Pakistan’s Evictions Harming People in Poverty
Article excerpt
Pakistan's Capital Development Authority has demolished informal settlements in Islamabad, displacing residents of Muslim Colony and other low-income neighborhoods. The CDA's first wave of demolitions swept through squatter communities without providing adequate notice, relocation assistance, or alternative housing for thousands of families now homeless. Human Rights Watch documents how the evictions disproportionately harm the poorest Pakistanis, who lack legal title to their land and have nowhere else to go. Residents report losing their homes and livelihoods with minimal compensation, while local officials cite urban planning and land reclamation as justification. The demolitions raise questions about whether Pakistan's development priorities account for vulnerable populations already living on the margins.
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Homes in Mujahid Colony, Karachi after being demolished, 2022. © 2022 Karachi Bachao Tehrik
In recent weeks, Islamabad’s Capital Development Authority (CDA) completed the first wave of demolitions of informal settlements across the city. Muslim Colony in Bari Imam, in existence since the 1960s, is now entirely leveled. Allama Iqbal Colony in Sector G-7, home to more than a thousand families, many of them who work as sanitation workers for the CDA, is next; it has been marked for a similar razing. The residents, many of whom have lived in these neighborhoods for decades, received little or no notice, and those displaced have been offered no relocation and no compensation.
It is especially tragic that the people losing their homes are largely those who keep the capital city clean. They built houses in these settlements because there is no affordable housing where they can stay and work for the city. Islamabad recognizes only a handful of its informal settlements as legal, though they are home to an estimated 500,000 people, most of whom are just one government notice away from eviction and demolition.
Unfortunately, none of this is new. Human Rights Watch has previously documented how Pakistan’s colonial-era Land Acquisition Act lets the authorities evict people in poverty with minimal safeguards, no adequate compensation, and nowhere to go, with religious and ethnic minorities and the urban poor hardest hit. The current demolitions are also proceeding despite court orders to stop them, including a Supreme Court stay issued after the CDA bulldozed the I-11 settlement in 2015, displacing 20,000 people.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stated that forced evictions are, on their face, incompatible with the covenant and may only be used exceptionally, subject to strict legal safeguards, due process, consultation, notice, and access to remedies.
The government should immediately suspend demolitions of Islamabad’s informal settlements until adequate resettlement is arranged, consistent with the 2015 Supreme Court order and international standards. Pakistani authorities should not be unlawfully bulldozing the houses and livelihoods of its citizens.