COHRE Bulletin Latin America Vol3 No.9 2010

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CENTRE ON HOUSING RIGHTS AND EVICTIONS

Editorial: Para que las mujeres se sientan, y estén, seguras en sus hogares

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America 2010 | #09

Bulletin_ Vol 3_No. 9 on Housing Rights and the Right September_2010 to the City in Latin America Vol 3_No. 8 | July_2010

Special edition on “People power” in Latin America

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Editorial

Latin America

Colombia

Paraguay

Ecuador

Credits | Support

The power of Latin American people

Progress and challenges in the promotion of the right to the city in Latin America

Discussion prevents evictions in Soacha, Colombia

New police conduct protocol reduces risk of violence during land claims

Social organisations achieve new housing legislation

By Daniel Manrique

By Sebastián Felipe Escobar Uribe

By Andrés Vázquez

By Edwin Gordon

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Editorial: The power of Latin American people

Latin America has recently been described as one of the most unequal regions in the world.

millions.

And this is precisely what we wanted to look at in our latest bulletin.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, ten of the 15 most unequal countries in the planet are located there.

Some people call it activism, others say they are human rights defenders – here we would like to refer to it as “people power”. The power of individuals, experts and organisations to change and improve things – to make governments take action, to hold them accountable, and to make companies listen.

The disparity between those who have and those who don’t has clearly had a deep impact on the ability of thousands to fully enjoy their human rights, particularly their right to housing.

Latin America is home to a powerful network of activists, movements and organisations that work tirelessly to ensure human rights such as that to housing do not stay on paper but become a reality in the lives of

And, in Latin America, we found plenty of examples of this.

As Daniel Manrique, working in COHRE’s Latin Americas programme, details in his article, there are plenty of examples of activism and change originating with organisations in each

corner of Latin America. From associations of tenants in Chile to groups of internally displaced families in Colombia and indigenous people in Guatemala, each one of them has fought for their human rights to be respected, and many of them have achieved it.

In his story, independent journalist Andrés Vázquez shares a fascinating experience that, in Paraguay, led to the approval of a protocol for police conduct during land evictions.

The protocol, he explains, has helped reduce the number of violent confrontations between those claiming their right to land and local security forces.

Like them, many others found in dialogue the solution to their claims.

As Sebastián Felipe Escobar Uribe,

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol 3_No. 9 | September_2010

researcher at the Foundation for Education and Development, describes in his article, in Colombia, a local community managed to halt their eviction by establishing a roundtable discussion with local landowners.

For his part, Edwin Gordon, researcher at Ecuador’s Urban Forum, shares the experience of local activists who successfully lobbied their authorities to approve a Code for the organisation of their territory, which will improve the distribution of resources in the country.

It is clear that many more organisations and activists will have to take action in order for Latin America to be a more equal region but, for now, their work means more than just a few steps forward for the millions who are benefiting from the changes.

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Progress and challenges in the promotion of the right to the city in Latin America

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol 3_No. 9 | September_2010

By Daniel Manrique*, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions.

Latin America is one of the regions with the highest number of organisations working on the promotion and realization of the rights to housing and the city.

But with thousands of people suffering abuses to these rights, the challenges remain high. In this article, Daniel Manrique, representative of COHRE, analyses some of the projects that are having the deepest impact in people’s lives and the challenges ahead.

In the last few years, Latin American non-government organisations working on the right to housing have managed to re-focus their claims on the right to the city. By doing this, they have acknowledged that in order to effectively promote the right to adequate housing, they also need to get involved in discussions on urban management, territorial organisation and budgets.

Those organisations today work in countries with progressive governments and in contexts that, even with growing housing deficits, have allowed them to influence legislative developments and public policies on housing, urban management, territorial organisation and against evictions.

Urban movements In Brazil, for example, the National Forum of Urban Reform (Foro

Nacional de Reforma Urbana), a platform founded in the 1980’s, has managed – through public actions, training, research and lobbying – to influence the development of the City Statute 2001. The Statute sets out the social functions of the city and formulates ideas for urban reform.

Along the same lines, in Mexico, since 2000, the Urban Popular Movement (Movimiento Urbano Popular) has promoted the “Letter of the City of Mexico for the Right to the City”. The letter is based on the aim of the full realization of rights in the cities, the social function of the city, and its democratic and sustainable management.

In Ecuador, citizen participation has been so relevant in the construction of the country’s new Constitution that, due to the initiative of local Assembly Members who had a strong background in urban activism and took on board the proposals of influential non-governmental organisations, it recognized the rights to adequate housing, a healthy habitat and to enjoy the city.

It was there that a number of developments facilitated citizens’ participation in the formulation of public policies focused on the rights to housing and the city, both at the local and national levels. This is how

the organisations “Social Housing Contract” and the “Ecuadorian Urban Forum” were born. Since last year, both have been promoting a campaign for the regularisation of marginalised areas in Quito. The campaign so far has managed to get the city to adopt a new programme that includes the approval of housing titles, speed of paperwork and relocation of houses.

The road towards legislative developments One of the main problems faced by most organisations in Latin America is that even though the right to housing is guaranteed by most constitutions – with the exception of Peru – that guarantee is not reflected in local public policies that actually affect the population.

In order to counteract this phenomenon, a large number of organisations are undertaking interesting projects.

In Venezuela, for example, groups of tenants have promoted a substantial reform to the local leasing law so that, using a human rights-based approach, evictions are regulated and the housing market is controlled. The proposal modifies the current considerations for deciding evictions and suggests that the cost of a house could be redeemed via

monthly rent payments during a defined period of time. While the law is being processed, the Ministry of Housing is expected to publish a resolution to prevent more forced evictions.

This year, in Argentina, as a result of citizens’ pressure after a number of evictions, the General Attorney’s Office of the Supreme Court of the State of Buenos Aires instructed attorneys and other officials to take measures to protect children and their families during evictions.

Decisions such as this, which originated from one individual case, will hopefully become models for the development of new legislation.

In the context of the struggle for the right to housing, the call for the right to water is also gaining strength within social movements, which are increasingly including it in the agenda for the right to the city. In Chile and Ecuador, for example, the exploitation of water is being debated.

In Colombia, environmental organisations are promoting a constitutional referendum to recognize access to clean water as a fundamental human right.

Challenges for Latin America There have clearly been some very positive advances in recent years in Latin America when it comes to the

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struggle for the right to housing, mostly due to the important work of local organisations.

However, the high housing deficit in the region means there are huge challenges remaining.

This is particularly true for the 80 percent of the population that lives in urban areas and are affected by accelerated urbanisation processes that have allowed for giant, deeply segregated cities to develop, with huge marginalised areas that lack access to adequate services and where the levels of poverty, exclusion and inequality continue to grow.

One of the key challenges that need to be faced is that housing policies in the region emphasize a model of urban development led by the market, with little public control or discussion about an organized growth of cities.

In most countries in the region, the question of housing is still seen as one of economics – related to economic policy on infrastructure and job generation – instead of as a question of human rights.

As a result, social movements in Latin American are forced to focus their work on resisting a neo-liberal reality, with its high level of

criminalization of social protests and increasing lack of housing.

The ability of social organisations in Latin America to influence the formulation of public policies on housing will depend, in large part, on the establishment of joint national platforms that allow for the development of coordinated strategies of action. These national platforms could also be the first step for the development of international networks that could further promote and drive local projects in the region to help to fulfil the right to adequate housing for all.

In September 2009, representatives from over 30 organisations from various Latin American countries, including international networks, gathered in Quito, Ecuador, to formulate an agenda for the promotion of the right to the city in the region. For more information: americas@cohre.org * Daniel Manrique is a consultant in the Latin Americas Programme at Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions. He is a lawyer, specialised in land policies and markets and has a Master degree in economics. He has worked on human rights at the international level and on issues related to land, armed conflict and displacement in Colombia. He has also done research and provided legal aid to organisations in the country.

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Discussion prevents evictions in Soacha, Colombia

By Sebastián Felipe Escobar Uribe*, researcher at the Foundation for Education and Development (FEDES) Colombia.

In Colombia, thousands are victims of forced eviction every year. The situation in Soacha, in the outskirts of Bogotá, is just one example. But in an almost unprecedented process, local organisations managed to get the community and land owners to participate in a roundtable discussion to resolve their conflicts. In this article, Sebastián Felipe Escobar Uribe, representative of FEDES, recounts the experience.

The number of inhabitants in Soacha has grown exponentially in the past few years as a consequence of forced displacement, which affects approximately four million people in Colombia, and the city’s increasing proximity to Bogotá, due to both cities’ geographical expansion.

Soacha is today Colombia’s fourth most-populated municipality. The problems this growth presents were never dealt with adequately by public policies regarding urban planning and relocation for the affected population.

During the last 15 years, 1,500 families have moved onto land they acquired from “pirate dealers” operating in the area. These dealers sold possession – but not ownership – of land without having the authority to do so. These families are today at risk of eviction.

Lack of due process According to Colombian legislation, in order for a landowner to recover his property, he must take what is

called an “action for recovery”. This is a civil action that, because of the formalities involved, can take quite a long time.

In the case of Soacha, the owner initiated a lawsuit against the person who sold the land without his permission.

The decision handed down found the population guilty of land and property invasion, and ordered the restitution of all land to the owner, which would result in the forced eviction of 5,000 people. The process did not provide any opportunity for the inhabitants to challenge the decision, express their concerns, present their own evidence, or to ask for their rights to housing to be

respected.

The decision flouted General Comment 4 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which outlines legal safeguards regarding the possession of land and against threats of forced eviction.

The Covenant, which is binding on all States Parties, stipulates that in case an eviction cannot be avoided, the authorities must guarantee due process and the relocation of those affected.

By not ensuring that the community could present its case, the Colombian government failed in its duties under Article 11 of the International

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Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Roundtable discussion The outlook was grim for the affected community.

However, with the support of several nongovernmental organisations and UN agencies, they managed to establish an agreement to hold a roundtable discussion outside of any formal legal process, in which both parties (the community and the landowners) agreed to avoid any legal confrontation in favour of reaching an agreement over the property and possession of the land.

All those who have rights over the land have been invited to participate at the roundtable. Several nongovernmental organisations – including FEDES – and UN agencies are also part of the process, as observers and community advisers.

So far, the roundtable has had 28 meetings, in which a series of commitments have been signed – although a final result that satisfies all parties is yet to be achieved.

However, even though a final agreement hasn’t yet been reached, the roundtable has achieved several important objectives. Amongst those is the creation of an association of inhabitants, made up of the area’s

community leaders. The association assumes responsibility for the community’s legal representation, as it would be impossible for the negotiations to move forward if it is to be done with each inhabitant individually.

The process has also had the support and active participation of several local organisations. They have responded to the call of the community, and, apart from the need to resolve the problem of land ownership, have also advocated for priority attention from the state when it comes to basic public services and other issues related to adequate housing.

In addition, some community members have signed contracts in which they committed to buy the land from the owners and local organisations are currently developing projects to ensure community members will be able to save enough money to pay for their homes. * Sebastián Felipe Escobar Uribe is a researcher at the Foundation for Education and Development (FEDES) Colombia and a lawyer at the Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana de Medellin. He is also a candidate for a Master’s degree in Human Rights at the Universidad Santo Tomás in Bogotá.

For more information, please contact: seu1000@gmail.com

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Paraguay: New police conduct protocol reduces risk of violence during land claims

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol 3_No. 9 | September_2010

By Andrés Vázquez*, independent journalist and researcher.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Paraguay is one of the most unequal countries in the world in terms of land distribution. In this article, independent journalist Andrés Vázquez explores the problem and the impact of a protocol of conduct for police officers in the context of protests regarding access to land.

On 2 June 2010, authorities in Paraguay sent 80 police officers and several military to evict a number of peasant families living in the district of Santa Teresa, department of Alto Paraná, in the south of the country.

According to local community leaders, the land the families were living on had been previously given to them by the authorities.

After negotiations, the peasants decided to leave the land peacefully and set up a camp in the outskirts of the field until a solution was found. Paraguay’s Land and Rural Development Institute (INDERT) is currently relocating them.

A year ago, this operation would likely have resulted in the detention or even death of several leaders and peasants – but a new protocol of police conduct during evictions is changing all that.

In

September

2009,

the

current

Paraguayan government, through its Interior Ministry, created the “Protocol of Intervention for Large Scale Evictions”. This norm established procedures to be followed by police agents in the execution of judicial orders.

The Protocol was proposed and created by the Human Rights Office of the Ministry of Interior, together with the office of National Police.

Even though social organisations were not directly involved in its creation, the protocol responds to the demands and campaigns social organisations have been taking forward for many years regarding excessive use of force by the police.

One of its most innovative characteristics is the emphasis it places in negotiation, dialogue, and mediation – and against the use of force.

“The main purpose of the protocol is the protection of vulnerable people, particularly peasant women and children, with a view to reducing the number of confrontations, allowing for the peaceful resolution of conflicts while meeting the needs of those affected,” said Diana Vargas, Human Rights Director at the Ministry of Interior in Paraguay.

The mechanism responds to reports of human rights violations and excessive use of force by the police documented

after various land expropriations across Paraguay. Some of these reports had been presented to international human rights bodies.

It also reflects the recommendations made by national and international human rights organisations.

Even though the protocol does not resolve the problem of access to land in Paraguay, it does respond to the immediate need to stop the use of excessive force during evictions and for the security forces to consider peaceful methods for their resolution.

So far, it has been successfully used in most of the 98 evictions that took place between 2008 and 2010, in most cases, peacefully. Even though land occupation and evictions in Paraguay continue, the response by the authorities and security forces is no longer violent.

There is still much to be done to ensure full access to housing and land rights in Paraguay, but the establishment of the policing protocol has been a first step in the right direction.

* Andrés Vázquez is an independent researcher and journalist specialized in the response to institutional and structural violence. He is a consultant for human rights organisations and governments. For more information contact: avazquez12@gmail.com.

Access to land in Paraguay Access to land is one of the main causes of conflict in Paraguay, even though the country has a very low population density.

Land concentration in the hands of few and an increase in the number of smallholdings are two of the main causes for conflicts over land.

Another major cause is the uncontrolled growth of soya and other single-crops that systematically force peasants to sell their lands for a low price and move to urban centres.

Another challenge facing the government is to organize the country’s land registry, particularly along its border, which contains fields that were given to new landowners or communities during the military regime of Alfredo Stroessner.

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Social organisations achieve new housing legislation in Ecuador

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By Edwin Gordon*, researcher at Ecuador’s Foro Urbano.

Ecuador’s National Assembly has recently approved the Code for Territorial Organisation, which, according to local activists, can help improve the country’s housing situation thanks to the redistribution of resources.

In this article, Edwin Gordon of Ecuador’s Foro Urbano (Urban Forum) explores the new law’s likely impact and the work that civil society activists did to achieve its approval.

The government’s inability to resolve this housing problem and the inability of low-income sectors to access the housing market is causing a generalised abuse of the rights to housing and the city.

In dozens of countries in Latin America, there’s a clear housing deficit.

In Ecuador, the problem is particularly evident in the constant emergence of “informal neighbourhoods” that lack basic infrastructure and services for their inhabitants.

Civil society organisations in Ecuador, including the Urban Forum, have been calling for greater state intervention to guarantee the right to housing.

Even though the government is not the only actor involved in this issue, it is one of those most responsible for the development of solutions.

Since 2008, the Foro Urbano has lead a successful campaign that resulted in the inclusion, in the country’s

new Constitution, of an article that guarantees the right to housing and the approval of the Organic Code for Territorial Organisation (Código Orgánico de Organización Territorial).

The Code establishes the new political and administrative organisation of Ecuadorian land and allows for the equitable distribution of resources across the country. This benefits those who live in impoverished areas, facilitating their access to adequate housing and basic services.

A national campaign Even though the Code is still in development and early stages of implementation, what it has shown is the power of local organisations

to create change in the lives of thousands of people.

During its national campaign, Ecuador’s Foro Urbano decided to focus on raising awareness of the importance of the right to housing and the city through demonstrations and public events and lobbying actions targeted at local assembly members who had the power to approve relevant legislation.

The organisations presented detailed proposals regarding territorial organisation, expropriation of abandoned land, strategic planning and citizen participation in the administration of the cities.

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The majority of those proposals are today part of the Code.

After the Code was approved, organisations such as the Foro Urbano started to focus on its effective implementation.

To that end, a proposal was put forward to the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion for the development of savings plans to fund the construction of social housing.

The Foro Urbano also proposed the development of a housing and environmental study in Quito to establish the viability of building proposals.

The Foro Urbano also put forward its own candidates to the National Assembly and other local representation in 2009 and won one seat in Quito and one in Pichincha.

We believe this participation will give us the opportunity to participate in the development of social and human rights policies.

Ecuador’s future looks promising when it comes to the effective accomplishment of the right to housing and we believe that this is largely due to the work of organisations such as Foro Urbano Ecuador.

For us, the most valuable lesson has

been to see the real power that civil society organisations have when their awareness-raising campaigns are combined with lobbying and the presentation of specific proposals to the authorities.

The Foro Urbano (Urban Forum) is a social and political organisation that works as an umbrella group for associations of workers, artists, intellectuals, women, peasants, young people and others. Beginning with the identification of common needs and demands, the organisation promotes and defends the right to the city for all, the development of a democratic city with social participation that promotes work and guarantees universal access to health, education and housing.

For more information, please contact: forourbano@hotmail.com * Edwin Gordon is a researcher at the Forum Ecuador Urban and social manager. For more Information: forourbano@hotmail.com

Code for Territorial Organisation The Code for Territorial Organisation in Ecuador is a legal instrument with over 600 articles and establishes the political and administrative organisation of Ecuadorian territory.

The Code stipulates the organisation of various levels of local, decentralized governments in order to guarantee their political, administrative and financial autonomy and establish mechanisms to compensate for inequalities in local development.

The Code also provides tools for local governments to be able to deal with the regularisation of communities living on occupied lands illegally. This includes the expropriation of land for the development of social housing, and the granting of legal personality to local organisations working on housing issues, amongst others.

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CENTRE ON HOUSING RIGHTS AND EVICTIONS

COHRE – the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions – is an independent, international nongovernmental organisation. COHRE’s mission is to promote and protect the right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere.

Founded in 1994, COHRE applies the international human rights framework to promote and protect housing rights at the local level, particularly with respect to marginalized or vulnerable communities. COHRE has consultative status with the United Nations (UN), the Organisation of American

States (OAS), and the Council of Europe.

COHRE also holds observer status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

COHRE has regional programmes in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Each programme carries out the following activities: promoting and working to enforce, including through legal advocacy, the right to adequate housing, the right to water and sanitation, women’s housing rights, the prevention of forced evictions, and remedying housing rights violations, including housing and property restitution

Editor Josefina Salomón

Since 2002, COHRE Latin America has been working in defense of the right to adequate housing in the region through capacity building programmes, legal assistance and promoting the right to land of minority groups and low income communities in informal settlements.

COHRE also carries out activities at the national and international level, including fact-finding missions, litigation, monitoring and the promotion of campaigns against the practice of forced evictions.

COHRE Latin America organises these and other activities in certain focus countries where it works jointly with local partners.

COHRE’s current focus countries in Latin America are: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador.

Catalan Agency of Cooperation Desenvolupament

Support for this publication come from

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol 3_No. 9 | September_2010

for displaced persons.

Bulletin_ on Housing Rights and the Right to the City in Latin America Vol 3_No. 98 | September_2010 July_2010

Design TUPAX Pindoramogràphïco (www.flickr.com/tupax) (www.tupax.com.br) Photos

cover / Activists in Ecuador participate in a demonstration for their right to housing in 2009 ©Foro Urbano Ecuador. page 2 / Workshop on urbanization in Porto Alegre, Brazil ©COHRE. page 4 / Activist in Latin American Social Forum 2009

©Priscila Néri, WITNESS Program Coordinator. page 5 / Activists gather to discuss their right to housing in Socaha, Colombia ©COHRE. page 6 / Soacha community, in Colombia fights for their right to housing ©COHRE. page 8 / House in the community of Soacha, Colombia ©COHRE. page 9 / Activists in Ecuador present proposal on housing to the local assembly in 2009 ©Foro Urbano Ecuador. page 10 / Activists speak at Ecuador’s National Assembly in 2009 ©Foro Urbano Ecuador.

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