2016 Global Report on Internal Displacement - Brazil: Olympic Games preparations displace thousands in Rio de Janeiro

Sports mega-events such as the Olympic Games commonly displace people, both to make way for venues, accommodation, tourism-related infrastructure and transport, and also to improve the international image of the host city by eliminating unsightly slums from areas exposed to visitors and television audiences.^[232][233]

In Rio de Janeiro, around 6,600 families were evicted or under threat of eviction in 2015 to make way for the 2016 Olympic Games.^[234] The vast majority of those affected were living in favelas or informal settlements, and were relocated from their homes in central areas of the city to distant suburbs. Given that 60 per cent of the Rio 2016 Olympic Park area will be condominium developments sold on the open market after the Games,^[235] return is not an option for those displaced.

The evictions process began in 2009 when the city won the bid for the Games and was intertwined with preparations for the 2014 World Cup. Residents under threat have been unable to access official information about the urbanisation projects or the process of their removal. Options offered by the city have not been publicised and residents were neither consulted on nor participated in discussions on possible alternatives to evictions. Together with two Rio universities, some residents of Vila Autódromo, one of the largest favelas to be demolished, presented an alternative to their eviction to the city authorities, but their proposal was rejected.^[236]

Nor have many families received adequate notice of their eviction. There was a surge in "flash evictions" across various favelas in 2015, in which municipal guards arrived to demolish homes or businesses with no warning to residents and their belongings still inside.^[237] Residents who remained feared leaving their homes and also saw the value of their property and due compensation decrease as the demolitions progressed. Some were also left without access to water and electricity.^[238]

The amounts paid in compensation have varied between communities, and between households within the same communities, as a result of weak and individualised procedures.^[239] Some Vila Autódromo residents have received supposed market rate compensation^[240] as a result of well-organised resistance,^[241] while others within and outside the favela struggled to secure their promised payment.^[242] In almost all cases, the compensation does not cover the cost of an adequate home and the accompanying new expenses, leaving those affected in debt.

Many people under threat of eviction have fought to ensure their rights are respected. Resistance has led to confrontations with officials, humiliation and mistreatment, physical injuries during municipal guard assaults and death threats.^[243] People who resisted eviction longest came under most pressure, and some settlements had a constant municipal guard presence that residents deemed oppressive.^[244] The pressure to get Rio ready for the Olympics did not allow time for institutions and procedures to be reformed. On the contrary, it has enabled abuses to occur.

As a result, communities have been forced to relocate to low-income housing projects on the poorer outskirts of the city, where there is little or no urban infrastructure.^[245] The commute to the city centre from some relocation areas is more than two hours by public transport, demonstrating that rather than benefit from urban improvements, those displaced suffer their impacts. Despite legislation known as the Lei Orgânica, which prohibits moving urban dwellers more than seven kilometres from their original homes, many housing complexes are around 50 kilometres away.^[246]

Surveys of the displaced in two relocation areas and anecdotal evidence shows a deterioration in their access to livelihoods. Distance is an obstacle to maintaining their current jobs, and there are no means of subsistence, few employment opportunities and little access to markets in the new areas.

Given that communities were not resettled as a whole, social networks were also broken up. Some women resettled alone, sometimes with children, because their partners did not want to do so. With little or no support, their opportunities to work and socialise outside the home are limited, leading to isolation and mental health issues.^[247] Schools and health centres have also been difficult to access in some cases, either because they are remote or because provision is tied to place of residence.^[248]

Access to the resettled communities is difficult because some have been overtaken by organised criminal groups, which tax residents and put families at risk of violence.^[249] Some have been forced out of their new homes as a result of intimidation and threats.^[250] Removed from communal ties, and given that many moved from areas where such groups were less active, the displaced lack the networks and strategies to protect themselves.

The urban poor have suffered the most direct impacts of the evictions.^[251] The majority took place in areas with great potential for increases in land value, and as such the process has made economic and social inequalities worse by reinforcing discrimination. Already living in a precarious situation, the displaced have been pushed further into deprivation. With no monitoring of, or response to their needs resulting from their displacement, further impoverishment and marginalisation is likely to result.

Evictions in Rio go beyond the Olympic Games. The city has a long history of removing lowincome communities from desirable areas.^[252] The city government has used its hosting of a series of high profile events over the past decade to justify the relocation of the urban poor from prime locations for middle and upper class housing.^[253] The Olympics and others have contributed to property speculation and gentrification, a pattern seen in many cities that host mega-events.^[254]

Recurring patterns of human rights abuses linked to such events can be prevented. They should be planned and staged with a more comprehensive and consistent approach to managing social risks and adverse human rights impacts.^[255] Bidding documentation should set better terms for development strategies to avoid evictions, and where that is not possible, to minimise them and ensure they are carried out in line with international standards and respect for human dignity.

232 UNHRC, Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context, 18 December 2009, p 6, para 16, available at http://goo.gl/N4VLBX

233 Ibid

234 World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro, Rio 2016 Olympics: The Exclusion Games, November 2015, p 36, available at http://goo.gl/1OJxfI

235 Urban Geography, Gentrifications in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro, 1 December 2015, p 17

236 Ibid, p 17

237 Rio on Watch, Tense Week Introduces New Policy of 'Lightning Evictions' Across Rio Favelas, 8 June 2015, available at http://goo.gl/eTvUuQ

238 Amnesty International, The State of the World's Human Rights 2015/2016, January 2016, pp 27,93, available at https://goo.gl/YShQG7; World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro, Rio 2016 Olympics: The Exclusion Games, November 2015, p 20, available at http://goo.gl/1OJxfI

239 Rio on Watch, Vila Autódromo Target of the Ravenous Appetite of Olympic Construction, 25 February 2016, available at http://goo.gl/WFgrl2

240 Rio on Watch, Vila Autódromo Continues to Resist Olympic Eviction in the Face of Government Pressure, 14 January 2015, available at http://goo.gl/AMI8WH

241 Places Journal, The Displacement Decathlon: Olympian struggles for affordable housing from Atlanta to Rio de Janeiro, April 2013, available at https://goo.gl/sL8zc5

242 Rio on Watch, Candomblé Practitioner from Vila Autódromo Describes the Terror of the Eviction Process, 17 September 2015, available at http://goo.gl/3o17VS

243 Ibid; Amnesty International, The State of the World's Human Rights 2015/2016, January 2016, pp 27, 93, available at https://goo.gl/YShQG7

244 Melissa Fernandez, Unsettling resettlements: community, belonging and livelihood in Rio de Janeiro's Minha Casa Minha Vida in: Geographies of Forced Eviction: Dispossession, Violence, Insecurity, eds Katherine Brickell, Melissa Fernandez Arrigoitia and Alexander Vasudevan, Palgrave (forthcoming, 2016); Ibid, Amnesty International; Rio on Watch, Vila Autódromo Target of the Ravenous Appetite of Olympic Construction, 25 February 2016, available at http://goo.gl/WFgrl2

245 World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro, Rio 2016 Olympics: The Exclusion Games, November 2015, p 20, available at http://goo.gl/1OJxfI

246 Melissa Fernandez, 'Unsettling resettlements: community, belonging and livelihood in Rio de Janeiro's Minha Casa Minha Vida' in: Geographies of Forced Eviction: Dispossession, Violence, Insecurity, eds Katherine Brickell, Melissa Fernandez Arrigoitia and Alexander Vasudevan, Palgrave (forthcoming, 2016)

247 Ibid, p 13; UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, op cit; COHRE, "Women and Human Rights: Forced Evictions Issue Brief," 2013

248 Ibid, Melissa Fernandez, p 13

249 Institute for Human Rights and Business, Lucy Amis, Conference Report: Human rights and mega sporting events, December 2015

250 Amnesty International, The State of the World's Human Rights 2015/2016, January 2016, available at https://goo.gl/YShQG7

251 World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro, Rio 2016 Olympics: The Exclusion Games, November 2015, p 9, available at http://goo.gl/1OJxfI; UNHRC, Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context, 18 December 2009, available at http://goo.gl/N4VLBX; Institute for Human Rights and Business, Lucy Amis, Conference Report: Human rights and mega sporting events, December 2015

252 Urban Geography, Gentrifications in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro, 1 December 2015, p 2

253 World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro, Rio 2016 Olympics: The Exclusion Games, November 2015, p 19, available at http://goo.gl/1OJxfI

254 Urban Geography, Gentrifications in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro, 1 December 2015, p 17; Ibid, World Cup and Olympics Popular Committee of Rio de Janeiro, p 8; Institute for Human Rights and Business, Lucy Amis, Conference Report: Human rights and mega sporting events, December 2015, p 4

255 ILO/IOE, ITUC and OHCHR, Joint statement on the occasion of Wilton Park meeting on Human Rights and Mega-Sporting Events, 17 November 2015, available at http://goo.gl/3mEI0f