WSF-Press release on Right to the City-Women’s Housing and Land Rights

Activity on the Right to the City

The pluralistic, open and collective initiatives of international, social and non-governmental organizations advocating the right to the city have taken the form of a World Charter for the Right to the City which has been promoted and discussed in various events and by different actors, including UNESCO and UN Habitat, among others. Currently, there are hundreds of bodies which have joined the World Charter.

That is why we are once again convening to share this process and strengthen the links between our actions in the workshop “The Struggle for Urban Reform: The Right to the City as an Alternative to Neoliberalism” (January 29th, all day). The workshop will make advances in defining collective strategies and a unified agenda of movements, networks and organizations for the implementation of participatory democracy, the spread of self-managed processes in the social production of habitat, the fight for universal access to water and against the privatization of sanitation services and the right to the city as a fundamental human right.

For more information: hic-net.org (in English and French) and www.hic-al.org (in Spanish)

Contact:
lorena@hic-al.org (Habitat International Coalition – América Latina, HIC-AL, Mexico)
reginaferreira@fase.org.br (Forum Nacional de Reforma Urbana, FNRU, Brasil)
sebastian@cohre.org (Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions – COHRE, Brasil)

Activities on Women’s Housing and Land Rights at the World Social Forum

The Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR) from India and Equalinrights from the Netherlands are heading a group of more than 70 organizations under the World Social Forum’s Human Dignity and Human Rights Caucus. The group will host a workshop at the WSF entitled “Women’s Right to Livelihood: Addressing Development and Displacement” on January 30 from 12:30-3:30pm. The workshop debates will include a range of topics to define women’s right to livelihood, by examining the effects that development-induced displacement has on women’s lives. Raquel Rolnik, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, will participate in the presentation panel to represent women’s housing and land rights issues.

Another event will focus specifically on women’s housing and land rights, hosted by several organizations including the Latin American and Caribbean Committee on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CLADEM), Habitat International Coalition – Latin America (HIC AL), Habitat International Coalition – Women and Shelter Network (HIC WAS), Habitat International Coalition – Red Mujer y Hábitat (HIC RMH), the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), União Nacional por Moradia Popular-UNMP (Brazil), Espaço Feminista para democracia e direitos humanos (Brazil), and Huairou Commission. The event will be held on January 30th from 8:30-11:30am, and will include a panel discussion of several speakers including Elba Núñez and Norma Enriquez (CLADEM), Maria das Graças Xavier, Luzia Albuqueque, Patricia Chaves, and Zulmira Barros de Oliveiras (Brazil).

Civil Society Messages to the 9th Africities Summit

Civil Society Messages to the 9th Africities Summit

A self-organized civil-society initiative hosted 45 civil organization representatives this week at Kisumu, Kenya on 15–16 May to deliberate and consolidate messages to the Africities9 Summit. The Civil Society Forum [...]