On Jan. 2, Taipei City councilors approved regulations for the placement, counselling and self-determination of homeless people. However, less than six months later, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Wang Cheng-de (王正德) was heard saying the homeless were “potentially mad” and compared them to stray dogs. The degree of harm caused by this type of discrimination is an affront. KMT Taipei City Councillor Angela Ying (應曉薇) even said several years ago, during the cold winter months, that the city should use water cannon on the homeless to move them on.
Actually, the homeless are victims of the excessive development of capitalism and the unfair allocation of resources. The sheer scale of wealth disparity and the numerous holes in social safety nets have meant that in urban areas, in addition to hapless people who fall through the gaps, others with no regular income or a home to go to end up on the streets. The issue of homelessness is a responsibility the government has to address, but the Taipei City Government’s Department of Social Welfare has failed to step up to the plate. Meanwhile, city councilors like Wang and Ying only add to discrimination against the homeless.
On Human Rights Day in 2009, Taiwan signed into law the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Anti-discrimination is one of the most important principles in both covenants. Article 2 of both covenants and Article 26 of the ICCPR specify that no person shall be subject to discrimination “on any ground such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” and the government must eradicate discrimination through any measures appropriate. However, in Taiwan, the authorities are not only indifferent to discrimination, but are exacerbating it.
According to Article 4 of the Act to Implement the ICCPR and the ICESCR “all levels of governmental institutions and agencies” — including local governments — “should conform to human rights protection provisions in the two Covenants,” meaning to “avoid violating human rights” and to “promote the realization of human rights” by adhering to UN interpretations. Also, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ General Comment No. 20 on non-discrimination in economic, social and cultural rights, under “Economic and social situation,” item 35, says that “[a] person’s social and economic situation when living in poverty or being homeless may result in pervasive discrimination, stigmatization and negative stereotyping which can lead to the refusal of, or unequal access to, the same quality of education and healthcare as others, as well as the denial of or unequal access to public places.”
Yet the homeless in Taipei, in the middle of winter, can be thrown out of Taipei Railway Station, or subject to police harassment or interrogation.
An international group of human rights experts made these recommendations to the government last year: that government departments, local government agencies and non-governmental organizations should cooperate closely to find ways to locate the homeless, and that plans should be drawn up, based on expert advice, to assess and evaluate a range of solutions, allowing psychiatrists, doctors, street workers, local government agencies and government departments to work as effectively as possible.
There are groups concerned with the homeless issue that are willing to work with the government, but first it must put its discrimination aside.
Shih Yi-hsiang is executive secretary of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and of Covenants Watch.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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