World Habitat Day: One billion slum dwellers cannot be ignored by Amnesty International 10:18am 1st Oct, 2010   1 October 2010    Governments cannot celebrate the UN World Habitat Day on 4 October while ignoring one billion people living in slums, Amnesty International said today.    “A couple of weeks ago in New York, governments promised to help 100 million living in slums. The problem is that more than a billion people live in slums. They don’t have water, schools, sanitation, or health care,” said Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International.    Mass forced evictions of people living in slums are being carried out around the world, with Roma communities evicted across Europe, slum dwellers in Delhi forcibly evicted to make way for the Commonwealth games and more than 200,000 people facing eviction in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.    The recent Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Summit failed to call on governments to stop forced evictions, despite evidence that such evictions drive people further into poverty and undermine all the MDGs. It instead asked governments to ‘reduce slum populations’, raising fears that this could encourage more forced evictions.    “From France to Zimbabwe to Cambodia, we have documented how governments are destroying homes of some of the poorest people in their countries. Those whose homes are destroyed are failed by the law, they get no compensation and no place to live,”said Widney Brown.    “It is time for World leaders to move beyond the rhetoric we heard in New York and take urgent action to protect the rights of people living in slums.”    Slums - Human Rights Live Here    More than 1 billion people across all continents live in slums. These communities, where residents live, work, and raise their children, are characterized by inadequate housing, lack of basic services, overcrowding, and high levels of violence and insecurity.    One billion people, across all continents, live in slums. These communities, where residents live, work, and raise their children, are characterized by grossly inadequate housing and living conditions, lack of basic services and overcrowding. In some countries, people living in slums also experience high levels of violence – both from the police and criminal gangs.    Governments are failing in their duty to ensure the human rights of those who live in these communities are fulfilled.    More and more people are being forced to live in slums and informal settlements. Disinvestment in rural areas, conflict, natural disasters, climate change, forced evictions and corporate land grabbing continue to force people to migrate to urban areas where affordable housing is scarce.    People living in slums experience a staggering number of human rights violations. They are routinely denied their right to adequate housing, safe water, sanitation, health and education. They are often not given protection from police and gang violence,    Slum residents pay disproportionately high rents in some countries because rent control legislation is rarely imposed in areas considered by the authorities to be “unregularized”. Residents often have little, or no, say in slum upgrading processes – or other city planning and budgeting issues.    The absence of health facilities and schools within many slums severely restricts access to health care and education. Malnutrition and child mortality rates in slums are much worse than those for other urban residents and often match the rates found in rural areas.    Many urban residents in the developing world lack security of tenure, increasing their susceptibility to forced eviction and often restricting their access to services. In some countries, people who live in slums or informal settlements are also denied the right to vote because of the lack of a proper “address.    Forced evictions are a violation of human rights and often result in people losing their possessions, social networks, and access to work and services. Mass forced evictions are increasingly carried out by governments so that slums can be cleared for urban development, city beautification or national projects.    Women are particularly vulnerable in slums, where lack of facilities place them at greater risk of sexual assault and harassment, and where the reporting of domestic violence is often not treated seriously by police.    The negative perceptions of people living in slums have contributed directly to a serious deterioration in public security in these communities.    Governments have failed to address these issues at both national and international levels. They need to end forced evictions, ensure equal access to public services for people living in slums, and ensure their active participation in all plans directed at slum upgrading. Visit the related web page
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