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Testing for discrimination

Adapting the method used by US organizations on housing discrimination, the Legal Defense Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities (NEKI) uses a method of testing to collect evidence when there is an allegation of discrimination in order to challenge it in court. The Hungarian court recognized testing as a valid technique for documenting discrimination for the first time in a case in 2000 where an individual was denied service in a public accommodation on the ground of the customer’s ethnic origin.

Creating a network of volunteers to monitor compliance with international human rights commitments at the local level

The League of Human Rights Advocates (LHRA) in Slovakia developed a network from the minority Roma population to serve as human rights monitors. The monitors learn about their own rights under national and international law. The LHRA and the network of monitors then work to enforce those rights in their own town halls, police stations, schools and communities. The information from local monitors is used to present the impact of national and international laws in the country.

notebook: Testing for Discrimination: Identifying and Prosecuting Human Rights Abuses

In this notebook we learn about how an organization in Hungary tests for and documents incidences of systematic descrimination against a disenfranchised population.  When an instance of discrimination is reported, this organization will send out testers find out whether or not this discrimination was systematic and then document their findings.

notebook: Making the Global Local

In the human rights field there is often a gap between local human rights abuses and the international laws and treaties that are meant to prevent these abuses.  The League of Human Rights Advocates in Slovakia recruits members of a disenfranchised population and trains them to become human rights monitors.  These monitors watch for human rights abuses in their own locality and then translate international human rights laws and apply them to their local situations.