rights

Using Government Budgets as a Monitoring Tool

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:20 -0500

Using Government Budgets as a Monitoring Tool

By Lerato Kgamphe

Download full notebook in English and a brief summary in Russian below.

In this notebook, we learn about following the money. Budgets are used everywhere–from local agencies, to non-governmental organizations, to governments and international bodies. They provide a concrete tool for evaluating how programs and policies actually fulfill their financial and legal obligations. In South Africa, Idasa’s Children’s Budget Unit (CBU) has used budget analyses to monitor the government’s legal obligations, commitments, and progress in advancing child-specific socioeconomic rights and programs. The CBU monitors and evaluates these programs by looking at the government’s budget allocations, spending of funds, and program expenditures and implementation. The power of this tactic lies in its ability to reveal, in black and white, the extent of a government’s efforts towards its human rights obligations and commitments.

The budget is government’s operational plan to deliver a better life for our people. It sets out what you will pay in taxes, how we will spend that money, and what we will deliver. It is a synthesis of all our government policies. The budget is our contract with the nation.
--Trevor Manual, South African Minister of Finance, 1998 Budget Review

Since 1995 the Children’s Budget Unit (CBU) of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), based in Cape Town, has been using national and provincial government budgets as monitoring mechanisms to advance child-specific socio-economic rights. Budget monitoring allows us to analyze how government conceptualises, implements, and allocates budgets to fulfil its legal obligation to help realize these rights. The rights of the child are explicit, and the government is legally bound to fulfil them: in the South African Constitution, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the African Charter, the child has the right to political, socio-economic, cultural, economic, and environmental rights. In addition, the South African Constitution specifies that the child has the right to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health care services, and social services.

Why use budgets? The budget is the key policy instrument used by a government to ensure that things happen, and thus shows a government’s true priorities. A government’s programs that fulfil its obligations that help realize socio-economic rights must be included in its budget, and it must account not only for the amount budgeted, but also the amount actually spent. Budgets, therefore, are instruments that allow us to monitor how services are delivered and policies implemented. The monitoring of government budgets can lead to policy reform, establish a path for "transparent, effective and efficient" budgeting principles, and make it possible to provide concrete recommendations for program evaluation and improvement. Information gleaned from budget analysis can be used to educate people about their rights, and help them access these rights. Advancement of human rights is a two-way stream. People in need of help must communicate their needs to those in power, and articulate sustainable solutions. And those in power need to know if their methods and programs are effective to ensure that a win-win situation is created.

The budget-monitoring tactic works to aid both sides. Our work has proven that a budget-monitoring project, used effectively, can be an important tool in changing policy. South Africa, for instance, has an extensive social security program for children. The CBU has conducted numerous studies of the accessibility and effectiveness of this program, discovering discriminatory access in undeveloped and rural areas, and a governmental lack of administrative capacity that also hindered access to the program. In our 2001 study, "Budgeting for child socio-economic rights: Government obligations and the child’s right to social security and education" (Cassiem, Streak: 2001, Idasa), we recommended that that age limit of children accessing one of the social security grants be raised from six to 14. This recommendation was put into practice by the government in its 2003/04 budget, and we, together with other civil society organizations, are now focusing on proposals that the program include all children under 18.

In this tactical notebook, after a brief introduction to Idasa and the Children’s Budget Unit, we present a case study of how budget monitoring was used to see how the South African government fulfilled its obligation to provide social security to children. We then generalize the monitoring approach, outlining key questions, and summarize some of the tactic’s positive results. Finally, we offer some discussion of the tactic’s complexity, which should help others think about how to apply it in their own situations.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:18 -0500

The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

By Liz Ervecik Amado
Download full notebook in english and a brief summary of the notebook in Russian and Armenian below.

In this notebook we learn about how effective and beneficial building collaborative relationships with government institutions can be to advancing human rights education. Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR)-New Ways in Turkey gained the support and use of government resources for furthering human rights education of women at the local level.

WWHR-New Ways developed a highly successful human rights education curriculum for women but needed an accessible, structured and sustainable way to reach women in need of learning about their rights. They found and developed an excellent partnership through government run, local level community centers. These community centers offered not only professional social workers who could be trained by WWHR-New Ways in facilitating the human rights education curriculum, but also a safe and accessible place for women to learn about their rights. We hope this notebook will provide ideas and insights for others as they seek opportunities for building mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships with government bodies for furthering human rights efforts.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

The Dilemma Demonstration

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:17 -0500

The Dilemma Demonstration

by Philippe Duhamel

Download full notebook in English and Russian and a brief summary in Armenian below.

In this notebook you learn how Operation SalAMI created a situation that placed the Canadian government in a real dilemma regarding their position and actions in the negotiation process of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). When the government refused to make public the draft documents, hundreds of its citizens showed up at the Ottawa headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade holding "Search and Rescue Warrants" for the release of these draft documents. When the government responded by arresting one hundred citizens for requesting their right to information, the media and general public demanded to know what the government was trying to hide. Behind the success of the campaign was a strategy that included a number of common tactics, including petitions, letter writing, etc., but with the added twists of an unequivocal ultimatum, civil disobedience training on the premises of the Canadian parliament and the drama of the Search and Seizure Operation, a type of nonviolent direct action. Operation SalAMI’s dilemma demonstration tactic, as part of a broader nonviolent campaigning strategy, pressured the government to act according to its professed values and at the requests of its citizens.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Tandem©: Cross-cultural exchange between police and migrants

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:16 -0500

Tandem©: Cross-Cultural Exchange Between Police and Migrants

by Maria Hirtenlehner, International Centre for Cultures and Languages (ICCL)
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The international Centre for Cultures and Languages (ICCL) in Vienna adapted the "TANDEM©" program– originally created for language learning– to human rights education with police and migrant populations in a unique and profound way called "intercultural-TANDEM©."

The result has been "Tandem© Learning", a cultural contact program that improves intercultural understanding. The intercultural-Tandem© program involves a series of interactions between 20 to 25 high level police officers and an equal number of migrants from other countries. The interactions occur mainly in structured group settings and in one-on-one Tandem© pair relationships. To date, over 150 high level police officers and about the same number of migrants have participated in this life changing intercultural experience. The program was designed by the ICCL in Vienna in response to several violent interactions between the police and migrants in Austria.

In Austria, the Tandem© program currently operates as part of a larger police-training course. Officers must apply for participation in the program, which consists of seven four-hour training sessions augmented by several informal activities involving the tandem pairs. Although the program benefits from its affiliation with the police training course, this model could also be implemented and succeed independently.

The program began in 1999 and interest in it continues to grow. Last year, the program received at least 80 applications from high-level police officers from all over Austria for 25 available positions for each program offered. The program has documented improvements in attitudes of both police and migrant participants.

This notebook provides a unique and applicable model to a problem that occurs worldwide. The challenges in adapting it to different contexts will relate to how and where Tandem© program is implemented, the corresponding degree of support needed from the police hierarchy, the availability of funding, and the ability to recruit enough participants from the police and particularly the migrant community to participate.

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Research for Action

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:13 -0500

by Chubashini Suntharalingam, Southeast Asian Council for Food Security and Fair Trade (SEACON)

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Responding to the rise of free trade in the global economy, the Southeast Asian Council for Food Security (SEACON) set out in 2003 to conduct a unique, participatory research project to investigate the impacts of these macroeconomic changes on small scale food producers in Southeast Asia. Research manager Chubashini Suntharalingam’s notebook entitled "Research for Action" outlines the process. The notebook serves as a useful guide for organizations in creating participatory research projects that effectively involve and empower the people impacted by the issues they are studying.

In it, the author first outlines the research methods that characterize a participatory research process. These include the challenges of conducting interviews and organizing focused discussion groups. The author also confronts the difficulties of working with researchers that are untrained in writing documents and reports, as well as the potential issues that must be considered working with participants at the grassroots level. For example, in SEACON’s study, the very people that were struggling economically as a result of the issues that the organization sought to study were also limited in their capacity to participate in the project as a result of these hardships. Taking the time to conduct an interview would mean loosing hours that needed to be spent working. The issue serves to exemplify how, by involving local communities, researches must also be considerate of their unique needs.

Looking beyond the research process, the notebook also details the potential impacts of participatory research that creates thorough, credible documentation at the grassroots level. Not only can the information be utilized in advocacy and lobbying efforts, the research process itself can serve to create a network of activists, informing organizations working on issues that impact study participants, and directly benefiting the people themselves. Participatory research "empowers local communities," the author concludes, "connecting victims of human rights violations to the information they need to become active defenders of their right and to develop creative solutions to human rights challenges."

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from http://www.adobe.com

Human Rights and the Corporation

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:03 -0500

Human Rights and the Corporation

by Reed Addis

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In this notebook Reed Addis describes the development of the Human Rights Compliance Assessment by the Danish Institute for Human Rights. The Compliance Assessment, based somewhat on the model of an Environmental Impact Assessment, was developed through a long process of consultation with businesses from many different industrial sectors, and provides a framework through which businesses can assess their human rights obligations and measure the liabilities and human rights risks in countries where they operate or plan to locate. The tool helps companies understand human rights law, but can also help human rights groups understand companies and learn to communicate with the corporate world about human rights questions in a more constructive way.

In 1999, a small project was initiated between the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Danish Confederation of Industries. Their goal was to create an assessment tool companies could use to evaluate potential violations of human rights in their operations. Up until that point, businesses who were looking for human rights guidance in most cases found only information about labor law, for example via the International Labor Organization. The Human Rights Compliance Assessment was designed to fill this void. It has several sections, with the bulk of the document made up of 350 questions a company needs to ask itself. The questions were designed to cover the entire breadth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While governments are ultimately responsible for upholding the human rights afforded us by various international treaties, businesses can have a disproportionate impact on the activities of governments, either supporting or undercutting government actions. Over the last 20 to 30 years, a wealth of examples have been collected that demonstrate that companies can help protect the rights of individuals, or they can deal them devastating blows. Human rights advocates have accordingly begun to invest energy in focusing attention on the conduct of corporations, to push them to behave better, on occasion pulling them along to better human rights in their operations. This developing focus has been critical to adding protections for our human rights. But why this focus now? Over the last 50 years, corporations have increasingly extended their operations beyond the country where they are headquartered. This means a corporation with headquarters in one country may sell their products in several countries, while the products they sell may be made in yet another country thousands of miles away.

Many factors have contributed to this dynamic, but it is obvious that the production and marketing strategies of today are fundamentally different than they were a half century ago. Numerous international treaties, conventions and declarations identify human rights that governments and all members of society should uphold. Several international organizations, such as the International Labor Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations Global Compact, have also spelled out human rights obligations specific to private companies. However, if an advocacy group wishes to engage a corporation in a constructive dialogue on the issue of human rights, they must know both "languages": the language of the business world and that of international human rights law. Without this capacity, advocates are left discussing what seem to their corporate contacts like very vague concepts. These discussions may or may not lead to agreements and often refer to rather ambiguous changes for business operations or structure. It is clear to me after many meetings with human rights advocates that they often struggle to identify concrete changes they can offer to a corporation for improviving human rights protections.

This paper will outline how a new assessment tool, the Human Rights Compliance Assessment, designed at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, can help advocacy organizations confront human rights abuses linked to corporate activities and help corporations assess their own human rights performance. To understand the importance of this tool, we need to reframe human rights issues as "the company problem" and look for windows of opportunity to help corporations address these issues more productively. Taking advantage of these opportunities requires a willingness to see the problems through the business lens and to build alliances that will be credible in the eyes of the business community. NGOs who get involved in this task need to establish their own credibility and build trust, so that businesses can engage in dialogue and implement changes without the fear that their efforts will be used against them.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Engaging the Media: Building support for minimum wage reform

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:01 -0500

by Jee Hyeon Kim, Korean Women Workers Associations United (KWWAU)

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The KWWAU and its partners effectively engaged media to raise public awareness and concern regarding the minimum wage system, thereby assisting in the creation of a social movement that has succeeded in changing the minimum wage law to afford greater protections for workers, especially for women.

This tactical notebook shares the efforts of Korean Women Workers Associations United (KWWAU) to engage the South Korean media to build public awareness about South Korea’s unjust minimum wage system. As you will see, this was one of many coordinated tactics employed in their campaign to change the minimum wage law and system in order to provide living wages to the most vulnerable workers.

Successful engagement of the media most often requires many other supporting tactics. KWWAU shares the approaches they found were most helpful in engaging the media: credible documentation of the problem, petitions to demonstrate public interest in the issue, and visually engaging performances and demonstrations that are easily captured by the media. With media interest, our campaign was able to expand, bring in new supporters, and provide us with leverage in our negotiation and lobbying efforts.

In the aftermath of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis in 1997 there was a swift increase in the numbers of poor workers in South Korea and the minimum wage re-emerged as a social issue. The greatest victims of globalization in South Korea were women, like other countries funded by the IMF, many Korean workers were laid off and transformed into irregular workers.

Prior to the use of this tactic, the KWWAU was involved in organizing subcontract women workers to advocate for their rights. In the process of their labor organizing work with this segment of irregular workers in 2000, they discovered the problem of the minimum wage system. The low minimum wage had become an urgent problem, particularly among subcontract workers in South Korea. KWWAU determined they needed to work to raise the increment of the minimum wage so subcontract women workers would benefit. KWWAU began organizing nation-wide campaigns in nine cities, resulting in the first challenge to the Korean minimum wage system since its inception in 1988. Beginning in 2002, other organizations joined the KWWAU in advocating for improvements in the minimum wage system. A "minimum wage network" was established. The campaign expanded to other regions, focusing on raising the minimum wage and transforming the minimum wage system itself.

The KWWAU’s efforts have resulted in significant changes to the minimum wage law that improves working conditions for minimum wage earners. Their efforts have also transformed the annual decision of the Minimum Wage Council into an important social issue in South Korea. The KWWAU and its partners succeeded in raising public awareness and concern regarding the minimum wage system, and creating a social movement that has made it possible for many poor women to benefit from increasing minimum wages and greater protections.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Action Theatre

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:07:59 -0500

by Motahar Akand, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK)
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The goal of Action Theatre is to develop the capacities of young people and cultural activists at the grassroots level to be a force for change, helping to create a society based on human rights, gender equity and social justice. The tactical outcome is the creation of local theatre groups who would initiate discussion, debate, analysis and actions on critical human rights issues in their community. Participants in the tactic also enhance their leadership skills and human rights awareness.

Six individual elements–six roles–work in conjunction with one another to provide a complete Action Theatre experience:

Initiator: Creates an action theatre group.
Core team: ASK staff members who initiate Action Theatre in other communities.
Primary team: Community members who form the human rights theatre group, or Manobadhikar Natya Parishad (MNP), and implement action theatre
Upazilla level Manobadhikar Natya Parishad (UzMNP): Federation of local MNP groups.
Partner NGO or PNGO: The local group with which ASK works to coordinate the program.
Community Organizer (CO): Local community member working under the supervision of the PNGO to build the primary team and provide support to them.
Audience: Participants in performance who are tasked with defining the action to be taken.

In this tactical notebook, we outline the Action Theatre framework that has been developed and replicated in twelve working areas across Bangladesh. We will share the key elements and steps necessary for the successful application of this tactic, as well as some of the challenges and unexpected outcomes we have seen. Local theatre groups are now gaining ground as a mobilizing force in Bangladesh. This tactical notebook will help provide you with the information you need to determine whether Action Theatre is appropriate for your country and human rights issue.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from http://www.adobe.com

A Mock Tribunal to Advance Change

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:07:58 -0500

A Mock Tribunal to Advance Change

By Mufuliat Fijabi

Downlaod full notebook below.

In this notebook we learn about the creative and effective use of a mock tribunal to change public perceptions and beliefs regarding violations against women, and to change public policy and law. BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, in collaboration with CIRDDOC (Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre), highlighted violations of women’s rights in Nigeria that were viewed by the public as normal or even justifiable abuse. The organization used prominent people–a Nigerian Supreme Court justice, a member of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW) committee in Nigeria, lawyers, and representatives from the National Human Rights Commission–to create a high powered panel of "judges" to draw media attention and hear testimonies by women from many areas of Nigeria. The judges were selected based on their prominence and their concern for women’s rights. The tribunal’s recommendations was instrumental, at both local and national levels, in subsequent attempts to advocate for new laws and for reforms of existing laws related to violence against women. This tactic may provide each of us with ideas for addressing public perceptions and misunderstandings regarding other disadvantaged or abused populations.

On March 14, 2001 the Nigerian public, media, and government witnessed something that had never happened before. In a "mock tribunal" in Abuja, the federal capital of Nigeria, 33 women and girls told a distinguished panel of judges their individual stories of violent victimization. The event attracted ample media coverage and an audience of from 150 to 500 people over the course of the day. It was the first major organized attempt in the country to break the public silence on violence against women. As each woman finished her testimony–or the testimony of her sisters, for the woman who did not survive–the audience was often in tears. At the end the panel of judges retired to deliberate, and returned with a powerful set of recommendations for significant policy changes to protect Nigerian women from violence and human rights abuse.

This mock tribunal was organized by BAOBAB For Women’s Human Rights and by the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Center (CIRDDOC). The idea developed after seeing the impact of tribunals like those in Vienna and Tokyo, and the worldwide attention they attracted. CIRDDOC had itself, in 1999, organized a mock tribunal in Anambra State in South East Nigeria, addressing human rights violations. This event attracted a strong public turnout, and began further discussions on human rights violations in general and those affecting women in particular. Since 1996, BAOBAB had been running workshops and producing radio programs to draw attention to violence against women, and working with women on ways to recognize violence and build defenses against it. Prior to this event, violence against women was given no serious attention in the press, in the halls of government, or in law enforcement. We felt that engaging prominent persons in such a high-profile event would facilitate policy changes. We organized this mock tribunal so that the general public would recognize violence against women and help stop it; so that law enforcement agents would recognize such violence, their own role in perpetuating it, and their responsibility in preventing it; so that the government would agree to play a more significant role in reducing the violence and make resources available to help care for victims; and also so that the government would provide resources to compensate and counsel survivors, helping them integrate back into their lives and communities.

We believe that the tribunal and its associated media workshops influenced the consciousness not only of the Nigerian public, but of bodies such as the National Assembly and the law enforcement agencies (police, army, customs, and the like). At the tribunal itself, legislators vowed to use all power within their reach to fight violence against women, and promised to play a significant role in ensuring that the bill on violence against women was passed into law. The tribunal attracted a great deal of media and public attention, which helped move the problem of violence against women onto the public agenda, opening the way for more effective application of other tactics such as public education and pressure. It also helped empower survivors and give them hope for the future.

Additional Resources:

The International Museum of Women has posted an article on BAOBAB for the March, 2008 focus of Women, Power and Politics! The story has inspired and attracted 1,000 visitors a day to read, comment and take action at www.imow.org.
The website of the International Museum of Women has a new online community allows both individuals and organizations to become a member and connect with like-minded women, men and organizations around the world.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

A Call to End Corruption

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:07:57 -0500

A Call to End Corruption

By Ezel Akay

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In this notebook, we read about how mass numbers of people – 30 million people – in Turkey turned off and on their lights to demand that the government act against corruption. Government corruption had been an open secret. Yet, the public felt apathetic about being able to change the situation. The Campaign of Darkness for Light gave people an easy and no-risk action everyone could take – simply turning off their lights at the same time each evening – and thus show their displeasure with the system. Such a simple action – a flick of the switch – and yet when people saw that their neighbors had turned off their lights, too, they felt the power of their collective voices and began to invent their own ways to speak out by gathering on the streets, marching and banging pots and pans. This deceptively simple tactic carried out in a mass numbers sent a powerful signal that the public was calling for an end to corruption in Turkey.

A "Crash Course" in Democracy Begins!

November 3, 1996. Western Turkey. After sunset, on an intercity highway near a roadside town called Susurluk. A dark green Mercedes is speeding from an Aegean resort town towards Istanbul. Inside are four people with a bag full of dollars, a trunk full of arms, ammunition and silencers, and pockets full of cocaine. They are coming home from a "business" trip. At the same time at a roadside gas station near Susurluk. A truck has just filled up its tank and heads off on a long journey home. It slowly eases its way onto the main road. The Mercedes arrives full-speed just as the body of the turning truck covers the road. Crash! For Turkey a "crash course" in democracy begins.

Three Months Later: The Hopeful Noise of 30 Million Citizens ... On February 1, 1997, at precisely 9 p.m., the lights started to go out in Istanbul and other Turkish cities. Household after household, in a perfectly synchronized mass action, turned off their lights for one full minute. On February 2, the same thing again, only more houses. On February 3, again. By February 15, an estimated 30 million Turkish households throughout the country were participating in the biggest public protest against corruption in Turkish history. Turning off the lights for one minute was all the organizers had suggested anyone do. But it wasn’t enough for the citizens. As the action’s momentum grew, people needed more. They spontaneously went beyond the suggested one minute. They began flicking their lights on and off repeatedly, turning the cities of Turkey into a light show. Then people began opening their windows, blowing whistles, banging pots and pans. The light show became an audio-visual extravaganza. Finally, people began pouring out into the streets. Cars on the highways stopped and began blowing their horns. Even the most affluent neighborhoods in Turkey were turned into spontaneous street carnivals. The unspoken frustration of all of Turkey, hidden for so many years behind fear and apathy, was now out in the open and on the streets!

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.