A/HRC/43/43/Add.1 confirming the data gathered by UN-Habitat and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the absence of official government data. 38 33. The first condition for housing to be adequate is legal security of tenure. However, millions of Nigerians live in informal settlements without security of tenure, which makes them vulnerable to forced evictions. The Special Rapporteur witnessed the great levels of anxiety this causes to families, many of which are repeatedly subjected to forced evictions and live in constant fear that a new eviction could come with little or no notice. 34. General comment No. 4 also requires that appropriate services, materials, facilities and infrastructure be made available for housing to fulfil the adequacy standard. The homes that the Special Rapporteur visited offered very little protection from the heat and the heavy rainfall that characterize the tropical climate in Nigeria. The availability of energy for cooking, heating and lighting, washing facilities, drainage systems, means of food storage and refuse disposal were severely lacking in all the communities visited. In many houses, open fires were used for cooking, affecting the quality of air that residents breathe. The Special Rapporteur also witnessed stagnant floodwater, which she learned was responsible for the proliferation of mosquitos and malaria. Although her visit did not take place during the height of the rainy season, many communities were flooded and many houses were inaccessible as unpaved streets were flooded or full of mud, making them impassable. The majority of the streets the Special Rapporteur saw in informal settlements were completely inaccessible for older, less agile persons and for persons using wheelchairs or other walking aids, even when assisted. 35. None of the homes that the Special Rapporteur visited had running water, boreholes or potable water, which meant that most families had to pay to access drinking water. As those living in informal settlements are often without income or earn very low incomes, such costs are prohibitive. Those who cannot afford fresh water must use contaminated flood water, which results in cholera and other health issues. The Special Rapporteur observed few houses with latrines. According to UNICEF, poor access to improved water and sanitation in Nigeria causes high morbidity and mortality rates among children, besides severely hampering their education as a result of absenteeism due to disease. Contaminated drinking water and lack of sanitation expose the population to preventable water-borne diseases, including diarrhoea, which kills more than 70,000 children under 5 annually. Only 26.5 per cent of the population uses improved drinking water sources and sanitation facilities, and 23.5 per cent of the population defecates in the open. 39 36. In some of the settlements visited by the Special Rapporteur, inhabitants were exposed to serious hazards. Badia East, in Lagos, is located on a very narrow strip of land between shipping containers and a railroad track. The continuous passing of cargo trains exposes the settlement’s inhabitants to a high risk of accidents, as there is virtually no separation between the houses and the track. Similarly, in several informal settlements the lack of pedestrian crossings for roads with fast and heavy traffic results in frequent accidents, including deaths. The Special Rapporteur received information that pedestrian bridges were only being built in more affluent areas. The Special Rapporteur stresses that these communities are situated in such places not by choice, but by necessity, and that their hazardous locations do not warrant forced eviction, which is contrary to the international human rights obligations of Nigeria. None of the communities visited by the Special Rapporteur had public squares, playgrounds for children or any other safe public space for social interaction except for one football field. 37. The Special Rapporteur also observed a case where the construction of luxury residential housing violated the rights to work and to food of a community living in an informal waterfront settlement in Bariga, Lagos. The dredging and sand-filling undertaken to construct the luxury housing increasingly jeopardized the ability of residents upriver to access fishing resources, which serve both as an essential part of their diet and their main source of income. As a result, the Special Rapporteur observed local women smoking frozen fish imported from the Faroe Islands, in Denmark, to sell at market. The Special 38 39 Ibid. See also www.unicef.org/nigeria/water-sanitation-and-hygiene. www.unicef.org/nigeria/water-sanitation-and-hygiene. 9