PHA-Exchange> US Poor Charge Bush with Human Rights Violations

[Jennifer Cox]

Pleasr pass on. Spanish will be avaiable soon. For the actual petition and letter to the IAHRC, see www.economichumanrights.org or www.kwru.org
 
Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign: www.economichumanrights.org

THE POOR PEOPLE’S ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN (PPEHRC) REQUESTS HEARING BEFORE THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES ON THE  VIOLATION OF ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES, CANADA AND BRAZIL

On the eve of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. and the inauguration of George W. Bush, the PPEHRC filed a petition in world court charging the Bush administration with human rights violations.

On January 12, 2005, the legal committee of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign submitted a request for a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States on the violation of economic human rights in the United States, Canada and Brazil.  The groups requested that the Commission hold a hearing on the right to adequate housing in the Americas in their February session, and that the Commission schedule future hearings on the right to adequate income security and health care.

Both the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man and the American Convention on Human Rights require member countries to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to adequate housing.  Countries are obligated to progressively implement the right to adequate housing.  
PPEHRC and the other groups seek a general hearing on the status of the right to adequate housing to provide a better understanding of housing rights violations in the Inter-American region.

Although some communities in Brazil enjoy great wealth, many others suffer from abject poverty, live in starkly inadequate housing, such as slums, and/or are homeless altogether.  In particular, severe disparities in the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing exist across gender, racial, and ethnic lines.  

In Canada, gross disparities exist between indigenous persons and other Canadians, with a severe shortage of affordable housing disproportionately affecting indigenous communities.  Canada has not only failed to adequately address existing disparities, but has implemented a series of retrogressive measures that have increased and deepened housing violations for poor Canadians generally.   

In the United States, more than 3.5 million people suffer homelessness as some point within a given year, 1.35 million of whom are children.  While millions are affected by homelessness, even more are at risk because of the lack of affordable housing.  Approximately 14.3 million 
households, representing almost one in seven households in the United States, are severely burdened by the cost of housing, with housing payments accounting for more than 50% of their income.  Of these, approximately 12.5 million are at grave risk of becoming homeless, because wage levels, particularly for those working at minimum wage, are woefully insufficient to meet the rising costs of housing.
 
CONTACT INFO:

Kensington Welfare Rights Union
NUHHCE, ASFCME, AFL-CIO
PO Box 50678
Philadelphia, PA 19132-9720
Phone: 215/203-1945
Fax:   215/203-1950
email: kwru at kwru.org
web:   http://www.kwru.org

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