The Centre on
Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), an international human rights
organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, on Sunday called on the
newly-established ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) to
seriously address housing rights violations in the region.
The call came as the AICHR meets in Kuala
Lumpur in its second-ever meeting, after being established by ASEAN in October
2009.
Since its establishment, the Commission has
been dogged by criticism that it is “toothless”, as it does not
have the power to investigate cases of human rights violations in the region.
“Tens of millions of people in
Southeast Asia today endure various levels of housing rights violations and insecurity
of tenure. Most of them are poor and the vulnerable,” said Sammy Gamboa,
COHRE’s Asia Programme Officer, speaking from the site of the meeting in
Kuala Lumpur.
According to COHRE,
housing rights violations – including forced evictions – continue
to be one of the most intractable human rights issues in the region, and a
major human rights challenge for the Commission in the region.
“It will be interesting to see how
the AICHR – ostensibly set up to apply, promote and protect human rights
in Southeast Asia – will handle the housing rights crisis in the region,
which is mainly a result of a regional governments’ economic and
development policies, widespread poverty, and marginalization and exclusion of
the majority of Southeast Asia’s poor,” said Sammy Gamboa.
COHRE warned the AICHR that the
construction of mega-projects and resource-extraction activities dispossess
vulnerable people of their homes and land, and push them away from sources of
subsistence.
The organization said that violations of the
right to adequate housing are compounded by the prevailing climate of impunity
in the region, along with widespread corruption in many ASEAN countries.
COHRE said
that in Cambodia,
land and housing rights violations have become one of the most prevalent
forms of human rights violation following the destruction of the
country’s land and property records in the aftermath of the Khmer
Rouge rule. Tens of thousands have been dispossessed of their lands,
dwellings and properties by powerful economic and political forces
identified with the country’s elite and their allies in big
business. For example, more than 3,000 families living around Boeung Kak
Lake in Phnom Penh have suffered or are currently threatened with forced
eviction in the context of a land development project that involves
filling the lake.
In the
Philippines, COHRE welcomed the commitment of the new Philippine
government to respect the rights of the urban poor to adequate housing,
according to a pledge made by newly-installed President Benigno Aquino Jr.
during the May election campaign. However, COHRE remains concerned that
demolitions and forced evictions continue to take place in Manila and Quezon
City, and around 400,000 families in Metro Manila are threatened with forced
eviction. This includes 60,000 families in the Manggahan Floodway, targeted for
displacement, and in the Pasig River area, where the homes of 40,000 families
are set to be demolished.
In Myanmar,
hundreds of thousands have suffered various levels of housing and other
human rights violations. Mega-projects reportedly being funded by foreign
investment (gas pipelines, mega-dams and large-scale mining) often lead to
large-scale displacement and widespread destruction of homes, properties
and livelihoods. For example, a proposed five-dam cascade on the Salween
River directly threatens the livelihoods of over 70,000 people. Mounting
incidents of military abuses, forced relocation, forced labour and land confiscation
at the dam sites are being reported.
“The establishment of the AICHR last
year raised hopes and guarded optimism for human rights in Southeast Asia, and
we welcome the AICHR’s engagement with human rights movements in the
region,” said Sammy Gamboa.
“However, almost a year has now
passed, and efforts to make the AICHR effective and truly work for the
promotion and protection of human rights in the region still have a long way to
go.”
COHRE called on the AICHR
to effectively
address the region-wide problem of housing rights violations, including forced
evictions, that continue to be one of the intractable human rights issues
in the region
It also urged ASEAN
member-states to ratify the International Covenant on Economic Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR), including its Optional Protocol.
COHRE reminded ASEAN
governments in the Philippines, Cambodia and Indonesia that they must
comply with their treaty obligations under the ICESCR , including the
implementation of recommendations and concluding observations, particularly on
the right to adequate housing and against forced evictions.
It furtherd said that the AICHR needed to establish a
protection mandate and subsequent mechanism for the effective redress of human
rights violations, including violations of housing and other human rights.
The AICHR must develop and
elaborate additional protocols related to the right to adequate housing, in
keeping with existing international human rights standards, COHRE said
Last, it called on the AICHR to particularly
address the rights and needs of women, children and migrant workers in
the region, who are often disproportionately impacted by housing rights
violations, including forced evictions.
