 We have been busy on multiple fronts. As Memria continues to attract new users such as libraries, historical societies, and museums, we have also been developing new ways to tell stories and make people and communities more visible. At the Visibility Initiative, for example, we highlight changemakers of all genders and sexual identities, with a primary focus on women. This was an editorial choice; women’s contributions are often overlooked more frequently than men’s. By centering women’s stories, we discover new approaches to leadership that challenge common perceptions. Leadership is often imagined as an individual pursuit of a singular vision yet the women featured in this edition of Squeaky Wheel bring about change through deep integration with their communities, not by standing above them. Consider Filipino-American nurses Luisa Blue and Zenei Triunfo-Cortez. They brought their nursing skills—compassion, resilience, and patience—into union activism to push for better working conditions. Rather than pursuing personal ambition, they lead by collaborating, caring for fellow advocates, and prioritizing collective well-being. We also share the stories of three remarkable Senegalese women transforming their communities through the arts and public policy. Christiane Agboton Johnson, for example, has shown that women bring unique strengths to peace negotiations, bridging divides and conveying messages in ways that men often can’t. This edition also includes the work of a Viva Voz fellow from our Colombian program, who navigated the Pacific rivers to explore the connection between these waterways and Black communities—preserved by midwives, elder women, and healers. In these communities, women safeguard essential knowledge. These women’s stories offer new models of leadership and ways to address today’s most pressing issues. – Miguel BoteroEditor in Chief, The Visibility Initiative  Photo: RN Luisa Bluo in front of a picket line. Positively Filipino.Healing and Advocacy: How Filipino-American Nurses Transformed Healthcare Through ActivismAs Filipino-American History Month wraps up, we looked into an overlooked story: the activism of Filipino-American nurses in the U.S. We may have heard about their essential role in healthcare, but their impact goes much deeper. Leaders like Zenei Triunfo-Cortez and Luisa Blue have fought tirelessly for fair wages, better working conditions, and equal rights, challenging discrimination head-on. Their journey from patient care to union leadership shows how their compassion and resilience extend beyond the bedside and into the fight for systemic change. Their inspiring work is part of Filipino Americans’ long legacy of social justice.Read More  Oshúm and the shades of water in the COP16COP16 will take place from October 21 to November 1, 2024, in Cali, Colombia. This biodiversity summit gathered representatives from 196 countries to discuss global efforts to protect nature and stop biodiversity loss. The International Forum on Women and Biodiversity featured clips from Oshúm and the Shades of Water, a project Memria co-produced through the Viva Voz Fellowship, our program with the Ford Foundation’s Bogota office and other partners to support Colombian storytellers. For this project, fellow Lyann Cuartas and her team from the Las Jaibas Collective navigated three rivers on Colombia’s Pacific coast. There, they interviewed women and queer individuals who hold deep spiritual connections to the rivers. Their stories blend childhood memories, songs, and firsthand accounts of environmental crimes against one of the most biodiverse places on earth. This photo and audio project offers an intimate look at communities that have lived by these rivers and jungles for centuries.You can read more about the project on Global Voices WEDO will celebrate the 11th Anniversary of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day on November 15th at the United Nations Delegate Dining Room in New York City. The event will be live-streamed Among the event’s remarkable changemakers is Angeline Zimbwani Mikiri, a pioneering African publisher dedicated to making storytelling across the continent more accessible and diverse. She founded Zimbabwe’s award-winning publishing house Tariro Books, which has become known for amplifying African voices and perspectives in children’s literature, educational materials, and adult fiction. Committed to fostering a culture of reading in Africa, Mikiri has emphasized stories that reflect the unique experiences, traditions, and challenges African communities face.Join the event to hear from her and other inspiring entrepeneurs who have transformed their communities.Follow this link for more information  Read about some of the most remarkable women in SenegalStarting in September, we began translating and republishing stories from our partner, Géantes Invisibles, on The Visibility Initiative. These stories mark our origins, as the initiative grew from our alliance with Coumba Toure, Senegalese feminist activist and Géantes Invisibles founder. She started this storytelling project to honor the women of Africa and its diaspora who have transformed their communities—often silently, without much recognition from governments, media, or philanthropic organizations. We joined forces because we share a mission: to shine a light on changemakers whose impactful stories deserve more attention. These stories are rich with lessons on how leaders develop, think, and make things happen in their communities against great odds. These stories highlight well-known figures, like Germaine Acogny, the mother of modern African dance, and Madeleine Devès Senghor, a key architect of Senegal’s post-independence state. They also feature lesser-known giants like Christiane Agboton Johnson, an advocate for disarmament, who emphasizes women’s critical role in peacebuilding. These stories create a vibrant mosaic of West African women’s activism. |
Posts Tagged ‘Senegal’
Stories of women human rights defenders central to Memria’s work
November 12, 2024CIVICUS 2023: almost one third of humanity now lives in countries with ‘closed’ civic space
December 7, 2023
The CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression in 198 countries and territories, announced in a new report – “People Power Under Attack 2023” – that almost one third of humanity now lives in countries with ‘closed’ civic space.
This is the highest percentage –30.6% of the world’s population– living in the most restrictive possible environment since CIVICUS Monitor’s first report in 2018. Meanwhile, just 2.1% of people live in ‘open’ countries, where civic space is both free and protected, the lowest percentage yet and almost half the rate of six years ago.
“We are witnessing an unprecedented global crackdown on civic space,” said CIVICUS Monitor lead researcher Marianna Belalba Barreto. “The world is nearing a tipping point where repression, already widespread, becomes dominant. Governments and world leaders must work urgently to reverse this downward path before it is too late.”
The CIVICUS Monitor rates each country’s civic space conditions based on data collected throughout the year from country-focused civil society activists, regionally-based research teams, international human rights indices and the Monitor’s own in-house experts. The data from these four separate sources are then combined to assign each country a rating as either ‘open,’ ‘narrowed,’ ‘obstructed,’ ‘repressed’ or ‘closed.’
Seven countries saw their ratings drop this year. These include Venezuela and Bangladesh, each now rated ‘closed’ due to intensifications of existing crackdowns on activists, journalists and civil society.
Democratic countries slipped too. Europe’s largest democracy, Germany, fell from ‘open’ to ‘narrowed’ amid protest bans and targeting of environmental activists. Bosnia & Herzegovina also declined to ‘obstructed,’ the twelfth European country downgraded since 2018.
One of 2023’s most dramatic slides occurred in Senegal, once considered among West Africa’s most stable democracies. Senegal entered the ‘repressed’ category amid sustained government persecution of protesters, journalists and opposition ahead of February elections.
“The range of countries where authorities restricted citizen participation in 2023 shows clampdowns are not isolated incidents but are part of a global pattern,” said Belalba. “A global backslide requires a global response. If citizens are not able to freely gather, organise and speak out, the world will not be able to solve inequality, confront the climate crisis and bring an end to war and conflict.”
CIVICUS Monitor data shows that worldwide, authorities target people’s freedom of expression above all else. Half of all documented violations in 2023 targeted free speech, with incidents ranging from a bombing outside a journalist’s house in Indonesia, the arrest of the head of a radio station in Tunisia and police pepper-spraying a reporter covering a protest in the United States.
Our research also reveals that intimidation is the number one tactic to restrict citizen freedoms. Human rights defenders, activists and media experienced intimidation in at least 107 countries. Media in particular bear the brunt, with 64% of incidents targeting journalists.
Despite these alarming trends, People Power Under Attack 2023 highlights areas of progress too. Timor-Leste’s civic space moved up to the second best rating ‘narrowed’ from ‘obstructed,’ reflecting the country’s commitment to fundamental freedoms. Four other countries saw ratings improve, though they remain in ‘repressed’ or ‘obstructed’ zones.
The report also details bright spots where countries made steps toward opening societies. Among these, Fiji repealed a restrictive media law. The Kenyan courts recognised the right of LGBTQI+ people to associate. Even Tajikistan, rated ‘closed,’ created a national human rights strategy with civil society input. Still, these and other improvements remain halting and often disconnected compared to widespread repression.
“These small steps show that even amid unprecedented restrictions, civil society is pushing back,” said Belalba. “These courageous acts of resistance by active citizens and civil society organisations give us hope that the downward trend is not permanent and can be reversed.”
See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/01/18/2021-global-data-report-from-the-civicus-monitor/
To access the full CIVICUS Monitor report, please visit monitor.civicus.org
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/vietnam-civicus-report-12072023001010.html
AI’s Ambassador of Conscience Award 2016 shared by Angelique Kidjo and African youth groups
May 7, 2016Every year, the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award celebrates individuals and groups who speak out for justice. The 2016, award will be shared between world-renowned musician Angélique Kidjo from Benin and three African youth activist groups: Y’en a marre from Senegal, Le Balai Citoyen from Burkina Faso and LUCHA from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Angélique Kidjo. Credit: Pierre Marie Ziimmerman.
Grammy-winning artist Kidjo fled her homeland Benin in the 1980s after being pressured to perform for the country’s repressive regime. In a 40-year-career spawning 12 albums, she has been a prominent campaigner for freedom of expression and for the education of girls in Africa, as well as against female genital mutilation.
LUCHA, DRC. Credit: Private.
AI looking for a human rights education coordinator for West Africa
February 23, 2016
Amnesty International’s Regional Office in Dakar, Senegal, is looking for an experienced Human Rights Education Coordinator.
The Coordinator will contribute to the development and implementation of regional plans, strategies and projects, coordinate the implementation of human rights education work online and offline, ensure the alignment with global and regional campaigns, contribute the human rights education perspective in the region to internal AI policies, approaches, strategies, activism and research.
The successful candidate will have (inter alia):
- experience of working in human rights education
- first-hand in-depth knowledge and experience of the socio-political and economic context as well as experience of working with Human Rights Defenders in non-formal educational structures and environments in the region
- substantial experience in developing and conducting online and offline programmes for human rights education
- also experience and an understanding of membership organizations, and the capability both to work on your own initiative and as a member of a diverse and partly remote team, often under pressure
- demonstrated understanding of human rights education methodology, including Education Technology and its implications
- extensive experience of working in West Africa and with Human Rights Defenders you have a strong network and rich experience of undertaking this kind of work in the field.
Indictment in Senegal a breakthrough in the Congolese Chebeya-Bazana case?
January 13, 2015Paul Mwilambwe, a major suspect in the Congolese Chebeya-Bazana case was indicted by a Senegalese court and placed under judicial supervision in Dakar on 8 January 2015. This decision was taken following a criminal complaint based on universal jurisdiction filed on 2 June 2014 by lawyers of the FIDH Litigation Action Group (LAG) and the families of Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana, the two Congolese human rights defenders who were assassinated in June 2010. FIDH hopes that these efforts of the Senegalese judicial authorities contribute to identifying the persons responsible for these assassinations and the disappearance of these two human rights defenders.
“That Paul Mwilanbwe has been indicted and heard by an independent investigative judge is a fundamental step on the road to truth and, we hope, to the justice which has not been available to the victims’ families in DRC” , said Patrick Baudouin, FIDH Honorary President. “This is the first time since the Hissène Habré case that a case based on extra-territorial jurisdiction is being tried in Senegal, a step which sends a strong, positive signal showing that the Senegalese judiciary intends to play an active role in the fight against impunity for the most serious crimes committed in Africa”.
“Since the Democratic Republic of Congo did not provide for equitable judicial proceedings, we initiated the proceedings in Senegal to ensure that an impartial and independent investigation would be carried out and that full information would be obtained on the murder and the enforced disappearance of the victims, Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana. We wanted an independent judge to hear Paul Mwilambe, an actor in this tragedy, and this has happened today,” said Assane Dioma Ndiaye, a lawyer for the FIDH LAG and for the Chebeya and Bazana families.
Paul Mwilambwe, a major in the Congolese National Police force (PNC), was in charge of security for the office of General John Numbi, Head of the PNC at the time of the events, in the premises where Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana were killed. Shortly after these killings, Paul Mwilambwe fled to a country somewhere in Africa before going to Senegal. In a filmed interview with France 24 (in French), whilst still on the run, Mwilambwe testified and denounced his own participation and the role and involvement of senior members of the Congolese police, including General John Numbi in the enforced disappearance and murder of the two human rights defenders.
“For us, this indictment gives us great hope to obtain the truth and justice that was refused to us in Congo where the justice system is bogged down. I want to know where my husband was buried. I want someone to tell me where he is. And I want to be able to bury him with dignity” , said Marie-José Bazana, the wife of Fidèle Bazana whose body has still not been found.
[Background: On 2 June 2010, Floribert Chebeya, Executive Director of the NGO Voix des sans Voix (Voice of the Voiceless – VSV), was found dead in his car in a suburb of Kinshasa. His close associate Fidele Bazana was reported missing. The day before, the two human rights defenders had shown up at PNC headquarters to meet with its Director, the Inspector-General, and General John Numbi. They did not emerge from this meeting alive. Faced with the public outcry triggered by the murder of Mr. Chebeya and disappearance of Mr. Bazana, the Congolese authorities were obliged to open an investigation. This investigation culminated in the precautionary suspension of General John Numbi and the imposition of murder indictments for eight police officers, including Paul Mwilambwe, who fled.
On 23 June 2011, following a trial marked by numerous incidents the military court on 23 June 2011 in Kinshasa acknowledged the civil responsibility of the Congolese state for the murder of Mr. Chebeya, as well as in the abduction and illegal detention of Mr. Bazana by several of its officers. The court convicted five of the eight police officers accused. Four were sentenced to death and one to life imprisonment. Three of those condemned to death are still on the run, and three of the police officers found to have played a role in the disappearance of Mr. Bazana, have since been acquitted. On 7 May 2013, the Military High Court, sitting as a court of appeal, declared itself incompetent to investigate the procedural issues in the case and decided to turn the proceedings over to the Supreme Court, operating as a constitutional court. In practice, this decision suspended the appeal proceedings, which remain deadlocked in DRC to date. In addition, Congolese authorities have never instituted proceedings to investigate the role played by General John Numbi, who has since been replaced as Head of the PNC, despite evidence and the complaints filed by the families of the two human rights defenders.]
The Chebeya-Bazana case: indictment of Paul Mwilambwe in (…).
Situation of human rights defenders in Africa – overview by Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
November 6, 2013The OMCT and the FIDH, in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, made an intervention under agenda item 9: “Situation of human rights defenders” at the at the 54th session of African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights [ACHPR] on 5 November.
Human rights defenders were attacked, received threats or were slandered in the DRC, Senegal and Tunisia. In some cases they were even killed, as in the DRC and in Cameroon, in a climate of impunity. Defenders, and in particular defenders of economic, social and cultural rights, also continued to be subjected to arbitrary arrests and judicial harassment in Angola, Cameroon, the DRC, Egypt, Mauritania and Tunisia. Obstacles to freedom of association were also recorded, as for instance in Angola, Egypt and Rwanda. A summary is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 