Juan Carlos Benito Sanchez
Coordinator, SocialEnergie Support Centre,
Fédération des Services Sociaux (Belgium)
In many parts of Europe, it remains possible to cut off the water supply for individuals and families who do not have the means to pay for it. Water disconnections in response to a household’s inability to pay are contrary to human rights law, preventing those affected from living a dignified life and leading to further social exclusion and increased health risks.
The implications of such a practice became clear for public authorities when hundreds of millions of persons across Europe had to lock themselves in their homes during the Covid-19 crisis. The realisation that being at home without a stable water supply is problematic led governments to introduce temporary bans on water disconnections. In some countries, temporary disconnection bans during the winter and summer months were already in place before this crisis. However, for many families in Europe being cut off the water supply is a painful reality in their day to day life.
No water, no (decent) life
Living without water means finding daily strategies to be able to drink, cook, shower, wash clothes and dishes, and use the toilet, among others. This may involve buying expensive bottled water—which further puts a strain on the budget of these households—, travelling long distances to refill containers from public fountains, or resorting to services provided by municipalities or local organisations, such as public showers, if and when available. This has a nefarious impact on all other aspects of life, such as going to work or job searching, taking adequate care of children and the elderly, or maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle.
Moreover, being disconnected from the water supply means social isolation. As empirical studies show, the feeling of shame of those affected by water disconnections is such that it prevents them from continued social contact with others, for fear that these will find out about their situation. It also prevents them from asking neighbours and local associations for help. Water disconnections further confine individuals and families to dwellings where they do not have access to the most basic amenities necessary for life, isolating them from society at large.
The universal rights to water and sanitation
The rights to water and sanitation are recognised as human rights at the UN level. These include the right of access, without discrimination, to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses, and the right to have physical and affordable access to sanitation in all spheres of life that is safe, hygienic, secure, socially and culturally acceptable and that provides privacy and ensures dignity.
UN Special Rapporteurs on the rights to water and sanitation, tasked with monitoring and reporting on the realisation of these rights and formulating recommendations, have clarified that states must ensure that they prohibit disconnections from water and sanitation services due to users’ inability to pay, as this violates the human rights to water and sanitation. The obligation for states to adopt legislation and policies to prohibit the disconnection of these services due to the inability to pay is regarded as immediate.
A European human rights law approach
European courts and human rights bodies have also examined complaints related to the non-respect of the rights to water and sanitation in various cases.
The European Court of Human Rights did so in the Hudorovic case, where it found that, while not recognised as such, the right to access safe drinking water and sanitation is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights to a certain extent. This is the case insofar as a persistent and long-standing lack of access to safe water can, by its very nature, “have adverse consequences for health and human dignity effectively eroding the core of private life and the enjoyment of a home”. The European Committee of Social Rights, for its part, has emphasised that having access to safe drinking water is central to living a life in dignity and upholding human rights.
While these cases mostly looked at the lack of connection to the water distribution network for Roma families living in campsites, which has additional discriminatory dimensions, the principles underlying these decisions can be applied to water disconnections for domestic users, as the impact of being cut off the water supply for an indefinite period of time leads to analogous human rights violations.
At the EU level, the 2020 European Drinking Water Directive does not explicitly recognise a right to water, but the logic of a right to water is partly embedded in it. Notably, it provides that EU Member States must take the necessary measures to improve and maintain access to water for all, in particular for vulnerable and marginalised groups. This directive was adopted as a consequence of the first ever European Citizen’s Initiative, “Right2Water”, which called for the human right to water and sanitation, the withdrawal of water from a liberalisation logic, and the refusal to consider water as a commodity.
Some European countries are taking the lead
Some European countries have already banned water disconnections for non-payment for all domestic users. It is the case of the UK since January 1999, when it became illegal to disconnect domestic customers. It is also the case in France, where disconnections for unpaid bills are prohibited for households’ main residence since February 2014.
Studies have shown that these prohibitions did not have a significant impact in terms of arrears and did not put at risk the financial situation of water operators. Notably, the estimated costs for the water distributor of an arrear in a utility bill are less than €0.2 per day, while the impact for a disconnected user is around €10 per day, and this even before factoring in the indignity of living in such situation.
More recently, the Brussels-Capital region in Belgium has introduced a ban on water disconnections for non-payment effective from 1 January 2022. This decision was taken on the basis of a wide consultation with stakeholders, including organisations working in the social rights and fight against poverty sectors, and the recognition that the overall costs of disconnections for the operator and society as a whole did not justify their benefits.
This ban was introduced along with a series of social measures seeking to ensure that households who are unable to pay receive adequate social assistance, notably by setting up local taskforces made up of social workers from the public sector and local organisations whose mission is to combat water poverty and the non-take-up of existing social protection measures.
Moving from punitive to social measures
In some countries, disconnection is preceded or substituted by other measures such as limiting devices, which are used to reduce the flow of water to a dwelling, or pre-payment meters. These are punitive measures which stigmatise disadvantaged households and which force them to adapt their conduct in ways that are not compatible with the rights to water and sanitation.
For instance, it has been observed that water limiting devices do not lead to a reduced water consumption: rather, households with a water limiter continue using the amount of water they need to live in dignity, but they spread their daily consumption over a longer period of time (for example, by filling up buckets throughout the day). This punishes them in many aspects: for instance, it makes it impossible to take a hot shower or bath and to use a washing machine.
In the case of pre-payment meters, experiences in the energy field show that they simply lead in many cases to “self-disconnections”, i.e. households deprive themselves of the energy they need and are forced to live in indecent conditions since they are not able to recharge their pre-paid cards to reactivate their meters.
Instead of punitive measures, states should opt for social measures, such as automatised social tariffs and the ability for households to easily conclude payment schedules, including over a long period of time to guarantee that the leftover budget is sufficient and allows them to satisfy their other basic needs.
These measures must be carefully designed to really target disadvantaged groups and not worsen the situation for them. For example, the Brussels-Capital region discontinued on 1 January 2022 its increasing block tariff for water (whereby four different consumption blocks were foreseen with increasingly high prices in each block as consumption increased), and restored a single volumetric tariff, as analyses demonstrated that this pricing system disadvantaged lower income groups. This can be explained by the fact that water consumption does not correlate with income, but rather with household composition, and that water demand is very inelastic to price, that is, the fact that water is more expensive does not lead households to use significantly less water.
Guaranteeing the access to water to those without a home
Finally, it must be recalled that access to water is intimately connected with access to housing, and that the rights to water and sanitation must also be effectively guaranteed to homeless people. This should take place in two complementary ways: firstly, by providing them with adequate and stable housing where they have access to water; secondly, in the meantime, by ensuring that they have access to water fountains and sanitation facilities provided by local authorities or local organisations that are open to the public. These services should be accessible around the clock and throughout the year, including during the winter and summer months, and they should be sufficient in number and capacity to fulfil the needs of all persons without a home.
Conclusion
Water disconnections for domestic users are simply unacceptable: they are contrary to human rights law, they are punitive since they force affected households into indecent living conditions and social exclusion, and they are ineffective to guarantee the financial sustainability of the water distribution system.
European countries should introduce immediate and permanent bans on water disconnections for domestic users, along with social measures making sure that individuals and families who are unable to pay receive appropriate social assistance and social protection. The rights to water and sanitation should also be guaranteed for homeless people, through pathways that prioritise their access to stable and adequate housing.
