Chile: Human Rights and Evictions Network Presents Parallel Report on Evictions to CESCR

A coalition of organizations and individuals operating as the Human Rights and Evictions Network in Chile has submitted its parallel report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on “The Situation of Forced Evictions in Chile.” This report provides Committee members with ground truth as a guide in their review of the government`s report on progress in implementing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights due in Geneva in September 2025.

For more than a century, informal settlements have been a mechanism to respond to the shortcomings of housing policies. In Chile, informal settlements and occupations are a growing phenomenon, reflecting the current housing crisis.

Their complexity, volume, and heterogeneity have increased significantly over the last decade. Although they are inhabited by only 1.9% of the country`s population, the media debate has focused on them, as they directly challenge property rights. In turn, and after decades in which forced evictions seemed a dormant threat in Chile, evictions have become a real threat for thousands of families in a context of criminalization of low-income housing.

This report was developed by the Human Rights and Evictions Network in Chile, established two years ago to denounce the serious human rights violation that the growth of forced evictions in the country represents. In a complex and changing context, this report presents the main findings from the monitoring of forced evictions, prioritizing general data over specific cases, in order to respect the safety of individuals and considering the fear experienced by affected communities and families.

The document presents a thematic analysis that describes the problem of settlements and evictions in Chile in relation to the country`s international obligations and commitments. It describes the context and presents the analysis of the current state of threats of evictions, in relation to their magnitude (number of families and settlements threatened), actors (with emphasis on the role of the judiciary and executive powers, as well as public and private landowners), and territories (distribution across the country’s different regions and municipalities). This data is then discussed considering institutional guarantees according to the CESCR standard, as well as jurisprudence in cases of forced evictions.

In conclusion, the report presents concrete recommendations aimed at various Chilean State institutions, urging them to implement all the conditions established by CESCR General Comment No. 7 (1994).These recommendations emphasize the importance of monitoring eviction threats, the inclusion of a gender perspective, the follow-up of the intersectoral technical and regional committees to review eviction notifications, and the urgent call to develop detailed protocols for police action procedures in individual and/or collective evictions.

Download the Network’s parallel report here.

Photo: An eviction in the Cerro Navia district of Santiago. For five years, the 17 de Mayo Takeover was held, occupying an 11-hectare vacant lot owned by the Guzmán Nieto family, the most powerful landowning family in the western sector of the capital and the main shareholder in the ENEA Ciudad Aeropuerto industrial warehousing project. This community of poor families confronted the interests of big capital and landowners, their entire state apparatus, and their repressive laws, developing a struggle and resistance for the right to decent housing and uniting the struggles of the homeless in different parts of the country. Their eviction, carried out with unprecedented police force, heralds a new phase in the anti-people policies of the old reactionary state currently headed by the government of Gabriel Boric. Source: Periódico Mural.