MONSUN nummer 1 (Bilaga till SYDASIEN nr 3/1999)

Save the Three Million Dhaka Slum Dwellers from Ruthless Eviction

Date: 19.08.1999
In the last couple of weeks, a wave of state violence swept over the Dhaka slums following a government decision to demolish all slums in the city. In the process, a good number of slums have already been razed to the ground, rendering nearly 50,000 poor men, women and children homeless and exposing them to the inclement weather in the monsoons. The police, armed hoodlums and bulldozers were wantonly used in this inhuman act of violence on the slum dwellers - the most vulnerable section of the urban population – and in the demolition of their fundamental and human rights.

Two and a half years ago, on 18 February 1997, the Prime Minister of the Government of Bangladesh pledged that no slum would be demolished without making proper rehabilitation arrangements for the victims. Unfortunately, the government has now turned its back on that commitment and virtually declared a war against the slum dwellers. The rationale being given for this reversal in policy is that the city slums have become a safe haven for terrorists and anti-social elements involved in various crimes including the illegal trade of narcotics and weapons.
Although elimination of crime and terrorism has been cited as the plea for the government crackdown on slums, it is common knowledge that the ordinary slum dwellers are not implicated in criminal activities and terrorism and actually they are being held hostage by the real terrorists and criminals.

The blanket charge hurled at them amounts to a humiliation of the poor citizens and offers an opportunity to the real terrorists and criminals as well as their godfathers to hide their true colours and escape the law. Not a single criminal or terrorist has been arrested from the slums so far demolished. This raises serious doubt about the professed aim of the operation and shows it up as a hoax.
Evicting the innocent slum dwellers without taking any effective measure against the real culprits is completely unjust, illogical and unethical. Moreover, the attempt to indiscriminately brand the slum dwellers as terrorists and criminals means a denial of the productive role they are playing in all industries including garment factories and in the transport, construction as well as domestic and city service sectors. It is apprehended that the dislodgment of the workers mostly dwelling in slums will have a telling effect on the overall economy of the country.

Though it has been stated by the government that the evicted slum dwellers would duly return to their villages, this expectation is utterly ill-founded as these people took shelter in the city slums after losing all their assets and access to livelihoods in their ancestral villages. The exploitation and oppression of money-lenders and natural calamities made them destitute, uprooted them from their familiar environment and hurled them into a whirlwind of insecurities in the city.
A number of studies show that the majority of urban slum dwellers in Bangladesh are victims of river erosion.
Rivers in Bangladesh are extremely treacherous - they frequently shift courses and devour hundreds of villages in the process, reducing a huge number of people to utter destitution overnight. The river erosion victims and those who lost their paternal land and houses due to oppression or poverty and were forced to seek refuge in the urban slums are internally displaced people who cannot obviously hope to find alternative shelter and employment when pushed back to the rural areas.

It has also been indicated by some quarters in the government that slum dwellers would be rehabilitated after eviction. One can easily understand that with no roofs over their heads in the ongoing rains and with no immediate means of livelihood, the evicted people will be compelled to disperse for unknown destinations, leaving no room to identify them for the purpose of rehabilitation. It is only when proper arrangements for their rehabilitation are made that slum dwellers can vacate their present abodes without suffering any loss and damage.

Although the government has recently taken some initiatives for rehabilitation, these are very insufficient for the huge slum population now threatened with eviction and, what is more, the implementation of the envisioned rehabilitation schemes is yet to begin.
The government has also indicated that initiatives for the rehabilitation of slum dwellers will be financed in future through commercial banks. While some of these initiatives are at an embryonic stage, some are still in the realm of imagination and these should be allowed to fully mature before making any move to clear slums.
A vital point which deserves mention in this context is that these exercises will only remain skin-deep so long as the root causes of poverty are not seriously addressed. The existing urban housing policy can not actually go far in meeting the housing needs of the slum dwellers due to its inherent elite bias. Experience shows that urban housing policies have always been oriented towards the rich and the influential.
This becomes clear when one looks into the actual reasons for the recent slum demolition which seems to have been prompted by the elite interest in urban land.

As already evident from circumstances, the land mafia in Dhaka are casting a covetous eye on the state-owned land, which, they hope, would be up for grabs once the slum dwellers are ousted. A recent government decision, communicated through the Land Ministry circular No. Bhum/Sha-8/Khajob/70/98/617/70/, dated 11.12.1998, to sell out the state-owned land in urban areas to the well-off section of the population, confirms this speculation. It also deserves mention that arrangements are meanwhile under way to sell the land vacated in the slums already demolished. Many slum dwellers have been squatting on government land for as long a period as 20-30 years and have a natural claim to such land when it comes up for sale. Unfortunately, the vacated slum land is being sold to others in utter disregard for the rights of slum dwellers and squatters.

The Bangladesh Constitution and many international Conventions uphold people's rights to livelihood and shelter as fundamental human rights and all government policies and programmes should therefore promote these rights. Even when it is beyond a government's capacity to promote the poor citizens' rights, they should not be trampled in such a violent manner as puts people's existence at stake. In their desperate struggle for survival and security, the Dhaka slum dwellers made much headway with micro-credits and other supports from NGOs without receiving any succour from the government.
The NGOs have already invested nearly Tk 2 billion in generating employment and building health, education and other social support networks for the urban poor. It is therefore a logical expectation that while the government fell short of fulfilling their constitutional obligations to provide food and shelter to the slum dwellers, they should desist from destroying the networks which the slum dwellers themselves have raised with the help of NGOs. The government should respect the slum dwellers' right to life which includes their right to live with dignity.

NGOs, civil society organizations and human rights organizations in Bangladesh are making all-out efforts to defend the slum dwellers' fundamental human rights. On behalf of them the Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB), the Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP) and the Grassroots People's Organizations have appealed to the Prime Minister through newspapers to immediately stop slum demolition (please see the e-mail attachment).
A writ petition has already been filed to the Dhaka High Court with the result that the Court has issued a temporary stay order on slum demolition. The Court is now in the process of hearing the petition and on completion of hearing the verdict will be given in due time. The legal battle is in progress side by side with a protest movement spearheaded by the slum dwellers and an awareness campaign gaining momentum in civil society. On 14 August, 1999 the residents of the Agargaon slum in Dhaka, with support from NGOs and civil society organizations, resisted in an organized and peaceful manner a police move to raze the slum. They formed a human chain and staged a sit-in till the police dispersed. On this occasion seven people were arrested by the police.

The permanent solution to the problem of urban slums lies in concerted efforts to effectively reduce rural and urban poverty by generating adequate employment opportunity for the poor. Nobody wants to live in a slum unless compelled by the situation and nobody expects slums with their filthy environment to proliferate in a developed, modern city. Everybody wants Dhaka city to be free of slums. This is what even the slum dwellers themselves dream of. But such a dream can come true only when both rural and urban poverty is effectively reduced and the urban poor are properly rehabilitated. Demolishing slums in Dhaka should be immediately stopped and the slum dwellers should be rehabilitated under a comprehensive long-term plan to be carried out in phases. The following points merit consideration in this connection:
(SIGMA) Slums may be cleared only from the perspective of poverty reduction, not on the plea of containing terrorism.

(SIGMA) No slum should be demolished before the completion of arrangements for rehabilitating its residents. The residents of a particular slum may be removed only to the extent that rehabilitation arrangements are complete. Rehabilitation arrangements should include a complete package of education, health, employment and income generation. A judicial committee may be formed to certify the completion of rehabilitation measures when the clearing of a particular slum comes into question.
(SIGMA) A National Task Force may be constituted with representatives of concerned NGOs, research organizations as well as human rights organizations and slum dwellers themselves to assist the government in the formulation and implementation of slum rehabilitation schemes. The Task Force will be also responsible for the registration of slum dwellers as the first step towards rehabilitation.

(SIGMA) Since slum dwellers are the life-blood of the urban economy, arrangements should be made to rehabilitate them mostly within the city. The plots of land on which slums have grown up should be leased out to the urban poor on a long-term basis and at a reasonable price. Ownership of the urban poor over land may be supported with adequate credits provided to them in the method which is known as 'in-situ development' all over the world.
(SIGMA) On the model of the Bhasantek project, which is expected to commence in the next few months, more housing projects may be undertaken for the urban poor. Sixteen thousand flats will be constructed under this project. Slum dwellers will be allowed to purchase these flats on payment of the price in easy instalments within 15 years. An area of 48 acres of land will be contributed by the government and all other expenses for the purpose will be borne by NGOs.
(SIGMA) State-owned land within a 20 mile radius of the city may be leased out to those slum dwellers who intend to live in the vicinity of Dhaka. They may be also provided with loans for house building and income generation. NGOs may be assigned the responsibility of implementing such projects.

(SIGMA) Slum dwellers willing to return to villages may be resettled in 'cluster villages' and 'model villages' set up with an adequate provision for employment and income generation. But slum dwellers should be removed from their present abodes only when such arrangements are complete.
(SIGMA) Since the urban slum dwellers are mainly people who are dislocated and destituted by river erosion, the out-migration of these people can be largely prevented if they are resettled in state-owned land in the rural areas. A housing fund has already been established for the purpose but this fund should be increased to an amount of Tk. 100 million to be provided as loans by the government.
The Dhaka slum dwellers will be imbued with new hopes and inspiration if the international community comes forward to express its solidarity with their desperate struggle for survival and upholding human rights.

On behalf of NGOs, civil society organizations, grassroots people's organizations, human rights organizations and women's organizations in Bangladesh, the Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB), the Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP) and the Grassroots People's Organizations appeal to the international development partners, UN bodies and individuals/groups/organizations concerned with human rights, women's rights, social justice, environmental issues and reduction of poverty, to extend their solidarity to three million slum dwellers of Dhaka, and to use their good office to urge the Government of Bangladesh, specifically the Prime Minister and the Home Minister to stop the demolition of slums before taking concrete measures for the rehabilitation of slum dwellers. The following concerns may be immediately raised with the Government of Bangladesh:

(i) The slum issue should be viewed in the light of the Bangladesh Constitution and the UN Charter of Human Rights and the fundamental human rights of the slum dwellers should be duly protected.
(ii) The slum dwellers should not be indiscriminately branded as terrorists and the oppression and eviction of them on the plea of containing terrorism should be immediately stopped. Instead, concrete measures for their rehabilitation should be taken in phases.

E-mail address of the Prime Minister of the Government of Bangladesh.
Fax address of the Home Minister of the Government of Bangladesh: 880-2-869667

Qazi Faruque Ahmed
Md. Shahabuddin
Abdul Khalek Howlader