Tang, Lay Lee --- "Bricks and Mortar: The Work of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions" [2005] IndigLawB 41; (2005) 6(13) Indigenous Law Bulletin 2

Bricks and Mortar: The Work of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions

by Lay Lee Tang

It’s September and I zip through the electronic calendar to recall what has been done in the past months which seem to have sped by leaving us breathless. The sights, smells and sensations of different places flash through my mind. The bumpy ride in intense heat of March to the dry, dusty, flat land some fifteen kilometres on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. A relocation site, one or maybe two water pumps, no medical clinic, no school, no community centre, no work, sixty families. With worried eyes and a gallant smile, a woman hugs her baby close. Her husband only makes 5,000 riels (less than US$1.50) a day as a mototuk rider in the city so he returns home once a week. Ken gets an animated discussion going on community savings for housing loans. Many do not have proper houses.

Next to Monivong Hospital in Phnom Penh, an entire community faces eviction at the end of March. Fairly prosperous and stable, their anxiety is palpable. Please help us stay, they say. Ask the international community to stop the eviction. We have permission from the hospital to settle here, now the developers want our land to build expensive apartments. Okay, we say. Give us the facts and tell us what you want. Cambodia has to abide by international treaties the country has signed.

Rewind to Manila in early March. An intense three day training session with more than 30 non-governmental organisation (‘NGO’) and community organisation leaders. The organisations work with a few hundred thousand people who are finally being made aware of the impending eviction from their homes and communities along the north-south railway running through Manila. The railway is being rehabilitated. No compensation, no suitable alternative sites have been allocated by government authorities. The NGOs and community organisations have been active in pressing for information, solutions, participation, visiting relocation sites offered, promoting savings among the poor urban communities to purchase their own housing. ‘Task Force Housing Rights Along D’Rails’ is established; strategies and a plan of action are agreed on.

Fast forward to July. The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (‘COHRE’) and UN-Habitat support the Phnom Penh Municipality in a training course on ‘Housing is a Human Right’ and a workshop called ‘Master Plan and the Urban Poor’. Developers are flocking to Phnom Penh and to Cambodia. Land grabbing, land disputes in rural and urban areas are increasing, more evictions of urban poor are likely. Do the urban poor have a place in the city? Yes. Do they have a right to the city? Yes. The World Social Forum adopted the Charter on the Right to the City[1] in 2002. Have they a right to information on development strategies for Phnom Penh? Yes. Have they a right to participate in developing the Master Plan for Phnom Penh? Yes. Are there alternatives to forced evictions? Yes. Onsite upgrading of poor communities through ‘Partnership for Urban Poverty Reduction’, undertaken by NGOs, the communities and the Phnom Penh Municipality is not only viable but into its second phase. A moratorium on forced evictions is possible in the short term, communal land ownership and communal land titles in the medium term. For the long term, communal land titles alongside individual land titles, land sharing and other solutions.

Aceh. Sri Lanka. Thailand. India. Burma. Unimaginable destruction by nature. Rebuilding lives in the wake of the tsunami is painfully slow. Developers, though, are quick to stake their claims on prime beach sites. The Sri Lankan government has imposed an impossibly extensive no-build zone along the sea front. Six months after the first monster wave crashed onshore, survivors still cannot return to the land: their homes are now no more than heaps of debris and rubble. In some Acehnese villages, people are learning how to build earthquake-proof houses. Deeper foundations and brick superstructures steel-reinforced at regular intervals are needed. Local materials are used, stimulating the local economy. The Urban Poor Consortium, an Indonesian NGO, say the international community needs to know how slowly international aid is arriving and where the aid is going. KontraS (Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence), who work with communities in neglected resistance areas, agree. There is a need to monitor the human rights impact, not just the humanitarian impact in the post-tsunami phase. Yes, we can work together on that.

There are many personal stories in these varied and sometimes incredible events. There are many other similar stories and events. The common thread for us is the lack of recognition, respect and protection for people’s right to housing in the Asia Pacific - including Australia. Not just any housing but adequate housing according to international standards. Forced evictions violate this right. Homelessness, a consequence of the violation of housing rights, is becoming a serious issue in developed countries such as Australia and the United States while urban slums proliferate in developing countries.

We are on a mission. To promote the right to adequate housing. To promote participation and consultation of individuals and communities in the type, material, design, location, adequacy and other aspects of their housing. To strengthen the capacity of local groups, women, Indigenous groups. To campaign against forced evictions. To promote alternatives to forced evictions. To develop legal expertise. Because human rights are indivisible, interrelated and interdependent, we do not only promote housing rights and protection against forced evictions and relocations. Instead we promote a rights-based approach to development, which includes the right to adequate housing.

We support local groups in different ways according to the situation, their request and our capacity. Happily we can always stretch ourselves just that bit further because we work with such wonderful people at the local level. We can provide information on international human rights and legal standards. We can write legal memoranda to government authorities on the standards of housing rights, human rights and good governance. Impending evictions in Phnom Penh and Manila have been called off or delayed as a result. Where requested by local groups, we provide amicus curiae briefs in cases before domestic courts and tribunals. We can lobby the United Nations bodies on housing and human rights issues affecting individual communities in countries in our region. As we go along, we learn that we can do other things, more things often suggested by the communities facing the bulldozer. I would like to think that all these things we do are the bricks and mortar of the right to adequate housing.

Lay Lee Tang is the Senior Research Officer and Deputy Coordinator of the Asia Pacific Program of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (‘COHRE’) and also a Visiting Research Associate of the Australian Human Rights Centre, Law Faculty, University of New South Wales. For further information on housing rights, please visit the website <http://www.cohre.org>

[1] World Social Forum, <http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br> at 29 September 2005.