Evicted for unpaid debts: the Mexican Government is violating international obligations

Harsh pronouncement: IAI vows to take Mexico’s case to the United Nations Advisory Group on Forced Evictions

In the run up to World Zero Evictions Day, the Consejo Nacional de Defensa de la Vivienda (National Housing Defence Council - CDV) met with Cesare Ottolini, Coordinator of the International Alliance of Inhabitants (IAI), to analyse the housing situation and evictions promoted by the Mexican Federal Government. Using legal evidence, CDV demonstrated that in Mexico, the Federal Government is undertaking a series of irregular operations. These include selling unpaid debts to American debt collection agencies, and the eviction of thousands of persons who are unable to pay their home purchase loans because they have no jobs. The Federal Government has thus failed to adhere to legally-binding international agreements guaranteeing the Mexican people the right to decent housing.

Faced with this serious legal violation, Ottolini undertook to submit (and has already sent) an appeal to the Federal Government urging it to comply fully with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which obliges it to protect, apply and promote the right to a decent home. He also indicated that he would take Mexico’s case to the United Nation’s Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (UN-AGFE), of which he is a member and which meets in January 2008.

The International Alliance of Inhabitants will push for an international mission to visit the Mexican Federal Goverment and urge it to comply with the right to housing. It will request that President Felipe Calderón promote an initiative aimed at giving Mexico the status of “zero evictions country”, by means of adequate policies on social and public housing.

Finally, Ottolini expressed the full support and solidarity of the IAI to persons affected by evictions, as well as its condemnation of any action that represses organisations fighting against the violation of the right to housing, and commitment to ensuring that the problem is solved.

Mensaje AIH Felipe Calderon por el respeto derecho vivienda en México (2007, español).pdf