African descendants communities and housing rights
Source: Choike
The analysis of quilombos in Brazil allows to give visibility to the impact of European colonization, its dimension and extent upon, in this particular case, the peoples of Africa and the Americas. By Ana Laura Bergel, April 2006. [see more]
 
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Source: Center on Housing Rights and Evictions - COHRE

July 2005

The political relevance and the necessity to elaborate an agenda which prioritizes the demands of African descendants in defense of their territorial and cultural rights is becoming more evident every day.

The African descent population in the Americas today numbers over 140 million, one third of the continent’s 450 million people. Slavery in the Americas saw 15 million slaves violently uprooted from their lands in Africa. Approximately 40% of all African slaves went to Brazil, to serve as a labour force in the colonial period.

In the African language Iorubá, “quilombos” means “housing”. The Brazilian concept of Quilombos has come to mean the communities that were constituted out of the struggle of rebel slaves during the centuries of slavery, as territories of housing, resistance and social organization. The majority of the Quilombos’ lands were occupied and managed collectively, based on a familiar structure of cultivation and exploitation of natural resources. Because of this, land rights are fundamental for the continuing survival of these peoples even more so as they do not hold land titles for the lands they have traditionally occupied.

Such communities live under the constant threat of farmers, land invaders, mining companies, hydroelectric power plants, dams and other mega-projects seeking possession of their land and its natural wealth. Even when such a conflict involving Quilombos communities has been resolved there remains the problem of structuring and maintaining their settlements.

National borders do not impede the spread of different forms of racial discrimination in the Americas.

See full text of "Quilombol@ Bulletin", July 2005, pdf format. This Bulletin is part of the National Campaign for Regularization of Quilombo Land in Brazil that is being carried out by COHRE – Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, CONAQ – National Coordination of Quilombo Communities and ACONERUQ – Association of Rural Afro-Descent Communities in the State of Maranhão.




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Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE)
They promote and protect the right to housing for everyone, everywhere. To achieve this, COHRE has developed a varied work programme, guided by international human rights law, and designed to reach as many people as possible.
 

Information resources

Communities discriminated against on the basis of ethnicity and descent

Special rapporteur’s statement at the World Conference against Racism (Durban, 2001)

Economic development in Latin American communities of African descent

Racism and housing and land use (HIC)

African descent population in the Americas

Quilombos and african descendants rights in Brazil (Choike)

Racism in Guatemala (OHCHR)

National campaign for regularization of Quilombo land in Brazil (COHRE)

Regularisation and titles for Afro-descendant communities (Choike)

Brazil: land dispute against african-descendent rights


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