Category Archives: Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions

COHRE Report on the N2 Gateway Project

COHRE, the UN affiliated human rights NGO based in Switzerland, has just released a scathing report on the N2 Gateway project. Click here for an archive of entries on Joe Slovo and here and here for an archive of entries on the Symphony Way occupation.

For comment on how the N2 Gateway has effected the lives of poor people in Cape Town, contact:

Ashraf Cassiem at 076 186 1408 (Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign)
Kareemah Linneveldt 078 492 0943 (Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign)
Evelyn Mokoena at 0763317624 (Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign)
Mzwanele Zulu (Joe Slovo Task Team)
Luthando Ndabamba (Joe Slov N2 Gateway Phase 1 Flats)

COHRE RELEASES N2 GATEWAY PROJECT REPORT
FRIDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2009

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) today released a report on housing rights violations in the context of the N2 Gateway development project in South Africa. The report is based on research conducted by COHRE during a fact finding mission to South Africa in 2008 and its amicus curiae (‘friend of the court’) submission to the South African Constitutional Court in the recently decided "Joe Slovo" case (Residents of Joe Slovo Community, Western Cape v Thubelisha Homes & Others, CCT 22/08[2009] ZACC 16). The report –N2 Gateway Project: Housing Rights Violations as ‘Development’ in South Africa — is available at http://www.cohre.org

*** CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE COHRE REPORT ***

COHRE Letter to Dan Plato on the Macassar Village Occupation

Click here to read this letter in pdf.

9 June 2009

The Honourable Mr. Dan Plato
Mayor of Cape Town,
The Mayor’s Office,
City of Cape Town
Cape Town 8001

South Africa

Reference: Violation of housing rights of 60 families in Macassar Village, Cape Town.

Dear Mayor Plato,

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) is an international human rights non-governmental organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices throughout the world. COHRE has consultative status with the United Nations and Observer Status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. COHRE works to promote and protect the right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere, including preventing or remedying forced evictions.

COHRE is deeply disturbed by reports of the repeated demolition of shacks in Macassar village by Cape Town’s Anti Land Invasions Unit, South African Police Service (SAPS) and Metro Police. COHRE also expresses concern about the reported violent arrest of Abahlali baseMjondolo activist Mzonke Poni on 1 June 2009.

According to information received by COHRE, several backyard dwellers in Macassar village, frustrated with poor living conditions and their increased vulnerability to evictions resulting from rising rents, occupied vacant municipal land along the N2 highway on 18th May 2009. On the 19th morning, however, police personnel demolished approximately 60 shacks and fired rubber bullets injuring four people including a woman and a child. Police also arrested three persons including Professor Martin Legassick. On 20th May, Macassar SAPS Superintendent facilitated an agreement between the occupiers and their local ward councillor where the occupiers were given permission to build shacks on another piece of land in the vicinity. We understand that occupiers were informed that this agreement would be endorsed by your presence at the new site the following day.

COHRE notes with disappointment that according to reports received, you reversed the ward councillor’s decision and ordered the Anti Land Invasions Unit to once again demolish newly constructed shacks and confiscate building material. COHRE would like to point out that an estimated 300 backyard dwellers have thus been rendered homeless and are forced to live and sleep in the open.

COHRE expresses shock at the City’s apparent disregard for the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from, and Unlawful Occupation of, Land Act 1998 as well as for the interdict against further demolitions secured in the Cape High Court by Abahlali baseMjondolo. According to information received, the Anti Land Invasions Unit continued to illegally demolish shacks despite being informed about the interdict of 29th May.

South Africa’s Constitution states in Section 26(3) that “no one may be evicted from their home…without an order of the court made after considering all the relevant circumstances [emphasis added]”

COHRE respectfully reminds the Government of South Africa that under international human rights law, evictions can only occur lawfully in very exceptional circumstances and after all feasible alternatives have been explored in consultation with affected persons. If, and only if, such exceptional circumstances exist and there are no feasible alternatives, can evictions be deemed justified. Furthermore, evictions should not result in rendering individuals homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. Governments must therefore, ensure that adequate alternative housing is available to affected persons.

The backyard dwellers of Macassar, like several other poor communities, are victims of South Africa’s ongoing housing crisis marked by growing waiting lists for subsidised housing every year and the inability of the State to adequately respond to the growing demand. Many of the backyard dwellers who occupied land in Macassar have been on the waiting list for 15-20 years, with no solution in sight.

Instead of facilitating access to the right to adequate housing through the allocation of vacant public land to the back yard dwellers of Macassar, the City has sought to forcibly evict them and thereby unlawfully deprive them of the shelter they had. COHRE therefore urges the City of Cape Town to:

* Take urgent steps to provide emergency shelter and relief material to all those affected by the forced eviction;
* Devise and implement a strategy to resolve the crisis through meaningful consultations with affected people and with a view to fulfil their right to adequate housing;
* Adequately compensate all those who have lost their belongings and building materials in the demolition drives;
* Withdraw all charges against those protesting against the demolitions; and
* Initiate an independent enquiry into allegations of violence and illegal actions by members of the Anti Land Invasions Unit, SAPS and the Metro Police.

We look forward to your response.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Yours sincerely,

Salih Booker

Executive Director

Cc

The Honourable Mr. Achmat Ebrahim
City Manager, Cape Town

The Honourable Ms. Helen Zille
Premier, Western Cape

The Honourable Mr. Tokyo Sexwale
National Minister for Housing

Ms. Raquel Rolnik
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing

COHRE: Letter to Obed Mlaba on evictions in Siyanda

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The Honorable Cllr Obed Mlaba
Office of the Mayor of eThekwini
City Hall, West Street
Durban 4001
Republic of South Africa

Re: Forced relocation of shack-dwellers in Siyanda, KwaMashu

Dear Cllr Mlaba,

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) is an international human rights non-governmental organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices throughout the world. COHRE has consultative status with the United Nations and Observer Status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. COHRE works to promote and protect the right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere, including preventing or remedying forced evictions.

COHRE recently learnt of the threatened forced relocation of shack-dwellers in Siyanda in KwaMashu, to make way for the construction of a freeway in the area. According to a press statement by the newly-formed Siyanda branch of Abahlali baseMjondolo, at least 50 shacks have been demolished this year in the area by the eThekwini Municipality without notice, a court order or the provision of alternative accommodation. COHRE has learnt that eThekwini Municipality promised that all those displaced by the new MR577 freeway would be moved to newly-constructed houses in the Kulula Housing Project. Siyanda residents have now been informed that an unspecified number of families will be moved to eNtuzuma and placed in ‘transit camps,’ which consist of government-built shacks or temporary structures, ordinarily used for emergency housing. As eNtuzuma is further on the periphery of the city, transport costs will be much higher for families as they will be further from jobs and schools. At the same time, the Municipality has reportedly decided to move families from other areas like Umlazi and Lamontville, who are not affected by the freeway construction, into the newly constructed Kulula houses. This has understandably caused much confusion within the community, and the situation is extremely tense at present.

COHRE is disturbed with the trend in Siyanda, and in Durban in general, to use state repression against peaceful protestors legitimately airing their grievances against housing rights violations. In May this year, residents protesting shack demolitions in Siyanda marched to the Kulula project contractor’s office to submit a memorandum of grievances, where they were fired upon with rubber bullets and sprayed with water canons by Durban Metro Police. During this incident five people, including a pregnant woman, were shot and injured, and subsequently arrested at the hospital for ‘public violence.’ The charges were eventually dropped against all of the protestors.

On 15 September 2008, a peaceful protest held by affected Siyanda residents to air their grievances about the allocation process of alternative housing in Siyanda, was again met with a heavy Durban Metro police presence, with one police officer allegedly brandished a loaded weapon at the crowd, shouting that he would shoot them with live ammunition if they did not disband.

COHRE has maintained that the manner in which unlawful evictions of shack-dwellers has occurred in Durban is unacceptable, and people have been treated inhumanely and without dignity in the process. In terms of international human rights law, for evictions to be considered as lawful, they may only occur in very exceptional circumstances and all feasible alternatives must be explored. If and only if such exceptional circumstances exist and there are no feasible alternatives, can evictions be deemed justified. However, certain requirements must still be adhered to. These are:

1. States must ensure, prior to any planned forced evictions, and particularly those involving large groups, that all feasible alternatives are explored in consultation with affected persons, with a view to avoiding, or at least minimising, the need to use force.
2. Forced evictions should not result in rendering individuals homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. Governments must therefore, ensure that adequate alternative housing is available to affected persons.
3. In those rare cases where eviction is considered justified, it must be carried out in strict compliance with international human rights law and in accordance with general principles of reasonableness and proportionality. These include, inter alia:

§ Genuine consultation with those affected;

§ Adequate and reasonable notice for all affected persons prior to the scheduled date of eviction;

§ Information on the proposed evictions, and where applicable, on the alternative purpose for which the land or housing is to be used, to be made available in reasonable time to all those affected;

§ Especially where groups of people are involved, government officials or their representatives to be present during an eviction;

§ All persons carrying out the eviction to be properly identified;

§ Evictions not to take place in particularly bad weather or at night unless the affected persons consent otherwise;

§ Provision of legal remedies; and

§ Provision, where possible, of legal aid to persons who are in need of it to seek redress from the courts.

In the past the eThekwini Municipality has not complied with the above principles, particularly with regard to obtaining a court order and providing adequate notice for evictions. On 6 October 2008, COHRE released a report on the situation in Durban entitled Business as Usual? Housing rights and ‘slum eradication’ in Durban, South Africa. The report found that unlawful evictions are commonplace in eThekwini Municipality, and while the Municipality is to be commended on building a considerable number of houses each year, the houses that are being built are often located so far out of town that living there is unviable for many of the urban working classes due to unaffordable transport costs to work, schools, and hospitals. The report also expresses serious concern about the size and quality of the houses that are being built and over the failure to provide adequate levels of basic services to shack dwellers while they wait for formal housing.

While COHRE approves of the provision of adequate alternative accommodation in the event of an eviction, we condemn the existence of so-called ‘transit camps’, which are found to be highly inadequate and serve to destroy the already fragile socio-economic fabric of people’s lives. COHRE also condemns the current practice that effectively entails moving people from their own well-located shacks into government shacks on the urban periphery, without any certainty of the time period they will be there, or indeed what permanent housing options will made available to them in the future. If the Siyanda forced relocations are allowed to proceed it will only add to the excesses of the eThekwini Municipality documented in the recently released report, and roll back the significant recent progress made to improve relations between organised shack dwellers’ and the eThekwini Municipality.

COHRE therefore urges the Municipality to immediately halt all forced evictions of shack dwellers within its jurisdiction, and to cease the use of violence against those peacefully and legitimately protesting against their housing rights violations. COHRE appeals to the Municipality to ensure that all Siyanda residents affected by the new freeway are provided with housing, as promised, in the Kulula Housing Project, and to investigate the allocation of these houses to other residents from outside Siyanda.

We look forward to your response and to an ongoing dialogue with the Municipality on the rights of its people to adequate housing. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Salih Booker
Executive Director

cc.

The Honorable Lindiwe Sisulu
Minister of Housing

Dr Michael Sutcliffe
eThekwini City Manager

COHRE Report on Housing Rights in Durban

The full text of the report ('Business as Usual') is available in pdf here or on the COHRE website at: http://www.cohre.org/southafrica

COHRE Press Statement

Monday, 6 October 2008

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, based in Geneva, today released a report on housing rights in Durban. While recognizing the efforts of the eThekwini Municipality to build a considerable number of houses each year, the report concludes that the houses being built are often located so far out of town as to make them unviable for many people due to unaffordable transport costs to work, schools, and hospitals. The report also expresses serious concern about the size and quality of the houses that are being built and over the failure to provide adequate levels of basic services to shack dwellers while they wait for formal housing. In some instances levels of basic services in shack settlements are inadequate to the point of being life threatening according to COHRE's research.

COHRE's executive director, Salih Booker, said today that, "We have a profound concern about the high number of unlawful evictions carried out by the eThekwini Municipality. Evictions are a routine occurrence in Durban and COHRE researchers did not come across a single instance in which an eviction by the Municipality had been carried out in accordance with the law."

COHRE expresses a profound concern about the high levels of state repression, much of it clearly unlawful, to which the shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo was subject from 2005 until 2007.

COHRE is pleased to note that since the research phase of the Durban Fact Finding Mission was concluded relations between organised shack dwellers' and the Municipality have improved significantly. There has been a dramatic decline in allegations of police harassment and all parties seem optimistic about the current negotiations that the Project Preparation Trust is facilitating between Abahlali baseMjondolo and the eThekwini Municipality. COHRE is also encouraged to note that the eThekwini Municipality is now exploring the prospect of dramatically stepping up the provision of basic services to a number of settlements and of developing two pilot projects in which settlements will be upgraded in situ via the Breaking New Ground policy.

However COHRE remains concerned about unlawful evictions, the current poor levels of basic services in shack settlements and, in particular, the very high instance of often fatal shack fires and the dangers to which residents, especially women, are subjected by the lack of adequate sanitation in many settlements. Finally the COHRE report highlights the dangers posed to housing rights across KwaZulu-Natal by the Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act.

COHRE is an international human rights non-governmental organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices throughout the world. COHRE has consultative status with the United Nations and Observer Status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. COHRE works to promote and protect the right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere, including preventing or remedying forced evictions. COHRE's work includes undertaking fact-finding missions to cities around in the world.

Also see:

COHRE statement on Xenophobic Attacks

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**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 30 May 2008**

COHRE MEDIA RELEASE

More than 100,000 people forcibly evicted from their homes in South Africa through xenophobic attacks: South African government must act immediately to deal with both the causes and consequences of these recent xenophobic attacks says human rights group

The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) is deeply concerned at the recent forced eviction of up to 100 000 people from their homes and residential areas in South Africa through xenophobic attacks. COHRE condemns these attacks in the strongest possible terms, and commends the civil society organisations and individuals that have rushed to assist those affected.

As an international human rights organisation mandated to promote and protect housing rights around the world, COHRE has for several years monitored the shockingly poor housing, water, sanitation and service delivery conditions endured by many South African communities. Jean du Plessis, COHRE’s Deputy Director, said, “We are sympathetic to the growing frustration felt in those communities. Accordingly, we call on the Government of South Africa to deal swiftly and firmly with both the causes and the consequences of the recent attacks.”

Provide adequate shelter and services to displaced persons

COHRE is particularly concerned about the need to provide shelter and services to people displaced as a result of the recent attacks. Urgent steps must be taken to provide adequate and secure shelter and services to those affected. This should be done in a manner which promotes the speedy reintegration of displaced persons into South African society, and which promotes ongoing reconciliation.

The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement requires that authorities:
• Immediately provide assistance and basic needs to affected people;
• Take action to prevent further displacement including investigating the underlying issues motivating the perpetrators; and
• Find sustainable remedies for those displaced.

In addition, displaced persons have a right to return home in safety and dignity, have the damage to their homes repaired, and have destroyed houses restored in accordance with the UN Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons. Authorities also have a responsibility to facilitate displaced persons’ subsequent integration into their communities.

Avoid segregating and stigmatizing displaced persons

COHRE has learnt with concern of the South African government’s proposal to establish six ‘holding camps’ throughout the country for people driven from their homes.

COHRE’s Du Plessis also said, “It may be true that shelter and services could be provided more easily in the context of a small number of dedicated venues. However, there is a significant danger that placing displaced people in such segregated camps, removed from their communities and livelihood opportunities, could further stigmatize the victims of the violence and undermine their reintegration into South African society.”

COHRE therefore urges the Government to seek local solutions for displaced persons, which can facilitate their voluntary reintegration into communities, rather than segregating them in remote camps.

The obligation to act extends across all Government Departments

Du Plessis added, “COHRE is also concerned about the statement made on 27 May by the South African Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu, in which she denied that her department had any responsibility to provide housing for ‘foreigners’ displaced by xenophobic attacks. Ms Sisulu laid that task at the door of Disaster Management Services, and claimed that her department lacked sufficient resources to provide housing to South Africans, let alone foreign residents. That position conflicts with International Law, which holds that States have a clear responsibility to protect the basic human rights – including the right to adequate housing and protection against forced eviction – of people residing in their territory. This applies to both lawful and unlawful residing migrants.”

Furthermore, the Department of Housing has both a mandate and the means to play a role in providing housing assistance to affected persons. Chapter 12 of the National Housing Code, entitled “Housing Assistance in Emergency Housing Situations” stipulates that municipalities and provincial government can access assistance in the form of grants from the National Department of Housing in order to “respond rapidly to emergencies by means of land, municipal services infrastructure and shelter.” The Code also states (echoing Principle 28 of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement), that this includes the possible relocation and resettlement of people on a voluntary and cooperative basis.

The principles of the Emergency Housing Programme outlined in the National Housing Code, also clearly state that “where the resettlement of families is required, the alternative location where feasible and practical should be as close as possible to the existing one …” An Emergency exists when the Emergency Housing Steering Committee, on application by a municipality or province, deems that people are affected. The Programme defines an emergency along a number of lines, including when people have been “displaced or threatened with imminent displacement as a result of a state of civil conflict or unrest, or situations where pro-active steps ought to be taken to forestall such consequences.” An emergency is also defined as one where people “live in conditions that pose immediate threats to life, health and safety and require assistance.”

In terms of the Housing Code only one criterion needs to be fulfilled in order for affected persons to qualify for assistance: “[T]he Programme will benefit all affected persons who are not in a position to address their housing emergency from their own resources…” The normal standard qualification criteria, including nationality and marital status, contained in the National Housing Code do not apply. Assistance under the Programme may also be allowed for non-lawful residents.

Du Plessis said, “These are undoubtedly extraordinary circumstances, requiring a combination of compassion and extraordinary action. The violent xenophobic attacks and harassment in South Africa, which have been condemned by the South African Government, demand that all Government departments – including the Department of Housing – act decisively to facilitate the reconciliation and the reintegration of the victims. They should be assisted to re-establish themselves and to live peacefully, as before, in communities of their choice.”

For further details or interviews, contact:
Jean du Plessis, COHRE Deputy Director, on cell +27.825575563