Rights Monitor
Women human rights defenders: Recognition and protection is urgently needed
Qumrunnessa Nazly
In the arena of human rights work the term 'Human Rights Defender' (HRD) is increasingly being used internationally in place of 'Human Rights Activist' or 'Human Rights Advocate', etc. There is no contradiction between these two. Nevertheless, as the terminology has achieved moral and legal recognition by UN, it is better to use the term HRD while addressing legal matters of human rights.
It refers to individual or group of individuals working for protection and promotion of human rights for all. It includes, inter alia, people who work for human rights whether in their personal capacity or personal-volunteer capacity, as well as human rights NGOs capacity, amongst others. Here emphasis is given to the activity not to the person.
Human rights defenders across the world are targeted for their work and face various kinds of violations and abuses such as killings, death threats, torture, arbitrary arrest, criminal prosecution, harassment, defamation and social exclusion, etc by both state and non-state actors. Because of the nature of their work and mission, HRDs very often confront the state machinery and other non-state actors, such as multinational corporations, armed/ non-armed militant groups including the community and the family.
When they challenge the repressive state machinery, state treats them as a threat to their power. Likewise, when they talk about the bad effects of globalisation, the demerits of so called development projects and challenges the functionality of the multinational corporations and international financial institutions, HRDs becomes threat to them also. When HRDs challenge and speak out against the discriminatory societal, religious norms, they become threat to the reactionary groups of the community. In the cases, human rights defenders in general face some common forms of violations and abuses.
Like their male colleagues, Women human rights defenders have also been struggling for the promotion and protection of human rights. They work not only for realising women's rights but also are very much involved with the so-called mainstream human rights organisations. For instance, if we talk about women human rights defenders in Bangladesh, we see them not only speaking out against the violence on women or equality of women, but also raising their concerns on the issues of good governance and rule of law, rising fundamentalism and rights of religious and ethnic minorities. However, while carrying out their work or because of their work, women human rights defenders are targeted to gender-specific risks and vulnerabilities.
When WHRDs challenge the discriminatory provisions towards women, claim for equality and speak out on the status and role of the women in the society, the patriarchal pattern of the society treat them as anti-social and anti-God and blame them for the break up of the family etc. In such reality, the WHRDs feel high risk of vulnerability in terms of their safety and mobility. The forms of gender specific violations and abuses WHRDs are subjected to include--rape, sexual harassment, torture, physical and mental assault, disappearance, restriction on mobility etc and are blamed as anti-social, social exclusion too. There are numerous numbers of instances of such abuses, threat and violations faced by WHRDs. In contrast, those violations and abuses remain un-reported. In such cases, culture of blaming the victim herself has become a key factor for non-reporting of the violations.
Lack of recognition of the work of WHRDs: There is a reality of non-recognition of the work of HRDs, which is more present in case of WHRD. As per societal norms and assumptions in the patriarchal society, the primary area of mobility of women is the domestic sphere. And when women start to go outside of the family, speak out against discrimination towards them, their works are labelled as anti-social, anti-God, anti-family, let alone giving recognition to their work. Even sometimes the work of WHRDs are not recognised by mainstream human rights organizations.
Protection mechanism: The conventional thinking behind is that human rights defenders are only to dedicate their life for defending rights of others. They are thought to sacrifice their life for the cause. Moreover, the rights of those defenders to be defended often go unspoken and un-discussed. From that point of view, their protection issues do not receive that much attention. But everyone is entitled to claim his or her rights, where human rights defenders are no exception. Keeping this in mind, international community has come up with a number of mechanisms in order to ensure protection to the HRDs worldwide.
UN Declaration on HRD: After many years of debate and long negotiations, in 1998, UN General Assembly adopted a declaration titled “Declaration on the right and responsibility of individuals groups and organs of society to promote and protect universally recognised human rights and fundamental freedom”. Commonly, this declaration is known as UN Declaration on human rights defenders.
The main purpose of the Declaration is to protect human rights defenders and their activities. It clarifies defenders' rights as well as states' obligations to protect these rights. The declaration legitimises human rights activism and recognises that individuals and groups are entitled to carry out human rights work without fear of reprisals.
The Declaration recognises that defending human rights is a right in itself. It clarifies how human rights apply to human rights defenders. Even though this is declaration, this instrument has been adopted by the General Assembly by consensus. Therefore, the respective government is internationally committed to protect the rights of the HRD's and to create favourable environment where HRD's can carry out this work with any impediment.
Special representative of the Secretary General on HRDs
A special position (procedure) was created namely 'Special Representative of the Secretary General on HRDs as an international mechanism in defending rights of the human rights defenders. In 2000, Hina Jilani, an human rights activist from Pakistan was first appointed as the mandate holder of the special representative of the Secretary General on HRD. The office bears an independent nature of character, as the mandate holder do the job on voluntary basis.
This office undertakes various activities, like, receive communications on human rights violations suffered by HRDs and in turn writing back to the respective government seeking clarification of the situation in case, country visit to know the situation of the HRDs in ground and preparing annual reports for the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. In the annual reports, the Special Representative analyses the situation and the trend. At the same time, it contains precise recommendations to the states to take measures to create enabling environment for the HRDs to carry out their work without any impediment.
WHRD's across the world can use the mechanism by sending cases of violations to her office, as in turn the office asks back to the government about the violation with recommendation to take required measures. WHRDs also can use the annual reports produced by SR (to be submitted to the GA and HRC) in their advocacy work, as these report consist of very concrete recommendations to the states to take measures to protect HRDs. Besides, there is another special procedure, namely Special Procedure on VAW; WHRDs also can use the office simultaneously.
Bangladesh perspective: Like the rest of the world, in Bangladesh WHRDs /HRDs in general suffer and are targeted to various forms of violations and abuses by both state and non-state actors. But there is no systematic monitoring and documentation of those violations, which negatively have impact on securing protection of HRDs. Another reality lies with the fact that most of the WHRDs/HRDs in general are not familiar with the existing international protection mechanisms what they can use to defend their rights. They are also not aware that defending human rights is a right in itself, therefore, their work is also legitimate and require protection by the state.
Concluding observations: Even though the state remains as the central and ultimate focus with the responsibility to create favourable environment so that HRDs can carry out their work without any impediment, it very often fails to do so. Moreover, most often the state itself becomes the perpetrator of the abuses. In such a scenario, the only protection HRDs has is their joint movement and strong networking. Keeping this in mind, WHRDs should concentrate on the following steps to secure their protection while carrying out their work--
* Stronger networking among themselves and with mainstream human rights organisations.
* Awareness raising among them about their rights as HRD and about the existing national and international protection mechanisms.
* Systematic monitoring and Documentation of the violations occurred to WHRDs.
* Increased use of the UN declaration and the office of Special Representative of the Secretary General on HRDs (UNSRGA) as advocacy tool to secure their protection.
* Increased reporting of the cases of violations to 'Special Representative of the Secretary General on HRD's (UNSRGA).
The writer is working with Ain O Shalish Kendra.
