[…the right to adequate housing {is} a basic human right … people should be protected by law against unfair eviction from their homes or land]
AGENDA 21 (paras.7. 6 & 7.9 b)
Forced evictions have become a common phenomenon and a constant threat to urban dwellers in Sierra Leone. The practice of forced eviction involves the involuntary removal of persons from their homes or land, directly or indirectly attributable to the State. It includes the effective elimination of the possibility of an individual or group living in a particularly house, residence or place, and the assisted (in the case of resettlement) or unassisted (without resettlement) movement of evicted persons or groups to other areas. Forced evictions can affect both individuals and groups. They can be either mass in character or of smaller scale. The starting point for examining this practice from a human rights perspective must be the direct impact of forced evictions on the human rights of persons and groups affected. While the practice of forced eviction itself may constitute a violation of human rights, many additional human rights can also be severely compromised when such evictions occur.
The instances of which additional human rights can be severely compromised during eviction process are quite explicit. When children are unable to attend school due to a forced eviction, the right to education is sacrificed. When families and communities are torn apart by eviction, the right to family life is infringed. When people lose their source of employment or business, the right to work is breached. When psychological and physical health is damaged by the constant threat of eviction, issues of the right to health are raised. When uninvited eviction squads forcibly enter one’s home, the rights to privacy and to security of the home are violated. Legal obligations enshrined in the 1994 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols thereto prohibit the displacement of the civilian population and the destruction of private property as these relate to the practice of forced eviction.
Sierra Leone is a party to most of the major International Human Rights Treaties within the United Nations system. Various United Nations human rights bodies have declared forced evictions to be “gross violations of human rights” and particularly Governments have been asked to eradicate them to the maximum possible extent. One United Nations Special Rapporteur has emphasized that “the issue of forced removals and forced evictions has in recent years reached the international human rights agenda because it is considered a practice that does grave and disastrous harm to the basic civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of large numbers of people, both individual persons and collectivities (E/CN.4 2/1993/8, para. 21).
There is clear evidence in Sierra Leone that both past and current Governments have carried out unplanned forced evictions against urban dwellers of which 95% of the affected persons were low-income and other vulnerable groups. No matter what reasons any government may advance, to be persistently threatened or actually victimized by the act of forced eviction from one’s home or land is surely one of the most supreme injustices any individual, family, household or community can face. In some cases, the affected persons or communities have no alternative but to take the law into their hands through confrontations. Confrontations of this nature were frequently seen during the previous government at Hill Top, Off Hill Station in which a senior lands official was brutally murdered; at Juba Hill where government bulldozer was burnt down to ashes to name a few. The perpetual insecurity of people intimidated by this practice, coupled with the frequent use of physical violence during its carrying out, have long since revealed the personal and collective trauma invariably inflicted on those faced with the prospect of forced eviction. No one volunteers to be an evictee.
The duty of Government not to subject its citizens to forced eviction indisputably has universal relevance for all States. While particular elements of the human right to adequate housing may be more difficult or take longer to attain for poorer States such as Sierra Leone, any assumption that the prohibition of forced evictions is only a progressive obligation is seriously flawed. It is the responsibility of Government to implement policies that will not undermine the right and dignity of its citizens. Government can act immediately to halt forced evictions and ensure this aspect of the housing rights of its citizens. In the final analysis, a lack of available resources cannot be used to justify forced evictions. This practice can be effectively eliminated when and where Government chooses to do so. Although some types of forced eviction may be unavoidable, the human costs involved are so extensive that any justification must be analysed within a human rights framework. For example, in the western area, the Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and Environment has been actively involved in demolition of houses and other structures in the pretext that those structures are erected in what they called “state lands”. Women, children and youth, low-income social groups and those without legal security of tenure tend to suffer disproportionately from the practice of such forced eviction.
The manner in which many evictions are carried out in the western area, notwithstanding the existence of guidelines on relocation, contributes significantly to the human hardship inherent in the process. Despite the existence of a National Human Rights Commission supposedly to advice government on policies that have human rights bearing, the use of violence and terror tactics as methods of facilitating forced evictions remains disturbingly common. The recent demolition of market stalls, entertainment centres, stores at Jui axis in which possessions were catered away by the demolitions squads is a case in point. The term such as “unavoidable” and “in the public interest” seek to indicate the inevitability of eviction, but are frequently used before exploring possible alternatives to a planned eviction. In most cases, evicted persons and communities do not receive any form of compensation whatsoever; where it is provided, it tends to fall far short of the requirements of those moved. This situation is clearly unsatisfactory viewed from any angle, and even more so seen from the human rights perspective.
Sierra Leone as a democratic state has the legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfils the human right to adequate housing and by inference not to sponsor, tolerate or carry our forced evictions. Human rights law is central in the quest to protect people from the frequent violence and despair so commonly associated with the eviction process. The poorest in society are by far the most frequent victims of this human rights violation – that is, the social group already disproportionately denied other rights relating to an adequate standard of living. It is obviously that the circumstances leading to forced eviction are to some extent, due to the larger wealth disparities and the supply of land particularly for housing in the western area is constrained. More often though, most of the forced evictions carried out by the Land Ministry in what they claim to be ‘state land’ can be attributed to high level of corruption in that Ministry. Most of the affected persons are often found possessing legal documents given to them by the same Ministry.
What our government should know in the modern dispensation of governance is that in implementing policies of good governance, human rights issues take precedence. Among other international instruments, Agenda 21 adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 directly addresses the issue of forced evictions. It states: “All countries should adopt and/or strengthen national shelter strategies, with targets based, as appropriate, on the principles and recommendations contained in the Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000. People should be protected by law against unfair eviction from their homes or land … (Para.7.9 (b).) Similarly, the Commission on Human Settlement has also urged all States to cease any practices which result, or could result, in infringements of the human right to adequate housing, in particular the practice of forced mass evictions and any form of discrimination in the housing sphere. Apparently every Sierra Leonean should be treated fairly in the area of right to land, rights to housing and right to good living standard. The practice of snatching ‘state lands’ from the poor and marginalized groups and at the same time selling it to the rich few and wealthy foreigners as the case had been at Hill Top, Off Hill Station must be discouraged.
In lieu of all these, a practical recommendation to the current government is, all Government Ministries engage in the practice of forced eviction should collaborate or team up with the National Human Rights Commission and other human rights institutions to develop a human rights-based relocation guidelines, eviction-impact statements and codes of conduct for use in exceptional circumstances. The ultimate goals of such procedures would be to protect the rights of potential evictees, reduce social tension and mitigate hardship.
GOD BLESS MAMA SALONE
By Abu Bakarr Kosie Kamara
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