Housing rights violations pose challenge for ASEAN human rights body

Forced eviction in Cambodia (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

COHRE said that in Cambodia, land and housing rights violations have become one of the most prevalent forms of human rights violation following the destruction of the country’s land and property records in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge rule. Tens of thousands have been dispossessed of their lands, dwellings and properties by powerful economic and political forces identified with the country’s elite and their allies in big business. For example, more than 3,000 families living around Boeung Kak Lake in Phnom Penh have suffered or are currently threatened with forced eviction in the context of a land development project that involves filling the lake.

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), an international human rights organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, on Sunday called on the newly-established ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) to seriously address housing rights violations in the region.

The call came as the AICHR meets in Kuala Lumpur in its second-ever meeting, after being established by ASEAN in October 2009.

Since its establishment, the Commission has been dogged by criticism that it is “toothless”, as it does not have the power to investigate cases of human rights violations in the region.

“Tens of millions of people in Southeast Asia today endure various levels of housing rights violations and insecurity of tenure. Most of them are poor and the vulnerable,” said Sammy Gamboa, COHRE’s Asia Programme Officer, speaking from the site of the meeting in Kuala Lumpur.