2.1 General human rights situation
Human rights violations in Ecuador have rarely come close to the notorious repression and violence in neighboring countries like Colombia, Peru and Chile. In the mid to late eighties, Ecuador suffered it’s worst bout of repression under the government of Leon Febres Cordero, which used torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances to confront a small, leftist guerrilla movement. Ecuadorians enjoy freedom of speech (eg. human rights groups operate vocally and openly), freedom of religion and a weak but functioning democratic system. Over the last decade, torture and killings have occurred regularly, but are rarely political. The most systematic violations of CPR are related to the pervasive discrimination against women, indigenous peoples and other minorities, a corrupt and inefficient judicial system, and the general impunity of public officials. ESCR violations are among the worst in Latin America, and are manifest in such structural problems as inequality, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, lack of access to health services and the lack of spending and attention to these issues by recent administrations. While the country has seen an overall improvement in the field of CPR over the past decade, ESCR violations, alongside an economic crisis, are worsening.
a. CPR violations
Discrimination: While de jure discrimination has been largely abolished, the government is implicated in discrimination violations by the racism of public institutions and the failure to address de facto discrimination. The Constitution prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, sex, or social status and the new Constitution explicitly increased the rights of women, children, and minorities, banned discrimination based on sexual preference, and required the new Congress to pass legislation implementing these rights promptly. However, societal biases against women and minorities are strongly ingrained and affect these populations in all spheres (work, home, school, public services, public office, etc.). Public institutions are guilty of discrimination in their treatment of employees and in the provision of services and the government has failed to take effective steps to confront these and larger societal prejudices.
According to the U.S. State Department´s 1999 human rights report on Ecuador,
Discrimination against women is pervasive in society, particularly with respect to educational and economic opportunities for those in the lower economic strata. The increasingly active women's movement blames culture and tradition for inhibiting achievement of full equality for women. There are fewer women than men in the professions and skilled trades, and pay discrimination against women is common.... Despite their growing political influence and the efforts of grassroots community groups, which were increasingly successful in pressuring the central Government to assist them, Indians continue to suffer discrimination at many levels of society. With few exceptions, the indigenous people are at the lowest end of the socioeconomic scale... The population of the rural, northern coastal area includes large numbers of Afro-Ecuadorian citizens. They suffer widespread poverty and pervasive discrimination, particularly with regard to educational and economic opportunity. There were no special government efforts to address these problems.
Extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture: Throughout the nineties, reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture appeared regularly, usually totaling between 20-40 killings and 3-5 disappearances per year. Most cases involve the police abusing or killing suspected criminals. Two governmental commissions established in 1996 to review human rights violations going back to the late eighties, received hundreds of complaints. According to Amnesty International’s 1998 report, “disappearances are regularly reported and scores of other human rights cases documented in previous years remained unresolved. These included allegations about the “disappearance” of five men and the extrajudicial execution of a further six in 1997 and of hundreds of cases of torture, “disappearance”, and extrajudicial executions brought to the attention of two human rights commissions.” (AI 98). The OAS Human Rights Commission stated in a 1996 report that “Ecuador has not suffered the effects of massive or widespread disappearances, but has been marked by a disturbing series of sporadic cases. Reports suggest approximately 25 to 390 forced disappearances between 1985 and 1996, most of which occurred between 1985 and 1988. One of the most important cases in recent years involved a trade union leader killed and tortured presumably by the military in 1998.
Administration of justice: The then-Minister of the Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees recently declared that “according to the Constitution there is an independent judiciary. In reality, it is weak, inefficient, vulnerable to political and economic pressure, lacking in human and economic resources, and characterized by a high level of corruption and ill-repute.” (CDES, 1994) The disasterous state of Ecuador’s judiciary means that accused criminals spend long periods in detention before receiving a trial; investigations have found that as many as 70% of inmates have never been sentenced. According to the U.S. State Department´s 1999 human rights report on Ecuador, “The most fundamental human rights abuse stems from shortcomings in the politicized, inefficient, and corrupt legal and judicial system. Persons are subject to arbitrary arrest; once incarcerated, they may wait years before being convicted or acquitted unless they pay bribes. Although a public defender system exists, in practice there are relatively few attorneys available to defend the large number of indigent suspects. Trial is supposed to begin within 15 to 60 days of the initial arrest, but in practice, initiation of the trial phase can take years.”
The new Constitution addressed this systematic violation of CPR by requiring judges to order the immediate release of all prisoners who had not been convicted and who had been detained for more than a year, without prejudicing the continuation of criminal proceedings against them. By the end of the first year of the Constitution, of 2,100 prisoners reportedly entitled to the provision, some 600 had been released.
Impunity: Impunity for human rights violations by the military and police is widespread. Most cases involving the security forces are referred to courts of those institutions, rather than the civilian judiciary, and few result in punishments. Amnesty International has been particularly outspoken about the impunity of public officials for human rights violations, as detailed in its 1998 report:
Over the past years Amnesty International has made repeated reference in its reports to the practice of institutionalized impunity which prevails in Ecuador. Hundreds of complaints about human rights violations filed before the authorities remain unresolved. These include the deaths of at least 25 men, women and children shot by police during a mass protest by workers and their families at the Aztra sugar mill over 20 years ago, in October 1977; the torture, “disappearance” or extrajudicial execution over a four-year period by members of the police and armed forces of scores of people suspected of belonging to the armed opposition group Alfaro Vive, Carajo! (AVC); and the torture and ill-treatment of scores of criminal suspects held in police custody or in penitentiary establishments. None of the attempts by the Ecuadorean authorities to create and implement mechanisms by which these and other past cases are investigated and those responsible are brought to justice have come to fruition. In September 1996, the National Congress, set up a special commission to investigate allegations of police corruption and human rights violations made public by a former policeman who claimed to have participated in counter-insurgency operations by the SIC during the years when the AVC was active... Also in September 1996, the Ministry of Government and Police established the Truth and Justice Commission, to investigate unresolved cases of human rights violations which had taken place over the previous 16 years (since 1979, when military rule ended). By the end of 1996 the Commission was reported to have received information on almost 300 such cases. However, within five months of commencing their work, both the Truth and Justice Commission and the congressional commission ceased to function. The failure of both commissions to publish any findings further consolidated the impunity surrounding hundreds of unresolved cases of torture, “disappearance” and killings.
The U.S. State Department concurs with AI’s assessment in its most recent report: “Although the law prohibits torture and similar forms of intimidation and punishment, police continued to abuse suspects and prisoners, usually with impunity.”
b. ESCR violations
Despite the strong Constitutional protections for ESCR, Ecuadorians suffer massive violations of basic rights relating to the government’s failure to address basic needs. According to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “a State party in which any significant number of individuals is deprived of essential foodstuffs, of essential primary health care, of basic shelter and housing, or of the most basic forms of education is, prima facie, failing to discharge its obligations under the covenant.” (GC 3, 1990) Ecuador suffers all the economic problems of any developing country, but recent governments have exacerbated these problems with structural adjustment measures, and have neglected the most pressing socio-economic problems, even within the realm of possible. The government is also negligent for failing to enforce labor, health and environmental protections, for failing to rectify de facto discrimination of certain populations, and for its role in industrial abuses, particularly those relating to petroleum (these failings are covered in greater detail below)
Poverty in Ecuador has grown dramatically over the past ten years, along with overall inequality. According to the National Development Council (a public institution), poverty levels have risen from 47% of the population in 1975 and 57% in 1987 to 69% in 1998. A more conservative public research institution, states that “in 1995, more than 6 million Ecuadorians had income levels that did not even permit them to satisfy their basic needs. The poverty in Ecuador is massive. Fifty-six percent of the population is poor and suffers from deprivation or risks satisfaction of their basic needs, and one-fifth (20%) is indigent and unable to cover their nutritional requirements.” (Secretariat Tecnica del Frente Social) Poverty is especially high among rural and indigenous populations, reaching as much as 90% of the population in some parts of the country. The government’s report to the OAS in 1997 highlighted poverty as the principal obstacle to the enjoyment of ESCR in Ecuador.
Ecuador is among the three countries in Latin America with the greatest disparities in wealth (along with Honduras and Peru). In 1988, 10% of the urban population controlled 47% of income, while the poorest 20% controlled 2.55%. Five years later, the richest 10% controlled 54% and the poorest 20%’s share had fallen to 1.68%. Over the course of twenty-five years, from the late 1960s to the early 90s, the poorest 20% of Ecuador’s share of overall income fell from 6.3% to 2.0% (Treakle). Inequality is also reflected in highly skewed land-holdings: 20% of the population owns 91% of land.
Poverty has accompanied a wide variety of other problems. Malnutrition affects 45% of children under the age of 5. Only 56% of children aged 10 to 17 are able to study full time. According to the Interamerican Human Rights Commission’s 1997 report, “current data reflects that over half of all Ecuadoreans lack sufficient income to cover basic necessities.” Salaries have dropped over the past decade and unemployment has reached as much as 20%, while underemployment hovers at between 50 and 60%. Approximately 12 percent of the work force is organized, but collective bargaining agreements cover only one-quarter of these workers. The majority of workers work in the large informal and rural sector without recourse to legally mandated benefits or the minimum wage and the vast majority of these workers are not organized.
c. Response to international bodies
Ecuador’s response to international human rights bodies has been mixed, but generally open. It has provided reports to the ICCPR Committee, the Committee on Racial Discrimination, and the Child Rights Committee, but is many years overdue with its report to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. After a long delay, it recently resolved a number of cases brought before the OAS system and allowed an OAS mission to visit the country in 1994.
In 1998, the Government recognized official responsibility for the unlawful killing of Consuela Benavides (1986), for the disappearances of the Restrepo brothers (1988), and for the fatal shooting of Esteban Villacreses. Following the IACHR’s finding of official wrongdoing in the Benavides case, the Government paid settlements to the Benavides and Restrepo families and to the Putumayo 11, a group of rural workers, for illegal arrest, detention, and torture. A year earlier, the Government released Ivan Suarez Rosero, following a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that the Government had violated due process provisions in connection with his arrest, investigation, and pretrial detention.
In 1994, the government permitted an OAS mission to investigate a series of human rights allegations, including those related to prison conditions, the judicial system, abuses by the military and police, and harm done to Amazon communities by the petroleum industry. While the government provided wide access and assistance to the Commission, it did little to follow-up on the Commission’s later report and recommendations.
2.2 ESCR violations
Traditionally, ESCR have received scant attention from the government and NGOs in Ecuador. The government has long neglected to report on its compliance with the ICESCR and NGOs have done no systematic analysis of ESCR. Rather, smaller, and narrower studies and reports have touched on particular aspects of ESCR, providing a general, and generally grim, picture of the situation. Government submissions to the UN laud certain important advances, including targeted social programs and improvements in a variety of human development indicators, including life expectancy and maternal mortality. Nonetheless, these advances pale in the face of government’s failings.
The Government’s role in violations is apparent in the following three areas: 1. Structural adjustment measures and the failure to provide basic services, 2. Failure to redress de facto discrimination, and 3. Complicity in violations by third parties. It is important to note that many of Ecuador’s problems have been caused by external factors which cannot be blamed on the government, such as natural phenomenon (the 1997 impact of el Nino devastated the coastal region, with an estimated loss of almost billion) and international financial and commercial markets, which are critical to the debt problem and government revenues (Ecuador is particularly dependant on a handful of exports that suffer from drastic price swings). The violations listed below are mindful of the extent to which the government can be held responsible for ESCR problems.
Structural adjustment measures and failure to provide basic services: Ecuador has not been consistent with its structural adjustment policies as mandated by the IMF, but those policies that it has implemented have had a devastating impact on the large majority of the population. This impact is most apparent in the cuts to social budgets and subsidies in favor of external debt and the banking sector, cuts to social sector employment, and highly regressive taxes. These issues have been raised in various reports, as excerpted below:
Ecuador’s 1997 report to the UNCRC explains the economic policies in benign but still revealing terms:
Over the past few years, Ecuador has undergone a profound economic transformation. It has changed its political model and has been incorporated in the international process characterized by growing economic globalization and internationalization. The Ecuadorian oil boom of the 1970s, which provided the necessary resources for implementation of a ‘developmentally-oriented’ model, was followed in the 1980s by a process of economic adjustment and liberalization which encouraged macroeconomic stability...The process involved the gradual replacement of interventionist management by the implementation of various market-based policy instruments such as reduction of public spending, financial deregulation, liberalization of foreign trade and public sector reform. Social policies gradually lost their function of redistribution and compensation for the adjustment process, on the basis of substantial State subsidies, and no longer involved direct investment aimed at job creation and preservation. The crisis of the 1980s led to a major restriction and reorientation of social spending, made it necessary to direct policies towards the elimination of general and specific subsidies, and increased the tax burden.
In the early 1980s, social spending accounted for a major part of the State budget: spending on social welfare, education, health, drinking-water and environmental sanitation accounted for 12.1 per cent of GDP. However, State spending on the social sector in 1993 accounted for only 5.18 per cent of GDP; since 1981, systematic (with some variations) budget restrictions have been reflected in reduced social spending. During the economic crisis, there was a considerable reduction in spending on social policies, which resulted in a deterioration of the quality and coverage of State social services. This decline in spending coincided with a reduction in the real income of the population. There was, therefore, both an increase in the demand for public services (as a result of the drop in real income) and a decrease in their availability (as a consequence of diminished resources).
As one human rights commentator observes in 1999: “The management of the political economy, that has been centered on avoiding bank collapses and exclusively privileging the servicing of external and internal debt, has had a greater negative impact on the deterioration of living conditions for the Ecuadorian population, including recession, inflation, devaluation, rising unemployment and poverty, than the impact of the international financial crisis and el Nino, in spite of this being the greatest natural catastrophe in this century.” (Salgado Interview)
An OAS report states that “During the Commission’s on site visit to Ecuador, human rights organizations and representatives of a wide range of social sectors expressed profound anxiety with respect to socio economic conditions in the country. Among the specific concerns raised were the effects on the population of: measures taken to trim social spending and to substantially reduce the number of public sector employees, unemployment generally, increases in the prices of fuel, and other measures aimed at modernization and privatization.” The report goes on to raise questions about cuts to education budgets and declining access to health services and clean water, but also notes recent limited programs initiated with the World Bank and the IDB to address some of these issues.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child states that “The Committee expresses its concern regarding recent budget cuts which impacted negatively on the provision of social programmes, especially those related to children. While the Committee takes note of the State party's efforts to reduce infant mortality rate and under five mortality rate, it is still concerned about the prevalence of malnutrition, high rates of maternal mortality as well as the limited access to health services in remote rural areas. In particular, concerted efforts are needed to combat malnutrition and ensure the adoption and implementation of a national nutritional policy on children.”
UNICEF’s report on Ecuador in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is even more critical. The report underscores the overwhelming poverty, affecting “7 out of 10” Ecuadorians, rising inequality, and consistent cuts to social budgets, going from 6% of GDP in 1980 to 3.8% of GDP in 1993. It notes that “investment in education has fallen progressively. In the last 15 years, the budget for education has been reduced by one half in relation to the overall budget. It also stresses that spending on health has fallen with widespread impacts, and that “49% of deaths of infants less than one year of age, and 70% of deaths of children between one and four, are preventable.”
In 1990, the average health expenditure was per person in Ecuador, compared to 6 in Costa Rica, 3 in Chile, in El Salvador and in Peru. Between 1990 and 1993 this per capita expenditure fell 37% and in 1995, the government invested approximately US.00 per month per person in the area of health. During the same period (1990-1993) Ecuador increased its expenditures in service of the external debt from 12% to 29% and today, while health receives 3% of the budget, debt service expenditures has increased to 54%. Military expenditures have also risen consistently, with an increase of 62% during the period, 1990-1993.
A 1998 report by the Centro de Derechos Economicos y Sociales (CDES) links social cuts to violations of ESCR. “In recent decades, Ecuador’s health expenditures have been among the lowest in Latin America. Since the late 80s, successive administrations have drastically and arbitrarily cut the health budget in the name of other interests. As a governmental research institute states: ‘Social development as a policy has not been prioritized by the State; this is manifest in the recurring practice of governments of improving the country’s fiscal position through the reduction of social spending and public subsidies.’”
The report highlights cutbacks in essential services, such as clean water and maternal health cares:
In Ecuador, illnesses linked with contaminated water are the principle causes of death for children between one and four years old. Between 1962 and 1990, the percentage of urban housing with access to water fell from 88% to 78%, while in rural areas the current percentage is less than 25%. In 1982, 46% of the houses had access to sanitation but in 1990 the proportion fell to 38%. In the rural sector, in 1982, only 15% had access to sanitation and in 1990 the proportion fell to 10%. In 1982, 80% of the urban houses had access to sewage systems; by 1990 this percentage had fallen to 59%... During half of births (48%), the mother is alone or assisted only by untrained people. The percentage of births occurring in health establishments has dropped from 40% in 1990 to 28% in 1994. The annual coverage of immunizations has fallen from 94.5% to 63.4% during these years, and today Ecuador has the highest rate of human rabies.
Many of the health problems in Ecuador are not caused by a lack of resources, but rather by government priorities. Successive administrations have sacrificed the most basic health elements in order to invest in large curative programs which reach only a small fraction of the population. In 1995, 46% of the resources available to the health sector were assigned to specialized attention, 37% to secondary attention, and only 17% to primary health care. In total, 7.28% was assigned to prevention and 93% to curative treatment. A government research institute concludes that “more than 80% of the deaths that occur in the country can be avoided with the application of primary and secondary prevention measures with those resources already available to the health sector. (Secretaria Tecnica del Frente Social)
Failure to redress de facto discrimination and to protect vulnerable populations As described above, large parts of Ecuadorian society suffer from de facto discrimination in the form of socio-economic inequalities, including women, minorities, children, and rural communities. These populations are particularly vulnerable to economic shocks and adjustment measures and the government has a particular duty to assure that they are adequately protected under such circumstances. A number of reports have described the governments failings to redress these differentials and provide protections.
Ecuador’s recent report to UN Committee on Women and the observations of that Committee underscores the difficulties faced by women.
Members of the Committee ... expressed their concern about the alarming living conditions of the majority of women. They noted that the economic situation and the structural adjustment measures had affected her country more than others. Women and small children were the major victims. Members of the Committee noted the need for the Government ... to improve what was deemed to be a kind of medieval situation for women, which was the result of a patriarchal structure in which women were denied basic rights. Before enjoying legal rights, women needed to be given basic human rights, such as safe drinking water and better nutrition. Members emphasized that, despite the economic problems, many programmes related to women's equality could be carried out with few resources. The Committee expressed the feeling that the prevailing attitude in Ecuador was that the Government was not giving serious consideration to the advancement of women....The representative regretted to report that no laws or measures "of positive discrimination in favour of women" had been taken by the State aside from the one mentioned on the protection of pregnant female workers. An analysis of the report submitted showed that legislation was still marked by serious discriminatory features; customs tended to stereotype gender roles in a way that was detrimental to the advancement of Ecuadorian women; and State initiatives, far from expanding, had undergone a serious decline. Those factors combined to create an extremely serious situation with regard to the human rights violations addressed in the Convention. Concerning the situation of rural women, the representative reported on the existing gap between urban and rural areas. Many development programmes focused on the cities, while the rural areas were abandoned and neglected.
The 1997 OAS report confirms many of these observations: “In practice, while the status of women in Ecuadorean society has evolved, there remain instances of discriminatory treatment which hinder the ability of women to fully and equally enjoy their human rights. Women and children are disproportionately affected by the conditions of poverty which afflict a majority of the population. ... More males received higher education ... [and] girlchildren are reportedly steered towards curricula and careers which limit their future opportunities.”
The U.S. State Department report is even franker: “Discrimination against women is pervasive in society, particularly with respect to educational and economic opportunities for those in the lower economic strata. There are fewer women than men in the professions and skilled trades, and pay discrimination against women is common.”
Indigenous peoples suffer many of the same problems, including higher incidence of poverty, pervasive discrimination, threats to culture and land, and lack of public services. By law they enjoy all the same rights as non-indigenous, and ratification of ILO 169 and the new Constitution, provide strong guarantees relating to their rights to bilingual education, cultural respect, communal land title, and participation and consultation on any development projects likely to affect them. Bilingual education is increasing, but still absent in many areas. Many communities have gained legal title to their lands, but land is scarce for the large majorities, is subject to invasions from non-indigenous communities, and is threatened by laws failing to respect communal land holdings. Petroleum development continues to harm a great number of the Amazonian indigenous communities and laws to protect them have proved largely hollow (see below). The new Constitution did not go as far as Indigenous peoples sought, but did define the state as “pluricultural and multiethnic”, which is relevant to the indigenous demand that they retain certain rights over customary practices and social structures.
The 1997 OAS report on Ecuador recognized certain improvements, particularly in the area of bilingual education and legal protections, but underscored the continued existence of social, economic and political exclusion: “significant segments of the indigenous population suffer the effects of pervasive poverty, and little social spending is directed toward this sector. Indigenous individuals are subjected to discrimination, from both the public and private sectors. They experience obstacles in seeking to purse their traditional relationship with the lands and resources that have supported them for thousands of years, and in seeking to practice and preserve their culture.” The report also details the particular threat to indigenous communities in the Amazon, principally coming from oil development.
Other Ecuadorian minorities suffer the same levels of discrimination and general government indifference. In fact, they are in some ways more vulnerable, as their organizations lack the same level of political clout that the indigenous populations have achieved over recent years. As the US State Department report notes, "the population of the rural, northern coastal area includes large numbers of Afro-Ecuadorian citizens. They suffer widespread poverty and pervasive discrimination, particularly with regard to educational and economic opportunity. There were no special government efforts to address these problems.”
Children represent perhaps the most vulnerable and oft-neglected population by the government. The governments failure to provide adequate pre-natal care, maternity services, basic health and nutrition programs has had a devastating impact on children, with an estimated 25 children dying every day from easily preventable causes and almost half of the child population suffering malnutrition. The US State Department report notes that “The Government has not taken effective steps to promote the welfare of children. The Government rarely enforces the constitutional requirement of education through the age of 14. Government resources to assist children have traditionally been limited. Government spending on education continued to decline, both in real terms and as a proportion of gross domestic product.”
CDES’s 1998 report on the right to health underscores the government’s responsibility for existing discrimination:
The rural population, constituting approximately 40% of the total population, suffers from tremendous discrimination in terms of resources and attention from the government. Approximately 80% of Ministry of Health personnel are located in urban areas. In 1990, 93% of all physicians were concentrated in the three cities of Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca. There is one doctor for every 537 people in urban areas, and one per 3142 people in rural areas. Between 1985 and 1997, the percentage of the rural population with access to medical services declined by one-half, from 20% to 10%, in comparison to 84% of the urban population with access to medical services in 1997. In 1992, 70% of births in rural areas took place without professional medical care, while in the urban areas 20% of births took place without professional care. The government spends six times more on Social Security for urban affiliates than for rural affiliates.
According to a government research institute “the residents of the countryside, the poor and indigenous peoples have less opportunities to benefit from health services. The indigenous population is a group particularly discriminated against in the health system … Indigenous women must wait more than one hour to be attended to in health establishments.” Forty-five of every thousand children die before the age of one due to acute respiratory infections and diarrhea which could be avoided at low cost. According to UNICEF,in Ecuador “49% of the deaths of children under 1 year of age and 70% of the deaths of children from one to four years old, are preventable.” (UNICEF 1996)
Government neglect of women and children is evidenced by the fact that in 1996 70% of pregnant women and 60% of infants between the ages of 6 and 11 months had anemia, which is easily controlled with better nutrition (and low-cost nutritional programs). It is estimated that of the 1.5 million Ecuadorian children under the age of five, almost half are malnourished and only 11% were covered by nutritional programs in 1990. Nevertheless, in 1993, the central nutritional program for these children, the Community Network, was abruptly terminated and replaced by a more limited program resulting in a decreased coverage to 4.3% by 1994, and five years later, this gap has yet to be addressed effectively.
Complicity in violations by third parties: Development in Ecuador has been rapid, rapacious and largely uncontrolled. The government violates ESCR by its direct role in those industries that harm the population and by its facilitation and failure to regulate abusive industries. The governments direct role in violations is most apparent in the oil industry, in which the state-owned company, Petroecuador, controls the majority of operations and is highly destructive to surrounding communities. The failure to protect populations is pervasive and is highlighted below with examples from different types of industries. While labor, health and environmental laws are increasingly strong, the lack of enforcement allows for systematic violations affecting workers, the environment and public health.
The rapid and irresponsible exploitation of non-renewable resources throughout Ecuador has deprived the present population and future generations of a rich biodiversity, clean water, and alternative possibilities of developing the mangroves and tropical forests. Over-exploitation has caused the loss of 83% of the original vegetation of the coastal region and has led to the second highest rate of deforestation of tropical forest in South America. It is estimated that over-fishing has resulted in a loss of close to 70% of the fish on the Coast.
Oil development in the Ecuadorian Amazon has widespread impacts on local populations and has been the subject of numerous reports from both NGOs and human rights bodies. Private companies (especially Texaco) are responsible for much of the damage, but Petroecuador has played a leading role since 1992. The majority of Petroecuador’s production stations dump their wastes, full of heavy metals and carcinogens, into open pits and nearby streams. These streams and rivers constitute the main source of water for several communities and the contamination has caused wide-ranging problems to their health and nutrition. Petroecuador’s activities continue to harm the health of nearby communities, despite many warnings about the risks of their polluting and the capacity to avoid it.
The issue of oil development in the Ecuadorian Amazon was the subject of an OAS mission in 1994. The report details the many varied impacts:
First among these is the influx of outsiders into the traditional homelands of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. The oil boom led to the construction of a network of roads and opened and exposed the interior in a way that previous development and outside contact had not... This colonization was encouraged by the State, and in fact deemed a national priority. One consequence of the influx of non-native peoples into traditional indigenous territory is the exposure of indigenous inhabitants to previously unknown diseases and epidemics. Viral diseases have taken a harsh toll. The Commission has received reports that the introduction of previously unencountered diseases has resulted in numerous deaths over time. Another consequence has been the displacement of indigenous inhabitants and communities.
The individuals and groups from whom the Commission has received information represent both settler and indigenous communities. These inhabitants of oil development sectors have been unanimous in claiming that the operations generally, and the improper handling and disposal of toxic wastes in particular, have jeopardized their lives and health. They claim that oil exploitation activities taking place in or near their communi9ties have contaminated the water they use for drinking, cooking and bathing, the soil they cultivate to produce their food, and the air they breathe. Residents of affected sectors indicated that their rivers, streams and groundwater were contaminated with crude oil and toxic production wastes, collapsed or leaching waste pits, and oil spills. These are, in most cases, the only water sources available for drinking, cooking and bathing, as well as for the watering of livestock, domestic animals and wildlife.
The inhabitants allege that the Governments has failed to regulate and supervise the activities of both the state-owned oil company and of its licensee companies. They further allege that the companies take few if any measures to protect the affected population, and refuse to implement environmental controls or to utilize existing technologies employed in other countries... According to the Government’s own figures, billions of gallons of untreated toxic wastes and oil have been discharged directly into the forests, fields and waterways of the Oriente. The resulting consequences for the inhabitants of the affected areas have been and remain grave.
A UN Special Rapporteur takes note of the problem in her recent report, “The oil industry is seen as the biggest destroyer of Ecuador's 13 million hectares of rainforest inhabited by eight groups of indigenous people (Texaco had 330 wells in Ecuador. It has left the country, but Petroecuador has taken its place). It seems that 1 million hectares of the country's forest have been destroyed and 90 per cent of this destruction is due to the operations of Texaco/Petroecuador. Inevitably, these operations have affected the health of the people living there.” (Ksentini, 1996)
The only public regulation of the petroleum industry falls under the control of the Ministry of Energy and Mines and of the State oil company. In addition to a lack of political support, these environmental offices have neither the minimum personnel nor the resources to monitor complex oil activities. As a result, the industry is one of Latin America’s most notorious polluters and communities suffer regular contamination of their water and lands.
While oil is the most high profile industry, many others, including flower, shrimp and apparel industries, have been accused of ESCR violations relating to labor rights and environmental contamination. Additionally, the lack of effective governmental controls extend to such issues as domestic violence and consumer health, as noted by CDES’s 1998 health report:
The abuse of women and children by their partners and members of the family constitute one of the most grave threats to the health of these groups. In 1988, 88% of the women in Guayaquil (Ecuador’s largest city) had suffered some form of inter-familial violence. Today, it is estimated that six out of ten women are victims of domestic violence and three out of every ten children are victims of sexual abuse in Quito and Guayaquil. The State is complicit in these violations through its failure to educate the population and to assist and protect the victims of these abuses. According to women’s’ advocates, only a handful of victims are willing to bring their cases to the attention of authorities. Of those cases that do reach the judicial system, only a tiny fraction result in any kind of sanction. Between 1989 and 1992 in Quito, of 1,548 complaints concerning sexual crimes against women and girls, only 1% of cases resulted in convictions. In Guayaquil during the same period, of 1,923 complaints, only 2.1% resulted in convictions.
... It is estimated that 60% of illnesses in developing countries are caused by contaminated food and that these foodstuffs cause millions of deaths of children around the world. In Ecuador, the consumer has no way of knowing about the products being consumed. While a Consumer Protection Law exists, there is little enforcement, leaving compliance with the law to the discretion of the manufacturer. As a natural consequence, the market is flooded with products that do not comply with country’s sanitary norms.