On 28 September the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child held a Day of General Discussion on the topic “Children as Human Rights Defenders”.United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kate Gilmore, gave the opening speech; here some excerpts:
….It is my great pleasure to join in welcoming you all to this Day of General Discussion on Children Human Rights Defenders..I am most excited of course to be welcoming the members of the Child Advisory Team. You make this such a very special moment for us all – for us personally who work here and for the human rights work we try to do here. This year is the 20th birthday of the UN Human Rights Defenders Declaration and the 70th birthday of the UDHR. ….
Today, we will talk with you, about you. We will listen to you, …….
….We older people have failed you – have failed children. In so many places, in so many ways – older people are still failing children…….
Yet, the strange thing about this, is that it was older people – even older people – including some working 70 years ago – who made those laws and standards that recognise you have those rights, and yet it is older people who are breaking those promises.
……………If young age is no barrier to experiencing the worst consequences of older people’s decisions, then why use young age as an excuse to leave you out, to lock you out, from the places where those decisions could be changed. As human rights defenders, you know far better than I do why it is so important that we rethink the power relationship between older and young people. If we would just change how we older people relate to children, make more room for you, listen to you more respectfully, value your experiences more, keep our promises to you then maybe we too would grow up and with you, just get on with changing the world for better.
The Geuzen Medal (Geuzenpenning) for 2018 is awarded to Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage. This was announced 12 January 2018, by the Geuzenpenning Foundation in the Netherlands. Today 13 March was the ceremony where Princess Mabel van Oranje, Chair of Girls Not Brides, and Executive Director Lakshmi Sundaram, were presented with the medal. For more on the Geuzen Medal (which started in 1987) see http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/geuzenpenning
[More than 700 million women alive today were married before the age of 18. Each year, 15 million girls are married and their youth comes to an abrupt end. This is unacceptable, according to Girls Not Brides; an organisation which has been working to end child marriage since 2011. Girls Not Brides is a worldwide partnership. Approximately a thousand organisations in over 95 countries work together with one common goal: to stop child marriage within a generation. Girls Not Brides member organisations work across sectors including health, education, human rights and humanitarian response.]
Girls Not Brides started in 2011 and was co-founded by Princess Mabel van Oranje and The Elders.
There is no simple solution to ending child marriage. Girls Not Brides has therefore developed the Theory of Change. Four interlinked strategies play a key role: make girls resilient and empower them, mobilise families and communities; provide support and services to unmarried and married girls; and create and implement good laws and policies.
Since its inception, the Girls Not Brides global partnership and its members have tirelessly worked to ensure that child marriage is on the global agenda and that it remains there. Many national, regional and local governments are now much more aware of the damaging impact that child marriage has, and are providing support to girls to give them a different future. Furthermore, many countries have taken steps to tighten their laws against child marriage; some of them have also started campaigns against this practice. The goal is now to stop child marriage by 2030, as included in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, there is still a lot of work to be done. Until every girl has the right to choose for herself when, whether and with whom they will marry, the work to stop child marriage will never be over.
On 22 September 2016 a ceremony took place for the 8th annual ceremony of the Hrant Dink Award Granted. The laureates of the International Hrant Dink Award are the Diyarbakir Bar Association and Malawian human rights defender Theresa Kachindamoto, who works for children’s right.
Ahmet Insel, Head of the Selection Committee, made the opening speech: “It’s been almost 10 years since Hrant Dink was murdered. Nowadays, we are going through much darker times compared to 2007. The abominable coup attempt was foiled, but the state of law is completely suspended. Tens of thousands innocent people are detained without any legal procedure. Hundreds of journalists, academics, lawyers, teachers, artist and human rights defenders, meaning the usual suspects of the authoritarian regime are arrested, suspended and denied right to travel. We witnessed the arrest of Sebnem Korur Fincanci and Ahmet Altan, whose struggles were granted with Hrant Dink Award. Granted with Hrant Dink Award in 2013, Saturday Mothers (Cumartesi Anneleri) have been staging the longest civil obedience action in Turkish history; its their 600th week of protest. In times like these, the significance of the award increases. We greet the ones who struggle for creating a just and free world without violence.”
Diyarbakir Bar Association Chair Tahir Elçi was murdered on 28 November 2015 in Diyarbakir, while he was making a press statement. Deputy Chair Ahmet Özmen received the award on behalf of the association. Ahmet Özmen said inter alia: “I gratefully commemorate our dear chair Tahir Elçi, who devoted his life to the struggle for peace and freedom and sacrificed his life for this struggle….Tahir Elçi and Hrant Dink are two heroes, two human rights defenders who made history. People will remember them as intellectuals who made efforts for establishing a democratic order for the peoples of Turkey. Their only measure was rightfulness and justice. The ones who ordered their murder thought that their strong legacy will vanish and we won’t be able to follow their lead, but they are wrong.”…“Today, our most important duty and historical responsibility is to preserve and improve the legacies of Tahir Elçi and Hrant Dink. Demanding peace and speaking up for building peace is the only way.” During the ceremony, a video titled “Inspirations” was shown. People and institutions from Turkey and all around the world, who gave people hope about the future with their actions, were featured in the video. There were also people who objected to the coup and defended democracy on July 15.
Theresa Kachindamoto is the paramount chief, or Inkosi, of the Dedza District in the central region of Malawi, one of the poorest counties of Africa. For years, she has been working for preventing child marriages and defending their right to education. Becoming the chief of a tribe with 900,000 people, Kachindamoto started to struggle against child marriages, when she saw that half of the girls in the tribe are forced to marry at the ages of 12 or 13. She banned “marriage camps”, where children are abused under the name of sexual education. She managed to convince 50 tribe chiefs to abandon the traditions encouraging child marriage and to annul 850 marriages. Receiving the award from Yildiz Tar on behalf of last year’s laureate KAOS GL and Michèle Marian, Kachindamoto told the story of her struggle: “It wasn’t easy to fight against this problem. For majority of people, this practice was one of the most fundamental traditions of Malawi and encouraged by the society. We had to inform all people about the dangers and consequences of child marriage and abolish the accepted opinion which deems this practice as normal. There is no doubt that I need to push against more of the old ways of thinking to achieve my ultimate goal of removing child marriage from Malawi, and giving all girls and boys the opportunity to complete their education. I am proud of what we have achieved so far, but I am aware that there is still a long way ahead of us. I am grateful to every one who walked this way with me. I hope more people will join us and fight for the rights of Malawian girls. God bless you all.”
Human right defender, Iftikhar Mubarik, discusses his work addressing child exploitation in Pakistan and how he seeks to utilise the UN Human Rights system.
In the series “10 December, 10 Defenders” [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/10-december-10-defenders-profiles-of-human-rights-defenders-against-torture/]the OMCT publishes today the case of “Benin: Meet Norbert: Better protecting children to break Benin’s cycle of violence“. “Violence is the first inheritance of a child born within a violent family,” says Norbert Fanou-Ako. As director of a non-governmental organization called Solidarity for Children in Africa and the World (ESAM) he is trying to break Benin’s vicious cycle of violence. The violence deeply engrained in this country starts at home and in school with commonplace whipping, caning, slapping and other uses of ill-treatment against children and then extends to regular beatings to force confessions out of suspected juvenile delinquents at police stations. Read the rest of this entry »
(Fartuun Adan, Director of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center, Mogadishu/Somalia. Photo: Fartuun Adan)
The Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation’s human rights award 2014 recognizes Fartuun Adan’s long-standing and persistent commitment to the human rights of women in the complex political context of a society shaped by decades of civil war in Somalia. Bestowing the human rights award on the director of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center also acknowledges that women are no mere victims of violence and discrimination, but socio-political actors, who actively contribute to peace and reconciliation.
[Fartuun Adan is the director of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center. She founded the organization in 1991 with her husband Elman Ali Ahmed, who was murdered five years later and after whom the center is named today. After his death, Fartuun Adan immigrated to Canada with her daughters. In spite of ongoing conflicts, she returned to Mogadishu in 2007 to continue her work for peace and reconciliation. The Elman Peace and Human Rights Center advocates for women’s and children’s rights under difficult political circumstances. It was the first non-governmental organization providing survivors of gender-based violence and vulnerable women with legal and psychological support, health care and shelter. Furthermore, it advocates for long-term reconciliation and development, and cooperates with OXFAM, ILO and others to support the social reintegration of former child soldiers.]
The award ceremony will take place on 4 December, 2014, 15:00 h, at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastr. 28, 10785 Berlin. The laudation will be held by Christoph Strässer, Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid.
You will have learned this already from the main news media, but to bee complete in the area of human rights awards: On Friday 10 October the Nobel Peace Prize 2014 was awarded to India‘s Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan‘s Malala Yousafzai for their struggles against the violations of the rights of children. As the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said, “Children must go to school, not be financially exploited.”
Satyarthi, age 60, has shown great personal courage in heading peaceful demonstrations focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain, the committee said. Satyarthi told reporters that the award was about many more people than him — and that credit should go to all those “sacrificing their time and their lives for the cause of child rights” and fighting child slavery.
With Costa Ricaas the tenth country to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rightsof the Child, children or their representatives will have the possibility to file an individual complaint as from April 2014,when the Protocol comes formally into effect, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announcement on 14 January.
On 30 May 2013, human rights defender Ms Ye Haiyan was detained by police after being assaulted at her home in Guangxi province, China. Ye Haiyan is an advocate for the rights of sex workers and people living with HIV/AIDS. She has been consistently targeted over the past number of years because of her work.
Just before 12pm on 30 May 2013, a group of plainclothes women arrived at Ye Haiyan’s home and began to physically attack her. Ye Haiyan was alone with her 13-year-old daughter at the time and managed to send out a series of messages on Twitter appealing for help and asking her followers to report the incident Read the rest of this entry »
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 