FIFA World Cup 2026 branding in Vancouver, on Sunday. The West Coast city has released its human rights plan and is only the fourth of 16 host cities to meet the FIFA-mandated requirement.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Vancouver has released its human rights plan for the upcoming World Cup, making it only the fourth of 16 host cities to meet the FIFA-mandated requirement, just weeks before hundreds of thousands of soccer fans descend.
The West Coast city’s finalized Human Rights Action Plan includes adding more outreach and safety patrols conducted by community groups, and expanding drop-in and respite centre hours, capacity and programming for Vancouver’s unhoused population.
The plan also pledges additional funding to support sex worker safety, improved accessibility at FIFA event sites, including dedicated spaces and kits for people with noise and light sensitivity, and longer hours for a gender-based violence resource centre in the city’s downtown.
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Vancouver’s deputy city manager Sandra Singh said the approach mostly uses existing city and provincial human rights protection infrastructure, bolstering it where needed.
“We’ve added some very focused programming for match days ... to connect with people that might be particularly vulnerable during a major international sporting event,” including sex workers, women and people experiencing homelessness, Ms. Singh said.
The city has no plans to increase bylaw enforcement against people sheltering outdoors, but “business as usual” enforcement will continue to keep sidewalks and public parks accessible to everyone during the daytime, Ms. Singh said. The Vancouver Police Department also said there are no changes planned to policy or enforcement strategies during the tournament period.
“People who are experiencing homelessness, who don’t have access to shelter ... are still able to sleep overnight and erect their temporary shelters in parks overnight,” Ms. Singh said.
The exception is an area immediately surrounding the BC Place stadium, which will be hosting the World Cup matches. There, a fenced-off security area will be erected, Ms. Singh said. Only people with match-day tickets or other types of authorization will be allowed inside that cordon, she said.
This year’s World Cup was the first to require host cities to develop tailored human-rights action plans to address the tournament’s impacts on marginalized communities.
The move is FIFA’s response to years of pressure and criticism about major human-rights scandals. During a construction boom ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil, favela residents said tens of thousands were displaced. According to Human Rights Watch, hundreds of migrant workers died building infrastructure ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Human rights abuses have also been associated with other sports mega-events, including thousands of unhoused Parisians being rounded up on buses and sent to outlying cities ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Toronto has not yet released a human-rights action plan, though the city said in a statement that it is developing one, which it expects to make public in the coming days.
The areas around FIFA venues in Toronto are expected to see higher volumes of activity during the tournament, and will be prioritized for outreach to help protect the safety of people living outdoors, the statement said.
Along with Vancouver, only Boston, Houston and Atlanta have published finalized plans, while Dallas has released a draft. Los Angeles has published a 10-page human-rights and civil-rights “approach” document, but not a complete action plan.
None of the three Mexican host cities – Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City – have released formal plans, though they have released human-rights stakeholder engagement reports.
When Vancouver released a draft plan in February, it was met with wide criticism, particularly from organizations in the city’s Downtown Eastside.
A coalition of organizations including Pivot Legal Society, the BC Civil Liberties Association, and BC Poverty Reduction Coalition said they had been excluded from participating in the plan’s development until after the draft was released.
Laura Macintyre, a lawyer with Pivot, called the city’s finalized plan “too little, too late,” and said it does not include enough detail about many of the new interventions.
Ms. Macintyre’s organization had been pushing the city to create the added respite and sheltering spaces, but said it is critical they be run by credible peer groups within the community – a measure that is not outlined in the finalized plan.
Details about the additional funding described in the finalized human-rights plan, including the value of the contracts, will be released on Friday as part of a separate announcement on updated FIFA costs, according to Vancouver host committee lead Jessie Adcock.
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When asked on Monday for details about how the expanded shelter and respite sites would operate during FIFA, and for clarity on the expanded hours, city staff were unable to answer.
Jerome Igbokwe, a staff lawyer for the BC Civil Liberties Association, said he was pleased to see the city taking small steps to address concerns, but said the plan uses vague language that will be difficult to track.
“We are dealing with human beings,” Mr. Igbokwe said. “These are not numbers, these are not inanimate objects, these are human beings who want a place to be able to sleep and lie down.”
In mid-May, Vancouver’s new FIFA-related temporary bylaws came into effect, adding to concerns about how unhoused residents will be impacted. The new bylaws are meant to protect FIFA’s branding and improve the city’s appearance ahead of the tournament.
The changes include relaxing rules for temporary event infrastructure and signage, faster removal of unauthorized marketing that runs afoul of FIFA’s branding, and a loosening of noise restrictions. The city will also temporarily install additional security cameras across the downtown area, and plans to monitor crowds with drones.
Anti-poverty activists worry about new restrictions against street vending and busking, and what they expect to be increased enforcement of existing bylaws that they argue tend to criminalize marginalized or unhoused people.
“That’s one of the biggest legacies of the 2010 Olympics,” Ms. Macintyre said. “Laws that had been on the books for years were just hugely ramped up in enforcement.”
The city plans to aggregate and publicly report data on incidents and complaints tracked through all its contracted service providers and activated hotlines. It hopes to have that data available by July or August, Ms. Singh said.