Housing Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik, next stop CCNV in DCAt UN, Rights Reports Overshadowed by Climate Change and Sex, Evictions, Films and UNU
Sunday, October 25, 2009
By Matthew Russell Lee
Inner City Press
UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- There are only two big issues, a major human rights group told Inner City Press on Frday, in the UN's Third Committee: Gaza and the gays. The reference was to Richard Goldstone's report on Gaza -- which now seems destined not for the Committee but the full or plenary General Assembly -- and a forthcoming report by Martin Scheinin which touches on the lesbians, gay, transgendered and bisexual issue.
This is sure to draw fire from Egypt, Syria and other countries which last year when a motion for decriminalization of homosexuality was proposed, countered with amendments referring to bestiality. Only at the UN.
Blocked out by these two super charged issues are appearances of the UN's other special rapporteurs, who travel the globe, from rural Russia to Brazil to yes, the South South Bronx to assess government's compliance with the treaties that they sign. On Friday Raquel Rolnik, the special rapporteur on housing, told the Press how climate change will mostly hurt the poor.
Inner City Press asked Rolnik about her entreaty to the governments of Cambodia and Nigeria to stop their mass evictions. In the Cambodian case, the cleared site is now being offered to South Korean businessmen for profit. The news is not good, Ms. Rolnik said. She said evictions have also continued in Angola, where UN HABITAT claimed to have gotten a commitment to the contrary.
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