NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS ADDRESS COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights this afternoon heard statements from a series of non governmental organizations (NGOs) on the situation of economic, social and cultural rights in Nicaragua, Sweden, Kenya and the Philippines.
In advance of the Committee’s review of the periodic reports of Nicaragua, Sweden, Kenya, the Philippines and Angola, NGO representatives spoke about, among others, the ban on therapeutic abortion and the violation of women's rights to health and life in Nicaragua; the weaknesses of the agrarian reform programme and access to health care in the Philippines; sustainable development for the benefit of the target population in Nicaragua; the negative attitudes, lack of awareness of rights and needs, lack of cooperation between stakeholders, and sometimes a lack in economic resources when dealing with disabilities in Sweden; sex-discriminatory provisions in constitutions, statues, and customary law in Kenya; and agrarian reform programmes in the Philippines.
The representatives of the following NGOs took the floor: Centre for Reproductive Rights, World Organisation Against Torture, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Filippino Network on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, FIAN International, Nicaraguan Chapter of the Inter-American Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development, Swedish Disabilities Federation, International Harm Reduction Association on Sweden, Federation of Women Lawyers, International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, and the Centre for Minority Rights Development.
During its present session, the Committee will also consider the periodic report of Angola, but no NGOs from that country were present.
When the Committee reconvenes at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 4 November, it will begin its consideration of the combined second to fourth periodic report of Nicaragua (E/C.12/NIC/4).
General Statements by NGOs
XIMENA ANDION, of the Centre for Reproductive Rights, said that, while the Centre was based in New York, the lawyers from the Centre worked around the world to hold Governments responsible for human rights violations. The Centre had submitted shadow reports to the Committee on the situations in Nicaragua, Kenya and the Philippines. In relation to Nicaragua, concerns included the ban on therapeutic abortion and the violation of women's rights to health and life. In Kenya, women in health care facilities were subjected to humiliating treatment and inadequate facilities and the Centre expressed concern about women's deaths. Women living with HIV/AIDS often encountered negative reactions and bias from health care providers, and were turned away from health services. In the Philippines, there was a lack of access by women to modern contraceptives. In Manila there was a ban on such contraceptives. There was also a ban on abortion, a lack of access to post-abortion care, and a high rate of maternal mortality in the Philippines.
MICHAEL MILLER, of the World Organisation Against Torture, said that together with its national partners, the World Organisation Against Torture has submitted two alternative reports for the Committee’s consideration. The two reports shared a common approach based on the conviction that torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment and other forms of violence were related in many ways to—and were often directly caused by—the disrespect for economic, social and cultural rights. If, therefore, these phenomena were to be effectively eliminated, then their economic, social and cultural root causes must be firstly, understood and, secondly, effectively addressed. Acting to reduce levels of violence in a given society was a fundamental step toward ensuring the widespread enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. In both Kenya and the Philippines conflict and lack of security exposed citizens to situations that severely impeded their possibility of escaping from poverty, of working in just and favourable conditions, of providing care and education to their children and of enjoying an adequate standard of living and the highest attainable standard of health. Noted with concern, among others, was the increased violence against trade union leaders in the Philippines in recent years, and the alarming number of Filipino human rights defenders, human rights lawyers and indigenous or peasant activists engaged in defending economic, social and cultural rights who had been victims of disappearances or summary executions.
Furthermore Mr. Miller noted that socio-economic marginalisation led to desperation and hopelessness that found its expression in armed rebellion. In turn this rebellion became the justification for anti-insurgency activities by the Philippine military that regularly compromised the economic, social and cultural rights of rural communities. These activities prevented community members from working in their fields, restricted the movement of people and supplies in and out of villages and saw the billeting of troops in schools and other community facilities. These were only some of the mechanisms by which violence and the violation of economic, social and cultural rights were linked in the Philippines. Similar patterns were observed in Kenya and, indeed, in countries around the world.
CLAUDE CAHN, of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), said that the Centre had tabled three reports to the Committee, one on women's housing rights in the context of slums in Kenya; one on the issue of land and housing in the Philippines; and one on the situation of property restitution in Kosovo.
Reading out a statement by the Filippino Network on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Mr. Cahn said that major issues cited by the Committee in its concluding observations on the Philippines report reviewed in 1995 were still persisting today. Those issues included forced evictions, the vulnerable situation of children, the weaknesses of the agrarian reform programme and access to health care. The majority of the 1995 recommendations, such as increased budgets for the slum renovation programme, fast-tracking of the agrarian reform programme and others had been either not implemented or implemented only in part. Also of concern were the lack of a complaints mechanism and a lack of a clear human rights policy, heavy reliance on foreign loans and blind obedience to the International Monetary Fund, and a culture of corruption and impunity for such human rights violations as forced evictions. Furthermore, the Government had promoted large-scale mining, despite the impact on the indigenous people and on the environment.
Finally, addressing briefly concerns set out in the Centre on Housing Rights and Eviction's report on Kosovo, Mr. Cahn expressed concerns about the Roma groups that had been temporarily resettled in refugee camps that were contaminated by toxic waste from mine tailings. While actions had been undertaken to resettle those groups in the past, those activities had stalled for some time now. There had recently been testing for lead poisoning among the children at two of those sites with the following results: 2 children had levels below the contamination level; 102 were contaminated or had risky levels; and 22 children had such high levels it went beyond the amount the instruments could record.
Statements on Nicaragua
BRIGITTE McBAIN-HAAS of FIAN International, in a joint statement with the Nicaraguan Chapter of the Inter-American Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development, said that the Nicaraguan Government had to develop a progressive development strategy to combat and eradicate hunger beyond its "Programme Zero Hunger". That Programme had to meet the criteria of non-discrimination enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Nicaraguan Constitution, and to ensure that the allocation of the food voucher was truly for the poorest population with no resources of their own. Among others, the programme should take full advantage of the knowledge of civil society groups in the area of agriculture to ensure the success of development of sustainable development for the benefit of the target population; an independent monitoring mechanism should be established; an adequate food policy and a strategy of action should be adopted; and the Government should urgently adopt the draft Law on the Security and Safety of Food and Nutrition. In terms of housing, a series of abandoned projects should be rehabilitated and the issue should be made a priority for long-term action by the Government. There was also the need for an efficient and effective water development policy that contemplated not only the availability of water, but the quality of that resource. Today, many people suffered from lack of access to good quality water. In addition, the General Law on National Water Sources that had been approved in 2007 should be amended to ensure that the water supply could not be privatized.
BAYARDO IZABA SOLIZ of the Nicaraguan Chapter of the Inter-American Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development, said that the main cause for the deterioration of labour rights in Nicaragua was the lack of employment opportunities of quality owing to the limited development of national firms and a lack of international investment, which had resulted in a high level of migration among the economically active population. That situation was impacting much more heavily on the indigenous population. The lack of jobs coupled with the lack of a well-trained labour force and the lack of an entrepreneurial culture had led to situations of labour exploitation, gender discrimination, a lack of unions, and child labour. Labour policy had to work along educational policy, with an educational system that trained the workers of the future. The Government had to increase its spending on education by at least 6 per cent of its gross domestic product. The State also had to elaborate a labour policy that generated work, which would ensure that minimum wage would cover 100 per cent of the cost of basic products and would ensure free union rights. Furthermore, the Government had to work with civil society to develop a multi-sectoral approach that was effective in this area.
Statements on Sweden
ANNIKA AKERBERG, Swedish Disabilities Federation, said that the federation represented over half a million people with disabilities in Sweden. The Swedish Government did not answer the Committee’s question clearly, specifically with regard to the gap between legislation and the function of legislation in practice. The laws did not function in practice, and this was because of negative attitudes, lack of awareness of rights and needs, lack of cooperation between stakeholders, and sometimes a lack in economic resources. Furthermore, when it came to laws that did not function in practice, article 13 in the alternative report focused on education, and did not highlight pupils and students with special needs who did not receive support. She noted that more and more pupils were being separated into groups rather than integrated, essentially moving away from inclusive to exclusive groups which directly violated Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, among other international instruments.
In Sweden there were two types of school systems: public and free schools. Free schools were considered to be private schools and were increasing in numbers rapidly, conversely, public school numbers decreased. According to Swedish law Free schools had the right to deny students with special needs enrolment if they so choose to, which was unacceptable because it put pupils with special needs at a disadvantage denying them their equal right to education. Another example of where Swedish law did not work in practice was with the erection of new buildings where the law stipulated that all new buildings must provide accessibility to person with disabilities, however, this was not the case in practice. Persons with disabilities needed to be mainstreamed into society.
BERNE STALENKRANTZ of the International Harm Reduction Association of Sweden and the Swedish Drug Users Union, said that the discrimination faced by the disabled, as cited by proceeding speaker, was also being faced by intravenous drug users in Sweden. Sweden had a law forbidding pharmacies from selling syringes without a prescription. It also had a law since 2006 that allowed municipal and local health authorities to start syringe exchange programmes, but only one experimental programme had been started in the south of Sweden. In the capital, intravenous drug users obtained used syringes for as much as 10 euros that were possibly infected with HIV or Hepatitis C. In Sweden 98 per cent of intravenous drug users had acquired Hepatitis C within two years' of drug use, and more drug users were dying of Hepatitis C than HIV/AIDS, yet that issue was largely ignored by the Government.
CHRISTINA PAULSRUD, of the International Harm Reduction Association of Sweden, said that in Sweden drug users could not get clean needles. Therefore they shared needles. Today, Swedish drug users did not have the opportunity to stay uninfected from HIV and Hepatitis C. The International Harm Reduction Association was working to provide clean needles.
Statements on Kenya
AMBER SUITT, International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, in a joint report submitted with the Federation of Women Lawyers, said that to better comply with the guarantees under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Kenya must address sex-discriminatory provisions in its Constitution, statues, and customary law. Although women constitute the vast majority of agricultural labour including 89 per cent of the subsistence-farming labour force, and over 70 per cent of labour in cash-crop production, Kenyan women often lacked any legal claim to the land on which they lived and laboured. Women only held one per cent of registered land titles and only 5 per cent of jointly registered titles. There was no legal requirement that women be consulted when land registered in their husband’s name was sold. Women could lose in a moment, without their knowledge—much less their consent—the home where they lived and toiled for decades. Under some customary laws, women were prohibited from managing or controlling land—a serious barrier to realizing their economic, social and cultural rights. Numerous statues relied on discriminatory customary laws to govern land disputes, especially disputes concerning trust land and agricultural land on which the majority of Kenyans lived.
MUNINI MUTUKU, of the Centre for Minority Rights Development, said that they had submitted an alternative report to the Committee, along with the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya and the World Organization Against Torture on the causes of torture in Kenya, which sought to highlight and emphasize the strong link between the denial or the violation of economic, social and cultural rights and various forms of violence, including torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that emanated from that denial. Upon visiting a range of urban and rural communities, including the Maasai, the Ogiek, the Endorois, the Ilchamus and residents of Nairobi's informal settlements, it had become clear that the denial of economic, social and cultural rights had created inequalities characterized by exclusion from social benefits, exclusion from the distribution of resources and marginalization in the political arena. Kenya's poor, marginalized and minority populations were vulnerable groups that were often the first and most numerous victims of violence. The report gave particular emphasis to the fact that land was a critical and complex issue in Kenya. The politicization of that resource had worked to the detriment of the population. Among recommendations were that the Government recognize that land issues were often at the root of community violence in Kenya and that it take concerted steps to reach fair and just solutions to land disputes across the country, independent of political and ethnic interests.
Statement on the Philippines
SANDRA RATIJEU, FIAN International, said that the Government of the Philippines had failed to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food of the Filipino population as a State party which ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 34 years ago. Furthermore, not only was the State report of the Philippines long over-due, there had been no consultation with civil society groups regarding its report for the Committee. The Government of the Philippines admitted in its State report that there was still a large number of poor and hungry Filipinos today; while the rate decreased minimally in 2000 and 2003, the 2006 data on poverty and subsistence incidence showed that the number of the poor and hungry individuals had again risen from the 2003 level. The Government of the Philippines failed in its obligation to progressively realize the right to food of Filipinos because its financial resources had been used primarily for military spending and foreign debt payments, and not for economic and social services. Of main concern was the national agrarian reform programme, the CARP. In recommendations, among other things, the Government of the Philippines was urged to continue the agrarian reform programme, specifically the land acquisition and distribution component, so that the remaining private agricultural lands owned by influential families were distributed to qualified farmer-beneficiaries. The Government should also protect the farmers from the violence committed by landlords, private goons and alleged members of rebel groups.
Discussion
Committee Experts commented on the presentations. An Expert asked if the Swedish Disabilities Federation’s definition of disability was the same as that of the Swedish Government, and why were disabled persons not mainstreamed in society, was it due only to Government policy or were there other factors involving other segments of society? An Expert asked with the new act on discrimination, what could be improved with the implementation of such an act? An Expert asked how was it possible in Sweden where there was a very high level of health care and health facilities that over 20 per cent of the population remained uncared for, and where was this data retrieved from? With regard to drug users, an Expert asked how was the right to provide drug users with needles of concern to the Committee and therefore Covenant-based? An Expert further requested data on the transmission of diseases to drug users? An Expert asked how many women had been killed in Kenya as a result of armed conflict, and through violence from families or clans, and were there any women who worked in high positions in the Government or were judges in Kenya? A Committee Expert noted that 57 per cent of the Kenyan population rejected the draft Constitution of 2004, could it perhaps have addressed concerns raised today? An Expert asked how women could be restricted through the ownership of natural resources; and were there laws already in Kenya that took into account the Covenant? How could legal reform take place to be adapted with the Covenant?
In response to the Committee’s questions on the definition of disability in Sweden, a representative said that the organization and the Government had the same exact definition with respect to disability in Sweden. The organization worked towards good cooperation with the Government. It was further noted that the paradigm shift in 1988 with the World Action Plan on Disabilities had yet to be realized in Sweden, and as such was indicative of the reason why persons with disabilities had not been mainstreamed in society, and the Government still viewed this as a medical issue and not a human rights issue. The Swedish Institution of Statistics provided the organization with the statistics showing that 20 per cent of the population reported disabilities. In response to another question, a representative said that drug users also had a right to health, and to be safe from deadly diseases. In response to another question, representatives said that there was a Bomas proposed Constitution which was based on surveyed responses made by the Kenyan population, however, this was not considered when the 2004 draft constitution was brought forth for referendum. The Kenyan people rejected the draft Constitution because when the referendum was held, the draft did not include the Bomas proposed Constitution anywhere in the proposed draft Constitution.
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