Discriminação

Land Rights and Ethnic Conflict in Burma

Published in Monday May 13th, 2013

Burma is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries. Ethnic minorities make up an estimated 30-40 percent of the total population, and ethnic states occupy some 57 percent of the total land area and are home to poor and often persecuted ethnic minority groups. Most of the people living in these impoverished and war-torn areas are subsistence farmers practicing upland cultivation. Economic grievances have played a central part in fuelling the civil war. While the central government has been systematically exploiting the natural resources of these areas, the money earned has not been (re)invested to benefit the local population.

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Chile’s social housing policy: creating socioeconomic ghettos?

Published in Wednesday May 8th, 2013 In In the media

Bajos de Mena — a housing project built on the periphery of Santiago between 1994-2004 — is currently the focus of a recently announced multimillion dollar government project to regenerate deprived areas. Despite having a population of more than 120,000, Bajos de Mena lacks a police or fire station, schools, good transportation links or even a supermarket. Housing vulnerable families from across the region, it has also become a hotbed of deprivation, social problems and crime. To understand how a project, which cost millions to build less than 20 years ago, once again requires such a huge investment, it is necessary to examine Chile’s unique social housing policy.

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Rebuilding the community of Meiktila, in Myanmar

Published in Wednesday April 24th, 2013 In In the media

After sectarian violence in the central Myanmar city of Meiktila, officials are working hard on reconstruction plans. The riots in March pitted Buddhists against Muslims, leaving dozens dead and a community in ruins. As you walk through the neighborhoods of Meiktila, it’s hard to escape the damage. A month after the violence here, burnt-down houses, destroyed businesses and torched cars dot the streetscape.

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Roma people still face ‘forced eviction’ throughout Europe

Published in Tuesday April 9th, 2013 In In the media

The executive should “take decisive action and play a central role” in ending discrimination against Roma people in Europe. The demand, from the charity Amnesty International, was made on Monday, designated ‘international Roma day’. It comes more than a decade after the EU adopted the race equality directive that bans racial or ethnic-based discrimination.

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Britain Pledges to Curtail Benefits for Immigrants

Published in Tuesday March 26th, 2013 In In the media

Prime Minister David Cameron promised more stringent rules Monday to reduce outsiders’ access to social, health and housing benefits, reflecting a fraught debate in Britain over the potential impact of increased immigration from southeast Europe that could fuel a rightist threat to his Conservative Party.
The prospect that citizens from Bulgaria and Romania could gain unfettered access to the British labor market under European Union rules has raised alarms among some Britons about competition for jobs, strengthening anti-immigrant sentiment and helping fuel the insurgent United Kingdom Independence Party.

Immigrants banned from housing waiting lists for up to five years

Published in Monday March 25th, 2013 In In the media

The Prime Minister will use a speech on Monday to make it clear that he believes tough new moves on housing are needed because Britain became a “soft touch” for immigrants during the years Labour were in power. In what is being billed as a landmark address on the subject, he will vow to bring to an end a situation where people can come to Britain and get benefits and public services without putting anything in, according to aides.

The World Bank must stop underwriting human rights abuses in Ethiopia

Published in Saturday March 23rd, 2013 In Social movement news

A leaked World Bank report calls for an investigation into allegations that a multi-billion dollar aid program in Ethiopia is underwriting the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities to free up fertile land to lease to investors.

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The housing situation of Roma communities

Published in Wednesday March 20th, 2013

Roma are more likely to live in poverty than non-Roma citizens. They have a higher risk of unemployment, stay in school for fewer years, and many live without access to drinking water, sanitation and electricity. Roma are more likely to suffer from chronic illness and have less access to health services. UNDP works with national partners to promote inclusion of Roma into economic, social, political and community life and in this publication they analyze the housing situation in Roma communities and the discrepancies regarding their non-Roma neighbors.

Myanmar’s ‘worrying’ transition

Published in Monday March 18th, 2013 In Opinion

Myanmar’s icon of democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, has let down people protesting for land rights, saying she wasn’t in politics for popularity. Scott Leckie, director of the Switzerland-based NGO Displacement Solutions, has worked on Myanmar’s human rights issues for more than 25 years and tells DW about the country’s concerning developments.

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Threat of Foreclosure on California Homes Disproportionately Affects Minorities

Published in Monday March 18th, 2013 In In the media

An overwhelming majority of homes in California’s major cities that are in danger of foreclosure are also in majority-minority ZIP codes, according to a report released this week. The report focuses particularly on homes with mortgages serviced by Wells Fargo. Of the 21 major California cities examined, more than eight in 10 homes in danger of foreclosure are in areas where at least half of its residents are minorities—evidence, the report’s authors say, that further supports the idea that the housing crisis has been particularly harmful to African-American and Hispanic homeowners.