Download the file - United Nations Rule of Law

314Summary of case studiespurposes. In general, increasing competition for land,increasing land values, and urban planning pressures linkedto beautification and gentrification were all involved.The residents of ‘Group 78’, who faced eviction in2006, were just one of many examples (see Box 5.6). In theircase, many residents already had documents issued by thelocal authorities recognizing their legal occupation of theland. Despite this, they were to be relocated to the outskirtsof the city because the land was needed to ‘contribute to citybeautification and development’. In order to fight for theirsecurity of tenure, such urban residents need support.However, such support has not come from any levelof the Cambodian government – national or local. Nor hasthis support come from international funding agencies.Support was provided by United Nations agencies and fromindividual embassies in Phnom Penh, such as that exemplifiedby the US ambassador’s statement. The bulk of supportfor the potential evictees did, however, come from localNGOs and, to some extent, international NGOs, such asHuman Rights Watch and the Asian Human RightsCommission. Human Rights Watch, for example, sent anopen letter to development agencies pointing out that theyneeded to do a better job of providing benchmarks for internationalassistance. These benchmarks would include theobservance by all levels of the Cambodian government ofhuman rights, transparency and good governance. They alsopointed out that the agencies forming the consultativegroup for Cambodia should also support civil societydirectly.In addition to the recommendations made by HumanRights Watch, there are a number of other steps that couldbe taken by communities under threat of evictions toenhance their security of tenure:• Awareness-raising. There is a need to enhance theaccess of all urban residents to information on proceduresfor registration of tenure rights, for appeals andfor redress. Information is also needed about availableland, urban planning proposals and private developmentproposals.• Planning alternatives. Once information is available tothem, communities can begin to formulate alternativeplans to those presented by local authorities or privatedevelopers. Such alternative plans are an essentialnegotiating tool.• Coordination. The Housing Rights Task Force requiresgreater support in coordinating the efforts of local andinternational NGOs.• International support. There is potential for increasedleverage based on international support, particularlywhere the media can publicize activities widely.In all of this, it must be emphasized that information and theprocess of information-gathering itself can be a powerful toolfor organizing communities.Security of housing tenure in the People’sRepublic of ChinaWithin five years after the founding of the People’s Republicof China in 1949, a rural land reform and the nationalizationof the urban building stock had virtually solved the historicproblem of endemic insecurity of tenure to land andhousing. With the deepening of economic reforms, begun in1978, problems of insecure tenure have gradually reemergedin both urban and rural areas.In the cities, newly installed governments commandeeredthe building stock and apportioned it, in a largelyegalitarian manner, to meet the most pressing needs of thelocal economy and population. Crowding, includingbathrooms and kitchens shared by multiple (and sometimesdozens of) families were endemic in large cities such asShanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin. On the positive side,however, rents were affordable and evictions were rare. Lowrents did, however, make it almost impossible to maintainthe quality of the housing or to invest in upgrading of infrastructureor new housing. By the early 1980s, a consensusemerged within government on the need to make housingself-financing (i.e. to remove it from the urban employmentwelfare package).Yet, this did not change the fact that housing remaineda resource drain for most cities. Neither state, nor collectiveenterprises, nor government agencies could pay wages thatallowed rents to cover the full costs of improved housing.Gradual salary and rent increases during the 1990s helped tolay the ground for the 1998 instruction to halt the distributionof housing as a welfare good. Instead, occupiers of publiclyowned housing were required to buy the apartments theyoccupied or to pay the market rent. With much of the existingstate-owned housing stock being offered at bargain prices,housing sales soared by the year 2000. In parallel, purchasesof commercial real estate, including luxury housing, grewrapidly, in step with China’s burgeoning economy.In the meantime, reforms in the agricultural sectordating from the late 1970s helped to kick-start what was tobecome a massive exodus of workers from rural areas. Manyof these moved into the fast-growing coastal cities filling theranks of construction workers, maids, street sweepers,factory hands in export industries, and most of the otherhard, dirty and low-paid jobs that permanent city residentsfrowned upon. Numbering just a few million in the early1980s, migrant workers in the cities today may total as manyas 200 million. Many of these have been forced off theirland, often illegally and violently, to make way for growingcities and new economic activities (see Box 5.11).Once in the cities, migrant workers’ security oftenure became and remains the weakest of any group ofChinese citizen (see also Box 5.17). While they maycomprise as much as one quarter of the long-term populationin China’s major cities, only about 2 per cent of them owntheir housing. Many such migrants are housed by theiremployers, enjoying shelter only for the duration of theirwork. Others rent rooms in illegally constructed or dilapidatedbuildings that are likely to eventually be demolished byauthorities. Even for migrants with steady jobs, averageincomes of US$2 to $4 per day do not permit access to