Sign on to this let­ter, call­ing for acknowl­edg­ment of and adher­ence to the rights guar­an­teed to the internally-displaced.

Kreyol
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Action­Aid Haiti, Bagay Dwol Haiti Relief Fund, Canada Haiti Action Net­work, Cen­tre Med­ical Social Port au Prince, Kon­bit pou Ayiti (KONPAY), Hait­ian Amer­i­can Orga­ni­za­tion for Social & Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment (HAOSED), Health Empow­er­ing Human­ity, Honor and Respect Foun­da­tion, Human Rights Accom­pa­ni­ment In Haiti, Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti, Inter­na­tional Action Ties, Lambi Fund, Men­non­ite Cen­tral Com­mit­tee U.S. Wash­ing­ton Office, Part­ners in Health (PIH), People’s Health Movement-USA, Quixote Cen­ter, Sus­tain­able Organic Inte­grated Liveli­hoods (SOIL), TransAfrica Forum, UnityAy­iti: Boston Sol­i­dar­ity with Haiti, World Ser­vice of Mercy, You. Me. We.

Back­ground

After the earth­quake of Jan­u­ary 12th, over 2 mil­lion sur­vivors left the wreck­age of their homes and sought refuge in camps con­structed on any open land. The Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate landown­ers have evicted thou­sands of res­i­dents from these encamp­ments with­out a viable alter­na­tive for their relo­ca­tion, and in some cases with no alter­na­tive at all.

The UN and Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment agreed on April 22 to an imme­di­ate 3-week mora­to­rium on forced evic­tions which expired, Thurs­day, May 13th. Within that period reports of evic­tions con­tin­ued. Human­i­tar­ian aid, includ­ing food, water and san­i­ta­tion facil­i­ties have been cut off in tar­geted camps (1, 2). In other loca­tions, res­i­dents are being harassed and abused by the police. The peo­ple most affected by the earth­quake, those who have lost their fam­i­lies, homes and liveli­hoods, now live in fear that they may be vio­lently forced to leave their present set­tle­ments with­out viable options estab­lished for relo­ca­tion (2).

These actions are pro­hib­ited under the UN’s Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples on Inter­nal Dis­place­ment. The UN Prin­ci­ples, which are based upon inter­na­tional human­i­tar­ian law and human rights instru­ments, estab­lish the frame­work for pro­tect­ing the rights of dis­placed peo­ple, includ­ing the right to basic ser­vices (food, water, shel­ter, edu­ca­tion, med­ical ser­vices, and san­i­ta­tion) and to be pro­tected from vio­lence (4). When these rights are not upheld, UN agen­cies are oblig­ated to call on rel­e­vant par­ties to respect them (5). Specif­i­cally, the OCHA CCCM Cluster-designated Camp Coor­di­na­tor is charged with devel­op­ing an “exit/transition strat­egy for camp clo­sures while ensur­ing that responses are in line with … stan­dards includ­ing rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment, human rights, and legal oblig­a­tions” (7, 8).

Peti­tion Text: Click here to sign

As sign­ers of this peti­tion, we are urgently con­cerned about the treat­ment of Inter­nally Dis­placed Per­sons who are being forcibly evicted and invol­un­tar­ily relo­cated from camps in Haiti with­out hab­it­able alter­na­tives. We call on the Gov­ern­ment of Haiti, the United Nations, espe­cially the rel­e­vant secu­rity and human rights author­i­ties and OCHA, to affirm the rights of IDPs and rapidly imple­ment a pol­icy uphold­ing these rights.

We call for an imme­di­ate stop to forced evic­tions and the devel­op­ment of a human rights mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem to ensure that fur­ther vio­lence and vio­la­tions do not take place. A trans­par­ent process to relo­cate camp inhab­i­tants that is rights-based and pro­tects earth­quake vic­tims is essen­tial for national recov­ery to occur in a man­ner that pro­motes dig­nity and is sen­si­tive to the needs expressed by the com­mu­ni­ties.
Specif­i­cally, we call for those respon­si­ble, account­able and empow­ered to put into place:

1. An expan­sion of cov­er­age and time exten­sion for the mora­to­rium on forced removals: Evic­tions and/or invol­un­tary removals from all camp set­tle­ments must be offi­cially sus­pended for an addi­tional 90 days to allow alter­na­tive options to be explored and agreed upon.

2. An inde­pen­dent mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem: The OCHA Pro­tec­tion Clus­ter, MINUSTAH Human Rights Sec­tion and all other stake­hold­ers for human rights, includ­ing Hait­ian civil soci­ety, must imme­di­ately develop a col­lab­o­ra­tive sys­tem of inde­pen­dent mon­i­tors in loca­tions where IDPs face removal from their com­mu­ni­ties, both vol­un­tary and forced, to address com­plaints from dis­placed persons.

3. Gen­uine com­mu­nity con­sul­ta­tion: Com­mu­nity rep­re­sen­ta­tives and civil soci­ety, espe­cially women and the youth, must be included in all plan­ning processes, pro­mot­ing culturally-relevant solu­tions with respect and sup­port for self-determination. No viable or just solu­tions to the com­plex issue of reset­tle­ment can be deter­mined with­out dia­logue between those most affected and those upon whom it is incum­bent to pro­tect the rights of the Inter­nally Dis­placed Person.

Peti­tion Targets

Due to their influ­ence and respon­si­bil­ity to aid the sur­vivors of the earth­quake, we call upon these indi­vid­u­als to take all appro­pri­ate mea­sures to pre­vent another human tragedy in Haiti:

• Pres­i­dent René Gar­cia Pré­val, Repub­lic of Haiti

• Paul Antoine Bien-Aimé, Hait­ian Min­is­ter of the Inte­rior and Col­lec­tive Territories

• William J. Clin­ton, United Nations Spe­cial Envoy to Haiti

• Edmond Mulet, United Nations Sec­re­tary General’s Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Haiti and Head of Mis­sion, MINUSTAH, Haiti

• Niels Scott, Head of Office for the Coor­di­na­tion of Human­i­tar­ian Affairs (OCHA), Haiti

• Michel Forst, United Nations Inde­pen­dent Expert on Human Rights in Haiti

• Wal­ter Kälin, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Inter­nally Dis­placed Per­sons (UNHCR)

• Nigel Fisher, United Nations Human­i­tar­ian Coor­di­na­tor, Haiti

• Liz­beth Cúl­lity, Act­ing Chief, MINUSTAH Human Rights Sec­tion, Haiti

• Matt Huber, Senior Oper­a­tions Offi­cer, Inter­na­tional Orga­ni­za­tion for Migra­tion (IOM), Haiti

Sources:

1. “Haiti’s Res­ur­rec­tion: Pro­mot­ing Human Rights” Huff­in­g­ton Post. Mark Shuller, April 5, 2010.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-schuller/haitis-resurrection-promo_b_525104.html

2. Mem­o­ran­dum: IDP Forced Removal and Relo­ca­tion Updates — Inter­na­tional Action Ties. TransAfrica Forum.

April 12, 2010. http://www.transafricaforum.org/policy-overview/where-we-work/haiti-earthq-2010/forced-idpreloc-memo-412101.

3. Log of Camp Evic­tion activ­i­ties, April 7–19, com­piled by Inter­na­tional Action Ties of the Haiti Response Coalition

4. OCHA Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples on Inter­nal Dis­place­ment http://www.unhcr.org/43ce1cff2.html. While the Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples are non-binding, the 2005 UN World Sum­mit unan­i­mously approved the guide­lines for the treat­ment of IDPs. These rights were cod­i­fied through inter­na­tional human rights instru­ments that are bind­ing on the Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment, includ­ing the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child (guar­an­tee­ing chil­dren the right to ade­quate stan­dard of liv­ing, hous­ing, nutri­tion, and free edu­ca­tion), the Con­ven­tion of the Elim­i­na­tion of Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against Women (rec­og­niz­ing the equal right to men and women to choose where they live and to par­tic­i­pate in pol­i­tics), and the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights (rec­og­niz­ing the right to an ade­quate stan­dard of liv­ing, includ­ing secu­rity and hous­ing). “Sta­tus of Rat­i­fi­ca­tions of the Prin­ci­pal Inter­na­tional Human Rights Treaties; as of 14 July 2006.” Office of the United Nations High Com­mis­sioner for Human Rights. Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the

Child was rat­i­fied by Haiti in 1995 and is avail­able at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/k2crc.htm; the Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against Women was rat­i­fied by Haiti in 1981 and is avail­able at

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/e1cedaw.htm; the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights was entered in 1948 and is avail­able at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/. See also UN Com­mis­sion on Human Rights Res­o­lu­tion 2004/28 reaf­firm­ing the prac­tice of forced evic­tion con­sti­tutes a grave vio­la­tion of human rights, and “strongly urges Gov­ern­ments to under­take imme­di­ately mea­sures, at all lev­els, aimed at elim­i­nat­ing the prac­tice of forced evictions.”

5. Terms of Ref­er­ence for Camp Coor­di­na­tor. One Response — Global Clus­ters — Camp Coor­di­na­tion and Man­age­ment. Cre­ated 6/9/2009, mod­i­fied by Patrick Gor­don. http://oneresponse.info/GlobalClusters/

Camp%20Coordination%20Management/publicdocuments/Forms/AllItems.aspx

6. “Dis­placed Fear Expul­sion from Makeshift Camps” IPS News. Ansel Herz, April 8, 2010 http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50965

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