May 05, 2008

Human rights under the microscope as India faces UN examination

WHAT: Nearly 30 years after ratifying the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),  India’s record on health, housing, food, water, work, and rights of women and children is being held up for international inspection. Progress on rights to self-determination, trade union, social security, self-determination, cultural rights, gender equality and an adequate standard of living are all under the microscope.

As independent experts who make up the ICESCR Committee convene, the world is waiting to see how India measures up. An outcome of the review, on the basis of the Government of India’s report and additional submissions from civil society organisations, will be a ‘report card’, in the form of Concluding Observations. Civil society groups will use this to press Government of India for concrete action to improve the country’s record on human rights.

WHEN: On May 7 and 8, a ministerial delegation from India answers questions posed by the UN Committee that monitors legal compliance with ICESCR commitments. The convention was ratified by India on 10 July 1979.

WHY: The Indian government report is long overdue. Countries that have ratified the UN Covenant are obliged to submit regular periodic reports (initially within two years of ratification and then every five years) detailing steps towards realizing human rights listed in the ICESCR. India’s report comes after a gap of 17 years.

The review comes at a critical juncture when the current model of economic growth is emerging as a serious threat to lives and livelihoods of India’s poorest citizens. This has prompted more than 350 civil society organizations and peoples’ movements from across the country to present parallel reports that supplement and counter information provided by the Government.

Agrarian crisis leading to farmer suicides, declining farm produce, rising food prices

Trends detailed in ‘shadow reports’ that are of grave concern to Indian human rights watchers include:

• Agrarian crisis leading to farmer suicides, declining farm produce, rising food prices and threat to food security
• Large-scale evictions in rural and urban India accelerated by urban renewal, Special Economic Zones (449 SEZs approved as of February 2008 out of which 206 have been notified) and forced land acquisition
• Rampant real estate speculation making housing and land unaffordable and pushing more people into inadequate living conditions
• The persistence of emergency conditions faced by tsunami survivors, and the looming threat of displacement with the proposed Coastal Zone Management overruling the Coastal Regulation notifications, 1991
• Use of national rural employment guarantee scheme for promoting an unsustainable venture such as Jathropha plantations for bio fuels. (Ministry of Forest and Environment officials revealed in a task force meeting in 2007 that 10% of forest land in the North eastern states will be used for Jathropha cultivation)
• Rising state impunity and state-sponsored violence with regard to movements like Salwa Judum; and arbitrary detentions, for example those still in detention under the now repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act under which over 200 people are still being held in Gujarat
• State enabled environmental and human rights violations by the corporate sector, such as in Niyamgiri hills, Orissa, and Nandigram in West Bengal

Groups worst affected include:

• Women are facing wide-scale violation of economic, social and cultural rights. Four of the most worrying trends are declining sex ratio (from 945 girls for every 1000 boys in the 1991 census to just 927in 2001), rising maternal mortality, discrimination against women living with HIV/AIDS and growing violence against women, particularly in militarised areas such as Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast
• Children are facing high rates of mortality and malnutrition (46% of infants are underweight as per the National Family Health Survey 2005-6), and the number of street children rising;
• Destruction of self-employment of the most marginalized in the retail sector, indiscriminate and forced displacement of indigenous people (in just four states Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand 1.4 million families have been displaced by ‘development’ projects such as mining and power plants. In areas surveyed by ActionAid in their report ‘Resource rich, tribal poor’, over 79% of those displaced are tribals for whom rehabilitation and resettlement programmes are not working)
• Denial of basic services such as water and electricity to the majority and continued discrimination against religious and sexuality minorities, dalits, adivasis, persons with disabilities and people living with HIV/AIDS.
• Discrimination against dalit children and teachers who are forced out of schools and anganwadi centres because of their caste, still prevailing inhuman practice of manual scavenging in India
• Ghettoisation of Muslims resulting in social and economic insecurity and breakdown of traditional occupations

WHO: Organisations that have submitted shadow reports from India include: ActionAid, FIAN India, Housing and Land Rights Network, North East Dialogue Forum, National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights, People’s Collective for Economic Social and Cultural Rights, People’s Initiative for Peace, United NGOs Mission. Representatives of some of these organizations will attend the Committee session in Geneva to draw attention to persistent human rights violations in India.

READ REPORTS: To read the Government of India’s report (combined 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th periodic report) submitted in October 2006 and shadow reports submitted by civil society organisations: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/cescrs40.htm   

To download pdf of the Shadow Report submitted by ActionAid and 152 other organisations:

Ends.

May 08