Pacific
women heard on right to land and housing
NADI, FIJI, 12 October, 2004
The UN Special Rapporteur
on adequate housing is this week meeting with human rights defenders
from the Pacific to gather testimonies on women‚s housing
and land rights issues across the region, and exchange approaches
and strategies to strengthen groups working in the area.
Organised jointly by
the Fiji-based Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT), Habitat International
Coalition-Housing and Land Rights Network (South Asia Regional
Programme), the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development
and the International Women’s Rights and Action Watch Asia
Pacific (IWRAW Asia Pacific), the four-day consultation began
yesterday at the Tanoa International Hotel, Nadi, Fiji. This event
is organised with the support and cooperation of the Office of
the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
Attending the consultation
are representatives from women‚s and community groups from
Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Kiribati, Cook Islands,
Bougainville, Papua New Guinea and indigenous Australia. An international
group of facilitators from Australia, India, Cambodia and Egypt
complement the local team of RRRT and UN Habitat.
The Pacific consultation
forms the fifth in a series of regional meetings between women‚s
rights defenders and UN Special Rapporteur Miloon Kothari that
previously took place in east Africa, Asia, Latin America and
the Middle East/ north Africa.
People across the world
today face or are witness to violations of human rights, including
the right to adequate housing and standard of living. Women in
particular are most vulnerable, suffering disproportionately from
discriminatory laws or practices, economic barriers and violence.
“It
is imperative that the international community acts to end the
culture of silence‚ that confronts women across the world
in their struggle for the rights to housing, land, property and
inheritance. This should include measures to deal with increasing
violence being faced by women due to forced evictions and domestic
abuse,” Mr Miloon Kothari said last week in his statement
marking World Habitat Day (4 October, website: <http://www.ohchr.org).
The consultations follow
UN Commission on Human Rights resolutions calling on the Special
Rapporteur to prepare a report on women's rights to land and adequate
housing, including by way of consultations with civil society.
The report will be submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights
in 2005.
Themes arising from
the Pacific consultation include the sources and solutions to
land tenure systems, indigenous land rights and discrimination,
women‚s housing rights and problems related to domestic
violence, inadequate housing conditions, urbanisation and squatter
settlements, civil conflict, legal, cultural and traditional barriers,
water and basic sanitation.
Source:
Media Release by the Regional Rights Resource Team
