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| Raquel Rolnik, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing (Source: UN) |
24 October 2010
Press Trust (New York City) – UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik, reported to the General Assembly that housing discrimination and poor living conditions endured by the world’s 200 million migrants can cause migrants to be vulnerable to violence and human trafficking. Due to economic disparity and/or poor public housing infrastructure, migrants live in homes with little to no utilities, public assistance/planning, or proper construction materials. Rolnik maintains the solution to migrant housing issues requires international human rights law to prevent housing discrimination and ensure proper housing conditions. Moreover, Rolnik maintains migration laws should be less severe in order to prevent migrants from being vulnerable to repeated or future trafficking.
Source:
(Reliability: 9/10)
Comment: (Source Reliability: No issues of bias or inaccuracy seen in this source. While overall a very informative source, it is missing one key piece of information: where is the problem of housing and trafficking vulnerability the highest?As the source or Ms. Rolnik delivered the information in a global scope, it does not convey where the trouble spots. Rather the statement only proves the global priority for resolving the housing crisis to combat trafficking. Subsequently, it will be difficult to see where the focus of future national or UN action regarding housing will occur.)
Analysis: Ms. Rolnik's belief that poor housing infrastructure is the primary cause of human trafficking adds to the list of different UN officials and agencies that echo the same claim. Other UN agencies and officials believe that infrastructure and its reform is one of the keys to combating the human trafficking activity. However, the primary difference between all of these infrastructure contentions is that all of them focus on different infrastructure areas (housing, law enforcement, legal, humanitarian aid, etc). Moreover, many of these determinations are made by individual or agency assessments of their particular jurisdiction. Subsequently, one must reevaluate the analysis that there is a grand coordinated UN strategy to utilize infrastructure reform as a strategy against human trafficking.
As not statements have been made by the General Assembly, as a whole, which states a grand UN infrastructure strategy, one is left with the evidence of jurisdiction and individual assessments for the following conclusion: it is likely that UN anti-trafficking strategies based on infrastructure are based on jurisdiction responsibilities and/or individual assessments. Thus, the appearance of a coordinated effort is merely unintentional and, rather, coincidental. However, future developments will increase the confidence of this conclusion. A present several multi-UN agency coordinated anti-trafficking conferences and workshops give evidence that some level of coordination may exist within the UN and strategy development and implementation. Yet, as one must again consider jurisdiction and individual assessment priorities, one could make the argument that these limited coordination efforts may be the bi-product of these priorities. Thus, more evidence will be needed to elevate the confidence level on this conclusion.
