Coalition-building

Phasing out child labor in the garment industry and providing education for ex-workers

ahorwart — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:23:00 -0500

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers’ and Exporters’ Association (BGMEA), in collaboration with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, developed the Child Labor Project to eliminate child labor in factories that belong to its 2,500 members, and to provide an alternative to former child laborers in the form of an education program. In 1995, the ILO, UNICEF, and the BGMEA entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which required, among other things, (1) a fact-finding survey to determine the extent of the use of child labor in the Bangladeshi garment industry, (2) the establishment of an education program for child laborers phased out of the industry, (3) the establishment of monitoring and verification systems, and (4) the provision of a monthly stipend to phased-out child workers and their families. The MoU served as the basis for the implementation of the Child Labor Project, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The first component of the Child Labor Project is the provision of three years of informal education for ex-child workers with the goal of mainstreaming them into the formal Bangladeshi educational system. Through the course of the project, UNICEF and two non-governmental organizations created 353 schools for this use in which 9,740+ children had enrolled before May 1998. The BGMEA also undertook to offer employment to qualified family members of ex-child workers. In addition, the project provided the families with access to micro-credit systems so that families can increase their income, resulting in less dependency on wages earned by child workers.

The second part of the project, the monitoring and verification system, was established to gain an understanding the extent to which child labor was used in Bangladeshi garment factories and to monitor progress toward the elimination of child labor. The ILO trained inspectors to advise factory owners and managers about the benefits of the Child Labor Project and the need to get rid of child labor. Since the inspectors were not trained as “police” force, their factory visits engendered some level of trust between the inspectors and factory owners. The inspectors focused solely on the use of child labor and did not address working conditions, wages, or other employment issues. During its first survey in 1995, monitoring teams visited about 2,100 factories and found that child labor was being used in approximately 42.5% of garment factories. By 2000, the percentage had been reduced to 4.5%. The goals of the project also included ensuring that ex-child workers were able to return to their positions in the garment industry once they reached 14 years old.

The success of the Child Labor Project in Bangladesh has led to the implementation of modified versions of this project by the ILO in Pakistan, East Asia, Africa, and Central America. Similar to the BGMEA version, the new applications of the project all combine social protection programs for ex-child workers and families which are implemented by local NGOs with a monitoring system run by the ILO. The new projects focus specifically on the coffee and commercial agricultural industries. The lessons learned by the organizations involved in the Bangladeshi project have led to the elimination of the monthly stipend payment for ex-child workers because of the cost involved and the related lack of sustainability of that component of the project. Instead, ex-child workers in the modified versions of the project receive access to vocational training and micro-credit for their families.

The Child Labor Project in Bangladesh faced a couple of challenges in its implementation. First, once children reach age 14, they can legally work and thus, there was a need to continue providing a stipend after that point to encourage them to stay in school and not go back to work. This increased the costs of the project and there were questions about the sustainability of such an approach. Another important consideration in implementing this type of project is the importance of the role played by employers in this process. The BGMEA and ILO stressed the significance of having employers’ cooperation in order to develop a successful and sustainable project. A third, and related, consideration is the pressure that the Bangladeshi garment industry was facing as a result of a bill proposed by Senator Tom Harkin in the U.S. Senate in 1993. The bill proposed a ban on imports from countries that used child labor at any stage of production. It did not pass, but the resulting negative publicity and the threat of a ban on selling its garments in the U.S. played a part in the industry’s willingness to cooperate with the project.

Training grassroots human rights groups in video and communications technology

ahorwart — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:09:08 -0500

WITNESS empowers human rights organizations around the world to incorporate video as an advocacy tool in their work. Rooted in the power of personal testimonies and in the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, WITNESS and its partners’ videos have been used

as evidence in legal proceedings;
to corroborate allegations of human rights violations;
to complement written reports to international/regional organizations that provide a counterweight to official versions of a country’s human rights performance;
to stimulate grassroots education and mobilization;
to provide information for news broadcasts;
to promote human rights via the internet; and
to produce documentaries for broadcast on television worldwide, among others uses.

Founded in 1992, WITNESS has created partnerships with more than 150 groups in 50 countries on a variety of issues, ranging from the “social cleansing” of street children in Central America and sexual abuse of women/girls during Sierra Leone’s civil war to sweatshops in the United States and the plight of people displaced in Burma.

WITNESS chooses partners who seek to build a long-term capacity to use video effectively and also seeks specific campaign opportunities where video can tip the balance between success and failure. Once a partnership is established, WITNESS provides the group with video equipment and training, then follows up with workshops in camera techniques, intensive instruction in using video for human rights work, systemic evaluation of video footage, post-production assistance and constructive feedback to create powerful documentaries.

WITNESS and its partners then create video advocacy campaigns around these videos. These campaigns are built around strategies with many components, including broadcast and distribution platforms, collaboration with other organizations and networks, targeted screenings before key audiences and opportunities for individual viewers to take action. These campaigns may be as targeted as using video to influence a small group of key decision-makers or as broad as trying to mobilize youth around a particular issue. Footage is also kept in the WITNESS Archive, where it is available as a unique resource of human rights information to the global community.

WITNESS’s recognizes that depending on the local context, a human rights advocate may be protected or endangered by using a camera.. WITNESS uses the experience of its staff and partners to help others create policies that are safe and appropriate for their situations. They also stress the importance of the relationship of trust between the person filming and the person being filmed, including a clear explanation of the risks and benefits of speaking to a camera.

One example of a strategic and savvy use of video advocacy is WITNESS's work with Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) to document the deplorable conditions in a Paraguayan psychiatric hospital.

“Julio and Jorge were two adolescent boys being kept in the hospital along with 458 other people – naked, in bare cells without access to bathrooms. The cells reeked of urine and excrement and the walls were smeared with feces. The boys spent approximately four hours every other day in an outdoor pen, littered with garbage and broken glass.

In December 2003, MDRI filed an emergency petition before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) at the Organization of American States (OAS), asking the IACHR to intervene on behalf of the boys, as well as the others in the hospital.

Along with a legal brief, MDRI submitted a video that they had shot and edited with WITNESS. The video was structured according to the specific articles set forth in several international human rights instruments to which Paraguay is bound. Using images that clearly demonstrate how Paraguay had failed to fulfill its obligations, the video put a human face on the issue. The video was specifically presented within a human rights framework to argue that these patients are legally entitled to a minimum standard of living. This led the IACHR to establish jurisprudence on the rights of those in mental health facilities, a legal precedent that can now be used in other countries in the region.

In December 2003, for the first time, the IACHR approved urgent measures to protect the lives and physical integrity of those in psychiatric institutions. MDRI and WITNESS subsequently brought the issue to the general public by streaming the video over their web sites and by collaborating with CNN en Espanol on a follow-up story. The president of Paraguay and the minister of health personally visited the hospital, after which the hospital director was fired and a commission was formed to investigate the issue.

By reaching a broader group of people, MDRI and WITNESS garnered further support for change By exposing these conditions to a broader public, they called attention to the situation of mental health facilities in Paraguay, and the press played a pivotal role in the unfolding of events that brought about significant changes.

Although Julio and Jorge’s ward is still in the process of being renovated as this book goes to press, they have access to showers and clothes, as well as 24-hour nurses. The Paraguayan Health Ministry is working with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to bring conditions up to the most basic standards of human rights.

The collaboration between WITNESS and MDRI has now produced system-changing results, but the challenge lies ahead, in ensuring that human rights advocates pick up the momentum created by the video and follow up on the case to ensure that conditions are improved for all psychiatric facilities in Paraguay. While this case has relied upon strong visual evidence of a violation, it is also important to note that WITNESS partners have successfully used video without relying upon filming such graphic images. For instance, many have created powerful videos by collecting testimonies and telling the stories of those most directly affected, which can have just as a powerful impact within a human rights campaign”

Training young people to monitor human rights.

ahorwart — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:34:21 -0500

Since 2000, the Human Rights Observatories Network has worked with youth groups in various regions of Brazil, inspiring them to learn about human rights and to learn how to report on and to monitor their communities’ access to rights.

The Center of Violence Studies, an interdisciplinary academic center of Sao Paulo University, monitors and studies the increase of urban violence, whose main victims are poor young people between the ages of 15 and 25. In addition to violence, there is increasing evidence that the denial of economic and social rights may contribute to repeated violations of civil and political rights. While the Center has produced many reports about the conditions of Human Rights in Brazil, it had become clear that the information and debate produced did not reach the communities most affected by violence and poverty. Thus the Center developed the Human Rights Observatories Network in an effort to involve young people as observers and writers of life’s condition in their communities, thus strengthening the discussion of human rights in those previously unreachable areas.

There are three groups of participants in the Network. The Observers are young people from age 17 to 25 (the period during which the greatest numbers of serious human rights violations are suffered). To be chosen, they must live in the area being studied and must be involved in community activities. Because most of their tasks will involve reading and writing, they must enjoy these activities. The Monitors are university students of human sciences (e.g., sociology, psychology, history, anthropology, etc). The Monitors are in charge of groups of Observers, leading debates and helping them gather and organize their information. The Coordinators have graduated from college and must have experience in research and education. They work directly with both groups- discussing experiences and the produced material with the Observers and evaluating the processes with the Monitors.

There are six recommended areas for observation to address human rights in everyday life: violence, discrimination, education, health, work and income, and culture and leisure. In general terms, the aspects to be observed in each thematic area are: cases of rights violations experienced by local residents; positive examples or good practices in promoting human rights; local impact of public policies to promote the right in question. In the experience of the Network, the human rights observations always come from the young people’s everyday experiences. During periods of group discussion, they relate these experiences to a certain topic, later transforming the dialogue and discovery into texts. The texts are sent to another Observatory group which reads and discusses the narrated experience and the relations made with the human rights topics. This second group then writes a letter back to the one which wrote the text, commenting on their impressions. In this process of multiple discussions, not only are the information raising and the reports being improved, but so are the young people’s conceptions of human rights.

The Network attempts to strengthen the cooperation between the different groups of civil society and to encourage them to participate in the elaboration and implementation of public policy, as well as improving its relation to human rights. As a part of the Network, all the participants in the project discuss the information gathered by various Observers. In these exchanges, they share possible local measures and try to find alternatives to combating the violence. Creating communal spaces for these discussions encourages the involvement of young people in community associations, and helps to reduce human rights violations by rebuilding young people’s social identity.

There are two different publications which have sprung from this project. The Citizens’ Report is a formal report which is put together by all three groups. It contains information from the Observers and Monitors, as well as comments from experts who have read the contributions written by the young people. LUPA is a news magazine by and about the Observers. It is much more informal than the Report, and it is aimed at the youth audience in the communities involved in the work.

Started as a project in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, the Network has spread its program into five other metropolitan areas of Brazil and into one rural area. Since 2002, the project is also being replicated in Caracas, Venezuela. There are some limits to this project, for it is not easy to observe and talk about the problems contained in one’s proper reality. In addition, the work demands agreement between the different groups’ interests (between the universities, the community associations, and the young people). While universities sometimes produce research which cannot be put immediately into practice, practice is often the principal focus of those directly involved in the communities. To avoid frustration, it is fundamental to bring these different interests together to clarify from the start the projects’ objectives.

This paper was completed on June 6, 2005.

Using participatory education to empower communities to exercise their human and civil rights

ahorwart — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:22:01 -0500

Education for Life (ELF) uses an accelerated learning system approach with grassroots educators and leaders to contribute to grassroots community empowerment throughout the Philippines.

The Philippines have a history of dictatorship and elite oppression. Because of this, it has traditionally been the case that a very small percentage of the population controls a majority of the country’s resources (financial, physical, educational, etc.). In the period of struggling towards participatory democracy, it became important to address the role of local government, as well as grassroots community empowerment.

ELF describes its core program as GLF-GCE: “Grassroots leadership formation for grassroots community empowerment.” They want grassroots communities to have more power to decide their development, including control of their resources. This empowerment includes the organization of people in the community and access to lifelong education. The key component is an organic grassroots leadership that can be a partner to outside institutions such as NGO’s and national government agencies.

One person who benefited from this program is Carlito. Orphaned at an early age, he learned how to read, count, and write in an adult literacy class. The leader of his community organization, he participated in ELF’s Leadership course. After a volcano erupted in June 1991, destroying any farms, homes, and schools in its path, Carlito undertook the resettlement of twelve tribes. According to ELF co-founder, Marianita Villariba, “when Carlito talks to you, he warms your heart and you are drawn to his ebullience. He eagerly awaits your response and keeps you focused on common concerns…Carlito, for all his height of four feet and ten inches, stands tall as an enlivened and enlightened native leader.”

In the grassroots leadership formation program, ELF begins with those members of the community who are already exercising leadership. They could be involved with such formal or informal groups as a cooperative or a microfinance group, a religious organization, or a community service function.

The second stage of the program is the life history workshop. This is a source of learning and empowerment because it helps the leaders to become aware of their fields of engagement and responsibility, of their strengths and weaknesses, of their achievements and shortcomings, and of their aspirations for themselves as well as the community or organization that they lead.

The leadership curriculum is based on several different tenets: the guiding psychology is Sikolohiyang Pilipino, for self awareness and identity; non-violent resolution or management of conflicts; organizational leadership and management. Through these guiding principles, ELF helps the participants to develop communication and negotiation skills, advocacy skills, and experience with networking and partnering with other organizations.

ELF emphasizes the necessity of taking advantage of different learning processes. In the program they implement face to face learning outside the participants’ communities, home-based individual learning, and community-based group learning. The ability to learn through different methods is essential for continuing the lifelong learning process.

ELF then helps the participants to communicate their learning and experiences in various ways- through conferences, exchange visits, and through publications such as Komunidad and Salinbuhay.

To ensure the continuing education of grassroots community leaders, it is important to have participants who are themselves leaders and who also have the aptitude and commitment to educate others. These people are the key factor in setting up alternative and appropriate learning systems (ALS) in their communities. These ALS can comprehensively cover the whole range of learning: early childhood care education, basic education, technical education, higher education, and lifelong learning.

Starting with their international partnership with the Danish folkehojskole association and with the Association for World Education (AWE), ELF is developing links with other initiatives on grassroots leadership and education in south-eastern Asia and with the Nordic Association of folk schools.

This paper was completed on June 10, 2005.

Using international mechanisms to apply pressure on a national government to institute policy and legal changes

ahorwart — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:49:04 -0500

The Committee for Administration of Justice (CAJ) used the United Nations Committee Against Torture to raise local human rights issues to the international level. In order to use international mechanisms such as this effectively, a number of other tactics were used including written submissions to the Committee, lobbying in Geneva and monitoring the impact the recommendations of the various Committee reports have had on Northern Ireland in terms of actually improving the human rights situation on the ground.

There has been a violent political conflict in Northern Ireland since 1969. The conflict involves three sets of protagonists; the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other republican groups which want Northern Ireland to unite with the rest of Ireland; loyalist groups which want Northern Ireland to remain within the UK; and the state. From the beginning of the conflict the forces of the state have been involved in human rights abuses. A key aspect of the human rights abuses has involved allegations of ill-treatment of those in custody.

In the latter part of the 1980s the state had established a separate legal infrastructure to deal with those suspected of involvement in “terrorism”. There were special arrest powers, special powers and places of detention and special procedures for trial. Allegations of physical ill-treatment which had receded in the mid 1980s began to increase later in the decade and were reaching crisis point by 1990.

CAJ provided a set of recommendations to the government to try and deal with the issue of abuse of detainees. The government response however was to deny that any abuse was taking place. CAJ needed to devise a response to this problem which would be effective in terms of improving the situation of those arrested under the emergency laws but which would also trigger media coverage. It was difficult to get media coverage of the issue because at the height of the conflict much of the media, particularly TV, was reluctant to criticize the state.

The general goal was to improve the situation of those detained by ending the ill-treatment. Specific objectives included getting lawyers immediate access to those arrested; getting lawyers access to interviews; getting the interviews recorded electronically; getting an independent system of monitoring the interviews; limiting the periods of detention before charging or release; closing the detention centres; and having the ordinary criminal law rather than the emergency law apply to those detained.

CAJ consulted lawyers who were members of their own executive committee as well as colleagues in international NGOs to see how they could utilize the Committee Against Torture. They begin in 1991 when the UK had to appear before the Committee. Generally, the Committee runs on a three yearly cycle so the UK has also been examined in 1995 and 1998.

These examinations would have occurred with or without interventions from CAJ. However, the Committee does rely on NGOs and others to provide it with credible information on which to base its questioning of the country involved. The recommendations from the Committee tend to set the parameters for the next examination so it was important for the Committee to pay attention to the issues which CAJ wanted highlighted. Increasingly (and certainly in 1998) the Committee would start the session by asking for information on what the state had done to meet the concerns highlighted by the Committee on the previous occasion.

The situation in relation to those arrested under the emergency laws in Northern Ireland has improved immeasurably since CAJ began working with the Committee. It was quite clear from the late 1980s until following the first examination that physical ill-treatment was being authorised and orchestrated. Following the Committee’s first report, while there were still allegations of physical ill-treatment, they were not as widespread as earlier; the ill-treatment was not as bad as it had been; and courts began to be more interventionist in terms of excluding admission evidence. It was also the case that actual ill-treatment would occur at the time of arrest and immediately subsequent to that as opposed to being part of the interrogation process. The most remarkable and immediate achievement of the international embarrassment caused to the UK by being criticised by the Committee was the speedy end to co-ordinated physical ill-treatment in the holding centres which ceased between the first and second time the UK was examined before the Committee Against Torture.