The criminalisation of homelessness is on the rise in Europe. Bans on begging, the 'cleansing' of public spaces or the installation of 'defensive' street furniture are just some of the practices increasingly used to restrict and deny the basic rights of some of society's most vulnerable citizens.
The UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty's new report on “Banning discrimination on grounds of socioeconomic status” was presented to the UN General Assembly in October 2022.
The report addresses the issue of discrimination on grounds of socio-economic disadvantage. Discrimination is part of the daily experience of people in poverty. It restricts access to employment, education, housing or social services, among others.
At its Forty-ninth session, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on Adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and the right to non-discrimination in this
In accordance with the European Social Charter reporting procedure, certain countries were exempted from reporting for the Conclusions 2021. These countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal, were instead invited to provide information on the follow-up given to the decisions of their respective collective complaints.
Author: Cezara David
Anti-discrimination Programme Manager
Centre for Legal Resources (CLR)[i]
“He threw us out like animals, telling us that ‘if you don't take your things out of the house now, you can't go in after them’. So many police and gendarmes came with dogs."
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s concluding observations on the combined twenty-second to twenty-fourth reports of the Netherlands offer insight on ways forward for the country regarding housing rights.
Reminders: The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its State parties.
Susheela Math
Legal Officer, Open Society Justice Initiative
Thousands of people across Denmark face eviction from their homes under the country’s “Ghetto Package,” which seeks to “eradicate” “ghettos” by 2030. The State distinguishes “ghettos” from other areas with the same socio-economic factors on the basis that the majority of residents are of what it calls “non-Western background.”
