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Clustered shacks made out of corrugated iron sheets
Slums in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
A path flanked by makeshift structures where homeless people live
Pavement dwellers in Japan

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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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 Kyrgyzstan 'novostroyki'; in Pakistan 'bastis' or 'katchi abadis'; in South Korea 'P'anjach'on'.[23][24][25][26] 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".[27]: 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.[28] 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.[27]: 5, 16 

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After the French conquest of Vietnam, the French colonial empire introduced land tenure rights which favoured settler colonialists.[29] 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.[29] A 1963 Government circular had regularized squatting on land owned by the state by making the squatters tenants.[30] 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.[31]

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.[32]

Refer to caption
A Nepali slum in Paro, Bhutan

To add

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Notes for Brunei

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Refer to caption
Brunei on map
Photograph of house on stilts over water
A slum in Bandar Seri Begawan
  • Brunei is a country on the north coast of the island of Borneo. There are three distinct legal traditions, namely indigenous beliefs, common law and Islamic law, which all have their own dispute resolution processes.[33]
  • Indigenous peoples such as the Dusun, the Iban, the Penan, the Murut and the Kedayan who traditionally lived in wooded areas and made a living from forestry have moved to the cities in recent years. They live in apartments and houses rather than squatted shacks.[34]
  • Kampong Ayer
  • Kampong / Kampung
  • Villages of Brunei
  • Hassan, Noor Hasharina; Yong, Gabriel Y. V. (2018). "A Vision in Which Every Family Has Basic Shelter". In Agussalim, Dafri; Holzhacker, Ronald (eds.). Sustainable Development Goals in Southeast Asia and ASEAN (eBook). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-39194-9.

Notes for Hong Kong

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Notes for India

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Notes for Indonesia

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Refer to caption
Indonesia marked in green on a globe
  • Squatting in Indonesia
  • Basuki Tjahaja Purnama
  • Kampong
  • Tanjung Morawa affair
  • In Indonesia, the word kampung refers to a low-income neighbourhood, which may or may not be squatted.[36]
  • Jakarta
  • One of the oldest kampungs in Jakarta is Kampung Pulo, located beside a river.[36]
  • Bandung is the third largest Indonesian city after Jakarta and Surabaya. After independence, there was internal migration to Bandung and people expanded existing kampungs or squatted new ones. In 2017, Bandung was estimated to have 120,000 inhabitants of informal settlements.[37]
  • West Papua
  • According to UN-HABITAT there are 17 different forms of land tenure in Indonesia. These include Hak Milik (freehold without ownership), Hak Milik Adat (tenure under the Basic Agrarian Law which is often not respected), Hak Guna Bangunan (building right), Hak Guna Hutan (permitted land use), Hak Pakai (use right) and Hak Garap (squatting on state land).[32] Until 1960, people paying land tax had girik rights (land rights), and although this is no longer legally true, it is sometimes still assumed by those who pay land tax.[32]

Notes for Japan

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After Japan's defeat in World War II, squatter zones made up of a mixture of Burakumin, Korean migrants, Okinawans and foreigners developed. There were two types, one composed of people occupying buildings and the other temporary shelters. The squatters were forced into emergency housing and the shanty towns were tolerated.[38] One example of this was Barrack Town in Kobe City, [39] others were Korean encampments beside the Kyoto military airport and Osaka International Airport.[40][41] By the 1950s, there were public housing schemes being established but the number of squatters also continued to increase.[38] The numbers of both squatters and homeless people rose in Osaka in the 1990s. Most of these people were male day labourers with an average age of 56.[42]

Notes for Kyrgyztstan

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Notes for Myanmar

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Notes for Singapore

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Notes for Syria

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  • Squatting in Syria
  • https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/4/7/syria-absentees-law-could-see-millions-of-refugees-lose-lands
  • Hafez al-Assad ruled the country as a dictator from 1971 until his death in 2000. He oversaw the development of the country, building houses for squatters who moved from the countryside to cities.[43] Whilst officially land in Syria was either owned privately (38 per cent) or owned by the state (62 per cent), in reality tenure was determined by customary, tribal, Islamic, informal and statutory arrangements.[44] It was noted in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies in 2016 that Syria had very little slums in contrast to other neighbouring countries; this was explained by the fact that most people could afford to build rudimentary homes in informal settlements or make illegal constructions on land they had bought.[45] In 2005, local authorities estimated that Aleppo had 22 informal settlements which covered 45 per cent of the city's area.[46]

Notes for Timor-Leste / East Timor

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See caption
East Timor on globe

Notes for Vietnam

[edit]
  • Squatting in Vietnam
  • File:Río_Saigón,_Ciudad_Ho_Chi_Minh,_Vietnam,_2013-08-14,_DD_14.JPG
  • File:Saigon (2012).jpg

In the capital Hanoi, from 1975 onwards there were increasing land encroachments and illegal constructions, particularly in the areas of Giang Vo–Thanh Cong, Cao Sa La and Trung Tu–Kim Lien. A 1987 city ordinance regularized squatter houses on state-owned sites, with the conditions being payment of taxes and a promise to leave if the state needed the land in future.[47] In the 1990s, two squatted informal settlements were the Thanh Nhan precinct in Hai Ba Trung district and the Trung Liet precinct in Dong Da district, the latter on the site of a rubbish dump. The city authorities intended to move the squatters into rented accommodation elsewhere.[48] In the 2000s, there was the Chuong Duong informal settlement beside the Red River. The city at first wanted to evict the squatters then decided to tolerate them. Consequently, the squatters decided to take community action to improve the banks of the river.[49] From 2000 onwards, the Cities Alliance worked with the authorities on a slum upgrading and a National Upgrading Investment Plan.[50]

The Hanoi Municipal People's Committee announced in 2013 that there were over 650 villas and 600 semi-detached homes standing derelict in Hanoi. Some of these had been squatted.[51]

Other notes

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Further reading

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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.
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  32. ^ a b c "Land and Slum Upgrading" (PDF). Slum Upgrading Facility. 10. 2009.
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  36. ^ a b Hellman, Jörgen (2018). "How to Prove You are Not a Squatter: Appropriating Space and Marking Presence in Jakarta". In Cabannes, Yves; Douglass, Mike; Padawangi, Rita (eds.). Cities in Asia by and for the People. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 41–68. doi:10.2307/j.ctv7xbs0b.5. ISBN 978-94-6298-522-3. JSTOR j.ctv7xbs0b.5. S2CID 240308699.
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  39. ^ Taira, Atsushi (2008). "A Critical Review of Recent Urban Social Geography in Japan". Geographical Review of Japan. 81 (5): 279–291. doi:10.4157/GRJ.81.279.
  40. ^ Yoshida, Kunihiko (29 November 2004). "Reconsidering the "Rule of Law" in Japan with Special References to Race, Reparation, and Residential Property". 北大法学論集. 55 (4): 464–437. hdl:2115/15319. ISSN 0385-5953.
  41. ^ "The History of Utoro". www.utoro.jp. Utoro Peace Memorial Museum.
  42. ^ Haraguchi, Takeshi. "The Creation of 'Tourist City' and the Attack on Homeless People: Neoliberal Urbanism in Osaka City, Japan".
  43. ^ Matthews, Don (2012). "How Does a Gangster Regime End? The Uprising in Syria". Oakland Journal. 23: 5–17.
  44. ^ Unruh, Jon D. (October 2016). "Weaponization of the Land and Property Rights system in the Syrian civil war: facilitating restitution?". Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. 10 (4): 453–471. doi:10.1080/17502977.2016.1158527. S2CID 147175682.
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  46. ^ Hammal, F; Mock, J; Ward, K D; Fouad, M F; Beech, B M; Maziak, W (October 2005). "Settling with danger: Conditions and health problems in peri-urban neighbourhoods in Aleppo, Syria". Environment and Urbanization. 17 (2): 113–125. Bibcode:2005EnUrb..17..113H. doi:10.1177/095624780501700209. S2CID 154485701.
  47. ^ KOH, DAVID (2004). "Illegal Construction in Hanoi and Hanoi's Wards". European Journal of East Asian Studies. 3 (2): 337–369. doi:10.1163/1570061042780928. ISSN 1568-0584. JSTOR 23615655.
  48. ^ Uhlmann, O.; Feldmann, H.; Breuste, J.; Dung, Nguyen Huu (1998). "Improvement of Living and Environmental Conditions of Informal Squatters in Hanoi". Urban Ecology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. pp. 371–375. ISBN 9783540646174.
  49. ^ Kürten, Sandra (2005). "Securing a Livelihood in Hanoi". In Thüler, Sue; Büchel, Romana; Derks, Annuska; Loosli, Susanne (eds.). Exploring social (in-)securities in Asia. Bern: Inst. für Sozialanthropologie. ISBN 978-3-906465-31-9.
  50. ^ "Cities Alliance Annual Report 2008". Cities Alliance. 2008.
  51. ^ VIR, Vietnam Investment Review- (10 April 2014). "Vacant villas overtaken by squatters". Vietnam Investment Review. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  52. ^ Badamkhand, Lutaa (1 October 2005). "Dolgion: 'Life is given only once'". New Internationalist. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  53. ^ Al-Mansoori, Mohammed Abdullah Jakkah (1997). GOVERNMENT LOW-COST HOUSING PROVISION IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. THE EXAMPLE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT LOW-COST HOUSING PROGRAMME (Thesis). University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
  54. ^ United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (1 September 1994). "Uzbekistan. Political Conditions in the Post-Soviet Era". Refworld. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
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