Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC), a Nigerian-based non-governmental, non-partisan human rights organization concerned with the promotion and protection of social and economic rights in Nigeria. SERAC seeks to build awareness about economic, social and cultural rights and explores strategies for securing their realization.
The World Bank independent Inspection Panel
To adequate housing, to dignity of the human person, to a private and family life, to equality and non-discrimination, to development, and to participation.
Human Rights Research and Reporting, Policy Analysis, Advocacy, Community Mobilization, Legal Assistance, Applied Budget Analysis
Forcibly Evicted Persons
On July 15, 1996, the Lagos State Government announced plans to forcibly evict residents of 15 major slum communities from their homes and businesses as part of an $89.1 million World Bank-funded Lagos Drainage and Sanitation Project (LDSP). A pilot project implemented earlier in two central slum communities forcibly evicted over 2,000 people without notice, compensation or resettlement. The evictions were carried out by LDSP officials, backed by armed police and military personnel, who brutalized the residents as they sought to salvage personal belongings while bulldozers tore down their homes, businesses, health care centers and other structures in the communities.
SERAC’s investigations revealed that the majority of the targeted communities’ residents were unaware of the LDSP and thereat of evictions. Despite the World Bank’s non-cooperation, SERAC obtained crucial “classified” documents that exposed the likely impact of the LDSP, which when fully implemented would deprive an estimated 1.2 million people of homes, businesses, schools and health centers. SERAC initiated a program to assist communities to protect their rights. In June 1998 it filed a Request for Inspection before the World Bank independent Inspection Panel asserting that the LDSP violated the Bank’s Operational Directives by failing to provide adequate notice, full consultations, compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation of persons affected by “involuntary resettlement.” It alleged further that the project was in violation of a number of the residents’ human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing and right to dignity.
Forced eviction constitutes a violation of internationally recognized human rights. The human rights approach provided both the language and a rational framework for raising the consciousness of the affected communities regarding protections to which they are entitled and to which the government and the World Bank were bound by national, regional and international human rights laws to uphold. These, as well as the Bank’s Operational Directives, prohibit the practice of forced eviction except strictly in accordance with due process. That human rights approach provided invaluable leverage in the unequal power relations between the government, the World Bank and the local communities.
Following an on-site investigation in September 1998, the World Bank Inspection Panel concluded that it was “not satisfied that the [Bank] management had fully complied with [its] resettlement policy,” in so far as it had “failed to provide for resettlement and compensation of some affected people.” The Panel “acknowledge[d] the concerns and efforts of SERAC for exhibiting such courage in defending the rights of the affected people,” adding that “[SERAC’s] presence in the equation has made it possible for the Requesters to develop better dialogue …” The LDSP has been left abandoned and the majority of residents’ homes saved. The project, which was to be replicated in fifteen communities, has been halted pending adequate compensation for and resettlement of those that would have been affected.