PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON ADEQUATE HOUSING

PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON ADEQUATE HOUSING

The draft declaration to be adopted by the General Assembly special session this week was a regression from the achievements made at the 1996 Habitat II in Istanbul, Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, said at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

Mr. Kothari said that unlike the Istanbul Declaration and the Habitat Agenda, which were very clear human rights instruments, the current draft omitted references to the recognition of women's and children's rights to housing and of the value of security of tenure and finance.

Quoting the statement by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to be made to the special session, he cited that body's concern that the draft declaration referred neither to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, nor to the Committee itself, nor to its relevant general comments, nor to the right to adequate housing.

"Such an omission would, if carried forward in the final Declaration that will be adopted by the General Assembly on the Habitat Agenda, seriously undermine achievements made over the last decade at the national and international levels in promoting the right to adequate housing," the Committee states, "and would constitute a step backwards from the recognition of human rights in the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements and the Habitat Agenda in 1996."

The Special Rapporteur said the draft declaration must recognize the work done by civil society on the right to adequate housing; enhance the role of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat); recognize the need for collaboration between the human rights mechanisms and the rest of the United Nations system; and draw lessons from innovations and strategic cooperation that had led to the realization of housing rights across the world.  The protection of women, children and vulnerable people -- a foremost imperative -- was also missing from the text, he added.

Mr. Kothari said recent statistics indicated that 70 per cent of the billion people living in rural areas and 600 million urban dwellers living in overcrowded or poor quality housing were women living in absolute poverty, without adequate water, sanitation, drainage or garbage collection.  Some 30 to 70 million children were living on the streets.  Globally, 1.7 billion people lacked access to clean water and 3.3 billion were without proper sanitation facilities, he added.

Pointing out that statistics did not capture the world's dire housing situation, he said that a look at the type of housing people were forced to live in gave a much more graphic understanding.  People in both the North and the South were living in slums and squatter settlements; in old buses and shipping containers; on rooftops, pavements, railway platforms and roadside embankments; in cellars, staircases, elevator enclosures, cages, cardboard boxes, aluminium and tin shelters; and under plastic sheets.

Mr. Kothari noted that the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child had done extensive work on the right

to adequate housing.  The Commission on Human Rights had recently adopted two resolutions -- one on adequate housing and the other on women's rights to land, property and inheritance.  In addition, Habitat had recently begun work on a United Nations Housing Rights Programme jointly with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Asked what he had done to draw the attention of Governments to the shortcomings of the draft declaration, Mr. Kothari replied that his meetings with the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee on the Rights of the Child had resulted in two appropriately strongly-worded statements that had been sent to the General Assembly President.  They had been circulated to Governments yesterday, he added.

Responding to another question, he said more than 30 countries had recognized housing rights in their constitutions.  Many others had legislation on certain aspects of housing rights, such as security of tenure and forced evictions.

A growing number of countries had ratified international instruments that recognized the right to housing, including 145 that had ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, he said.  The United States and Somalia were the only two countries that had not yet ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

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