A/HRC/39/55 I. Introduction 1. Pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 27/7 and 33/10, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, Léo Heller, has worked on identifying challenges and obstacles to the full realization of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, and on protection gaps, good practices and enabling factors. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur focuses on the human rights to water and sanitation of forcibly displaced persons. 2. To develop the report, the Special Rapporteur addressed questionnaires to States and other stakeholders, which elicited a total of 18 submissions. 1 In addition, he convened a brainstorming round table on 13 September 2017 and an expert consultation on 16 and 17 May 2018, both in Geneva. 3. By the end of 2016, 65.6 million people — 22.5 million refugees, 2.8 million asylum seekers and 40.3 million internally displaced persons — had been forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, armed conflict, other situations of violence, or human rights violations. 2 In addition, millions of migrants are forcibly displaced as a result of extreme poverty, discrimination, climate change, forced evictions and other situations. 4. Disasters continue to trigger new displacements every year (18.8 million in 2017)3 and are likely to do so even more in the future, given the likelihood that climate change will increase the number of extreme weather events and will cause more severe and chronic droughts and flooding in some regions. It is estimated that 10 to 15 million people are forcibly displaced every year by development projects, such as dam construction, urban development, and transportation and infrastructure programmes. 4 5. For the purposes of the present report, the Special Rapporteur considers forcibly displaced persons those who are forced to move, within or across borders, as a result of above mentioned causes — mainly internally displaced persons, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in vulnerable situations while en route, at borders, at reception and at destination. In the report, the Special Rapporteur specifically focuses on people affected by forced displacement who are unable, for reasons beyond their control, to realize their human rights to water and sanitation by the means at their disposal, and who have to rely, as a result, on national or international assistance. 6. All forcibly displaced persons are equally entitled to the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation irrespective of their current location and the status bestowed on them, and even in cases where they are considered ineligible for international refugee protection. Access to water and to sanitation is not only a fundamental human right for human survival and health but also for living life in dignity. The fundamental role of access to water and sanitation is also understood by affected persons themselves, such as those internally displaced in Juba who referred to access to food, water, health and protection as what human rights meant to them.5 7. The framework of the human rights to water and sanitation must be applied at all times: before, during and after emergency situations, during development projects, and in other situations that may lead to forced displacement. The human rights to water and sanitation in emergency situations are, however, all too often compromised. More children 1 2 3 4 5 See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/ForciblyDisplacedPersons.aspx. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2016, UNHCR, 2017. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Global Report on Internal Displacement 2018, May 2018. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Dams and Internal Displacement: An Introduction, 11 April 2017. See also www.forcedmigration.org/research-resources/expert-guides/developmentinduced-displacement-and-resettlement/global-overview. Roberta Cohen, Listening to the Voices of the Displaced: Lessons Learned, September 2008, p. 33. 3