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Squatting in Asia

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This article is about property. For the posture, see squatting position.
Clustered shacks made out of corrugated iron sheets
Slums in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Squatting in Asia occurs when land or buildings are occupied without formal right of tenure. Following the end of World War II and the collapse of many colonial regimes, there was a huge net migration from rural to urban areas across Asia, which resulted in people living in informal settlements. By the 2010s, places such as Hong Kong and Singapore succeeded in reducing the number of squatters, whereas in Bangkok and Jakarta still have high numbers. Factors such as war and natural disaster can result in displacement and squatting.

Overview

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A path flanked by makeshift structures where homeless people live
Pavement dwellers in Japan

Asia has a history of squatting which reaches back to ancient times.[1] Archaeologists have documented evidence of Bronze Age squatters in what is now Jordan at Tall al-Fukhår and Tell Brak in modern-day Syria.[2] In the sixth or seventh century, churches were constructed on the islands of Dalma, Marawah and Sir Bani Yas in the Persian Gulfl after they fell out of use, there is evidence that squatters occupied them.[3]

Following the end of World War II and the collapse of many colonial regimes, there was a huge net migration from rural to urban areas across Asia. This urbanization process was not necessarily in response to demand for labour and many migrants were forced to find shelter in informal settlements, which were often squatted, meaning that people lived there without formal right of tenure.[4][5] The number of residents in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, increased from almost 3 million in 1961 to over 4.5 million a decade later.[5] By 2014, the Jakarta metropolitan area had 28 million people, of which between 20 and 25 per cent were squatters, whilst Bangkok in Thailand had an estimated population of between 9 and 10 million of which 20 to 30 per cent were squatting.[4] The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) notes that people living in informal settlements can experience poverty and sub-optimal services.[6] As states have moved from repressing squatters to incorporating them into formal housing structures, by the 2010s places such as Hong Kong and Singapore succeeded in reducing the number of squatters, whereas in Bangkok and Jakarta still have high numbers.[4]

Factors such as war and natural disaster often result in displacement and thus squatting. In 1994, Armenian forces displaced around 800,000 people from Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory surrounded by Azerbaijan and claimed by Armenia. The refugees were forced to take any option for shelter such as squatting by the roadside, paying for hotels or living in tent cities.[7] Thousands of refugees squatted Azeri homes and were tolerated by the authorities, which insisted that they would return home eventually to Nagorno-Karabakh. By 2010, residents of the capital Baku were protesting that they wanted their homes back.[8] A World Bank report on housing in Baku stated there were various types of informal settlements including inner city squatter housing and upgraded squatter settlements.[9] Jordan has experienced three waves of mass immigration following the 1948 Palestine war, Six-Day War (1967) and the Gulf War (1990–1991) which placed a strain on housing capacity. After the Six-Day War the Jordanian government's department of statistics recorded that there were 140,000 refugees squatting in Amman as well as 109,000 in United Nations camps.[10] During the Syrian civil war which started in 2011, 2.3 million Syrians fled the country and only 20 per cent of this total entered refugee camps, with the rest finding other housing solutions which included occupying derelict factories in Lebanon.[11]

By 2003, 70 per cent of Kabul in Aghanistan had been destroyed by what became the 2001–2021 war in Afghanistan and Médecins Sans Frontières reported there were tens of thousands of squatters, living without adequate food supply and medical facilities.[12] Conflict has also displaced many people from their homes across the country. In 2019 alone the United Nations estimated 600,000 people had been forced to move. In addition, three million Afghans have returned from neighbouring countries Pakistan and Iran since 2015. Many of these people have ended up in squatted informal settlements.[13] As of 2018, 78 per cent of the people living in 34 cities were slum dwellers and most of the housing stock was informal.[14] In the 2000s, the Afghan authorities had attempted to provide housing through the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (MUDH) but demand far outstripped supply and so in the 2010s, the policy switched to slum upgrading.[14] The Special Land Dispute Court was founded in 2002 to arbitrate cases regarding disputed land ownership (including squatting).[15]

East Timor became a country in 2002, after previously being occupied by first Portugal and then Indonesia. Following the independence struggle, the new state had no land registry and no process for squatters to be evicted.[16] This created problems as people displaced by war returned to their homes to find them occupied by squatters, who in some cases had rented them out and wanted a monetary settlement before leaving.[17] Land claimaints can be broken into four groups, namely those who currently possess land, those claiming land they owned under Portuguese rule, those claiming land they possessed under Indonesian rule and people asserting customary or traditional land rights.[16] In 2006, conflict again broke out and 100,000 people were displaced; as before, when residents returned to their homes they found them squatted.[18]

In Mongolia, pastoral nomads live in ger (yurts). Severe weather disasters known as dzuds have resulted in herds dying and many nomads have moved to living in their ger in informal settlements ringing the capital Ulaanbaatar.[19][20] The majority (61 per cent) of Ulaanbaatar's population of 1.1 million people live in ger, which tend to have electricity but not sanitation.[21] Nepal has protected areas and there have been instances of people being displaced from their homes when these areas are created. When the Sukla Fata wildlife reserve was enlarged in 1981, 3,000 families were evicted. Whilst some were resettled, many began squatting in the forest nearby. People have also been displaced from Bardiya National Park and Chitwan National Park.[22]

Naming

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Squatted informal settlements go by a variety of names: in Bangladesh, they are known as 'bastees'; in Iran 'koukhnishinan'; in Kyrgyzstan 'novostroyki'; in Pakistan 'bastis' or 'katchi abadis'; in South Korea 'P'anjach'on'.[23][24][25][26][27] In the Khmer language, "squatter" means an anarchist and "squatters settlements" literally translate as 'places where anarchy and confusion reign', therefore squatters in Cambodia are officially referred to by different names, such as the "urban poor" or "temporary residents".[28]: 5, 18, 21  After the Khmer Rouge was ousted in 1975, many people returned to Phnom Penh and began living in their old houses or squatted informal settlements if their homes were already occupied.[29] Until the end of the 1990s, the Phnom Penh authorities did not recognise squatters and tended to evict squats. As of 2003, an estimated 25 per cent of the city's population were squatters.[28]: 5, 16 

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After the French conquest of Vietnam, the French colonial empire introduced land tenure rights which favoured settler colonialists.[30] The 1946 constitution introduced by Hồ Chí Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam set up private land ownership and this was then overturned by the 1980 constitution which gave ownership of all land to the state.[30] A 1963 Government circular had regularized squatting on land owned by the state by making the squatters tenants.[31] The state then introduced the possibility to buy and sell land with the 1993 Land Law, although by 2001 it had not still given out titles; despite this confusion over ownership rights, Ho Chi Minh City has a thriving real estate market.[32]

Adverse possession in Afghanistan can be achieved after 15 years of continuous possession, although there are exceptions to the rule.[15] In Indonesia, the doctrine applies to state land only and squatters can apply for it after ten years of continuous possession.[33]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Biello, David (30 August 2007). "Ancient Squatters May Have Been the World's First Suburbanites". Scientific American. Retrieved 25 May 2022.
  2. ^ Strange, John. "Tall al-Fukhår 1990–93 and 2002" (PDF).
  3. ^ Elders, Joseph (2001). "The lost churches of the Arabian Gulf: recent discoveries on the islands of Sir Bani Yas and Marawah, Abu Dhabi Emirate, United Arab Emirates". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. 31: 47–57. ISSN 0308-8421. JSTOR 41223670.
  4. ^ a b c Aldrich, Brian C. (1 April 2016). "Winning their place in the city: Squatters in Southeast Asian cities". Habitat International. 53: 495–501. doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.12.001. ISSN 0197-3975.
  5. ^ a b Jackson, J. C. (1974). "Urban Squatters in Southeast Asia". Geography. 59 (1): 24–30. ISSN 0016-7487. JSTOR 41414282.
  6. ^ Ajlouni, Musa T. (January 2016). "Social determinants of health in selected slum areas in Jordan: challenges and policy directions". The International Journal of Health Planning and Management. 31 (1): 113–125. doi:10.1002/hpm.2267. PMID 25280236.
  7. ^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1995). Human Rights Watch World Report 1995 – Azerbaijan.
  8. ^ "Azerbaijan: Karabakh Squatters Cling On". IWPR. 10 March 2010. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  9. ^ World Bank Group. "Greater Baku Housing Sector Diagnostic" (PDF). Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  10. ^ Al-Azhari, Wael W. (2012). "A Study of Housing Identity in Refugee Settlements in Jordan: Al-Wahdat Refugee Camp as a Case Study". International Journal of Environment, Ecology, Family and Urban Studies. 2 (3): 26–45.
  11. ^ Staff writer(s) (31 December 2013). "Syrians Living as Outsiders, as Squatters or in Camps". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 May 2022.
  12. ^ "Ideas & opinions from MSF: The squatters of Kabul – Afghanistan". ReliefWeb. 2003.
  13. ^ Torode, Greg (15 February 2019). "Life in Kabul's squatter camps highlights challenge for any Afghan peace". Reuters. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  14. ^ a b French, Matthew; Popal, Abdul; Rahimi, Habib; Popuri, Srinivasa; Turkstra, Jan (April 2019). "Institutionalizing participatory slum upgrading: a case study of urban co-production from Afghanistan, 2002–2016". Environment and Urbanization. 31 (1): 209–230. Bibcode:2019EnUrb..31..209F. doi:10.1177/0956247818791043. S2CID 158071778.
  15. ^ a b An Introduction to the Property Law of Afghanistan. Stanford Law School: Afghanistan Legal Education Project (ALEP). 2015.
  16. ^ a b Carson, Amy Ochoa (2 January 2007). "East Timor's Land Tenure Problems: A Consideration of Land Reform Programs in South Africa and Zimbabwe" (PDF). Indiana International & Comparative Law Review. 17 (2): 395–430. doi:10.18060/17554. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 March 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  17. ^ "Timor-Leste: IDPs returning home, but to ongoing poverty and lack of access to basic services" (PDF). Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. 31 October 2008. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 March 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  18. ^ "IDP returns slowed by squatters occupying homes". East Timor Law & Justice Bulletin. 23 September 2008. Archived from the original on 10 December 2021. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  19. ^ Caldieron, Jean M. (2 October 2013). "Ger Districts in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Housing and Living Condition Surveys". International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies. 4 (2): 465–476. ISSN 2028-9324.
  20. ^ Ikegami, Madoka (10 May 2016). "Mongolia's dzud disaster". New Internationalist. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  21. ^ Byambadorj, Tseregmaa; Amati, Marco; Ruming, Kristian J. (August 2011). "Twenty-first century nomadic city: Ger districts and barriers to the implementation of the Ulaanbaatar City Master Plan: Nomadic city: Ger districts in Ulaanbaatar". Asia Pacific Viewpoint. 52 (2): 165–177. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8373.2011.01448.x.
  22. ^ Kothari, Ashish; Wani, Milind (2007). "Protected areas and human rights in India— the impact of the official conservation model on local communities". Policy Matters. 15: 87–99.
  23. ^ Mobrand, Erik (2008). "Struggles over Unlicensed Housing in Seoul, 1960–80". Urban Studies. 45 (2): 367–389. doi:10.1177/0042098007085968. ISSN 0042-0980. JSTOR 43197757. S2CID 154219426.
  24. ^ Hierman, Brent; Nekbakhtshoev, Navruz (March 2014). "Whose land is it? Land reform, minorities, and the titular "nation" in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan". Nationalities Papers. 42 (2): 336–354. doi:10.1080/00905992.2013.857298.
  25. ^ van der Linden, Jan (1991). "Security and Value: Squatter Dwellings in Karachi". In Donnan, H.; Werbner, P. (eds.). Economy and Culture in Pakistan. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 62–76. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-11401-6_3. ISBN 978-1-349-11401-6.
  26. ^ Rahman, Mohammed Mahbubur (March 2001). "Bastee eviction and housing rights". Habitat International. 25 (1): 49–67. doi:10.1016/S0197-3975(00)00026-6.
  27. ^ Bayat, Asef (1994). "Squatters and the State: Back Street Politics in the Islamic Republic". Middle East Report (191): 10–14. doi:10.2307/3012710. ISSN 0899-2851. JSTOR 3012710.
  28. ^ a b Fallavier, Pierre (2003). "The case of Phnom Penh" (PDF). Urban Slums Reports. UCL. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  29. ^ McPherson, Poppy (23 July 2014). "Inside the famous Phnom Penh cinema that has become a living nightmare". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  30. ^ a b Le, Toan (15 April 2020). "Dong Tam Land Dispute Exposes Vietnam's Rights and Democracy Challenges". The Diplomat. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  31. ^ Land Reform in Vietnam: Legal framework and program status. Stanford Research Institute. 1968. p. 18.
  32. ^ Kim, Annette M. (2004). "A market without the 'right' property rights". Economics of Transition and Institutional Change. 12 (2): 275–305. doi:10.1111/j.0967-0750.2004.00179.x. S2CID 154166978.
  33. ^ "Land and Slum Upgrading" (PDF). Slum Upgrading Facility. 10. 2009.
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