Geneva – Indonesia, Guatemala and Serbia-Montenegro won an award Wednesday for failing to address a massive problem of homelessness and slums, while Scotland was praised for its "rare" protection of the right to housing, an advocacy group said.

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) launched the annual Housing Rights Awards last year to focus attention on the plight of more than one billion people worldwide who it said live in slums and some 100 million people who are homeless on any given night.

"Although few governments have done enough to enforce the widely-recognised right to housing, this year Indonesia, Guatemala and Serbia-Montenegro stand out for their appalling disregard for housing rights," said COHRE's executive director, Scott Leckie. The group chose Indonesia from a short list of about 15 countries because, it alleged, the government had allowed the violent eviction of people from cities and was guilty of housing-related crimes in the provinces of Aceh and Papua.

Guatemala was given the Housing Rights Violator Award because it had ignored various rights to housing and land, according to COHRE.

And Serbia-Montenegro "continues to discriminate severely against the Roma, many of whom live in conditions far worse than many of the most horrendous slums found in the developing world," Leckie said in a statement.

Last year 10 countries won the dishonourable title, including the United States, and Leckie hoped some had been shamed into tidying up their act.