2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) housing include not denying security of tenure to particular groups, not infringing on the right to privacy via entry and searches by police, and not actively polluting or exposing certain groups to contaminants and health hazards. States have failed to respect the right to adequate housing of stateless persons in both obvious and more nuanced ways. A direct example of state failure to respect this right is when the state subjects stateless persons to forced evictions without the appropriate procedural protections laid out in CESCR’s General Comment 7, such as exploring alternatives, providing adequate notice, or offering legal recourse or remedy. 75 In extreme cases, such as the Rohingya in Myanmar, state agents have destroyed or been involved in the destruction of the homes of stateless persons through demolition and arson. 76 The state has also failed to respect this right by refusing access to previously occupied housing and land following the displacement of stateless populations. 77 In cases where the stateless population is increasingly viewed as foreign and subject to arbitrary deprivation of nationality, such as the Rohingya or persons of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic, or Iraqi Kurds, stateless persons can face eviction and then subsequent deportation to neighbouring countries. 78 In Kuwait, stateless Bidoons have been ordered to abandon government-provided housing, which was formerly available to them. 79 Additionally, states have failed in their obligations to respect this right for stateless persons in more indirect ways. States may force stateless persons to live in the least desirable areas of cities or regions, where they are exposed to pollution and health hazards from government-owned and -run factories and power plants. States have indirectly failed to respect this right by pushing stateless persons to areas without access to services or failing to provide services to areas with existing concentrations of stateless persons. In Turkmenistan, 76% of those in northern regions lack access to piped drinking water and these are the same regions of the country where most stateless persons live. 80 These persons are instead forced to rely on open sources of water, which contain high levels of saline, are susceptible to pollution and are more likely to carry disease. But states have failed stateless persons in other ways, apart from directly or indirectly interfering with their right to adequate housing. B The Obligation to Protect State obligations to protect the right to adequate housing entail that the state prevent non-state actors from interfering with this right. These actors may 75 76 77 78 79 80 ibid 116 [14]. ‘Burma: Scores of Rohingya Villages Bulldozed’, Human Rights Watch (online, 23 February 2018) <https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/23/burma-scores-rohingya-villagesbulldozed>. Simon Lewis, ‘After Alleged Ethnic Cleansing, Myanmar Will Takeover the Burned Land That Rohingya Muslims Fled’, Business Insider (online, 27 September 2017) <https://www.businessinsider.com/r-government-will-take-over-burned-myanmar-landminister-2017-9?IR=T>. ‘Haiti/Dominican Republic: Reckless Deportations Leaving Thousands in Limbo’ Amnesty International (online, 15 June 2016) <https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/06/haiti-dominican-republic-recklessdeportations-leaving-thousands-in-limbo/>. Human Rights Watch, The Bedoons of Kuwait: Citizens without Citizenship (Report, August 1995) <https://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/Kuwait.htm> (‘Bedoons of Kuwait Report’). Marjorie Farquharson, Statelessness in Central Asia (Report, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees May 2011) 56. 250