Summary: Youth Forum Preparatory Session on Human Rights

Small Group Discussion: The Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Human Rights Defenders

The issue of Human Rights Defenders (HRD) is still a very unknown one and the Declaration on HRD, adopted by the General Assembly in 1998, even more so. The group decided to contribute to raising awareness about these issues, specially focusing on the abuses of the rights of the child: forced marriages, child labour, violation of the right to education, etc.

General Summary
The Chair, Isolda Agazzi Ben Attia, a Consultant for Good Governance,  provided a general picture of the promotion and protection of the rights of Human Rights Defenders (HRD), focusing more specifically on the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the NGOs that implement projects in this field and the mandate of the Special Representative (SR) of the Secretary General on HRD. 

Key questions discussed

The main questions discussed were:

• What are the core human rights that cannot be derogated from even in times of public emergency?
• How does the SR carry out her work?
  A participant from an indigenous women organization talked about the petition they had sent to their own government and the assistance they had tried to obtain from international organizations.
• Do you think that governments are willing to invite the SR for a mission?
  This question generated a debate on democracy, the rule of law and good governance, as it seems self-evident that the more democratic a country is, the less there are violations of human rights and hence the less is the need to protect human rights defenders.
• Who are usually the main perpetrators of abuses against HRD and what are the most recurrent forms of abuses against HRD?
  Are you aware of any such abuses in your country? A participant said that in his country freedom of association, of opinion and expression is very much given, whereas freedom of the press is still very restricted. Journalists still get murdered regularly for doing their jobs. Another participant pointed to the fact that certain groups are more likely to suffer from human rights violations, than others (e.g. if you are a woman, member of an indigenous community, and living in a country that is not very democratic, you are part of a risk group).
• What kind of impact do the Declaration on HRD and the activity of the Special Representative have on countries that are not member of the United Nations?

Interesting issues
In many developing countries, people and especially the youth care mainly about economic development and they tend to neglect human rights. In view of this situation, some NGOs seek to raise awareness about the importance of HR through education.

Conclusions
Participant propose the following concrete and possible actions or solutions to support the work of HRD, especially by youth NGOs:

• Create national and regional networks of youth NGOs supporting the work of HRD;
• Create cooperation and working relationships between NGOs, governments and intergovernmental organizations (develop dialog and a culture of cooperation);
• Lobby or advocate governments on the importance of protecting HR;
• Disseminate the Declaration on HRD and eventually translate it into local languages;
• Raise awareness and capacity-building through education.

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