Powerful Persuasion

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:10 -0500

Powerful Persuasion

By Emile Short

Download full notebook below.
See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

In this notebook, we learn about some of the most difficult human rights violations to eradicate–customary or traditional practices based on deep-seated beliefs, particularly those with a spiritual dimension. One such practice is the Trokosi, in Ghana, a system of servitude that meets the community need for justice and the material and sexual needs of fetish priests. Women and young girls are brought and kept in fetish shrines to atone for sins or crimes allegedly committed by one of their relatives. The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) recognized that legislation outlawing such practices may not be effective and may, in some cases, result in driving a customary practice further underground. Respected leaders–at local and national levels–engaged in direct dialogue with perpetrators, victims, other community leaders, and the community at large to facilitate understanding of the practice, while providing alternatives and avenues for abandoning the practice without losing status. There are many ways in which respected leaders can be enlisted to help community members understand the dynamics of customary or traditional practices, and to address the underlying complexities of such practices in order to transform or change those that violate basic human rights.

Some of the most difficult human rights violations to address are customary or traditional practices based on deep-seated beliefs of a community or people, particularly practices that have a spiritual dimension. In the Trokosi system in Ghana, women and virgin girls are taken without their consent to fetish shrines to atone for sins or alleged crimes committed by family members. They are forced to serve the shrine priests through manual labor, including farming and cooking, and are sexually exploited as well. The practice occurs mainly in remote areas of the Volta Region of Ghana, which is dominated by an ethnic group called the Ewes. Through a coalition effort involving the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ, a constitutional and statutory body), International Needs Ghana (ING, an NGO), the National Commission on Civic Education (another constitutional body), and the traditional leaders from the Ewe communities, we have succeeded in liberating thousands of young women and girls held in this bondage.

Our tactic is to mobilize the support of respected community leaders, such as chiefs, queen mothers, and local governmental officials, using them as resources in seminars and durbars2 on the human rights implications of the practice and recommending voluntary liberation of the victims. After these meetings, we enter direct negotiations with the shrine priests and elders, persuading them to voluntarily end the Trokosi practice. Because they speak the same language and hail from the same communities as the practitioners, the community leaders have played a crucial role in changing the mind-set, beliefs, and behavior of those involved in the human rights abuse. This approach is useful when dealing with cultural or traditional practices based on deeply entrenched beliefs, especially when the practice has a spiritual dimension and practitioners are reluctant to abolish it for fear of incurring the wrath of the gods. Experience combating female genital mutilation taught us that legislation prohibiting traditional and customary practices is ineffective if not preceded by intense public education programs.

In addition, human rights groups must engage in dialogue with practitioners, working to change their mindset and persuade them to voluntarily give up the abusive practice. It can be difficult, however, for human rights groups to achieve such engagement if they are perceived as "outsiders" by the traditional communities. Well-intentioned human rights efforts can easily be construed as an attack on people’s fundamental cultural and religious beliefs. Experience suggests that you cannot change deep-seated beliefs and practices by attacking them, nor can the law be enforced if there is no public cooperation. A different path must be found. We set out to convince practitioners and other stakeholders of the necessity of changing the Trokosi practice. We wanted the communities to see the practice for what it was: an abuse of human rights and an attack on the dignity and humanity of women in their own communities. We also wanted them to recognize that traditions are flexible and can be transformed over time, and that this practice could be changed without offending the gods. Unless we could achieve such an attitudinal change, legislation and enforcement could result in the practice being driven underground, and women and girls continuing to be trapped in this system of bondage.

ING provided support and oversight of the effort, setting up initial meetings with the Trokosi priests, shrine elders, and community chiefs, and arranging the seminars and durbars. I represented the CHRAJ, while the third key participant was Mama Adokua Asigble IV, Queen Mother from the Tefle traditional area and member of the National Commission on Civic Education. This process has taken more than a decade, and has involved a complex series of integrated steps: human rights advocacy and education in the various communities; negotiations with shrine priests and elders; and, for the freed Trokosi women, vocational skills training programs, emancipation ceremonies, and counseling and rehabilitation support. In this notebook we focus on the crucial method of engaging with respected community leaders to gain access, conduct educational programs, negotiate with the shrines, and carry out the emancipation process. According to the estimates of our NGO partner, 3,000 Trokosi women and children have so far been liberated through these efforts. In 1998 we also secured the passage of the "Prohibition of customary servitude" law; this has helped give momentum to the process, despite the fact that no prosecutions have yet taken place under this law.

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Leveraging the Money

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:06 -0500

Leveraging the Money

by Ulrich Mueller

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In this notebook Ulrich Mueller describes a strategy of the FoodFirst Information and Action Network to influence large mining operations that were causing various human rights abuses, by putting pressure on banks and other financial institutions that invest in those mines. The notebook provides a thorough analysis of the kinds of research and pressure tactics that can provide an important new source of leverage for communities that are trying to counter the damage that can be caused by huge corporate projects on or near their land. This tactic can be extended to cover a broad range of issues in which there is a need to pressure corporations, as it takes into account their crucial dependence on the globalized financial community to invest in their operations, and the growing sensitivity of that financial community to sociopolitical pressure.

This notebook explains how the FoodFirst Information and Action Network influenced financial institutions to promote better protections for human rights or to prevent projects that would lead to human rights violations. FIAN Germany used this tactic mainly in a campaign against violations of the right-to-food caused by large surface gold mines. The campaign cooperates closely with affected communities and local organizations. Together with these partners, FIAN investigates the human rights problems of specific mines. We then use a number of instruments to bring the findings to the attention of investors and the public: fact-finding mission reports, calls for urgent action among members, involving human rights bodies at the national and international level, media work, speaker tours, conferences and lobbying. This combination provides new leverage to influence financial institutions and mining companies. And this in turn helps affected communities to claim their rights under difficult circumstances.

We started to support mining-affected communities in 1995. The first contacts we had were with communities in Peru and Turkey. In some of these cases, German investors were involved in financing the mines. This gave us an opportunity to link human rights violations in other countries to actors in Germany. And it also proved to be an effective tool to put pressure on the mining companies. From that starting point, FIAN began using investor pressure as a primary tactic in its gold mining campaign. The tactic of directing campaigns toward financial institutions is not limited to mining.

As financial institutions are, more and more, a powerful economic force worldwide, this tactic could be used in a variety of ways in other cases of corporate abuse: Industry-wide campaigns are pressing financial institutions like banks or pension funds to withdraw support from specific industrial sectors or to pressure companies in that sector to adopt new standards or practices. Campaigns might also focus on an individual company or a specifically harmful project (like large infrastructure projects, dams, mines, etc.). In these cases, investors might be urged to withdraw their support from a specific project or to pressure the company to change their behavior. Additionally, campaigns might focus on financial market practices themselves and demand new investment rules and practices like ethical investment.

This notebook focuses on project-level campaigning, using the example of a gold-mining project in Ghana. It will start with background information on the human rights impacts of surface gold mining. The elements of the tactic will be explained and illustrated through the example. The second part will discuss what questions are important when using the tactic and how the tactic could be transferred.

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Tactical Notebooks, Ghana

Powerful Persuasion