press briefing by special rapporteur on adequate housing

It was time to examine the United Nations agenda regarding adequate housing, especially in light of the United States-led war on terror, which was diverting attention from the basic rights to housing, health, food, and education, Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing for the Commission on Human Rights, told correspondents today.

At a Headquarters press briefing on his mission to Afghanistan, Kenya, the occupied Palestinian territory and Peru, he said that Peru and Kenya had no housing programmes or policies to meet the needs of the bottom 20 to 25 per cent of the population, and evictions had taken place, particularly in Kenya.  As a result of his mission, both countries had halted the evictions and were now looking to reorient resources.  A major problem in Peru had been an emphasis on land tenure, to the exclusion of access to water and sanitation.

He said that, in Afghanistan, he had raised the issue of land grabbing by some ministers.  The report of an independent commission established by President Hamid Karzai in September to examine housing in the whole country had confirmed the involvement of ministers in illegal land transactions, according to his sources.  The report had been submitted on 15 October 2003, but had still not been made public.  It was a matter of concern that the involvement of ministers in such activities would create a culture of impunity.

Drug lords and warlords were also involved in large-scale land grabbing, which was affecting various population groups, he said, and recommended that the Afghan Government should make a much stronger attempt to investigate and prosecute those responsible.  He also recommended the extension of the mandate of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan to cover people needing protection from forced evictions.  In addition, domestic violence was widespread, and women’s rights to property inheritance were consistently violated.

Regarding the occupied Palestinian territories, the Special Rapporteur expressed particular concern about house demolitions and land confiscations.  In 2003, there had been an acceleration of land confiscations by the Israeli authorities and the hoarding of water resources in the settlements.  Some 28,000 homes had been demolished, making 13,000 to 16,000 Palestinians homeless between December 2002 and December 2003.  That serious problem had not received sufficient attention, he noted, emphasizing the impact of that situation on women and children.  Recent research had shown that the psychological effects of the demolitions and confiscations included frequent bouts of night terror, inability to concentrate, bedwetting among children and eating disorders.

He said his next report to the Commission on Human Rights would be on homelessness worldwide, including in North America.  Recent material had shown that in the United States, 2.5 million to 3.5 million people had become homeless in the course of one year, 1.5 million of whom were children.  On an unofficial visit to Chicago last week, he had been told that 13,702 public housing units had been demolished since 1999, forcing some 20,000 legal residents from their homes and many into absolute homelessness. 

Responding to a series of questions about occupied Palestinian territories, he cited Israeli violations regarding settlement expansion, the separation wall, continuing land confiscation and house demolitions.

In response to a question about Afghanistan, he said that while it was good that girls had gone back to school, people’s displacement from their homes owing to the activities of the warlords and drug lords was a cause for concern.  Also, more and more people returning from refugee camps had been afraid to go back home due to potential insecurity.  Thus, new forms of internal displacement had exacerbated the instability in the country.  Unless the international community and the Transitional Government “got a handle” on land conflicts, there would be more conflict in the future, not because of the Taliban or Al Qaeda, but because people could not afford a place to live.

Asked whether illegal land transactions in Afghanistan were a legal or a human rights question, he said he could make no distinction between human rights and legal issues, as human rights were based on law.  The illegal transactions did not comply with municipal law, constitutional law, or international human rights law.

He said he had not met with the Secretary-General on that issue, but he had raised it with the Bureau of the Commission on Human Rights and various people in the United Nations system.  Hopefully, there would be a response that looked at the psychological effects on women and children, as well as improved coordination among the agencies to make a comprehensively examination of the land and property issue.

Some of the evictions in Kenya had been justified, owing to unacceptable living conditions, but they had to be done in accordance with human rights law, he said in reply to another question.  Evictions were often done without prior notification and were often accompanied by violence.  In most cases, people who were displaced were not resettled according to their right to housing, and were left homeless.

On whether the Millennium Development Goal on slum dwellers would be achieved, he called for cities around the world to do much more planning.  Rapid urbanization had been anticipated, but very few cities had planned for that influx, so slums were on the rise.  Upgrading slums and providing water points was not enough; land reform was essential, even in cities, and other plans must be put in place.

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