Africa/Global: Called to take action against housing and land rights violations

On World Habitat Day, 3 October 2005, the United Nations (UN) chose the theme ''The Millennium Development Goals and the City”, which serves as a reminder of the enormous efforts needed to ensure that progress is made towards the achievement of the goals agreed upon by the international community and set out in the Millennium Declaration and reaffirmed at the World Summit 2005 held in New York in September.

With daily reports of land and housing violations by nations against its citizens, the Millennium Development Goals with regard to land rights needed to be repeated. On World Habitat Day, Miloon Kothari from the UN Human Rights Commission said that ''adequate housing was a right for all'' (UN Press Release, 3 October 2005).

Similarly, on World Habitat Day, the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN, 2005) launched a new and interactive website, whereby its members and the general public could report land and housing violations. The website has built a simple database with a list of basic information on the world's most common housing and land rights violations. The general public and members can document violations such as:
- Forced evictions
-Demolitions
-Confiscation and
-Privatization of public goods and services.

The full article of the UN press release titled ''Adequate housing: A Right for all'' can be read at
http://www.hlrn.org/news_show_user.php?id=104

Further details of the HLRN database can be obtained from http://www.hlrn.org

* Posted by Mandlakazi Moetsoledi, Fahamu intern