press conference on tsunami response:  ‘a human rights assessment’

 

The December 2004 tsunami was an added victimization of people already suffering from poverty, discrimination and various forms of human rights violations, Miloon Kothari, independent Special Rapporteur on adequate housing for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, said at Headquarters this afternoon.

Speaking at a press conference to launch a report entitled Tsunami Response:  A Human Rights Assessment, Mr. Kothari said the report demonstrated clearly that, in the face of such an overwhelming tragedy, Governments had failed to uphold the human rights to food, health, housing and livelihood of their most vulnerable citizens.  The press conference was sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Slovenia.

Mr. Kothari said that one year after the tsunami, an average 90 per cent of the affected people were still living in sub-standard housing.  Large numbers of survivors were forced to live in conditions that failed to meet criteria stipulated by international human rights standards which all the affected countries had signed and ratified.  Shockingly, a majority of those people were still living in temporary shelters while many others remained mired in unacceptably rudimentary conditions that were similar to the emergency relief shelters set up in the tsunami’s immediate aftermath.  Still others were forced to live in damaged homes due to the lack of available or suitable alternatives.  Living conditions in most areas were poor, and many people still lacked access to such basic services as water, sanitation and health care.  Reconstruction efforts were plagued by serious delays and had not been given the priority they so urgently warranted.

Also addressing the press conference, Karisiddamma Edward, representative of a tsunami-affected community in Tamil Nadu State, India, said that in the wake of the 26 December 2004 earthquake and tsunami, members of her community had been excluded from disaster relief merely for being from a lower caste.  They had been left with no food, water or shelter.

She said that India’s Dali and “tribal” communities suffered severe discrimination, including prohibitions barring them from education, as well as from temples and water sources used by members of higher castes.  In one village, survivors had not been allowed to stay in the local tsunami relief centre and the Government had refused to give them assistance because nobody from that village had died.

Judy De Vadawason, representative of a tsunami-affected community in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, where people in that war-affected eastern part of the Indian Ocean island nation had been neglected for 15 years, said the tsunami had displaced some people several times, especially women and children, who were the most marginalized.  While households headed by single women were entitled to about $150 in compensation for a child killed by the tsunami, each such mother had to bring in the dead child’s father, even if he had left his wife to raise the child on her own.  The compensation money was then given to the former husband.

Also attending the press conference was Ramesh Singh, Executive Director of Action Aid International, who said the report showed that there had been a breach of the trust offered by those who had emptied their pockets and expressed their solidarity to the tsunami survivors and the Governments which had grossly failed to uphold the human rights of the vulnerable and marginalized people whose lives the tsunami had devastated even more.  The international development community, particularly financing institutions that were pouring in money, should make sure that their plans and programmes embraced human rights standards, as well as economic growth indicators.

Moderating the press conference was Minar Pimple, Executive Director of People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning, who also introduced a short film, Human Rights after the Tsunami, showing the disaster’s impact on communities in India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Asked about coastal communities being pushed off their land to make way for commercial and tourism development, Ms. Edward said removals were nothing new and had been going on for some 20 years.  But the tsunami had made it easier for the Government to use the pretext that the removals were for community protection.

Besides minorities in India, which other ethnic groups were marginalized in the tsunami-hit countries? another correspondent asked.

Ms. De Vadawason said that the Tamil minority in the eastern and northern parts of Sri Lanka was marginalized.  Marginalized groups in other countries included Muslims in southern Thailand.  Cambodians, Burmese and other undocumented aliens in India were also marginalized, as were members of settlements on India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, among that country’s most tsunami-devastated areas.

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For information media • not an official record