A/HRC/43/45 of 5 million social housing units far from urban centres and their provision to the poor through long-term financing has trapped households into paying for new housing that lacks basic water and public services. Since housing developers were guaranteed profits based on norisk financing provided through the government management of a 5 per cent tax on all workers, 64 this market quickly became the most securitized financial market in Latin America.65 Housing developers, without adequate regulation, chose the cheapest land, with profit margins as high as 40 per cent.66 54. Natural disasters can also have an impact on household indebtedness. In Puerto Rico, a survey conducted a year after hurricane Maria suggested that those affected by the disaster commonly faced “financial challenges”: 17 per cent of interviewees reported having been late on rent or mortgages payments; 24 per cent also mentioned having had to borrow money from friends and relatives “to make ends meet” in the year.67 It was also reported that farmers saw their debt double or even triple after the 2010 floods in Pakistan, and had to resort to borrowing for agricultural inputs and food. 68 As land is sometimes collateral against loans contracted by small farmers, the risk of livelihood loss in the event of debt default is clear when they face a natural disaster, a bad harvest or dropping commodity prices, 69 even though they should be protected in such situations by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. E. Debt enforcement, abusive collection practices and the criminalization of debtors 55. Lenders may resort to various means or channels to enforce repayment of debts contracted. Besides judicial enforcement – should the debt be legally contracted – recourse to debt collection services, going from “official agencies” to non-financial institutions, are frequent. In this context, abusive practices have been observed across the world. Cases of debtors being subjected to daily telephone calls or various forms of harassment and shameful practices by collectors have been reported. In other instances, the confiscation of credit cards by debt collectors to have debtors withdraw the amount owed (plus interest) at an automatic teller machine have been reported. 70 In Sri Lanka, practices such as collectors going to women’s houses where they stayed for hours to be paid have been reported, in addition to women being exposed to psychological and physical violence by collectors (see A/HRC/40/57/Add.2). 56. In Czechia, around 10 per cent of the population are thought to be affected by “debt enforcement”, the impact of which on poverty and deprivation is a particular manifestation of income inequality. 71 The exponential effect of debt accumulation, sometimes in combination with high interest rates, can push people into informal employment and the fear of otherwise having a considerable part of their salary seized, 72 with little left for the fulfilment of basic needs. Of note is also the potential contribution of the phenomenon to the “shadow economy” and illicit financial flows. 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 Submission by Greene, Peixoto-Charles and Morvant-Roux. Susanne Soederberg, “Subprime housing goes south: Constructing securitized mortgages for the poor in Mexico”, Antipode, vol. 47, No. 2. Submission by Greene, Peixoto-Charles and Morvant-Roux. Bianca DiJulio, Cailey Muñana and Mollyann Brodie, “Views and experiences of Puerto Ricans One Year after Hurricane Maria”, Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation, September 2018, p. 12. See Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The impact of natural hazards and disasters on agriculture, and food security and nutrition”, Rome, 2015. A/HRC/13/33/Add.2, para. 26. Deborah James, “‘Deeper into a hole?’: borrowing and lending in South Africa”, Current anthropology, vol. 55 (2014), p. 6. See SDG Watch, Falling Through the Cracks: Exposing Inequalities in the EU and Beyond, Brussels, 2019. Robert Muller, “Debt-trapped Czechs excluded as economy grows”, Reuters, 13 December 2018. 13