WUNRN notes specific text reference on HOMELESS WOMEN
AND CHILDREN IN DELHI.
Date:13/01/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/01/13/stories/2006011315420400.htm
New Delhi
Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI: With nearly one lakh homeless in Delhi and just about enough shelters to accommodate 6,200 individuals, leaving the remaining 94 per cent to fend for themselves, a human rights groups has demanded urgent measures to improve the lot of the shelterless, especially women and children, who are more vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. In its report, the Housing and Land Rights Network has stated that at present there are only 12 permanent shelters, 16 temporary shelters, four porta cabins and 22 temporary tents available for use by Delhi's homeless, which together offer accommodation to 6,200 individuals. And while there are about 10,000 homeless women in Delhi, the report states that there are only three shelters available for them with maximum capacity of accommodating only about 100 or just 1 per cent of their population. "Although the state of being homeless presents an undeniably harsh and unforgiving reality for anyone, especially during the winter months,'' the report states that "it is women and children who tend to experience more acutely the adverse impacts of the lack of adequate shelter''. The homeless women, it points out, are also exposed to the increased risk of illness and starvation associated with life on the street. The report also takes the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi Government to task for the poor condition of most night shelters and their "continued derogation from the responsibility to help care for the most vulnerable segments of society''. The shelters, it said, are characterised by a state of general disrepair, and are grossly inadequate and unsanitary. Also, they lack proper drinking water facilities, medical facilities, storage facilities, beddings and toilets. As for the 22 tents set up by the Delhi Government under the Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan during the winters -- which saw the temperature dip to a 70 year low of 0.2 degrees Celsius -- the rights group has pointed out that as per project officer Ram Kishan himself "the tents are mostly constructed of poor quality material, often with gaping holes. They are by and large flimsy and crude and do not provide adequate protection from the cold and rain''. Stating that the current lack of sufficient and adequate shelter, together with the continued inaction on the part of the relevant authorities to address the situation, amounts to a fundamental derogation from such responsibilities and a glaring violation of human rights of the homeless, the report notes that the eviction of about 1.30 lakh people from their homes in Yamuna Pushta as part of a campaign of urban renewal has only made the situation worse since only 16 per cent of those evicted had been considered eligible for compensation or rehabilitation of any kind. Referring to human rights implication of the current situation of homelessness, special rapporteur of the human rights organisation, Miloon Kothari, said: ``The recurrent phenomenon of homelessness in the Capital demonstrates the failure of governance at all levels of authority. The inability of the local, State and Central Government to reduce homelessness is a violation of the human rights accorded to the residents of Delhi by the Constitution and numerous international instruments ratified by India.'' In the view of the prevailing situation, HLRN has demanded that the number of accommodations for the homeless be increased, they be provided with proper water and sanitation, the structures would be more sound, sanitary and weather-resistant, an official survey be undertaken to accurately determine the number of homeless, and more concrete buildings be constructed to deal with the problem on a long term basis.
© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu |
PRESS
RELEASE
11th January 2006
HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS DEMAND URGENT ADOPTION OF MEASURES TO
ADDRESS HOMELESSNESS IN DELHI
As we find ourselves in the midst of a particularly severe winter –
January 8, 2006 witnessed the lowest temperature recorded in Delhi since 1935 –
the need for decisive action to ease the suffering of Delhi’s homeless has never
been more acute. This sense of
urgency, tragically, has remained conspicuously absent from the response of the
city’s relevant municipal authorities. This is evident in the fact that the most
recent official effort to document the extent of homelessness in Delhi occurred
1991 as part of the Census of India.
Given that the numbers of homeless has been expanding inexorably ever
since, largely due to government policies and actions, the 1991 figure of
approximately 29,000 homeless that continues to be cited by authorities is a
gross underestimation of the reality of the situation. Equally shocking is the lack of official
data with regard to the number of homeless women in the nation’s capital. The diligent work of civil society
organizations such as Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan has helped to fill the gap created
by the present information vacuum.
·
According to unofficial
estimates, there are nearly 1 lakh homeless on any given day in
Delhi.
·
There are, at present:
12 permanent shelters, 16 temporary shelters, 4 porta-cabins and 22 temporary
tents available for use by Delhi’s homeless.
·
At maximum capacity
these shelters offer accommodation to 6,200 individuals, leaving the remaining
94% to fend for themselves on the streets of Delhi.
·
Unofficial estimates
indicate that there are, at any given time, 10,000 homeless women in
Delhi.
·
At present, however,
there are only 3 shelters available for use by homeless women that, at maximum
capacity, are capable of accommodating roughly 100 women, or 0.1% of Delhi’s
total estimated population of homeless women.
Although the state of
being homeless presents an undeniably harsh and unforgiving reality for anyone,
especially during the winter months, it is women and children who tend to
experience more acutely the adverse impacts of the lack of adequate
shelter. Homeless women are not
only exposed to the increased risk of illness and starvation associated with
life on the street, but also heightened vulnerability to physical and sexual
violence. Furthermore, though the
vast majority of the homeless population is undoubtedly male, the actual number
of homeless women tends to be grossly underestimated.
An examination of the conditions of existing permanent night shelters
further elucidates both the gross negligence of the Municipal Corporation of
Delhi (MCD), the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and the Government of
Delhi, as well as their continued derogation from the responsibility to help
care for the most vulnerable segments of society. These shelters are characterized by a
state of general disrepair and, in the most egregious of cases, are grossly
inadequate and unsanitary. Forced
to use these shelters due to a lack of available alternatives, many of the
homeless frequently complain of a lack of water, medical facilities, storage
facilities, insufficient or inadequately functioning toilets, mistreatment and
abuse at the hands of MCD staff and police, and filthy and unwashed
bedding.
As a meager concession, given the recent drop in temperature, the
Government of Delhi has set up 22 tents for use as temporary shelters throughout
the city. According to Ram Kishan,
Project Officer for Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan, however, “the tents provided by the
government [of Delhi] are mostly constructed of poor quality material, often
with gaping holes. They are, by and
large, flimsy and crude, and do not provide adequate protection from the cold
and rain.” Lacking adequate space,
the tents are often severely overcrowded as well. Apart from being generally uninhabitable
in a conventional sense, these tents also fail to satisfy any of the criteria
for adequacy dictated by numerous international human rights instruments,
including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR), the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), whose
provisions India is legally obliged to implement.
The obligation to
provide adequate housing and care for the most vulnerable segments of society is
explicitly articulated in multiple municipal legislations, various provisions of
the Indian Constitution, and numerous international human rights
instruments. The current lack of
sufficient and adequate shelter, together with the continued inaction on the
part of the relevant authorities to address the situation, therefore, amounts to
a fundamental derogation from such responsibilities and a glaring violation of
the human rights of the homeless.
Indeed, Chapter 3, section 12, subsection (1) of the NDMC Act 1994
clearly includes as a function of the NDMC: “The construction and maintenance of rest
houses, poor houses, infirmaries, children’s homes…shelters for destitute and disabled
persons…”
In order to gauge the
commitment among authorities to improving the current situation of homelessness,
one need only consider the number of people who have been summarily evicted from
their homes in Delhi’s recent past.
From February to April 2004, municipal authorities oversaw the eviction
of some 1,30,000 people from their homes in Yamuna Pushta as part of a campaign
of “urban renewal”. Adding insult
to injury, only 16% of those evicted were considered eligible for compensation
or rehabilitation of any kind. With
no alternative housing or recourse available, a vast majority were forced into a
state of abject homelessness. Once
on the street these victims of “city beautification” find themselves the further
targets of a repressive legal and regulatory framework that - through such laws
as the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959 – aims to push further to the
periphery of society groups that have already endured severe historic
marginalization.
Furthermore, the
continued practice of summary and forced evictions stands in contravention of
the UPA Government’s Common Minimum Programme (CMP), which provides that “Forced eviction and demolition of slums will
be stopped and while undertaking urban renewal, care will be taken to see that
the urban and semi-urban poor are provided housing near their place of
occupation.”
Referring to the human
rights implications of the current situation of homelessness, Miloon Kothari,
Special Rapporteur on adequate housing of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights, stated that “The recurrent phenomenon of homelessness in the capital of
the country demonstrates for all to see, the failure of governance at all levels
of authority. The inability of the
local, state and central government to reduce homelessness is a violation of the
human rights accorded to the residents of Delhi by our Constitution and numerous
international instruments ratified by India.”
Given the overwhelming lack of adequate shelter for the homeless in Delhi
and the growing incidence of homeless, it is imperative that the Delhi
government and relevant municipal authorities undertake the
following:
·
Pursue all available
measures, in the interim, to expand the number of accommodations available that
satisfy criteria for adequacy, including the provision of basic civic amenities
such as water and sanitation, for use by the homeless during the winter
months.
·
Improve upon and render
more structurally sound, sanitary and weather-resistant all existing structures,
including tents.
·
Undertake immediately an
official survey in order to determine accurately the current number of homeless
in Delhi and their living conditions.
·
Increase urgently the
number of shelters available for women and children and address their particular
concerns and vulnerabilities in the development of relevant homelessness
policies.
·
In the long-term,
abandon the wholly inadequate practice of providing tents during the winter
months – more likely intended as a measure to divert further public scrutiny and
media attention – in favor of more concrete and enduring solutions, such as the
construction of additional shelters, or the identification of existing municipal
structures that can be used for this purpose.
Of particular importance
is the need for government authorities to address the underlying causes and
structural origins of homelessness, for it is by way of such an analysis that
the most meaningful, effective and substantive strategies may be evolved for
coping with this crisis. These may
include migration caused by diminishing rural livelihoods and economic
opportunities, the lack of equitable land reform, social persecution,
development induced displacement resulting from the construction of dams and
other infrastructure-related projects, rural land alienation, forced evictions,
drought and famine, domestic violence, and child abuse, to name but a few. Critical to any effort to combat
homelessness is the need for a human rights approach to inform both our
understanding of its causes, as well as the development of possible short-term
and long-term solutions, including specific measures needed to protect the
rights of particular groups such as women and children.
For further information
and interviews please contact:
Miloon Kothari,
Special Rapporteur on adequate housing of the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights;
mkothari@hic-sarp.org
+91(0)11 24358492, +91 (0)
9810642122
Malavika Vartak,
Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN);
malavikav@gmail.com
+91 (0)
9313900378
Shivani Chaudhry,
Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN);
schaudhry@hic-sarp.org +91 (0) 24358492, +91
(0)9818205234
Ram Kishan, Project
Officer, Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan;
ramkishan2000@gmail.com
+91 (0) 22481609, +91 (0)
9868254869