Homelessness & Inadequate Housing Violate the Right to Life - Gender - UN Special Rapporteur Housing
Time to Recognize the Right to Life for Those Living in Homelessness and Inadequate Housing - Gender
Leilani Farha, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing*
1 November 2016 - An estimated one third of deaths worldwide are linked to poverty and inadequate housing, yet widespread homelessness and inadequate housing are rarely regarded as a violation of the right to life.
Homelessness and inadequate housing are reaching crisis proportions including in both emerging and developed economies. The urgency and outrage that should be provoked in response to the abhorrent conditions in which millions of people live seem to be absent. Many politicians, judges, and every day people are accustomed to ignoring, stigmatizing, excluding, and even criminalizing people for their poverty and lack of adequate housing. The question is: how did we get here?
Undocumented children – children with an irregular migration or residence status - are often described as ‘invisible’, ‘living underground’, or ‘under the radar’. To a large extent they are ignored in policy. They are the children that fall through the gaps in the existing protection frameworks for children who are considered more vulnerable, although they have equal rights, and in many cases, face similar risks and challenges.
When accompanied by a parent, migrant children are often treated exactly as adults, rather than individuals with agency and rights of their own. Their rights as a child and best interests are very rarely considered, and they are not heard in immigration and asylum proceedings. Particularly when considered irregular or undocumented migrants, they can be subject to restricted access to essential services, including education and health care, as well as arrest, detention and deportation. There is also a fundamental lack of data, which perpetuates their exclusion from policy and public debates.
Direct Link to Full 25-Page 2016 Publication:
http://picum.org/picum.org/uploads/publication/Children%20Testimonies%20FINAL-WEB.pdf
Извор: WUNRN – 06.01.2017
Bihar, India: 9-year old girl in slave labour at a brick factory – Trafficked with her family
GLOBAL SLAVERY INDEX 2016 - http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/
WOMEN AND SLAVERY
By Sarah Mathewson, Africa Programme Co-ordinator, analyses how widespread discrimination against women makes them extra vulnerable to exploitation and slavery, based on the West Africa example.
8 March 2016 - Looking at the forms of modern slavery all over the world we see that women and girls are not only more likely to be exposed to slavery but that they face greater difficulties in leaving slavery, due to pervasive discrimination against them because they are female.
Authoritative Statement as Reference Regarding WOMEN Human Rights Defenders
UN Committee on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights – Website: http://ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/cescr/pages/cescrindex.aspx
In an authoritative statement, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, said that ‘it considers any threat or violence against human rights defenders to constitute violations of States’ obligations towards the realisation of Covenant rights’. In the most comprehensive statement on defenders issued by a UN treaty body, the ESCR Committee expresses serious concern as to the worsening risks and threats faced by many human rights defenders working to promote economic, social and cultural rights. It reiterates that States’ obligations towards defenders include an obligation to ensure they are ‘effectively protected against any and all forms of abuse, violence and reprisal’ and to investigate and ensure accountability for any such acts, whether perpetrated by State or non-State actors.
4 GGL - 4Girls GLocal Leadership
Direct Link to Full 11-Page 2016 4GGL Survey Preliminary Summary:
http://4ggl.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Voice-Choice-What-Young-Women-Want_March-22-2016.pdf
