Pressures on Individuals
Syndicate content

Engaging key stakeholders for resolving land disputes

This tactic of targeting absentee landowners as key stakeholders was non-confrontational and proved effective to target. The community created specific alliances with influential absentee landowners who were initially, and often unknowingly, part of the violation process. Recognition of the importance of the cooperation of this target group led to the success of the movement.

Engaging religious leaders in a conversation about inclusion, and implementing non-violent direct action tactics

Soulforce Inc. uses dialogue and non-violent direct action to make local and national religious institutions more inclusive of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) members.  GLBT members carry out this work, attempting to engage religious leaders in a conversation about inclusion, and creating non-violent direct action tactics when negotiations fail.  The goal of this work is to empower and to renew GLBT members who have suffered as a result of exclusionary policies, statements and practices, and to change the hearts and minds of congregations, the general public, and religious leaders.  

Uniting grassroots organizations with specialists to challenge World Bank policies

In 1999, International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) successfully pressured the World Bank to relinquish its funding to China’s Western Poverty Reduction Project through a two-pronged approach of mobilizing at the grassroots level to lobby the U.S. government and convincing Washington specialists to draft a claim to the World Bank investigation panel listing the internal policy violations.

Demonstrating outside the homes of perpetrators of abuse to generate condemnation

In Argentina, perpetrators of abuse during Argentina's dictatorship (1976-1983) often live anonymously among their neighbors, enjoying the immunity granted by the current Argentinean government.  HIJOS, a local human rights organization, is trying to unmask this anonymity.

Using independent monitoring to promote existing labor laws

COVERCO enforces corporate codes of conduct for working conditions in Guatemalan maquilas (factories) and in the agricultural export industry through intensive, long-term independent monitoring.

The Commission for the Verification of Corporate Codes of Conduct (COVERCO) is a nascent independent monitoring agency formed in 1997 by members of civil society groups, including professionals in law, education, business and other fields. COVERCO currently has arrangements to monitor three maquilas, one that produces items exclusively for Liz Claiborne, Inc. (LCI), one that produces for Gap Inc., and one that combines contracts for Gap Inc. and LCI.

Mobilizing public resources for victims of human rights violations

The ICAR Foundation in Romania mobilized public resources for the victims of human rights violations in order to get the State to take full responsibility for its actions by acknowledging and treating former political prisoners justly and humanely.