English, public awareness

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. [*note]

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. [*note]

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 Power of Place: How historic sites can engage citizens in human rights issues

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

The Power of Place

by Liz Sevcenko

Download full notebook in English and Spanish and a brief summary in Russian and Armenian below.[*note]

Read an interview with the author
See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

In this notebook the author describes how human rights activists as well as the museum community can make more effective use of the spacial impact of historic sites to help educate people about social change and human rights. The Tenement Museum in New York City has joined with more than a dozen other institutions that have focused their attention on "sites of conscience"–places where terrible human rights abuse has occurred that should never be forgotten. Their goal is not only to remember the past, but also to use the emotional power of these places to catalyze critical thinking about the ongoing social issues of today, through dialogue and educational activities.

Around the world, people instinctively turn to places of memory to come to terms with the past and chart a course for the future. From makeshift roadside memorials to official commemorations, millions of people around the world gather at places of memory looking for healing, reconciliation and insight on how to move forward. Memory is a critical language and terrain of human rights. It’s here, through the process of preserving the past, that evidence of human rights violations is maintained and made public, issues this evidence raises are debated and tactics for preventing it from happening again are developed. In short, these places can be critical tools for building a lasting culture of human rights. Our project is to take a fundamental human instinct and develop it as an identifiable, self-conscious tactic in the service of human rights and social justice.

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum preserves a five-story building at 97 Orchard Street, home to over 7,000 immigrants from more than 20 different nations from 1863 to 1935. The Museum restores the tiny apartments of the diverse immigrant families who lived there and tells the stories of their daily challenges and triumphs in America. The human rights issues they faced – labor exploitation, racial and ethnic discrimination, poverty and immigration restrictions – are very much alive today. Located in a neighborhood that is today nearly 40 percent foreign-born, the Museum hosts public dialogues on immigration, welfare, housing, cultural identity and other related issues; teaches English and activism to new immigrants; and promotes immigrant voices and issues through changing arts programs. The Museum believes that historic sites can be powerful catalysts for public awareness and action on human rights issues.

To promote this idea the Museum initiated the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience. The Coalition was founded in 1999 when the Tenement Museum brought together leaders of nine historic sites from around the world: the District Six Museum (South Africa); Gulag Museum (Russia); Liberation War Museum (Bangladesh); Lower East Side Tenement Museum (USA); Maison des Esclaves (Senegal); Memoria Abierta (Argentina); National Civil Rights Museum (USA); Terezín Memorial (Czech Republic); Women’s Rights National Historical Park (USA); and the Workhouse (United Kingdom). The group pledged to work together to develop effective strategies for activatingour places of memory as centers for dialogue on contemporary issues.

Our goal is to transform historic site museums from places of passive learning to places of active citizen engagement. We seek to use the history of what happened at our sites – whether it was a genocide, a violation of civil rights, or a triumph of democracy – as the foundation for dialogue about how and where these issues are alive today and about what can be done to address them. We define sites of conscience as initiatives that:

Interpret history through sites;
Engage in programs that stimulate dialogue on pressing social issues and promote humanitarian and democratic values; and
Share opportunities for public involvement in issues raised at the site.

The Coalition conducts program development workshops, staff exchanges and web-based resource exchanges. We also collaborate with leading human rights organizations to link our histories with currentcampaigns and inspire citizen participation in current struggles for truth and justice. The Coalition is currently coordinated at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

Read an interview with the author
See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

*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)

Download full notebook below. [*note]

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.

*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.

Sending Out an SMS: A rapid-response mobile phone network engages a youth constituency to stop torture fast

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:14 -0500

Sending Out an SMS

by Anneke Bosman

Download full notebook below. [*note]

Amnesty International-Netherlands recognized the power of text-messaging technology (also known as short-messaging service, or SMS) to attract new members, build awareness of the campaign against torture and engage new people in quickly responding to cases of torture through Urgent Action appeals. The initial result was 520 new members gained directly from SMS participation with over 5,000 additional people becoming active in the SMS urgent action campaign. This notebook puts special emphasis on how Amnesty took advantage of SMS technology to build a new constituency among young people.

Golden Misabiko, a journalist in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was arrested and imprisoned without any charge in January 2001. It was feared he would be tortured. Amnesty International sent out an Urgent Action to members all over the world. We, at the Dutch section, sent out a text message to 8,000 cell-phone users in the Netherlands who participate in our new text-message alert network. Within 48 hours we sent a protest fax with thousands of signatures to the authorities in the DRC. Golden was released in May 2001. He had not been tortured. Golden wrote to Amnesty, "When I heard in prison that Amnesty campaigned for my release I knew: Je vais sortir (I will be released)." And so it happened.

Amnesty International has found a new "weapon" to use in its battle against torture: cell-phone text messages. These messages of up to 160 characters and transmitted by cell phone are known in many countries by the acronym SMS, which stands for "short-messaging service." With these messages, protests can be gathered faster than ever, enabling Amnesty International to take action against torture and other abuses more quickly. About 39 percent of the cell-phone campaigns conducted by Amnesty in 2002 were successful. Prisoners of conscience were released, people who had "disappeared" were found and death sentences were not carried out.

Cell-phone campaigning also has a special appeal for youth, and we found this campaign attracted new younger members into Amnesty in a way that other outreach and activities had not. Young people are the most frequent and numerous cell-phone users, and it is young people that Amnesty wants to reach. Young people do want to campaign for causes they believe in, but like anyone else, they prefer to do so in a way that is consistent with their lifestyles and habits. By using this popular tool of youth culture, Amnesty draws in new activists who will add to its campaigning power for a long time to come.

In this tactical notebook I will describe how we developed this text-message alert network in the Netherlands and how it helped attract a new constituency of support. To understand this alert method, one must also understand Amnesty’s previous methods to involve its membership in responding to human rights abuse around the world. All Amnesty campaigns have a dual function. They direct a focused response to a place in the world where someone needs help, using simple actions that large numbers of people can participate in and know they are making a difference. At the same time, these campaigns educate the public and build a global consciousness about human rights abuses such as torture. The text-messaging campaign adds something new to both objectives. It can generate a faster response to help the victim, while at the same time expanding Amnesty’s educational impact to a new constituency.

*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.

Reparations

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

Reparations

by Sandra Coliver and Moira Feeney, (CJA)

Download full notebook below. [note*]
A Spanish translation of this notebook will be available soon.

In this notebook we learn how civil laws can be used to hold torturers and other human rights abusers accountable, and to gain reparations for survivors. The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) represents survivors using the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA, dating back to 1789) and the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which gives both U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike the right to sue human rights abusers who live in or visit the U.S. CJA has effectively used these acts to help end the possibility of abusers using the U.S. as a safe haven, to assist survivors in gaining reparations, and to break the silence that has enabled abusers to live in impunity. This notebook demonstrates how countries with laws similar to the ATCA can put them to work to end such impunity. Activists around the world can consider ways to use their own civil laws, and to target abusers who travel to the U.S. by building collaborations among diverse groups that include activists in the U.S and abroad, refugees, lawyers, and people skilled in using the media

When speaking about his involvement as one of the plaintiffs in Romagoza, Gonzalez, & Mauricio v. Garcia & Vides Casanova, a case against two high ranking Salvadoran generals for torture committed in 1979-1983, Carlos Mauricio said, "I am participating in this case in order to help send a message to military leaders around the world that, if they commit atrocities, they will not be able to visit or live in the U.S. with impunity. They will always have to fear that someone someday may recognize them and bring them to justice. I am involved in this case to try to deter people, especially military people in El Salvador and elsewhere, from committing atrocities in the future. Let me tell you, many military officers in Salvador dream of living in the United States after they retire. My case and other cases are sending a powerful message to them. Resolutions passed by the U.N. General Assembly and reports by human rights organizations are effective in publicizing what happened, but they do not send a strong message to military leaders, who think they are above the law. They may be above the law in their home countries, but these lawsuits tell them that they are NOT above the law in this country."

Since 1980, 18 non-U.S.-born human rights abusers who moved to or were visiting the United States have been successfully sued by their victims in civil proceedings. The victims have been able to use two U.S. laws--one enacted in 1789 as part of the very first Judiciary Act, the other enacted in 1991--that enable victims of certain egregious human rights violations, wherever committed, to bring civil lawsuits in U.S. federal court against those responsible for the violations, so long as they are physically present in the United States.

*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.

Rebuilding Communities

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:11 -0500

Rebuilding Communities

by Binta Barry and Nancy L. Pearson

Download full notebook below. [*note]

In this notebook, we learn about building local and long-term capacity building within communities to address massive human rights atrocities. The Center for Victims of Torture has instituted an intensive training and supervision model for refugees to develop local capacity for providing understanding and skills for mental health support to rebuild communities after massive human rights atrocities. CVT has instituted the training model in refugee camps in Guinea and Sierra Leone for refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia. The model combines intensive, hands-on training of refugees with ongoing supervision. These refugee "mental health specialists" build their capabilities, provide individual and group therapy for traumatized individuals and use their skills toward rebuilding their own communities and support systems.

There are currently 122 "mental health specialists" involved in this ongoing training and supervision model with thousands of refugees of all ages having received a wide variety of services. Devastating wars in every region of world have created massive number of refugees and internally displaced people who have witnessed or been victims of horrible human rights atrocities. This notebook may provide tactical ideas to those assisting these communities trying to rebuild their lives.

Even as the world has witnessed substantial gains in the development of international mechanisms to monitor human rights violations and prosecute offenders, mass atrocities continue to plague many countries, including Sierra Leone. The nation’s people endured more than a decade of civil war, suffering brutality and massive rights violations aimed at ripping apart the social fabric, undermining cultural and family values and destroying community leadership and structures. Sierra Leone, a country of approximately six million people, is composed of 20 tribes following a variety of faiths–Muslim, indigenous and Christian. The country gained independence from Great Britain in 1961. Despite rich mineral and human resources, by 1990 Sierra Leone had one of the most skewed income distributions, with 82 percent of the population living below the poverty line. An eleven-year civil war provoked in 1991 by the Revolutionary United Front resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of over one-third of the population.

The conflict caused more than 450,000 people to flee to neighboring countries–mainly Guinea and Liberia–and left an estimated one million people internally displaced within the country. With the RUF conducting systematic and brutal assaults on the civilian population, survivors had witnessed or survived brutal atrocities including mutilations, amputations, forced recruitment of children and adults as soldiers, forced labor and horrendous sexual crimes. International observers described the situation: "The rebels sought to dominate women and their communities by deliberately undermining cultural values and community relationships, destroying the ties that hold society together. Child combatants raped women who were old enough to be their grandmothers, rebels raped pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and fathers were forced to watch their daughters being raped." Girls as young as seven or eight were used as sex slaves.

At the time the Center for Victims of Torture was launching its program in Guinea, there were more than 300,000 Sierra Leonean refugees and more than 120,000 Liberian refugees in the country. Conservatively estimating that 5 to 10 percent of the refugee population could benefit from mental health interventions and needed more than social opportunities or skills training to regain their life functioning, 20,000 to 40,000 people were in need of such assistance. Sierra Leonean communities were broken apart by the atrocities of the war. And many of the individuals who endured and survived such atrocities remembered their experiences in silence.

*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.

Making Sense of the Information Wilderness

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:04 -0500

Making Sense of the Information Wilderness

By Sasa Madacki

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

Sometimes institutional strengthening tactics applied inside an organization improve the way human rights practitioners do their work and what they can do. Organizations that use their resources effectively, can more effectively advance human rights work. In this notebook, the experience of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Sarajevo is presented. They built a strong information system and central role for an information specialist or librarian. The utilization of this information system and information specialist’s skills allowed other staff to better, and more productively, focus on their core programmatic missions. Although the Human Rights Centre is now a fairly large and relatively well-funded organization, the tactic explained in this notebook presents ideas in a way that nearly any group doing human rights work could apply this organizational strengthening tactic.

When I walked into my new office at the library of the Human Rights Centre in Sarajevo, I found myself with two cardboard boxes containing a card catalogue, an inventory list, a thousand dusty books and a pile of documents. A total wilderness. It was an idyllic and inspiring sight: a librarian sitting in the middle of a room surrounded by stacks of papers with the daunting task of creating order out of chaos. Creating this order would yield an efficient tool to promote human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina – where human rights are so abused and where reliable sources are lacking. In this notebook it is my modest hope to describe the results of this transformation, and what we have learned from it that can help others working for human rights. I believe now that every organization can improve its work and more effectively promote human rights and justice, if it can systematically develop both a library and a librarian’s position appropriate to its own size and objectives. The goal of this notebook will be to take the Sarajevo Centre’s experience and draw out lessons to enable other organizations to develop the tools and skills to more effectively navigate the ever-expanding wilderness of available information that can help them in their work.

See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

*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.

Human Rights Advocacy Utilizing Religious Perspectives and Opinion Leaders

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

by Mashadi Said

Download full notebook below. [*note]

The National Working Group for Human Rights Dissemination and Promotion (NWG) in Indonesia developed a human rights education curriculum for all age levels in both public and private schools. In order to create support for such a human rights curriculum that also encompassed religious educational institutions, an effective tactic was to engage key and respected leaders–community and religious leaders as well as teachers–in the development and training of the human rights curriculum.

By taking the time and effort to engage opinion and religious leaders in the process, the NWG was able to develop their critical support and integrate their needs and concerns in order to overcome barriers and challenges to human rights education. To date, 400 opinion leaders including community and religious leaders and teachers as well as 1,000 civics teachers in both government and private schools have been trained by the Department of Education in using the curricula. There have also been 31 provincial committees on human rights that have been set up to provide training and on-going support to the trainers. Guidelines and reference materials have been developed and are soon to be published. These materials address human rights values as in the Indonesian cultural and religious context and designed with the consultation and assistance in order to overcome the perception that human rights values are Western concepts that impinge upon Indonesian cultural and religious values. Instead, the process has lead to a mutual recognition of basic human values.

*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)

Download full notebook below. [*note]

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.