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United Nations Rapporteur Decries "Assault on the Poor" in Canada
October 19, 2005, Washington, DC.

In a public address at George Washington University on Monday, Miloon Kothari, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, expressed grave concern about what he called “a systematic neglect of women’s right to housing” in Canada and the United States.

“There seems to be an assault on the poor,” he said.

In his address, Mr. Kothari presented his preliminary findings from the UN Consultation on Women and the Right to Adequate Housing in North America, held here from October 15-17. Witnesses from across Canada and the U.S. attended the consultation to present heart-wrenching testimony of their struggles to find and maintain safe, decent housing for themselves and their children. The testimonies showed that all too often, such struggles are worsened—not helped—by government policies and actions, Mr. Kothari said.

“When people think of housing and human rights, they might picture villages without water or urban shanty-towns in developing countries,” said Leilani Farha of the National Working Group on Women and Housing in Canada. “But Canada commits its share of human rights abuses in the area of housing. This Consultation exposed the homelessness, discrimination, domestic violence, and deplorable housing conditions women face in two of the world’s wealthiest countries.”

Witnesses at the Consultation described being forced from their homes in the dead of winter by abusive spouses, losing their children to foster care simply because they couldn’t find a home they could afford, paying most of their monthly income for homes that are overcrowded and unsafe, enduring physical and sexual assault on the streets and in homeless shelters, and encountering systematic discrimination from landlords who refused to rent to them because of their race, income, and sex.

And some of these conditions exist in our own back yard. Asia Czapska of Vancouver works with Justice for Girls, an organization serving poor and homeless girls. “Girls become homeless for many different reasons,” she explains. “Some are fleeing sexual abuse at home. Some are leaving foster placements where they are experiencing racism and violence. Some have been kicked out by their parents because they are lesbian or bisexual.” No matter how they end up there, Czapska says, the streets are especially dangerous for young girls, who are at risk of sexual violence and exploitation.

Several Aboriginal women from Canada attested to the extreme hardships they have faced due to the lack of safe, adequate housing. Beverley Jacobs of the Native Women’s Association of Canada noted that in Canada, 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing and been murdered, usually in the context of poverty and homelessness.

This was one of seven regional consultations that Mr. Kothari is conducting worldwide to gather information for his final report to the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights on women, land, and housing.

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