AI director calls for improve living conditions

Accra, Oct. 7, GNA - Mr Lawrence Amenu, Director of Amnesty International, on Monday called for steps to improve the housing and living conditions of people, particularly those living in poverty. Speaking at a photo exhibition and a campaign dubbed "Demand Dignity" on World Habitat Day, he noted that hardly does a day go by in Ghana in recent times without news on the planned forced eviction of people living in slums in the country.

The United Nations has designated the first Monday of October every year as World Habitat Day to reflect on the state of the towns and cities and the basic human right to adequate housing. Mr Amenu said day-in-day-out more slums were being discovered in the cities, adding that this situation should ring a bell that there was something missing and that there was something that may not have been done or was not being done well.

He called for the adherence to all fundamental human rights as contained in UN Declaration because of clear indications and observations that the human rights aspects of slums and slum dwellers had been taken for granted and totally neglected.

Mr Amenu said Amnesty International had now decided to make the "Demand Dignity Campaign" as one of its global thematic priorities. He said African governments needed social disposition, economic power and political will to deal with slums in a more sustainable way. Mr Amenu said slum dwellers who were forcefully evicted may be displaced temporarily but that they would re-surface in other places in the cities because of the pull and push factors, which enticed people from the rural areas into the cities.

He appealed to the government to develop and adopt an eviction guideline for Ghana as soon as possible, ratify the UN Convention on Forced Evictions and to develop domestic legislation on forced eviction procedures.

Mr Amenu called on government to take concrete steps to provide adequate housing in respect to the human right to shelter for those who have to be evicted or have been evicted, and to ensure that the city authorities operated only on international guidelines regarding evictions.

He also appealed to government to carry out a study to identify the slum communities in the country and their main characteristics, so as to work towards resolving them.