health, education and welfare), means of livelihood, building materials, facilities and infrastructure, and security of tenure. States must ensure that housing policies are non-discriminatory and do not increase existing inequalities. When designing housing finance policies, States must pay particular attention to the rights of the poor and disadvantaged. Policies and legislation should be designed to bridge inequality gaps and to ensure access to affordable housing for the poor and marginalized and not benefit already advantaged social groups at the expense of others.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- The obligation to ensure the realization of the right to adequate housing does not oblige Governments to provide publicly built housing for all. Although the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed the view that in some cases the State is obliged to provide social housing or low-rental units for low-income households, States are encouraged to employ a variety of housing policies, provided that "measures being taken are sufficient to realize the right for every individual in the shortest possible time in accordance with the maximum of available resources".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- In recent years market-based housing finance has spread throughout the world at an unprecedented rate. In the United States, European countries, Australia and Japan residential mortgage markets represent between 50 and 100 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). Several countries experienced strong growth in mortgage debt in the last decade before the crisis, including Australia, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the United States. By 2009, the ratio of mortgage debt to GDP had reached more than 100 per cent in Denmark and the Netherlands. Mortgage markets have also been developing in emerging markets. For example, the Chinese mortgage market, which started only in the early 1990s, has been growing at more than 40 per cent annually since 2000, reaching 11 per cent of GDP in less than 10 years to become the largest mortgage market in Asia. Similarly, the Indian market has been growing at 30 per cent per year.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- Credit was increasingly awarded to households that, in normal circumstances, would not be eligible for loans, generating what is known as "sub-prime" loans. Although these lending policies were intended to enable access to housing finance for low-income households previously excluded from the mortgage markets, they are still in effect extremely discriminatory with respect to the poor. Mortgage lenders classify loan applicants according to the risks that they pose to both lenders and investors. Credit scoring facilitates risk-based pricing by allowing lenders to charge higher interest rates for borrowers with low scores (bad risks) and lower interest rates for borrowers with high scores (good risks). Lenders became more willing to issue credit at a relatively high price to higher-risk borrowers. In the United States, a typical sub-prime borrower would pay $5,222 more during the first four years of a $166,000 mortgage than would a similar borrower with a normal mortgage (see A/HRC/10/7).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- The adverse effects of housing credit growth on affordability have also been visible at the macroeconomic scale. Wider access to mortgage loans resulted in higher house prices. In Spain, between 1995 and 2005 housing prices rose 105 per cent, a result of cheap debt and access to global capital for credit (A/HRC/7/16/Add.2, para. 44). A recent IMF analysis confirms the strong positive relationship between house price movements and household credit growth. On average, a 10 per cent increase in household credit is associated with an increase in housing prices of about 6 per cent.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- Increasing dependence on mortgage credit, private institutions and connection to broader developments in the global capital markets has overexposed national housing systems to the turbulence of global finance, raising levels of debt and concentrating risks among individual households. Countries that adopted a strongly open system of mortgages, based on sub-prime loans, easily granted credit and the financialization of mortgages, have seen a serious crisis since 2008, when the financial crisis in the United States spread internationally. In previous reports (A/HRC/7/16/Add.2, A/HRC/10/7, A/HRC/13/20/Add.4 and A/HRC/16/42/Add.3), the Special Rapporteur analysed at length the impact of mortgage market liberalization and the sub-prime mortgage system on the economic and financial crises in various regions and the subsequent devastating impacts of the crises on the most poor and marginalized.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- The effect of the housing crisis has been less detrimental for emerging economies where, owing to their structure and performance, mortgage markets remain smaller, more conservative and less connected to capital market flows. Emerging mortgage markets that have made heaviest use of global securitization (e.g. the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and the Republic of Korea) were most affected. In Kazakhstan in 2010, more than 40,000 borrowers were waiting for their apartments to be finished while construction companies went bankrupt (see A/HRC/16/42/Add.3).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- In Eastern Europe, an aggravating factor has been the high rate of foreign currency-denomination loans in some of the countries in the region. In 2010, 42 per cent of mortgages in emerging Europe were denominated in a foreign currency. By the time the economic crisis hit, some two thirds of all mortgage loans in Hungary were in Swiss francs. With the onset of the crises, the value of the franc escalated against the Eastern European currencies. Homeowners suddenly found their repayments skyrocketing and in some cases saw the amount of their loans outstrip the value of their houses.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- A major component of the shift from supply-side to demand-side housing policies has been the promotion of demand subsidies as a means to enlarge the market for privately produced residential units, mobilizing public resources and directing them to potential buyers with the idea of "reducing Government intervention". The rationale behind demand-subsidy programmes is that low-income households will be able to finance their housing through the free market, with their own savings, assisted by a down-payment subsidy or a subsidized loan provided by the State. The main types of household demand subsidies used are: (a) direct payments, either up front (to lower the amount of the loan, the closing costs, the down payment or the insurance premium, or in the form of a capital grant) or on a monthly basis; (b) subsidies tied to savings programmes; (c) interest-rate or interest-payment subsidies; (d) tax subsidies tied to mortgage payments or real estate taxation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- Most countries employ a combination of these demand subsidies. However, capital-grant subsidies have been popular mainly in Latin America and are relatively rare in developed economies. In Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia demand subsidy programmes have largely taken the form of tax exemptions, interest rate subsidies or bonuses through savings accounts. Mortgage interest tax relief existed, for example, in Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Slovakia, Hungary, the Russian Federation, Croatia and the Czech Republic. France promotes a mixture of subsidies, including subsidized savings schemes for newly built and renovated properties and a means-tested interest-free loan granted to first-time buyers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- One of the most common housing subsidies in European countries (Germany and France) has been the contract-savings scheme. Savers who fulfil their contracts are eligible for mortgage loans at an interest rate that is below the market rate. Since the saving capacity of low-income groups is very limited, they are generally prevented from enjoying the advantages of this model. The favourable tax treatment of households that are related to homeownership, in the form of tax relief or tax credit for the mortgage repayment, tax advantages related to capital gains for owner-occupiers and reduced property tax or imputed tax, are also used in developed countries, emerging markets and countries in transition and favour the better-off households that can afford a mortgage loan. Mortgage interest-rate subsidies that reduce the interest paid by the borrower have been implemented in Denmark, the United States, Norway and Greece and in Mexico, Portugal, Croatia and Indonesia.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- Demand subsidies linked to mortgage finance or savings usually do not target the poor and in effect benefit the better-off (middle- and even upper-middle-income households). Income tax deductions of interest payments or a broad-based interest rate subsidy for mortgage loans tend to be regressive, as they increase with the amount of the loan and benefit those who can afford larger loans more than those with smaller loans. In the Philippines, interest rate subsidies account for 90 per cent of the value of housing subsidies; however, 77 per cent of the country's population cannot afford a formal-sector loan even at subsidized interest rates. Part of these subsidies may also leak out to benefit others in the housing systems and raise the value of existing dwellings and land.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- Although the rationale for the implementation of subsidized mortgage markets is supposedly to reduce State intervention in the housing sector, support for savings banks, interest-rate subsidies and tax allowances mobilize a large amount of public money. The Government is committed to long-term subsidy payments, which are hard to control during the contract period. For example, in Spain and Hungary, tax-exemption schemes were recently cancelled owing to serious fiscal problems. The Special Rapporteur believes that a State's sole reliance on mortgage subsidies may be considered incompatible with its obligation to employ the maximum available resources to promote the right to adequate housing without discrimination. This is particularly the case when States devote the majority of their budgets to these policies while at the same time dismantling or failing to promote social housing programmes or other alternatives that specifically target the poor.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- The capital grant-subsidy approach has been promoted to target low-income households in particular and the Chilean experience has been considered the model that inspired other countries. The model emphasizes: (a) the shift of responsibility for housing provision from the Government to the private sector; (b) provision of one-time grants for home purchase while curtailing all indirect subsidies; and (c) transparent qualifying mechanisms based on household income and a savings contribution. Programmes aim to increase housing affordability by offering a cash subsidy to cover part of the purchase price of a formally constructed dwelling offered for sale in the market by private companies. Subsidies may be combined with mortgage or microfinance loans and/or household savings. Capital grants aim to target the lowest-income households and are perceived to encourage their integration within conventional housing markets, leading to financial market expansion.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- The Chilean model has been praised as a best practice for its transparency, the scale of its shift of housing provision to private market providers (which were seen as more efficient and effective than Government in addressing the diversity of housing demand) and its targeting of the poor. The model has been widely replicated in Latin America (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)). Outside Latin America, the capital-grant approach has been implemented on a large scale in South Africa since 1994.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- Problems also soon emerged with regard to the location of these programmes. In Chile, planning regulations were loosened and city limits expanded under the premise that a freely operating land market would automatically contribute to providing access to adequate housing through housing markets. Unlike in the case of housing markets for higher-income families, in which suppliers have to be sensitive to demand requirements and therefore to the trilogy of product-price-location as they operate in a competitive context, operators that supply social housing have a captive demand, particularly when it is fully subsidized. In a context of housing deficit, beneficiaries of housing subsidies will simply "buy" what is available at the moment. Suppliers of social housing can therefore be not very sensitive to, or simply ignore, demand preferences, as there is no competition.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- Subsidized housing developments have been built primarily in the urban periphery where land costs are lowest. In Chile, the majority of housing built through the subsidy scheme between 1978 and 2000 has been concentrated in peripheral locations, lacking enough or adequate infrastructure, schools, health facilities and employment opportunities. Poor public transport and road quality further impairs residents' ability to access services and employment. Subsidy programmes in South Africa, Mexico and Brazil have also been criticized for replacing widespread informal housing with low-standard and stigmatized housing typologies concentrating low-income families. The result is greater urban and social segregation, an increase in the disparity in access to urban services, a worsening of local living conditions, increased environmental damage and urban security problems.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Habitability, location and accessibility problems have led South Africa to alter its subsidy programme and increase Government intervention. Under the Breaking New Ground subsidy implemented beginning in 2004, supply-side components were included in an attempt to mitigate the adverse impact on subsidy housing habitability and location that unfolded during the first stage; in 2005 the Government announced that land would be funded outside the housing subsidy amount, and then in 2007 that services would also be additional, funded directly by municipalities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 46
- Paragraph text
- Attempting to complement resources, some States have promoted the involvement of both private banks and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in supplying low-income households with microcredit, in addition to the State subsidy. These programmes act as institutional and financial intermediaries between the poor and the State, enabling the poor to "bridge the finance gap" in order to be eligible for the subsidy. However, research indicates that the combination of housing microfinance and subsidies has not been successful. Problems emerge, particularly in instances where the same microfinance institution manages both the need-based subsidy and the demand-driven loan, as the amount of the subsidy is inversely related to the amount of the credit.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- In some cases, administrative barriers or difficult requirements prevent low-income households from benefiting from subsidies. Enrolment remains low when people find it difficult to travel to apply to the programme because of time constraints, transportation expenses or disabilities. Having to produce expensive documentation of their eligibility for the programme, such as birth certificates or proof of residency, also increases their transaction costs and, thus, restricts enrolment. Inefficient land registration systems in many developing countries have sometimes created severe backlogs in title registration, circumventing the security of tenure of subsidy beneficiaries.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- Persons with disabilities
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- Despite substantial Government budgetary investment and specific targeting of low-income households, capital-grant subsidies have partially promoted only the affordability aspect of the right to adequate housing (by substantially reducing housing deficits in some developing countries), at the expense of the broader aspects of habitability, location, availability of services and infrastructure and non-discrimination, which have been largely ignored. As one commentator observed, the new stock of subsidized housing often created a greater housing problem: "the problem of those 'with roofs'".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- Until the 1980s, slum dwellers and the urban poor had not been a market for financial services. As previously mentioned, the reasons were the inability of low- and even middle-income households to afford housing finance debt; the incompatibility of formal finance loan requirements (such as complex collateral and extended repayment capabilities) with the characteristics of low-income households (low level and irregularity of income and lack of security of tenure); and the fact that financial institutions perceived few incentives to lend to the poor, who usually "consume" small loan amounts and entail high transaction costs. As a result, low- and even middle-income households adopted "informal" finance strategies based on individual savings, family loans and remittances, or moneylenders or pawnbrokers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 51
- Paragraph text
- However, in the 1980s a new finance paradigm emerged, one that appeared to be able to address poverty through the expansion of small, informal-sector income-generating credit: microfinance. Private financial investors became convinced of the profitability of microfinance and came to regard the poor as "bankable". The result has been a dramatic rise since then in the flow of private investment capital (supported by donors, multilateral banks and international organizations) into the microfinance sector and, more recently, into housing finance services adapted to support incremental building processes. The growing commercial presence of major Western banking groups in developing countries and their interest in microfinance (including for housing) has been based on the idea that the "bottom of the pyramid" represents a large untapped market.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- In the past 10 years, a growing number of housing microfinance programmes have been initiated, offering loans to homeowners ranging from $300 to $5,000, frequently with repeat lending opportunities and repayment terms of 1-15 years. In comparison with enterprise microfinance, housing microfinance loans are generally larger and given for longer periods. Housing microfinance loans are also much smaller than mortgage loans, typically granted for shorter terms, and their target population is that not served by formal private or public financial institutions. Owing to their limited scope, housing microfinance loans are used mainly to finance progressive improvements to housing (e.g. building sanitary amenities) and expansions to an existing dwelling, or for the incremental construction of a home.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- Housing microfinance is offered by a wide variety of institutions including microfinance agencies, such as Grameen Bank and affiliates of the Accion organization; banks and commercial institutions, such as HDFC Bank in India and the CEMEX company in Mexico (the Patrimonio Hoy programme); and intergovernmental organizations and NGOs specializing in shelter provision, such as the Rural Housing Loan Fund in South Africa and Habitat for Humanity. A distinction can be made between financial institutions offering micro enterprise loans and institutions whose main purpose is improving the shelter situation of the poor, which may or may not be financial institutions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- As is the case with microfinance agencies, most housing microfinance initiatives originate in developing countries and emerging markets. Latin America has the largest housing microfinance portfolio. Housing microfinance is also growing in Asia and, to a lesser extent, in Africa. Examples of lenders include the Kuyasa Fund (South Africa), the Jamii Bora Trust (Kenya), KixiCasa (Angola), PRIDE (United Republic of Tanzania), BRI (Indonesia) and CARD (Philippines). The size of some housing microfinance programmes may be considerable; Grameen Bank, for example, has provided more than 650,000 housing loans. However, housing microfinance portfolios worldwide remain very small relative to GDP and the overall microfinance activity. Housing microfinance is still heavily directed towards existing business loan clients of microfinance institutions and in typical microfinance schemes, the housing portfolio share ranges between 4 per cent and 8 per cent.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 55
- Paragraph text
- Housing microfinance institutions employ diversified and more relaxed collateral strategies compared with traditional mortgage collateral, including co-signers, assignment of future income, payroll deduction, other financial assets such as life insurance, and "social collateral" (borrowers' reputations, or the social networks to which they belong). Some microfinance agencies seek to minimize the need for collateral by using existing client history. Many home microfinance agencies, particularly in Asia and Africa, have savings requirements, which serve both as an assessment of the borrower's repayment capacity and as a means to acquire funds.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- Although microfinance agencies' interest rates are typically lower than those of informal moneylenders, they are much higher than those charged by formal financial institutions and have much shorter maturities. In most cases, the interest rates range between 20 per cent and 50 per cent. For example, MiBanco in Peru charges a 37 per cent annual rate and Compartamosbanco in Mexico charges almost 70 per cent interest on its housing microfinance programme. The poorer the client, the more likely the housing microfinance agency will attempt to manage default risk by reducing the time over which the client must repay the loan, increasing the interest rate and reducing the size of the loan. In some cases, the small loan amount is not sufficient and needs to be supplemented by additional borrowing from external sources, which carry very high interest rates and expose the household to increased risk. The use of floating rate interest also leads to increased interest over the repayment period, sometimes up to double the original rate. High interest rates increase clients' indebtedness and reinforce a vicious cycle of poverty and the likelihood of default. In some cases, long-held family assets (such as equipment or land) need to be sold, or other income flows (remittances, pensions) to be diverted into repayment. These "fallback" strategies account for the generally high repayment rates of housing microfinance, but reduce household equity, economic resilience and housing affordability. As is often the case in sub-prime mortgage lending, housing microfinance clients have been penalized for their "low profitability" by being forced to pay higher prices for access to housing finance.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- There is also growing awareness of the failure of the housing microfinance industry to reach the poorest. Many housing microfinance programmes, being financially oriented, appear to target the higher-income urban poor (i.e., those with incomes above 50 per cent of the national poverty line) and near poor (a household income of up to 120 or 150 per cent of the national poverty line), the "economically active poor", sometimes those with formal employment and often those with diversified household livelihood strategies. The ultra-poor, i.e., those who are below the fifteenth percentile in the income distribution, often dispersed in rural areas which are costly to serve with credit or physical infrastructure, are not addressed by these programmes. The requirement of secure tenure may further define the client group as being the relatively "better off" poor.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- A more recent form of housing microfinance, developed mainly in Africa and Asia, are community funds. These funds work with group loans and/or savings in order to assist communities to finance land regularization and acquisition, infrastructure and service provision, and home improvements. Community funds provide financial and technical support for the purchase of land parcels and communal infrastructure (roads, drainage, water distribution and connection, etc.). This process typically involves negotiations with other stakeholders such as the original owners of the parcel and Government. Some organizations (e.g. the National Housing Cooperative in Kenya) provide both individual housing microfinance loans and community group loans. International umbrella organizations have been created to enable and assist the operations of local community-based organizations such as Slum Dwellers International and the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres in India.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- Some community funds, such as Baan Mankong in Thailand and the Community Mortgage Programme in the Philippines, have demonstrated a great capacity to expand their coverage and to execute complex housing and infrastructure projects that involve national and local Governments, landowners and several communities. The Baan Mankong programme, introduced in 2003 by the Government of Thailand and implemented by an independent Government agency, the Community Organizations Development Institute, aimed to improve living conditions for 300,000 families by 2008. Its strategy for delivering low-income housing is to channel funds to community-based organizations that plan and carry out projects themselves. The programme became an exemplar for community-supported slum upgrading, although it has been implemented on a smaller scale than originally envisaged.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- Having examined the impact of these policies in various regions of the world, it is the view of the Special Rapporteur that they have largely failed to promote access to adequate housing for the poor. Evidence indicates that housing policies based exclusively on facilitating access to credit for homeownership are incompatible with the full realization of the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty, failing to supply habitable, affordable and well-located housing solutions accessible to the poor.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- Demand-side housing finance policies have been promoted with the aim of reducing State expenditures and overcoming problems related to social housing programmes, such as urban segregation. However, it has become evident that whether in the form of tax exemptions, "bail-outs" for financial institutions following housing market busts or subsidies for low-income households, States still invest huge public resources in housing. In addition, these policies have often resulted in problematic outcomes, similar to those affecting social housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71a
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] The promotion of access to adequate housing cannot be based solely on financial mechanisms. Broader State policies and interventions should be adopted, including, inter alia, public investments in infrastructure and basic services, human settlements upgrading and rehabilitation, urban planning and land policies, public financing, land and housing provision, rent regulation and related legal and institutional frameworks;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71b
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] The right to adequate housing should be respected and protected during the design, implementation and monitoring phases of housing policies and programmes and elaborated and implemented with the full participation of affected individuals and communities. The right to adequate housing should be understood as the right to live in conditions deemed adequate on the grounds of security of tenure; availability of services, building materials, facilities and infrastructure; affordability; habitability; accessibility; location; and cultural adequacy;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71c
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] The design of housing policies should be based on an assessment of adequate housing needs, taking into consideration the specific conditions in each country, in particular, demographic, geographic, economic and social conditions, and the characteristics and composition of the various disadvantaged groups (including low-income households), their housing conditions and forms of tenure;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71f
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] Integrated housing policies should be developed that target disadvantaged groups, including lower-income households. These policies and programmes should ensure access to affordable land and to the physical and social infrastructure that is needed to ensure adequate housing;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71g
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] States should promote alternatives to housing policies based on private credit and ownership, including through the development of a private rental sector. Adequate legal, financial and tax conditions should be created in order to encourage the supply of social rental housing as well as other forms of collective and individual tenure;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71h
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] States should promote a mixture of tenure systems, including a public housing sector that is not tied to liberalized markets and limited-profit rental or regulated rent schemes, in order to prevent social exclusion and segregation. A mixture of tenure solutions is essential for the promotion of access to adequate housing for the various segments of society and in order to shield the housing sector from economic and financial shocks;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71k
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] States are under the obligation to constantly assess the impact of their housing policies and to adjust, when necessary, policies that are detrimental to the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing without discrimination. States should allocate the necessary funds to facilitate effective monitoring at all stages of housing programmes;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71l
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] In their ongoing assessment efforts, States should employ human rights indicators to identify trends that signal progress, stagnation or retrogression in the realization of the right to adequate housing. All indicators should be disaggregated by prohibited ground of discrimination in order to identify patterns of marginalization and discrimination;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 71m
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from housing policies based on the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In this context, she makes the following recommendations:] States should take prompt measures to increase the availability of adequate housing options, particularly for those most affected by sub-prime and predatory mortgage lending. States should prioritize funding and construction of public housing and the promotion of housing assistance in order to address the impact of the economic and financial crises on the most vulnerable;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 1
- Paragraph text
- The present report is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 15/8, and constitutes the third annual report submitted to the Council since the current Special Rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, assumed her functions on 1 April 2008. It focuses on the question of women and their right to adequate housing. For women across the world, the right to adequate housing is as yet unrealized. The status of women's right to adequate housing is central not only to understanding the female face of poverty worldwide, but also to understanding the dynamics of gender inequality itself, both within and outside the home.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 3
- Paragraph text
- However, adequate housing for women goes far beyond addressing basic material needs. Because of the close connection that exists between the right to adequate housing and the right to equality, adequate housing for women goes to the heart of social inequality and discrimination. When a woman is unable to access adequate housing and land mainly because she is a woman, she is not only affected in terms of her immediate material needs, she is also relegated to a subordinate and dependent position within society because of her gender. Ensuring that women have access to and control over, vital resources such as housing and land is essential to challenging and changing gender power structures and patterns of gender inequality which continue to oppress, exclude and relegate women to the margins.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 4
- Paragraph text
- Finally, while it is true that women and the home are still in many places closely connected for social and cultural reasons, to insist that a woman's right to adequate housing is upheld should not reinforce the old (and discriminatory) adage that "a woman's place is in the home". Rather, securing women's right to adequate housing ultimately ensures greater autonomy for women in all areas of their lives, and not less. Advocating on behalf of women's right to adequate housing is not about confining women to certain gender roles. Instead, it is about acknowledging that gender as a social construct fundamentally impacts the ways in which women and men experience their housing situations, and that in order for women to enjoy adequate housing on the basis of equality their needs must be understood and made visible within the framework of the right to adequate housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- The focus on women and the right to adequate housing is not a new topic for the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. Indeed, significant work on women's right to adequate housing was done under the mandate of the Special Rapporteur between 2002 and 2006. The 2006 report on women and the right to adequate housing of the then Special Rapporteur offered the main findings stemming from an important body of thematic research, country missions, regional civil society consultations and information received from Governments and other actors on the status and implementation of this right.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 6
- Paragraph text
- During that period, regional civil society consultations were held with support from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations agencies, and non-governmental organizations. Those regional consultations highlighted key issues related to women's right to adequate housing, most of which remain relevant today, including women's right to adequate housing and access to land in the context of HIV/AIDS; violence against women and its relationship to housing; the impact of forced evictions on women; gender discrimination in law, custom and practice related to housing (including discriminatory practices with respect to property and inheritance); as well as intersectional discrimination.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 7
- Paragraph text
- Those consultations brought to light the specific difficulties that women, in every region, have to face in accessing housing and land. And, to make matters worse, far from being a place of safety and security, the home is too often permeated by violence. Women, those consultations highlighted, were likely to experience physical and sexual assault within the context of forced evictions. They also face insecurity and abuse within their own communities, including domestic violence. While the home should be a place of security, dignity, peace, and equality, for millions of women around the world the right to adequate housing has gone unfulfilled and unrealized.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- The e-consultation harnessed the participation of approximately 300 organizations, networks, social movements, grassroots groups, advocates, academics, affected women, experts and others from across the world. While many of the issues documented by the earlier reports of the mandate remain relevant today, it is also clear that new challenges have emerged which threaten to turn back the clock for women and their right to adequate housing. At the same time, it is also clear that some notable advances, mainly in the field of new national legislation on women and housing, have occurred in different regions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- The e-consultation highlighted a host of issues which continue to impact the ability of women to enjoy their right to adequate housing or which otherwise have a disproportionate gender impact. In all regions, patriarchy and gender discrimination; poverty; and the impact of globalization, neo-liberal economic policies and privatization surfaced as overarching issues of concern which set the stage for violations of women's right to adequate housing. More specifically, the impact of natural and human-induced disasters, conflict and internal displacement, war and occupation, lack of affordable and low-cost housing, forced evictions, homelessness, domestic violence, lack of women's participation in law and policy-making, lack of access to remedies, inadequate and discriminatory laws, and the application of discriminatory customary law, all emerged as relevant barriers to women's right to adequate housing across regions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- Concerns also emerged which were more regionally specific. In Africa, urbanization, climate change, low levels of financial literacy amongst women, and the rising number of female headed households all emerged as key issues affecting the status of women's right to adequate housing in the African continent today. In Asia, as well as in Africa, the consultation revealed how women are negatively affected by the impact of the agrarian crisis, as well as by "land grabbing", further limiting women's already precarious access to, and control over, land and other natural resources. The e-consultation in Eastern and Central Europe highlighted the importance of recognizing intersectional discrimination as it affects certain groups of women, in particular vis-à-vis the segregation of Roma communities. In the Middle East and North Africa, lack of law enforcement; conflict and occupation; and discrimination against minorities all negatively impact women's right to adequate housing. In Western Europe and North America, key issues highlighted included inadequate supply of public housing and lack of government assistance for housing; lack of affordable housing; domestic violence; and discrimination against women on public assistance, women with disabilities, and women belonging to racial/ethnic minorities, including Indigenous women. And in Latin America, where the e-consultation highlighted many of the issues already mentioned - including discrimination in matters related to housing against indigenous and Afro-descendant women, lack of access to justice, and domestic violence - participants also highlighted the need for better statistical information related to women and housing, as well as the urgent need to close the implementation gap between policy and practice.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- Similar concerns were also echoed across other regions. For example, in Spain, where foreclosures have soared during the last three years, women participating in the e-consultation reported that poor women and their families have been especially impacted, and that they continue to "experience the devastating effects of the economic crisis at close quarters." As in other countries, those hit the hardest by cuts to social programmes have been those women already marginalized. The consequences of foreclosure for women are similar to what has been documented in terms of the impact of forced evictions, namely increased social isolation, increased exposure to domestic violence, and deepened poverty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- This negative impact has also certainly been felt by women living in other countries and regions. In Africa, for example, the consultation highlighted that since the onset of the global financial crisis, reductions in foreign aid, as well as foreign direct investments and remittances, have directly resulted in significant cutbacks in national-level housing programmes. In addition, the recent growth in land grabbing and the sale of formerly communal lands to foreign investors has made women's access to land even more difficult, and also jeopardizes directly their rights to adequate housing, water and sanitation, food and health.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Gender
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Urgent progress must be made if women are to see improvements in their actual housing situations. However, what we have seen is far from what is required. In fact, within the context of the global financial crisis there has been a worrying move away from human rights standards, such as those requiring allocation of the maximum of available resources towards the realization of the right to adequate housing, or prioritizing marginalized women in all matters related to housing law, policy and programming. Rather, the trend has been towards increased privatization and further deregulation of the housing market, a move which leaves millions of women at the periphery, unable to access adequate housing. This situation not only perpetuates women's poverty, it also reinforces women's second-class status and gender inequality itself.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- While the financial crisis looms heavy, it is important to recognize that some significant legal, policy and judicial progress has been achieved in recent years which increasingly recognizes and protects women's right to adequate housing. This section highlights some of the recent successes in the fight for women's equal right to adequate housing, including on issues related to inheritance, divorce, land and property at international, regional and national levels. While not meant to be a comprehensive account of all of the advancements that have been made, each of the laws, policies, frameworks, decisions and/or judicial decisions highlighted below has had positive attributes from the standpoint of women's right to adequate housing, as well as their right to equality.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 19
- Paragraph text
- At the international level, the newly created UN-Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, has incorporated a specific goal on increasing women's access to economic empowerment and opportunities. This focus seeks, inter alia, to promote the adoption and implementation of laws and policies that expand women's economic assets and security, including laws and policies to guarantee equal access to land and property. In addition, the recently created Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and practice has been tasked by the Human Rights Council with promoting and exchanging views on best practices related to the elimination of laws that discriminate against women or are discriminatory to women in terms of implementation or impact. Doing so will contribute to ending gender discrimination in all parts of the world, as well as to ending systemic violations of women's right to adequate housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- In addition, the most recent concluding observations adopted by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on Israel for the first time made explicit reference to women's "right to adequate housing." In those concluding observations, the Committee also for the first time made explicit reference to the practice of "forced evictions", urging Israel to "revoke its policies allowing for and refrain from the practice of forced eviction and house demolitions, which negatively impact on the physical and psychological well-being as well as the development and advancement of Palestinian and Israeli Arab women." These recommendations help to conceptually link the contents of general comments 4 (1991) on the right to adequate housing and 7 (1997) on forced evictions of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to the non-discrimination and equality protections guaranteed under the Covenant.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- Women's right to adequate housing is often denied or ignored within the broader context of family and marriage law. Equality in matters of inheritance is often denied for women and girls on the basis of custom and tradition, whether within the context of the death of a spouse, parent or other relative. This has important ramifications, as inheritance is a primary means by which wealth and resources are transferred within societies, as well as within families. To be excluded from the process of inheritance reinforces women's lack of autonomy and equality, and jeopardizes in a very direct way their right to adequate housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- In applying the law, the courts also have a critical role to play. In Kenya, recent judicial decisions referencing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women have put to rest the persistent conflict between customary legal systems which deny women inheritance of family property on the one hand, and the guarantee of gender equality under the Kenyan Constitution on the other. In the Ntutu case (2008), for example, the Kenyan High Court heard arguments by the sons of the deceased that "Masai customary law of succession … does not recognize the rights of the daughters to inherit the estate of their fathers." Here, the Court applied international human rights law, international covenants and treaties which have been ratified by Kenya, and noted the previous decision of Rono vs. Rono. The Court found "the customary law which shall abrogate the right of daughters to inherit the estate of a father cannot be applicable as it shall be repugnant to justice and morality," and upheld the right of the daughters to inherit equally from the assets of the estate.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 26
- Paragraph text
- Women's right to equality in matters of inheritance is also relevant within the context of Sharia law, the application of which particularly affects women in the Middle East and North Africa. While Sharia law generally supports women's rights to acquire, hold, use, administer and dispose of property, women and girls receive a lesser share than their male counterparts when it comes to matters of inheritance (generally half of what a male in the same position would be entitled to receive). Customary practices and traditional structures can also contribute to further aggravating the situation. A prime example is that women are often forced, due to social pressures, to renounce their already reduced share of the inheritance in favour of male members of the family. In order to discourage this practice, in the occupied Palestinian territory, the Deputy Supreme Judge of Palestine of the Head of the Upper Council of Sharia Jurisdictions issued a notice in 2011 in which he instructed relevant authorities to apply certain conditions before legalizing a woman's renunciation of her inheritance share, including that at least four months pass after a person's death before a renunciation of inheritance can be registered. The notice also instructs the relevant authorities to verify the real value of the inheritance share, relying on an official report by three experts authorized by the municipality or local council. This new protocol is aimed at helping women to retain their inheritance shares and protecting women from losses as a result of reduced valuations of those shares.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- Women's access to and control over land is also a critical issue which connects in very real ways to women's right to adequate housing. At national levels, advancements in this area are also taking place. In Tajikistan, a joint effort of UNIFEM (now UN-Women) with the Government of Tajikistan, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other partners resulted in the establishment of the Coordination Council dealing with women's ownership issues, whose key task was to mainstream gender in Tajik land reform. In 2004, seven changes were made to the clauses of the national Land Code which previously discriminated against women. Changes in the Land Code made it mandatory that all family members - women included - are now listed on land use certificates when families receive pieces of land from former collective farms. Over the course of a few years, those changes coupled with media campaigns, the provision of free legal advice, and the collection of sex-disaggregated data, resulted in raising women's land ownership from 2 to 14 per cent.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- Each of these advancements in law and policy represents an important achievement which ought to be celebrated. Yet, women throughout the world continue to face entrenched de jure and de facto barriers to the realization and enjoyment of this right. When it comes to women's right to adequate housing, much more needs to be done to ensure the effective domestication of human rights standards and the harmonization of national legislative frameworks with those international standards. In addition, the conceptual tensions which exist between "progressive realization" on the one hand (which is applicable to the achievement of substantive rights contained within the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights versus the immediate obligation of States to ensure that women enjoy their rights to non-discrimination and equality on the other (as guaranteed under both the Covenant and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, as well as other relevant treaties) must be addressed.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- It is clear that the legal and policy barriers to women's enjoyment of their right to adequate housing must be removed, and replaced by laws, policies and programming which take a focused and proactive approach. Legislative and policy measures must be put in place at national and regional levels explicitly prioritizing women's right to adequate housing. In order to assist States and other relevant actors in the development of gender-sensitive housing law, policy, and programming, the Special Rapporteur takes this opportunity to provide some guidance on a gender perspective on the elements of the right to adequate housing, through a gendered lens.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- Security of tenure, as a cornerstone element of the right to adequate housing, provides legal protection against forced eviction, as well as harassment and other threats. For women, security of tenure is too often tenuous and secondary because it is assumed to be achieved through their relationship with a male - be it their husband, father, brother, or son. This situation falls far short of the standard, and gaps in protection are easily exposed. For many women, once that relationship with a male family member is severed through death or divorce, they are immediately vulnerable to being forced out of their homes. As we know, this is the case for widows who are routinely "disinherited" after the death of their husbands, as well as for women victims of domestic violence where a woman's housing situation depends on her relationship to her abuser.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- In addition, mass forced evictions which take place at the hands of State authorities or third party actors also impact women disproportionately. In 2000, the then Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women wrote: Violence occurring in relation to forced eviction starts before the eviction process. Psychological stress on learning about the eviction can destabilize the family atmosphere and cause emotional trauma. (…) During the eviction, verbal abuse and beatings, rape and even killing are common. The destruction of the home and the destruction of property are further traumatic experiences. (…) Coping with injuries, the death of family members, inadequate housing or even homelessness, poverty, lack of community support when relocated away from the home town are all possible burdens that have to be taken on by women after eviction.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- Housing law, policy and programmes should also ensure that women have the legal literacy and legal resources needed to effectively claim and enforce their rights within the context of eviction. Women must "have the right to relevant information, full consultation and participation throughout the entire [evictions] process, and to propose alternatives that authorities should duly consider" and in the event of eviction "[w]omen and men must be co-beneficiaries of all compensation packages. Single women and widows should be entitled to their own compensation."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- Adequate housing requires availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure, including access to water and sanitation; heating, cooling, and lighting; energy; washing facilities; food storage and refuse disposal; as well as emergency services. Taking into account women's perspectives on these issues is vital given the fact that women tend to spend more time at home, and are often disproportionately burdened with household chores which depend directly on the availability of such services, materials, facilities and infrastructure. There are interesting precedents for this type of gender-sensitive planning, as in the housing project Frauen-Werk-Stadt developed by the City of Vienna. This housing project received international acclaim for being a "housing project for and by women" and was designated a best practice for urban settlements by UN-Habitat and UNESCO.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- The issue of water demonstrates clearly the relevance of taking a gender-sensitive approach. It is now well-documented that it is women, more than men, who spend precious hours of each day on water collection for themselves and their families when water is not provided at home. Cumulatively, women in South Africa alone must walk the equivalent of a trip to the moon and back 16 times each day just to supply their households with water. However, when States adopt a gender-sensitive approach to water delivery and management, the situation for women can change dramatically, and for the better.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- We also see the gender impact of lack of sanitation facilities for women, who are disproportionately exposed to face sexual assault on their way to use facilities. UN-Water has highlighted that: A focus on gender differences is of particular importance with regard to sanitation initiatives, and gender-balanced approaches should be encouraged in plans and structures for implementation, [T]he design and the location of latrines close to home may reduce violence against women, which may occur when women have to relieve themselves in the open after nightfall.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- Water points and sanitation facilities must be made available and accessible to women, ensuring women's rights to water and sanitation, as well as to health. In order to ensure that women's needs are adequately reflected in housing law, policy, and programming, a human rights-based approach requires that women be able to participate in all stages of policy and programme development, so that they are able to give input into the kinds of resources most needed by them within their specific social and cultural context. For example, the recent Inter-Agency Standing Committee guidelines on addressing gender issues in the aftermath of Haiti's earthquake of January 2010 highlighted that "it is essential that water and sanitation actors consult women and girls on the location of sanitation facilities to ensure that the route is safe; that latrines be well lit, lockable from the inside, and offer privacy."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- In order for housing to be adequate it must be situated so as to allow access to employment options, health-care services, schools, childcare centres and other social facilities. However, if these resources are effectively unavailable to women due to gender-based discrimination or lack of gender sensitivity, they are of no practical benefit to women and women remain just as excluded as if those resources were not present. Therefore, housing law, policy and programming must assure that women and girls are also able to benefit on an equal basis from these community resources, such that they are adequate, available and fully accessible to women and girls.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- In this respect, researchers have found that "site planning and location, service arrangements, and the design of community facilities can be critical in easing the burden of women's double day. For example, site layouts can be planned to cluster several houses around a communal area. In [El Salvador], this layout has given rise to informal, collective arrangements for child care which would have been difficult to develop otherwise." On access to employment and livelihoods, researchers have also highlighted that housing location is particularly important for women's employment: as they earn less, the cost and time of long commutes discourages formal employment, and access to markets is vital for typical informal occupations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- In order for housing to be adequate, it must be affordable. The definition of what is affordable, however, is not gender-neutral and cannot be thought of as being the same for women and men. Throughout the world, the reality is that women on average earn less than men, accumulate less pension/superannuation support over a lifetime, and have less access to financial resources in general. In a world where housing is often accessed through markets and capital, what may be affordable for the average man may not be affordable for the average woman. In Europe, for example, Eurostat found a persisting gender pay gap of 17.5 per cent on average in 27 European Union Member States.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 46
- Paragraph text
- As such, when seeking to define affordability, it is important to take into account the gender disparity in income and access to financial resources, and to prioritize the allocation of social or public housing to those who are unable to meet the cost of housing, often women. Within the context of increased privatization of social services, it is also vital that the cost of housing itself be defined to include costs associated with realizing the right to adequate housing, including vis-à-vis rights to water and sanitation, energy supply, etc. Within the framework of housing law, policy and programming, women's access to the financial resources needed to obtain adequate housing - including loans, credits, and/or vouchers, etc. - ought to be reflected.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- While the design of housing can be gender-sensitive, most often it is not. Scholars interested in feminist architecture have argued that: Despite this relationship of women to the home, they have little control over the nature of their housing. Architects and planners are usually men and, in the case of local authority housing estates, not of the class of those who actually spend most of their time in the flats and houses they design. It is women who bear the brunt of high-rise flats, estates with no open play spaces, inadequate laundry facilities, noise, vandalism and bad access to shops and transport. Cramped kitchens, damp, thin walls, broken lifts, dark and dangerous stairways and the numerous other consequences of low cost building, make taking care of the home and rearing young children doubly difficult and time-consuming.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 49
- Paragraph text
- On the positive side, the design of housing itself can certainly encourage greater equality vis-à-vis enjoyment and use of domestic space. An example of new ways of thinking about domestic space from a gender perspective can be seen through the development of housing projects which seek to promote non-hierarchical and more flexible uses of the home. For example, creating personal workspaces inside the home can support women who are more likely to engage in home-based income-generating activities. Another interesting development which can be found in certain policies relates to the design of kitchens, a traditionally female space which is often cramped and separated. The design of housing from a gender-sensitive perspective can better promote family integration, as well as a more equitable sharing of household responsibilities between women and men through openness and shared use of spaces.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- In order to ensure that housing is accessible to all groups of women, it is similarly important for housing law, policy and programmes to reflect the needs of women who may be especially disadvantaged and who encounter intersectional discrimination, including widows, elderly women, lesbians, homeless women, migrant women, women with disabilities, women who may be single mothers or single heads of households, women living with or otherwise affected by chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and mental health disorders, women belonging to racial/ethnic/linguistic minorities, domestic workers, sex workers, illiterate women and women who have been displaced.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Persons with disabilities
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- Culturally adequate housing allows for the expression of cultural diversity, yet too often women are excluded from being able to shape that cultural identity and to participate in traditional cultural decision-making structures. In order to ensure that women's voices and visions are reflected, women must be able to effectively participate in defining what adequate housing means to them within their particular context, and to ensure that housing addresses not only their practical, material needs, but also their needs vis-à-vis autonomy, equality and dignity. In order to achieve this, women must be seen as partners in the creation and interpretation of cultural norms related to housing and land. The Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN) has spearheaded innovative efforts specifically designed to utilize cultural structures to protect women's rights, including to adequate housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- The existing gaps are complex and difficult to overcome as they are deeply rooted in culture, discriminatory social attitudes and practices, as well as weak or gender-blind systems which delay progress in the realization of the right, and fail to effectively make visible the existing barriers. Those challenges require more than ordinary efforts to enforce laws and put policies into practice; additional actions directed to provoke those changes in cultural patterns are required, and this can be obtained particularly through the combination of awareness-raising and public education, as well as through legal enforcement and legal aid, and provision of appropriate resources through the adoption of specific budgetary measures.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 55
- Paragraph text
- Awareness-raising and public human rights education are critical to the advancement of women's de facto enjoyment of the right to adequate housing, and must take place at multiple levels. Participants in the e-consultation from different countries and regions emphasized this point repeatedly, noting how "there is clearly a need for rights education at all levels of society so that access to adequate housing is understood and accepted as a basic human right" and how "we need information campaigns, not only among women but also among those in power too. … training policymakers, police officers, judiciary on women's land and housing rights is also something gravely lacking …".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Education
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- Awareness should also be raised about women's right to adequate housing amongst key audiences, including traditional, religious and customary leaders; law-makers; lawyers, legal advocates, and members of the judiciary; law enforcement authorities; housing authorities and administrative personnel; gender ministries; and those engaged in the development and/or implementation of land policy and/or land reform. Each of these groups should be made fully aware of the norms protecting women's right to adequate housing at the domestic level, as well as those norms in international law.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- Women must also be made aware of their right to adequate housing, both as it is recognized under domestic legislation as well as under the international human rights framework. This right should be actively promoted so as to ensure that women know what it entails in all aspects. However, it is also important to go beyond "rights awareness" so that women are actually able to know and understand what services are available locally to assist them in claiming their rights and holding actors accountable for violations of these rights. With the foundation of rights awareness, women must have a seat at the table of decision-making, so that they are able to effectively and meaningfully able to participate in all aspects related to the formulation, design and implementation of housing law, policy and programming.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- In order to ensure proper enforcement and implementation, it is also important for the legal system to be accessible to women and itself gender-sensitive, and that it is specifically enabled to protect women's right to adequate housing. In this regard, it is vital for women to have access to affordable or free legal aid which can assist them in seeking justice and enforcing their right to a remedy. Women must also be able, should they so choose, to file legal complaints against the State as well as private and third-party actors for gender-discrimination in housing and other violations of women's right to adequate housing, and to have those complaints decided by a fair and impartial tribunal.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- Adequate legal enforcement also requires that all human rights violations, such as forced evictions, disinheritance, violence against women carried out within the context of eviction be vigorously investigated, prosecuted and punished. Police units operating at the local level should be adequately supported to assist women with issues stemming from violations or potential violations of their right to adequate housing, such as property grabbing and domestic violence, including the removal of perpetrators from the home and the recovery of stolen property.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- The implementation of housing law, policy and programming often requires that adequate budgetary support be put in place in order to ensure effectiveness. In order to ensure that there are adequate financial and human resources allocated, processes of participatory budgeting which are inclusive of women's voices should be used. Women should be active participants in open and transparent budgeting processes related to all aspects of housing law, policy and programmes as well as land use plans. Gender-sensitive, detailed budget analysis of current housing programmes and land use plans should also be employed, so as to ensure better accountability of States in promoting and realizing gender equality, and in meeting their international human rights obligations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- In order to continue to advance the recognition, protection and enjoyment of women's right to adequate housing, as well as women's rights to non-discrimination and equality, States should adopt reinforcing strategies. These strategies should be targeted both at the articulation of domestic law, policy and programming which uphold women's right to adequate housing, as well as at effective implementation. In order to better protect and realize women's right to adequate housing, the Special Rapporteur offers the following recommendations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 63d
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur reiterates that States should design, adopt and implement gender-sensitive and human rights-based law, policy and programming which:] Prioritizes the needs of particularly vulnerable and/or marginalized women, including widows, elderly women, lesbians, homeless women, migrant women, women with disabilities, women who may be single mothers or single heads of household, women living with or otherwise affected by HIV/AIDS, women belonging to minorities, domestic workers, sex workers, illiterate women and women who have been displaced;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Persons with disabilities
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 75
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur encourages the Committees on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to provide continued normative advice on women's right to adequate housing, including on issues related to inheritance, land and property, and to pay special attention to conceptual tensions between the immediate obligations of States to ensure women's right to equality and the "progressive realization" obligation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Special Rapporteur also encourages the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to adopt a general recommendation on women's right to adequate housing, including issues related to inheritance, land and property.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women and their right to adequate housing 2012, para. 77
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur encourages the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and practice to document best practices with respect to women and the right to adequate housing, within the scope of its mandate to promote and exchange views on best practices related to the elimination of laws that discriminate against women or are discriminatory to women in terms of implementation or impact. The Special Rapporteur also encourages the Working Group to make recommendations for the improvement of housing legislation and its implementation, within the scope of its mandate to contribute to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals, in particular Goal 3 on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- The informal rental sector is a crucial component of the housing sector in developing countries and is also increasing today in many European cities, filling a gap created by the current housing policies that do not adequately address the housing needs of low-income households. Unfortunately, slum upgrading programmes have largely ignored the impact on tenants and have sometimes even failed to notice that most target settlements even contain tenants. In some cases, the upgrading programmes even prohibit owners from letting upgraded properties. Such situations are incompatible with the obligation of States to promote the right to adequate housing, inter alia, by facilitating the "self-help" efforts of disadvantaged groups. However, there are a few reliable programmes that include direct subsidies and cheap loans to owners who need to repair their properties and to owners who wish to extend their property to accommodate additional tenants.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Adequate housing must be in a location that allows access to employment options and public services. This is particularly relevant to poor households since the financial costs of travelling to work can place excessive demands upon already limited budgets. With the support of State intervention, through rent subsidies to low-income households, the provision of State land to low-income rental and other measures, a private rental sector has the potential to promote access to better located, adequate housing for low-income households in urban settings.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- For low-income households, ensuring a high degree of security of tenure in the private rental market is of the utmost importance since poor tenants cannot afford the costs associated with a change of dwelling or with challenging evictions and cannot compete in a completely unregulated private rental market (even when receiving housing benefits). It is therefore also necessary to ensure that regulation and accountability are respected in order to prevent economic de facto evictions and to enable low-income households to access affordable rental housing in urban areas that are well located.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- Common property is a regime that allocates a package of property rights to a group. Such rights may include ownership, management, use, exchange and access of shared resources. The term "common property regime" refers to a set of institutions, regulations and management practices subject to collective decision-making. Such regimes are distinct from communal tenure, which refers more broadly to community-based tenure systems, in which some form of collective authority (for example, an extended family, clan or other social grouping) holds allocation rights. The present section refers to common property tenure arrangements in urban settings that have been implemented in recent years in both developed and developing countries.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- A housing cooperative is a legal association formed for the purpose of providing housing to its members on a continuing basis. It is owned, maintained and controlled by its members. Housing cooperatives are based on collective ownership and management and can take various forms, including tenure cooperatives (in which owns housing development are owned and the members own equity shares in the cooperative), rental cooperatives (in which members pay rent to the cooperative), finance cooperatives (in which the cooperative provides loans to members for building construction or repairs) and building cooperatives (wherein building construction is undertaken and land is developed on behalf of members). Some cooperatives combine two or more of those functions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 49
- Paragraph text
- The classic cooperative model has evolved mainly in Europe, and the "Scandinavian" cooperative model, founded in 1923, is one of the most influential. In Sweden, cooperative housing accounted for 22 per cent of all housing in 2011. Swedish cooperative organizations have received significant state support since the 1950s, when housing subsidies were applied equally to all forms of tenure, including cooperatives. The Swedish legislation provides a clear legal framework for the operation of housing cooperatives by defining the legal status of the relevant associations, such as the Savings and Construction Association of Tenants (HSB) and the cooperative housing organization known as Riksbyggen, and of the tenant owners. Additional rules and regulations are adopted by the associations themselves with tenant majority approval.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- In Latin America, a successful example of housing cooperatives on a national scale is the mutual aid cooperatives in Uruguay, which are promoted by the Federation of Mutual Aid Housing Cooperatives. The Uruguayan legislation recognizes collective tenure, and the regulation of the housing cooperatives is encompassed in the 1992 General Cooperative Law. Since 1965, around 600 Federation cooperatives have been consolidated in Uruguay, and around 20,000 families are living in houses and apartments built through mutual aid. Mutual aid cooperatives have been introduced and adapted in 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries over the past 20 years through various initiatives.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 51
- Paragraph text
- A recent form of cooperatives combining finance and building are community funds, which have been developed in Africa and Asia. These funds work with group loans and/or savings in order to assist communities in financing land regularization and acquisition, infrastructure and service provision, and home improvements. The Asian Coalition for Community Action programme has promoted community funds in Asia from 2009 to 2011, carrying out 111 housing projects in 15 countries, at a total cost of almost $4 million; collective agreements were used in 36 of the projects.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- A collective organization enables cooperatives to take on complex housing and infrastructure projects that would otherwise not be possible for an individual household. Community funds provide financial and technical support for the purchase of land parcels and communal infrastructure (such as roads, drainage, water and sanitation). The process typically involves negotiations with other stakeholders, such as the original owners of the parcel and the Government. In the Scandinavian model, the "mother" (also known as "parent" or "secondary") cooperative association is responsible for building housing developments, which are then sold to "daughter" (also known as "subsidiary" or "primary") cooperatives. Financial risk for members is limited to their daughter cooperative.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- The collective structure also promotes affordability and security of tenure by enabling group loans or savings or, in some cases, assistance funds for temporary defaults by members. The collective organization and management of common areas and housing maintenance is also crucial to promoting affordability for low-income households. In the Scandinavian model, homeowners will typically fund 75-80 per cent of the cost of a housing development, while the rest is covered by a loan taken by the daughter cooperative. Cooperative homeowners also benefit from a 30 per cent tax reduction on interest expenditures on either cooperative shares or properties. Tenants may be evicted by the cooperative board only in a limited number of circumstances. In the case of community funds, interest rates on loans are usually relatively low and loan periods are often long, up to 25 years.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- The Uruguayan mutual aid cooperatives promote affordable housing through a collective process involving the future occupiers. Ownership, as well as responsibility for the mortgage and maintenance of the property is collective and indivisible. Under the Federation of Mutual Aid Housing Cooperatives model, families can get access to collective housing loans without previous savings (particularly suitable for low-income households); the time they spend building the houses is considered to be down payment (15 per cent of public bank mortgage). Members pay a monthly share of the collective mortgage, an additional fee to the Cooperative Fund for the maintenance of common spaces and services, and an assistance fund for members that are temporarily unable to pay to the cooperative due to various reasons (such as accident, loss of employment or death of bread winner).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 55
- Paragraph text
- In the Uruguayan model, security of tenure is ensured by a contract between the cooperative and the member ("contrato de uso y goce" of the Federation of Mutual Aid Housing Cooperatives), which is not time bound. Each family enjoys usufruct rights that can be inherited or sold back to the cooperative. The value of the member's share is paid back to him by the cooperative in two instalments over a period of three years and comprises the value of labour hours; maintenance of the common areas; the repaid amount of the loan; and the repaid interest. This prevents a high member turnover and protects the cooperative from gentrification processes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- The large majority of community land trusts are organized essentially as "affordable housing trusts", and will oversee the development, sale or rental, and maintenance of housing units to buyers or renters who will lease the land from the community land trust. Through the use of an inheritable ground lease (typically for 99 years), community land trusts define the rights and responsibilities of the individual as the owner of the structures, and the community as the owners of the land. Usually, the community land trust is governed by a board of directors comprising one third leasers of the community land trust; one third residents from the surrounding community (that do not live on the leased properties of the community land trust) and one third individuals who represent the public interest.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Economic Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- Community land trusts have been expanding over the past 50 years, primarily in the United States where, according to the national network, close to 250 were active as at June 2013. They also exist in the United Kingdom and Canada. An increasing number of municipal governments are forming community land trusts as a progressive strategy for addressing affordable housing needs that cannot be met solely with public housing programmes. Chicago, United States, is perhaps the largest example of a municipal government forming a public community land trust.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- The main purpose of community land trusts is to lock the value of the land in order to preserve the long-term affordability of housing for low- and middle-income households. Such affordability and location aspects are therefore one of the main pillars of community land trusts, and purchase or rental prices are usually below market value (typically 20 to 65 per cent), essentially because the leaseholder only pays for the home and not the land. In exchange, homeowners accept limitations when reselling their homes, usually committing to a maximum 25 per cent profit of the original price paid. This allows future low- to moderate-income households to access the same property at an affordable cost and help the community to resist gentrification processes and development-related displacement.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- Both cooperatives and community land trusts also promote affordable housing for the poor by taking on responsibility for the maintenance and rehabilitation of communal housing space, which is a heavy cost for the poor. By locking land and housing values, community land trusts and cooperatives also contribute to the overall stability of land market and housing affordability. Finally, the leverage of the community greatly enhances the ability of low-income household members to access housing that is well located in urban areas and to ensure security of tenure in these locations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 68a (i)
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In that context, she makes the following recommendations:] States should promote various forms of tenure: A mixture of tenure solutions, including private and public rental and collective tenure, is essential for the promotion of access to adequate housing for the various segments of society and in order to shield individuals and households from economic and financial shocks. Legal and institutional frameworks should be created to ensure security of tenure for all forms of tenure;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 68a (ii)
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In that context, she makes the following recommendations:] States should promote various forms of tenure: The design of housing policies should be based on an assessment of housing needs, taking into consideration the specific demographic, geographic, economic and social conditions in each region, and the characteristics of the various disadvantaged groups (including low-income households), their existing housing conditions and forms of tenure;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 68b (ii)
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In that context, she makes the following recommendations:] Rental tenure should be encouraged: States should adopt measures to encourage the construction and maintenance of a private rental sector, including by providing incentives for small-scale landlords (such as tax incentives and supply-based subsidies that stimulate private investment) and support the non-profit and community-based development of rental housing;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 68b (iii)
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In that context, she makes the following recommendations:] Rental tenure should be encouraged: States should provide housing support mechanisms for low-income households or households with irregular income, including by providing rent allowances; establishing a housing benefit system and guaranteeing funds to cover the costs arising from the non-payment of rent and service payments of the most vulnerable; and providing tenancy protection and rent control legislation;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 68b (v)
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In that context, she makes the following recommendations:] Rental tenure should be encouraged: States should encourage and support the use of standardized rental contracts, in order to reduce the number and severity of disputes between landlords and tenants. To that end, standard forms of contracts should be freely available and widely distributed and should not require notary approval;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 68b (vii)
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In that context, she makes the following recommendations:] Rental tenure should be encouraged: States should encourage greater use of empty housing stock, by, inter alia, encouraging the rehabilitation of vacant homes, increasing taxation on unused properties and improving access to low-cost loan funds for people who require financial assistance to get empty properties back into use , including through rent;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 68c (i)
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In that context, she makes the following recommendations:] Collective forms of tenure should be encouraged: States should support cooperative, collective and communal forms of tenure by designing and investing adequate resources through, inter alia: legal recognition and protection of cooperative and collective ownership of land and housing in urban areas; and support for housing policy and financial mechanisms, including access to credit and State subsidies, tax benefits to collective institutions, State provision of technical assistance and urban land that is well located for collective housing organizations;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 2
- Paragraph text
- In the late 1970s, a dramatic shift occurred in housing policies, starting with North America and Western Europe, followed later by some countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and by formerly planned economies. The shift, calling for the transfer of activities from State control to the private sector and for unrestricted markets, soon gained hegemony, shaping the policies of States, international financial institutions and development agencies. The effects of the approach on housing policies, hence, on the right to adequate housing and related human rights across the globe have been striking. The new role of the State as "enabler" led to creating conditions and institutions to support housing finance systems to promote homeownership under the neoliberal dogma of reliance on private property and market forces.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 4
- Paragraph text
- A nearly unanimous belief in individual homeownership marginalized public rental housing; in many countries most of such housing was sold off. Similarly, the process led to radical changes in tenure structure; in many formerly planned economies owner-occupied housing now forms the bulk of the housing stock (for example, 96 per cent in Estonia and 77 per cent in Slovenia and more than 80 per cent in China). Even in countries where massive privatization did not occur, the ideological transfer of responsibility for the provision of housing to the market has been accompanied by the view that individual homeownership is the best tenure option and the centre of all housing policies. Some countries with a long tradition of broad-based social rental housing redefined their systems to promote ownership and "free market" principles. With subsidized accommodation less available, some households that might have otherwise rented were pushed towards homeownership.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- In her previous report (A/67/286, paras. 10-13), the Special Rapporteur highlighted how the deregulation, liberalization and globalization of housing finance have had major implications for housing and urban development, eventually leading to the global affordability and housing crisis we are witnessing today. Housing costs are disproportionately affecting the poor and in Europe represent an average of 41 per cent of the income of people at risk of poverty. The affordability crisis is compounded by the erosion, neglect and liberalization of non-market mechanisms for allocating housing resources, such as rental housing (public and private) and different forms of cooperative and collective ownership, among others.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- However, during the past two decades new mortgage products were designed specifically for borrowers with low incomes or poor credit history who were not eligible for regular mortgage finance, generating sub-prime loans. Although those lending policies were intended to enable access to credit for low-income households, they are extremely discriminatory: the poorer the credit taker, the higher the interest he/she has to pay. High-interest loans led to ever-increasing household indebtedness, economic insecurity, mortgage arrears and repossession rates. Poor households were forced to reduce expenditure on other essential needs, like food or medicines, in order to meet their housing debt.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- The adverse effects of housing credit growth on affordability have also been visible at the macroeconomic scale. Wider access to mortgage loans resulted in higher and more volatile housing prices. Increasing dependence on mortgage credit, private institutions and connection to broader developments in the global capital markets has overexposed national housing systems to the turbulence of global finance, raising levels of debt and concentrating risks among individual households. Countries that adopted an open system of mortgages, based on subprime loans, easily granted credit and the securitization of mortgages, have seen a serious crisis since 2008.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- The discrepancy between income levels and soaring housing and rental prices coupled with increasing unemployment have led to more payment default, foreclosures and homelessness. These processes are exacerbated by the adoption of legal and institutional adjustments aimed at facilitating foreclosures, which have been promoted in recent years as "imperatives for developing a housing finance system". The crisis has disproportionately affected the poorest and most vulnerable, who were the last to join the mortgage markets and the first to suffer the consequences of the crises owing to their low resilience to economic shocks and low repayment abilities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 13
- Paragraph text
- The capital-grant-subsidy has been the most frequently promoted programme to target low-income households. The approach offers cash subsidies by private companies to cover part of the price of a dwelling for sale. The Chilean experience has been considered the model for other countries, widely replicated in Latin America (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of). Outside of Latin America, the capital-grant approach has been implemented on a large scale in South Africa since 1994.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- Pursuant to articles 2 and 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and from a human rights perspective, Governments are required to make effective use of their available resources to ensure the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing, including by prioritizing the poorest. That obligation implies more than a roof since the right to housing entails access to an array of services and facilities that guarantee an adequate standard of living. Capital-grant subsidies have had a narrow focus on reducing only the quantitative deficits of houses without adequately incorporating a human rights view. In that sense, they have failed to address broader aspects of habitability, location, availability of services and infrastructure and non-discrimination. As one commentator observed, the new stock of subsidized housing often created a greater housing problem: "the problem of those 'with roofs'".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Until the 1980s, slum dwellers and the urban poor had not been a target for financial services. However, in the 1980s private financial investors came to regard the poor as "bankable", and in the past 10 years, a growing number of housing microfinance programmes emerged offering loans to low-income households. Housing microfinance loans are much smaller than mortgages, are typically granted for shorter terms and are used mainly to finance progressive improvements to housing (for example, building sanitary amenities) and expansions to an existing dwelling.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- Most housing microfinance initiatives originate in developing countries and emerging markets - Latin America, Asia and, to a lesser extent, in Africa. Although microfinance agency interest rates are typically lower than those of informal moneylenders, they are much higher (between 20 and 50 per cent) than those charged by formal financial institutions and have much shorter maturities. The poorer the client, the more likely the housing microfinance agency will attempt to manage default risk by reducing the size as well as the time over which the client must repay the loan and by increasing the interest rate. The use of floating rates of interest also leads to increases over the repayment period, sometimes up to double the original rate. It is therefore questionable whether housing microfinance fosters housing affordability for the urban poor or whether, in some cases, it leads to increased indebtedness.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- Housing finance policies based on credit for homeownership are inherently discriminatory against lower-income households and, at their best, promote affordable access for upper- and middle-income groups. Housing finance policies often "redline" the poor, who are required to pay much higher prices for financial services, exposing them to financial risks and indebtedness. At the same time, housing finance policies tend to focus solely on access to a roof while failing to effectively and comprehensively address the various elements of the right to adequate housing: location, access to infrastructure and services, habitability, cultural adequacy and security of tenure. At the macro level, the disproportionate use of such policies has contributed to price volatility and to the ongoing housing affordability and availability crises.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- By contrast, countries that have adapted a more balanced housing policy, by encouraging a variety of tenure forms, such as Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, have suffered little from the recent property crises. According to Housing Statistics in the European Union 2010 and Eurostat 2010, 40 per cent of the population in Austria rents and 56 per cent owns their dwellings; 54 per cent of the population in Germany and 56.1 per cent in Switzerland are tenants. Such examples demonstrate that the division between the various forms of tenure and housing policies is not a "natural" or necessary choice but rather influenced by State intervention and regulation of the housing sector through the use of its available resources as well as through legislation and policies, including fiscal, taxation and subsidy measures.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- As mentioned earlier in the report, the availability of public rental housing in many developed countries has diminished substantively or disappeared altogether. Most developing countries have never had a substantive stock of public housing, and those that have privatized it. A partial exception is the Republic of Korea where, in 2002, the Government announced a plan to build 1 million public housing units for rent over the next decade. Similar attempts have been made in recent years in Indonesia as part of a national programme for 1,000 Towers, some of which were intended for low-cost rental apartments (rusunawa), albeit with mixed results.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- In recent years, some Governments have looked towards non-profit organizations to provide housing for the poor and to limit Government involvement in the housing sector. Such institutions range from charities and housing associations to educational bodies. However, the social housing sector is substantive only in a handful of countries, mainly in Western Europe. As a result of cuts in funding to public housing and the ongoing global economic and financial crisis, waiting lists for social housing are increasing and the provision of affordable housing is not sufficient to keep up with the demand. In England, housing waiting lists augmented by 76 per cent between 2000 and 2011; in France 1.2 million applicants are registered on waiting lists for social housing, and in Italy there are 630,000.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- Despite the decline in support for rental housing, the absolute number of tenants worldwide is rising. Across the world, approximately 1.2 billion people (around one third of the urban population and one sixth of all people in the world) live in rented accommodation, the great majority in towns and cities. In many European countries the private rental sector, including informal, is playing a growing role for the poor, owing to inadequate access to social housing and greater constraints in accessing ownership. In developing countries, the largest proportion of tenants is in urban Africa; in Asia, tenants comprise approximately one third of the urban population.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 26
- Paragraph text
- Rental arrangements provide a range of options to low-income households in terms of location, improved mobility (particularly related to employment opportunities) and flexibility in terms of dwelling type (smaller or shared units that are not available in other tenure forms). Rental tenure enables low-income households to avoid house price risks, indebtedness and exposure to falling capital values and carries a lower transaction cost than homeownership. Rental housing also provides a regular additional source of income for low-income small landlords, which can serve as a safety net against precarious employment or as a form of pension after retirement and old age. This is particularly important in the case of low-income settlements. However, construction of extensions for renting purposes is often discouraged by planning regulations and stringent building standards.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- The access of poor households to rental housing is currently impeded by costs, mainly as a result of rising rent prices and a shortage of affordable rental housing. More and more households in Europe are facing difficulties in paying the rent (3.8 per cent of Europeans, and 8.6 per cent of those with income below 60 per cent of the median national income). Rent affordability issues are more widespread in developing countries where rental housing is even less available. The rent-to-income ratio for African cities is more than twice that of cities in high-income countries at 39.5 per cent of income.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- Significant increases in the supply of private rented housing are therefore necessary to help empower lower income tenants in the rental market and relieve affordability problems. In addition, demand-side policies are required to increase the affordability of the rental sector for the poor. Although most Governments have focused their efforts on increasing individual homeownership, there are some good examples of supply- and demand-based policies aimed at encouraging the small-scale private rental sector and increasing rent affordability for low-income households. Such interventions include taxation, direct or indirect subsidies, and regulation. State policies towards the informal rental sector also affect the accessibility of the poorest to rental arrangements.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- One of the main means of securing affordability and tenure for low-income tenants in private rental arrangements is rent legislation, regulation and control. Rent regulation varies greatly between regions, but typically includes two main elements: (a) security of tenure, establishing a minimum duration of occupancy as well as limitations on the eviction of tenants; and (b) control on levels of price increase, intended both to preserve affordability and to preclude de facto economic eviction. Rent control regimes tend to establish the amount and frequency of rent increases, linking it to fiscal measures such as inflation rates. In general, restrictions on rent increases are maintained only during sitting tenancy.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- In some countries, however, notably, Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and over the course of many decades, in some cities like New York and San Francisco in the United States (see A/HRC/13/20/Add.4, para. 44), rent regulation has had favourable effects on stabilizing the rental sector and maintaining access by low- income households to urban housing that is well located. In Switzerland, rental investments have been maintained even though rent controls reduce the housing costs of long-standing tenancy, and legislation prevents arbitrary eviction and the exploitation of temporary shortages. In Quebec, Canada, a consistent and well-established regulatory system, with a reasonable balance between protecting tenants and encouraging investment, has been retained. In Uruguay, the Government has introduced a different tool to balance the interests of landlords and tenants, through a fund that provides guarantees to cover costs arising from the non-payment of rent and service payments (Fondo de Garantía de Alquileres).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- Such examples demonstrate that it is possible to design rent regulation and tenancy protection mechanisms that do not distort or discourage the private rental market but actually encourage it. A well-regulated rental market can promote the goals of protecting tenants, particularly low income, and encouraging rental housing simultaneously. On the other hand, the elimination of rent controls and the easing of eviction procedures, has rarely led to more investment in the rental market but has actually skewed the market in the direction of homeownership.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- Although States do not have the obligation to directly provide adequate housing to all, they have the obligation to protect against abuses of human rights by third parties and to adopt the necessary measures to enable and assist individuals in enjoying their human rights. When housing provision is transferred to third parties (the private rental market), the State should regulate the market in order to protect against human rights abuses (such as forced evictions or economic eviction and rental price "bubbles") and to create an enabling environment for the realization of the right to adequate housing, with particular focus on the poorest and most marginalized. As indicated by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in paras. 8 (c) and 17 of its General Comment No. 4, tenants should be protected by appropriate means against unreasonable rent levels or rent increases.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- A variety of rental sub-markets exists, including rooms in inner city tenements, custom-built tenements, rooms in informal settlements, renting land and building rental units to let or building units in the backyard of dwellings. The trend is particularly noticeable in Latin America, where informal owners enlarge their homes to house tenants in order to rise their incomes. In Sub-Saharan Africa, taking in lodgers within the existing structure is common in several countries. The transformation of Government-built housing to include rental units is widespread in Northern Africa as well as Sub-Saharan Africa. In Asia, informal rental ranges from unlicensed high-rise buildings that accommodate migrant workers in the "urban villages" of China to rented plots in some Indian and Thai cities where tenants build their own shelter. Most of those options - ignored by regulations - offer very precarious conditions to tenants.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 68c (ii)
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur calls for a paradigm shift from the financialization of housing to a human rights-based approach to housing policies. In that context, she makes the following recommendations:] Collective forms of tenure should be encouraged: Cooperative and collective forms of tenure are inextricably linked to enhanced democratic participation and community-led governance. States should therefore support activities of civil society organizations that play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of collective forms of tenure, in particular for low-income groups.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 3
- Paragraph text
- In the absence of comprehensive global statistics on forced evictions, estimates by organizations of reported cases, as well as communications received by the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, confirm that forced evictions take place everywhere and affect millions of people annually. For instance, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions has estimated that between 1998 and 2008 forced evictions affected over 18 million people. The adverse impacts of forced eviction are massive, increasing poverty and destroying communities, leaving millions in extremely vulnerable situations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 6
- Paragraph text
- The political economy of land deeply influences processes of development, urbanization and housing. Land speculation, as well as large-scale acquisition of land in rural areas-often non-transparent and managed poorly-undermine tenure rights and local livelihoods. Coupled with drought and other climate-related changes, such activities are major drivers of migration to cities, where adequate land and housing is often not available to newcomers, especially the poor. As a result, people settle in housing and settlements with insecure tenure arrangements. Unplanned and exclusionary urbanization has obvious impacts on tenure security.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 7
- Paragraph text
- In addition, due to their increasing commodification, rural and urban lands have become highly contested assets, which has had dramatic consequences, particularly but not exclusively in emerging economies. The dynamics that accompany the liberalization of land markets are increasing the pressure of the market on urban low-income settlements, and this in a global context where resources for housing do not reach the lowest income groups. Communities are under threat of dispossession, their right to adequate housing, including tenure security, left unprotected.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- The United Nations Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) provides data on "slums", the word it has adopted to define such settlements. One UN-Habitat study estimated that 924 million people were living in slums in 2001; an estimate for 2010 placed the number at about 828 million. However, by 2010 tenure security was not taken into account in the UN-Habitat measurements of slums, hence the latter figure offers only a very small insight into the current extent of tenure insecurity in urban areas. Similarly, the revised indicator for the Millennium Development Goal target of improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers (7 (d)) does not include security of tenure. While this particular target was reached, the question remains as to whether this result reflects the real situation of slums and informal settlements worldwide. Developing effective ways to measure tenure (in)security is an urgent imperative, including for the Millennium Development Goals and the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- Informal settlements are by no means the only example of tenure insecurity. In fact, a wide range of individuals and groups may be insecure: refugees and internally displaced persons, affected by or under threat of conflicts, disasters and climate change; people on land set aside or affected by development projects; residents of informal settlements; occupants of valuable land; tenants with or without legal leases/titles, in informal settlements or formal contexts, in rural and urban areas; internal or international migrants; minorities; nomadic communities; groups affected by stigma or caste-based discrimination; the poor, landless, jobless and/or homeless; sharecroppers; bonded labourers; other marginalized groups, such as persons with disabilities or persons living with HIV; children; indigenous peoples; groups with customary land rights; and even individual property owners.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Ethnic minorities
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- Insecure tenure arguably annuls all other aspects of adequate housing-what is the point of having a well-insulated, affordable, culturally appropriate home, to cite only some aspects of adequate housing, if one is under daily threat of eviction? At the same time, any housing initiative, whether in the context of urban renewal, land management or development-related projects, or in dealing with reconstruction needs after conflicts or disasters, will inevitably have tenure security implications. In addition, the denial of access to secure land and housing has been a major cause of conflict throughout history. It is also a source of impoverishment and a hindrance to socioeconomic development.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- Conversely, when access to secure housing or land is provided, the potential for social and economic progress is immense-a fact recognized globally. Tenure security means a lot to families and individuals. It gives people certainty about what they can do with their land or home; and it offers them protection from encroachments by others. It often protects, increases and enables access to public services and benefits. It increases economic opportunities. It is a basis for women's economic empowerment and protection from violence. The relevance of the issue, not only to human rights but also to development, is evident.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur has decided to dedicate much of her attention until the end of her mandate to the issue of security of tenure. The present report reflects the areas of research she commissioned in 2012 (some of which can be found in two research papers available from www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/StudyOnSecurityOfTenure.aspx). In section I, the Special Rapporteur described the broad context bearing upon tenure security and the crucial importance of the issue. In section II she maps the tenure systems and arrangements existing worldwide, as well as key policies and practices pertaining to tenure security. In section III, the Special Rapporteur assesses existing guidance under international human rights law as well as in national and regional legal frameworks and related case law and other global governance frameworks. In section IV, she highlights some of the key challenges that pertain to securing tenure, flagging areas for further research rather than offering definite answers to what are extremely complex issues.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- The present report is also based on three consultations convened by the Special Rapporteur in 2012. In September, in Naples, the Special Rapporteur convened a consultation with 26 participants from housing, urban planning and human rights organizations. In October 2012, in Geneva, she convened an expert group meeting with another 26 participants, including experts in the areas of land management, urban planning and human rights law and litigation, and representatives of humanitarian action and community-based organizations. Also that month, the Special Rapporteur convened a public consultation in Geneva. The Special Rapporteur would like to thank the participants in the above consultations, and other contributors, for the high quality of their inputs. The final text of the report remains the Special Rapporteur's sole responsibility.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- First, it has been suggested that all categories of tenure exist within a number of primary tenure systems, namely: (a) statutory systems, established by law or statutes-they consist of two main types, private and public tenure systems, and can guarantee individual or collective rights; (b) customary systems, referring to the communal possession of rights to use and allocate land by a group sharing the same cultural identity or established by customs; (c) religious systems, whereby all or some land is owned and managed by religious authorities; and (d) informal tenure systems, most common in urban areas-these are often hybrid systems that have emerged in response to the difficulties of existing systems to cater for rapidly expanding cities and their urban land markets.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 26
- Paragraph text
- Within each of these primary tenure systems, a number of tenure categories or forms exist. Several tenure categories may also co-exist on the same plot, a situation frequent in urban settlements. Some of the main categories include: individual freehold (ownership in perpetuity); delayed freehold (conditional ownership); registered leasehold (ownership for a specified period, from a few months to 999 years); public rental (rental occupation of publicly owned land or housing); private rental (rental of privately owned property); collective or communal ownership, including cooperative (ownership is vested in the cooperative or group of which residents are co-owners); community land trust (a non-profit organization develops and stewards affordable housing on behalf of a community); and customary ownership or use.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- There is debate about the most appropriate term to use in describing these diverse arrangements. For the purpose of the present report, the term informal settlements is used, recognizing its widespread use, while being sensitive to its shortcomings. Indeed, the term informal settlements is not only a major simplification, it also reflects a false dichotomy between the dominant paradigm of formality and the complexity of urban settlement processes (see section II, subsection E below). Furthermore, informal settlements, like other commonly used terms, has generally negative connotations. In addition, the inherent ambiguity in the status of these settlements has a number of political, operational and human rights implications. It generally results in the settlements not being recognized as belonging to the city. It often leads government authorities and private actors to consider the settlements or their inhabitants fully "illegal", thereby justifying forced evictions or denial of rights.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- As a result, the financial sector and the private housing market, coupled with support for households to take on credit debt, became primary mechanisms for allocating housing solutions. Foreign assistance from international organizations greatly influenced the development of market-based housing finance and boosted housing market activity in developing countries. Despite some diversity in housing policy experience, most countries opted for promoting housing markets and individual homeownership, privatizing social housing programmes and deregulating housing finance markets. This was evident in most formerly planned economies, which in the 1990s privatized public housing on a large scale, leading to radical changes in tenure structure. In many of those countries, owner-occupied housing now constitutes more than 90 per cent of the housing stock (A/67/286, para. 6).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- In developing countries, Governments were encouraged to undertake individual land titling programmes as a key means of not only increasing tenure security, but also of facilitating access to formal credit and reducing poverty. The underlying assumption was that secure tenure-understood as having proper titles-increased housing investment. Also influential was the claim of a direct correlation between property ownership and affluence in the West and the lack of it in developing countries. Consequently, home ownership rates worldwide have been generally climbing since the 1950s.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- This linear diagram has several limitations. First, by placing individual freehold at the very end of the continuum (the most formal and secure form of tenure), it could be interpreted as reflecting the dominant economic and housing model discussed just above. It appears to suggest that registered individual freehold is an ideal type or ultimate goal, despite the fact that many other categories in other tenure systems offer equally high levels of security and legality. In fact, tenure categories reflect diverse social and economic contexts, and thus there can be no such ideal category-registered individual freehold-as the sole guarantee for secure tenure and route to economic development. Rather, it should be one option, among others.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- In addition, by addressing the issue in terms of informal and formal rights, the continuum diagram is reflective of a binary thinking that has permeated international development policy. It has been common to discuss land tenure and property rights in terms of some form of duality, such as that between statutory and customary tenure arrangements. Another form of duality involved a distinction between legal and illegal, or formal and "informal" tenure categories, in which the former consisted of officially approved and registered property and the latter (all other tenure arrangements) were "extralegal".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- The importance of recognizing the diversity and multidimensional nature of existing practices is increasingly being acknowledged. In a recent publication, UN-Habitat and the Global Land Tool Network indicated that the continuum diagram illustrates a wide range of tenure rights "in a highly simplified way: in reality, tenure rights do not lie on a single line, and they may overlap with one another. Tenure can take a variety of forms, and 'registered freehold' (at the formal end of the continuum) should not be seen as the preferred or ultimate form of land rights, but as one of a number of appropriate and legitimate forms."
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- In its general comment No. 4 (1991) on the right to adequate housing, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights identified "legal security of tenure" as one of seven elements of the right to adequate housing (para. 8 (a)). The Committee stressed that "notwithstanding the type of tenure, all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats. States parties should consequently take immediate measures aimed at conferring legal security of tenure upon those persons and households currently lacking such protection, in genuine consultation with affected persons and groups" (ibid.).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- The above questions, as well as others discussed in subsections C and D of the present section, could be discussed with respect to a number of situations, individuals and groups. One such group is inhabitants of informal settlements. Guidance so far has focused on protection against forced evictions. More broadly, what should States do to ensure that all inhabitants of informal settlements enjoy security of tenure, irrespective of their legal status under national law? What types of minimum measures, as well as measures of progressive realization, should States take? Is there an obligation to give legal recognition to such settlements, and if so what are the implications for rights of tenure? Should any distinction be made under international human rights law as to whether these settlers are on public or private land (a distinction that is often accorded central importance in national law)? And should the threshold of protection be higher in situations of long-established communities and historic acquiescence of the authorities to their presence?
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- There is no doubt that forced eviction constitutes a gross violation of a wide range of internationally recognized human rights. Providing protection against such practices is thus a core function of security of tenure. Forced evictions have been addressed by human rights mechanisms and courts at all levels in considerable detail. Extensive guidance is available as to the prohibition of forced eviction and the strict procedural safeguards that must be followed in situations in which evictions are carried out, including meaningful consultation with affected communities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- Questions remain as to what types of measures should be taken to "provide the greatest possible security of tenure" to occupiers of houses and land. No explanation is given as to what could qualify as greatest possible security of tenure, or how this should be determined bearing in mind the diversity of national contexts. For instance, should principles of reasonableness and proportionality be used to ascertain what level of security of tenure is appropriate in a given context? This question of a threshold of security of tenure has also attracted little attention from regional and national mechanisms and courts.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- Further questions remain as to the exact circumstances under which evictions may be carried out, with a view to restricting their occurrence. According to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and as reiterated in the basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacement, evictions can take place only in the "most exceptional circumstances". Jurisprudence from national and regional bodies that has developed since this language was adopted could be used to more clearly define what the phrase "most exceptional circumstances" entails. For example, the "just and equitable" jurisprudence from South Africa as well as European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence regarding proportionality are highly pertinent in seeking to better understand this phrase and in identifying what constitutes a public purpose of the type that is often cited as reason to evict.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- In the same vein, the Governing Council of UN-Habitat, in its resolution 23/17, encouraged Governments and Habitat Agenda partners to promote security of tenure for all segments of society by recognizing and respecting a plurality of tenure systems (para. 7 (b)). Similarly, the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security advise that States "should recognize and respect all legitimate tenure right holders and their rights. They should take reasonable measures to identify, record and respect legitimate tenure right holders and their rights, whether formally recorded or not" (p. 3). The Special Rapporteur observes that the determinations of who may constitute "legitimate" right holders should be made in accordance with international human rights law.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- Given that tenure can take a variety of forms and that States must ensure security of tenure to all, irrespective of tenure type, what are States' obligations with respect to ensuring that all forms of tenure that are legitimate under international human rights law are protected equally? Guidance is incomplete in this regard. United Nations and regional human rights bodies have focused only on a limited range of forms of tenure-mostly private property, indigenous communal ownership or use, women's access to land, property or inheritance, informal tenure (mostly in cases involving Roma), and occupancy tenancy rights (in countries that were previously part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stressed that discrimination on the grounds of property status or place of residence is prohibited under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Property status includes those holding real property (for example land ownership or tenure) and those who lack it. The Committee further clarified that the exercise of Covenant rights, such as access to water or protection from forced eviction, should not be conditional on, or determined by, a person's current or former place of residence, or land tenure status, such as living in an informal settlement. Furthermore, the Committee has noted that States parties must give due priority to those social groups living in unfavourable conditions by giving them particular consideration.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- An examination of national legislation and case law reveals that different forms of security of tenure provide varying degrees of security, and that the variation is often a function of the property interests associated with each type of tenure as well as of socioeconomic status. For instance, those in informal settlements have minimal protections against eviction, while those with freehold tenure secured by title deeds are able to avail themselves of a far higher degree of protection. Furthermore, as United States expropriation case law demonstrates, even within an overall regime providing security of tenure, those with less economic status tend to enjoy a lesser degree of security of tenure in practice.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 66
- Paragraph text
- The issue of non-discrimination on account of property or socioeconomic status is evidently complex. While the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has explicitly prohibited such discrimination, the precise modalities of addressing these aspects of non-discrimination are unclear. How can States ensure that all members of society, regardless of economic status or type of tenure arrangement, enjoy security of tenure on the basis of non-discrimination and equal protection of the law? This has massive implications for inhabitants of informal settlements.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 67
- Paragraph text
- The foregoing analysis demonstrates that a number of issues require further clarification under international human rights law. Treaty bodies, starting with the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, have a particularly important role to play in efforts to provide more precise and comprehensive guidance with respect to security of tenure. National courts, aided by the use of strategic litigation, could provide another avenue to clarify aspects of security of tenure beyond preventing or seeking redress for forced evictions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- Finally, while the full elaboration of the scope of "security of tenure" as recognized in the framework of international human rights law presents a range of challenges that have yet to be adequately met, the Special Rapporteur nonetheless underscores that security of tenure should be understood as encompassing, at a minimum: (a) legal protection from forced eviction, harassment or other threats; (b) recognition-legally, by authorities, but also by private actors-of the right to live in a secure place in peace and dignity; this recognition includes receiving support from authorities and equal access to and availability of all public services; (c) justiciability-in other words, security of tenure must be enforceable; to make this criterion truly effective may require the provision of legal aid to facilitate access to effective remedies; and (d) any other aspect required as a step towards the enjoyment of other components of the right to adequate housing, on an equal basis with others.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 71
- Paragraph text
- Fundamentally, tenure insecurity is a political economy issue-the laws, institutions and decision-making processes relating to the access and use of housing and land are highly influenced by existing power structures within society. Thus it is increasingly recognized that land administration and urban planning cannot be considered purely technical matters. They can be manipulated to serve private interests, with major risks of exclusion and discrimination. This is especially problematic when the rule of law is absent or out of reach of the poorest and most vulnerable.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 74
- Paragraph text
- And while central and local authorities are primarily responsible to ensure that land and housing policies are respectful of the right to adequate housing, development and humanitarian agencies also have a significant role to play. Agencies must show due diligence to avoid being unwittingly complicit in human rights violations. In addition, urban developers, investors and national and international finance institutions may contribute to a more inclusive urban growth, but can also have an adverse impact on the rights of urban poor and other groups, and be complicit in forced evictions and land grabbing. Their particular impact on security of tenure should be assessed against the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (A/HRC/17/31, annex).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 75
- Paragraph text
- Land management and administration can have enormous positive impacts on solving land disputes and strengthening tenure security. However, prevalent land management and administration projects, by focusing on the granting of individual freehold titles to users or owners of non-contested plots, have often proven ill-suited to recognize all forms of tenure and in particular to protect the most vulnerable. This is particularly the case in urban contexts, where such programmes have on occasion unwittingly discriminated against or excluded urban poor. Land management programmes might also unwittingly exclude IDPs.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 80
- Paragraph text
- Legal regimes regulating the use of public land differ greatly in their flexibility or ability to make land secure or not. In many countries, the State can grant temporary and conditional permits to settle on public land, such as "temporary licenses" in Nigeria or "permits to occupy" in francophone Africa. There is great diversity in the rights and level of security such permits offer. Such temporary allocations of public land offer needed housing with some security to those who occupy that land, in a context of scarcity of urbanized land and housing. However, in cases of complete lack of alternative secure housing elsewhere, they can have detrimental effects, given the real threat of evictions with no or inadequate compensation and within an extremely short time frame. The issue is how to manage land in ways in which these temporary rights-holders are not left vulnerable to forced eviction and abuse, and are able to gain increased tenure security in the long term.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 82
- Paragraph text
- Urban planning policies, laws and regulations can have a direct impact on strengthening tenure security, or, conversely, on increasing insecurity. Planning rules that often disregard cultural specificities and are based solely on the housing products offered to the upper classes or dominant groups, coupled with rigid and costly regulatory frameworks for how land and housing should be developed, often fail to meet the needs of the poor or of marginalized groups, putting formalization out of their reach and rendering them or their homes de facto illegal.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 83
- Paragraph text
- Non-compliance with planning laws thus becomes a common justification for the evictions of long-established communities, often minorities or informal settlers. This has been the case in Israel, whereby non-issuance of construction permits often leads to irregular construction and, in some cases, to eviction and demolition orders to the detriment of minorities. In Turkey, an urban rehabilitation project within the framework of a law regulating the protection and renovation of historical and cultural buildings led to the demolition of the historic Romani neighbourhood and the eviction of its inhabitants.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Mapping and framing security of tenure 2013, para. 84
- Paragraph text
- Another issue is the lack of coherence and harmonization among the multiplicity of laws and regulations bearing upon urban security of tenure, leading to legal uncertainty, lack of implementation of key provisions, even unwanted impacts such as evictions. Rights of adverse possession provided for by law might also be limited or denied by subsequent regulations, or in implementation. In addition, even when planning laws provide for the regularization of informal settlements, questions of sustainability relating to the increase of land prices and full availability of services remain.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph