Housing and Land Rights Now Campaign 2006
Stop evictions! Stop Privatization of Habitat!

Mapping the Global Housing and Land Rights Crisis, introducing a Violation Database”

In this edition:

1. Habitat International Coalition statement: 2006 World Habitat Day
2. Global Coalition Announces Campaign to Stop Forced Evictions and Privatization of Housing and Land
3. Mapping the Housing and Land Rights Alerts 2004-2006
4. Housing and Land Rights Crisis! Violations escalating around the world
5. Join HIC during the first weeks of October by saying NO to forced evictions, NO to Privatization of Habitat. Denounce your struggles, send photos and share your activities.

This year the United Nations Habitat Program (UN-Habitat) invites the world to celebrate Habitat Day with the theme: “Cities, Magnets of Hope.” For its part, HIC and other international networks have called on their constituencies and communities throughout the world to organize broad mobilization against evictions and forced displacements and growing processes of privatization of land, social housing, water, and other basic services.

What is the relation between these two convocations, and what should we expect this year from the World Habitat Day celebrations?

Read the Statement by HIC President, Mr. Enrique Ortiz

Decrying a sharp increase in massive forced evictions caused by mega-development schemes and property speculation across the planet, the Habitat International Coalition (HIC) will announce a global campaign to “Stop Forced Evictions and Privatization of Housing and Land” in Montevideo and in London on October 2, with worldwide actions scheduled throughout October.

“Despite global standards affirming a Right to Housing, governments, multinational corporations and investors have too often ignored them,” stated Enrique Ortiz, HIC President. “Homelessness, speculation and massive forced evictions for ‘slum clearance’ are on the rise, from Harare (Zimbabwe) to New Orleans, from Mombai and Manila to Lima and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Massive dam projects are displacing hundred of thousand in rural areas of Turkey, China, India and Mexico. As a result, far from meeting the UN’s Millenium Development Goal of reducing slum dwellings by 100 million by 2020, the number of slum dwellers is expected to double to more than two billion families by 2030. We call on government and UN bodies to implement a rights-based, people-centered housing agenda as an alternative to the market-driven models promoted by the US government, global business interests and financial institutions.”

Read the press release

Click to enlarge

This map is only one view of the broader state of violations to housing and land rights, and indicates the need for civil society's need for more unity and more-complete monitoring and reporting globally. The map is a product of Habitat International Coalition's Housing and Land Rights Campaign 2006, and is based on information received at HIC-GS from January 2004 through September 2006 and includes incidents leading to forced evictions and/or demolition, privatization of social housing, massive displacements and the denial of disaster victims' right of return. Violations to secure tenure (both in housing and land) are on the rise, which means that most countries not only will be unable to fulfill their Millennium Development Goal commitments of improving the conditions of 100 million “slum” dwellers by 2015, but demonstrates how violations of citizens rights to housing and land are deteriorating living conditions in many countries.

The map is part of a ongoing process in which HIC members around the world are documenting housing rights threats and violations with monitoring tools developed by HIC-HLRN at its' "Urgent Action Appeal System" and "Violations Database."

On the occasion of World Habitat Day, 2006, Habitat International Coalition (HIC) is reporting the global trends in housing and land rights violations. This initiative, in cooperation with HIC members and structures, sprang from the urgent need to highlight the struggles experienced at the local level, as well as to understand how these struggles are linked at the global level. It is intended that this report, based on the best available information, marks one step in a continuing process emphasizing the interconnectivity among seemingly disparate factors.

Read the HIC-HLRN Report

Name of the case:
Location: (country, city, and location)
Type of housing and land rights violation: (eviction; dispossession/confiscation, demolition/destruction, and privatization)
Brief abstract of the situation:
Contact information: