WUNRN
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RIGHT TO ADEQUATE HOUSING IN
POST-DISASTER & POST-CONFLICT PROCESSES - CHALLENGES & RIGHTS OF
WOMEN |
Link to UN Special Rapporteur
Housing Full 20-Page Report to the UN 2011:
Summary - The present report is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 6/27. The report underlines the importance of integrating human rights standards, and particularly the right to adequate housing, in post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction processes. While taking account of the differences existing between post conflict and post disaster situations, the report focuses on common issues, and particularly on three key entry points: security of tenure, consultation and participation, and institutional coordination, through which the elements of the right to adequate housing are highlighted. To conclude, the report addresses a number of recommendations to States and the international community on how to improve prevention, relief and rehabilitation efforts by incorporating the right to adequate housing.
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http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=11522&LangID=E
“Discrimination affects the impacts of disasters and the way these
are addressed,” the UN expert on the right to adequate housing stressed. “All
too often informal settlers, the poorest, ethnic minorities, indigenous groups,
women, lose their lives, their homes, their land, to a disproportionate degree.
In the wake of a disaster, they do not always benefit from disaster assistance
as other groups do.” UN SR Housing
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RIGHT TO ADEQUATE HOUSING IN
DISASTER RELIEF - BEYOND BUILDINGS & PROPERTY RIGHTS - GENDER |
NEW YORK (21 October
2011) – “Disaster relief provides opportunities but also serious risks for
human rights,” said today United Nations Special Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik,
urging governments to go beyond physical structures and individual property
rights in their relief efforts and protect the right to adequate housing of the
most vulnerable.
“Governments must ensure disaster recovery
efforts are not manipulated to serve the interests of a few, to the detriment
of the most vulnerable, and that these efforts do not intentionally or
unintentionally exclude or discriminate against them,” Ms. Rolnik said during
the presentation of her annual report* to the General Assembly in New York.
“Discrimination affects the impacts of
disasters and the way these are addressed,” the UN expert on the right to
adequate housing stressed. “All too often informal settlers, the poorest,
ethnic minorities, indigenous groups, women, lose their lives, their homes,
their land, to a disproportionate degree. In the wake of a disaster, they do
not always benefit from disaster assistance as other groups do.”
Ms. Rolnik noted that displaced renters and
informal settlers have been excluded from housing restitution and
reconstruction schemes, on the basis that they could not show formal private
ownership titles. “They are also more vulnerable to land grabbing and
eviction,” she added. “It is time to acknowledge the legitimacy of multiple
forms of tenure that exist worldwide, and give protection to those with the
most insecure tenure and property arrangements.”
The Special Rapporteur also stressed the
broad implications of fully taking into account the right to adequate housing
in disaster response. “A focus on ‘deliverables’ — shelter, houses — as ends in
themselves might divert from the fundamental responsibility to ensure all
aspects of the right to housing.”
Property restitution and housing
reconstruction have sometimes taken place at the expense of rebuilding and
improving the broader social, political and economic conditions required to
sustain recovery and return. “Realizing the right to adequate housing is about
ensuring basic services and infrastructure, upgrading settlements and
strengthening communities, as much as it is about building housing,” she added.
“Putting the right to adequate housing at the
core of reconstruction and recovery efforts is not an easy task. It requires
decisive action, and the willingness to address difficult issues, such as
inequalities in society, that are magnified and exacerbated by disasters. Yet it
is crucial to do so if we are serious about making human rights commitments a
reality in all circumstances,” the Special Rapporteur said. “Human rights do
not stop when a disaster strikes – to the contrary, it is then that they matter
most.”
Raquel Rolnik (Brazil) was appointed as
Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an
adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this
context by the United Nations Human Rights Council, in May 2008. As Special Rapporteur,
she is independent from any government or organization and serves in her
individual capacity. An architect and urban planner, Rolnik has extensive
experience in the area of housing and urban policies.
UN Special
Rapporteur on Adequate Housing Website: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/HousingIndex.aspx