Spain violated the human rights of a family evicted after occupying a dwelling (UN, Oct 2019)

• Views adopted in Octobr 2019 by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

• "The case concerned a single mother with six children squatting a vacant apartment owned by a financial firm. She had been excluded from the possibility of obtaining social housing. The family was eventually evicted without adequate alternative accommodation: in one of the emergency shelters they stayed at, two of the minor children were separated from their mother and siblings.

• This decision (E/C.12/66/D/37/2018) for breaching Article 11.1 of the OP-ICESCR and, by extension, the right to adequate housing of a mother and her six children, considers that "the eviction of the family occurs without an examination of proportionality by the authorities constituted a violation of their right to housing. Similarly, the Committee considers that the refusal of the public housing author's application without taking into account her situation of need and only because she was occupying a dwelling without a legal title constituted, in itself, a violation of her right to adequate housing.""

• Source: Housing Rights Watch, http://housingrightswatch.org/jurisprudence/l%C3%B3pez-alb%C3%A1n-v-spain-communication-no-372018-11102019

• The text of the official communication is available in several languages and formats here: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=E/C.12/66/D/37/2018&Lang=en