Published on: 3 March 2016
Maria Lucia Santos Pereira da Silva, from the National Movement for the Street Population (Movimento Nacional da População de Rua: MNPR) is 48 years old and16 of these years were lived on the streets. She is to take the voice and experience of someone who knows what it is like not to have rights to the summit of the highest level human rights organization on the planet – the United Nations Human Rights Council.
A member of the National Council for the Follow up and Monitoring of the Policy for the Street Population and an elected representative of the MNPR, Maria Lucia will comment on the recommendations of the Special Report on Adequate Housing, which, in its current edition on 4 March in Geneva, will discuss homelessness.
An activist since 2008, together with the movement, she is gathering material to take to the UN. According to Maria Lucia, the visibility which this opportunity creates is crucial to strengthening the movement and promoting discussions about the rights of “invisible” street people around the world, “This is not exclusive to Brazil,” she noted.
According to this leader, the main aim is to achieve the political coordination required to hold a seminar which promotes the debate at international level. “With so many immigrants fleeing wars, it is best to start thinking about what to do, because the streets cannot support so many people,” added Maria Lucia.
Before leaving
On 22 February, Lucia attended a meeting with civil society organizations at the Ecumenical Coordination of Service (Coordenadoria Ecumênica de Serviço: CESE). “I cannot go to an event like this without taking note of contributions from other groups, otherwise this would not be a social movement. It was a very rich meeting. I can add issues concerning access to housing in the context of both Bahia and Brazil to the discussions about rights violations. I will also take with me the pain of our young people, who are being exterminated. I have the responsibility of voicing the rallying cries of other movements. Unity makes us stronger,” she reflected.
The invitation to join the UN round table came about as a result of a meeting that CESE coordinated, between 19 and 22 September 2015, with UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Rita Izsák. At that meeting, quilombolas and leaders from Candomblé communities, women’s and street people’s movements reported on the reality of rights violations of those represented by the Rapporteur. The Rapporteur was instructed to present a report to the Brazilian government and the UN Human Rights Council, based on the dialogues, statements and documents that were presented, and containing her conclusions and recommendations.
Homelessness and the issue of adequate housing
The report produced by Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha analyses how a lack of adequate housing constitutes a human rights violation. This material was constructed out of responses from 25 representatives of the States, including some from civil society, during a meeting in Buenos Aires in 2015.
The report suggests that the increase in the street population – observed throughout the world – is directly related to the global human rights crisis and increased wealth and property inequality. The document addresses issues of gender, ethnicity and mental health, and describes the range of violations to which this population is subject.
Beyond the evident violence and unhealthy conditions, the street population does not have access to other basic and essential rights related to a dignified life, due to a lack of adequate housing. According to Farha’s report, even in States that possess adequate resources to solve the homeless situation, the problem is rarely treated as a human rights violation that require positive measures for elimination and the prevention of recurrence.
“The issue of housing is central, since various other issues depend on it. Lack of access to health or to work, with nowhere to return to at the end of the day”, Maria Lucia noted. Countering the stigma that assumes that people are on the streets by choice, the MNPR leader recalled her own experiences on the streets and asserted that the problem resides in a lack of specific public policies for this population.
“Governments need to mobilize themselves for the inclusion of this population in adequate housing, because this is a specific population”, she noted. She explained that her assertion arises from the fact that many people are taken off the streets and relocated to places that do not meet their needs, as is the case with people with special needs and health problems.
According to Maria Lucia, the State’s indifference is general – it is the municipalities who effect the laws and make sure they reach the most vulnerable population, yet they prefer to return funding allocated for investment in the necessary policies. Such policies require specific studies and analyses, however, the government does not appear to be interested in this.
“It is shameful that we still see so many people sleeping on the streets – violated, beaten, murdered, suffering all kinds of prejudice on a daily basis. The only thing we want is to provide at least the guarantee of life to each and every one, and the government cannot turn its back on us for this,” she declared.
There are no official data in Brazil about the number of people who sleep on the streets – the street population is not considered by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística: IBGE). This lack of numbers hampers the transfer of funding for public policies aimed at this group.
(Includes information from Terra de Direitos – Human Rights Organization)