Open letter to the French Government, demanding urgent action on water and sanitation access for people on the move at the French-UK border

Today, Collective Aid joined a coalition of NGOs working in Northern France to send an urgent letter to the French authorities, demanding urgent action to improve access to WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) facilities for refugees and displaced people, as recommended by the United Nations in 2023.

 The letter calls on the French government to provide a concrete timeline of action to ensure that recommendations to improve access to water and sanitation for refugees and displaced people on the country’s Northern coast - accepted by France during the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2023 - are met within the mandated two-year time frame. 

Laundry drying at a living site in Calais, Collective Aid

The letter calls on the government to take immediate action to satisfy the UPR’s recommendations and provide access to WASH facilities in accordance with international human rights standards. It addresses the critical concerns of signatories from organisations supporting people on the move in Northern France with water and sanitation,who assert that the situation on the ground has deteriorated even further in the year since the government announced that it would accept many of the UPR’s recommendations. 

Last summer’s Water for All campaign, launched by several signatories to the letter, highlighted severe deficiencies in water and sanitation access for people on the move. Despite these commitments, no tangible improvements have been observed on the ground. 

In March this year, the Collective Aid Wash Centre in Calais, which allowed people on the move to clean their clothes and have access to running water, hygiene items and a safe space,was forced into administrative closure by the Calais municipality, further exacerbating these issues. It remains closed today, with litigation currently taking place to overturn the decision.

“The decision to close the WASH centre is completely disproportionate compared with the alleged breaches of normative standards. Wekept informing the City for weeks of the implementation of the improvements they had requested from us, and they were aware that we were about to complete them - which we did a few days after the closure. It is clear that the closure isn't motivated by safety reasons, but rather to once again deprive people on the move of access to essential services." 

Collective Aid Programmes Manager, Calais

Evidence from the letter's signatories suggests that the basic rights of people on the move in Northern France are being regularly violated. Calais Food Collective testifies that access to clean drinking water is obstructed by state actors, and people forced into unsafe alternatives such as drinking from stagnant rivers or damaged systems. In Dunkerque, the Roots organisation found that drinking water on a living site accessed by hundreds of people was contaminated by a chemical substance. Where clean water and facilities do exist, access remains precarious. Authorities installed a single tap near an informal settlement near Cherbourg, home to 60-80 people throughout the year, and provided no drainage system, toilets, or showers. 

 A lack of consistent access to water and hygiene in Northern France is leading to a deterioration in the physical and psychological health of people on the move. The widespread absence of toilet facilities endangers their safety. Women report that they refrain from ‘drinking too much’ to avoid going to the toilet alone in unsafe locations, which in turn causes urinary problems. 

The government’s failure to fulfil its water access obligations has created an unacceptable risk in child safeguarding contexts. Letter signatory Project Play describes an incident where an 11-year-old child asked volunteers where they could find water for their family because they were all very thirsty and hadn’t had a drink all day. A separate report describes children having to leave a Project Play session to go to the toilet outdoors, with no sanitation facilities or privacy. 

Alongside the other signatories, we demand that the French government hold itself accountable for unacceptable delays in implementing the UPR’s recommendations and its repeated failure to uphold the fundamental human rights of people on the move. 

Words by Poppy Groves