| REPORTS & PUBLICATIONS |
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| Afghanistan |
| ‘ A Call for Justice' Report by the Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission on Human Rights in Afghanistan
Looking back over a quarter century of war, in which more than a million people were killed and just as many disabled, Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission has issued a report detailing the state of human rights in their country. Noting that 69 percent of Afghans had either been the immediate victim of a serious human rights violation, or were closely related to someone who had, the Commission set out in its report to answer the question of whether and how Afghans wanted to address these past abuses. Over eight months, the Commission visited 32 of Afghanistan 's 34 provinces to survey people about how they wished to deal with the country's human rights violators. Though researchers came under attack while carrying out their work, they came away with some striking findings—including that more than three-quarters of those surveyed believe that bringing war criminals to justice will improve the country's security situation. |
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| International |
 UNIFEM publication on linking Beijing, CEDAW and the MDGs
With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to halve extreme poverty now placed at the centre of today's socio-economic programmes for developing countries, the national experience of each country with existing treaties on women's rights must be integrated into plans to achieve those targets, the United Nations women's fund says. "The recommendations from the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) come in a new publication, 'Pathway to Equality: CEDAW, Beijing and the MDGs.' "The 'resource tool' was prepared in advance of the 49th meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), to be held from 28 February to 11 March at UN Headquarters in New York. Delegates will conduct the 10-year review of undertakings by governments at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (Beijing+10)." It identifies specific ways in which the three frameworks correspond to and support each other, and suggests resources and entry points for engaging in the process. This publication is a resource tool to keep the spotlight on gender equality in 2005.
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| Gender, the Millennium Development Goals, and Human Rights in the context of the 2005 review processes
This paper was commissioned by the Gender and Development Network(GAD) and produced by
Choike
(a project of the Third World Institute) that takes advantage of the 2005 reviews of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) and the Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), to think about the opportunities offered by these coinciding reviews. It also outlines an advocacy agenda for participation in the reviews at an international level. This paper argues that the linkage of the Millennium Review and the Beijing +10 Review provides a strategic window that can be used to re-frame the MDGs as international human rights obligations. This linkage would connect the review processes to the analytical tools and practical strategies offered by human rights. The task is to ensure that the reviews are directed towards achievement of human rights, not towards the further entrenchment of a neo-liberal, economic -growth driven model of development. |
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The Right to Education for Persons with Disabilities: Towards Inclusion
Produced by UNESDOC ( UNESDOC is a multilingual database of UNESCO) this paper takes a rights based approach and argues for the inclusiveness of all persons with disabilities in access to basic educational opportunity and, importantly, in their engagement at all levels in the policy and processes necessary for such inclusiveness to actually work. The paper makes a number of proposals for a practical action framework, divided into global level actions and regional/national/local actions. |
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 State of the World's Children 2005: Childhood under threat
Produced by United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) this report focuses on four areas: childhood poverty; conflict; orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/ AIDS; and child rights. The report offers an analysis of the seven basic deprivations that children do feel and which powerfully impact on their futures. More than half the children in the developing world are severely deprived of one or more of the goods and services essential to childhood. The report makes a number of recommendations to improve children's lives, including; adopting a human rights-based approach to social and economic development, with a special emphasis on reaching the most vulnerable children; the adoption of socially responsible policies in all spheres of development that keep children specifically in mind; increased investment in children by donors and governments, with national budgets monitored and analysed from the perspective of their impact on children; the commitment of individuals, families, businesses and communities to get involved and stay engaged in bettering the lives of children and to use their resources to promote and protect children's rights.
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UN: Report on child pornography on the Internet (advance edited version)
The report focuses on child pornography on the Internet and is based on the information received from Governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations in reply to a questionnaire sent by the Special Rapporteur. Information was received from 51 countries. The report illustrates over 70 experiences in the area of combating and preventing online child pornography. The topics addressed are: a) manifestations of child pornography on the Internet; b) international instruments and definitions; c) national legislation; d) law enforcement agencies; and, e) initiatives to combat this problem. The report touches upon issues such as Internet grooming and luring; the age of consent to sexual activity vis-à-vis the age used in child pornography legislation and the role and responsibilities of Internet Service Providers. The Special Rapporteur will present the report at the next session of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in April 2005. |
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International Discrimination Law: A Handbook for Practitioners
INTERIGHTS has published a new online handbook on international and comparative discrimination law that offers a comprehensive introduction to equality and non-discrimination for practitioners. International Discrimination Law: A Handbook for Practitioners integrates theories of equality with a review of international standards and international and comparative jurisprudence across a range of grounds of discrimination. The Handbook is an aid to practitioners in identifying and developing discrimination cases. Links within the document take you straight to the relevant international instruments and official documents on discrimination, and references are given to useful commentaries on a range of discrimination issues. Any legal terminology within the text is linked directly to a helpful glossary at the end of the book. Important cases are examined in-depth; a full table of cases cited will soon be available. The Handbook will be updated annually to keep practitioners up to date with the latest developments in international discrimination law. |
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| Kenya |
Kenyan civil society perspectives on rights, rights-based approaches to development, and participation
This paper is part of a collaborative research project involving the Institute of Development Studies , Just Associates and partner institutions in seven countries. In Kenya, members of IDS worked with Kenyan human rights activists and organisations, including the Kenya Human Rights Commission and others referred to in detail within this paper. This paper goes beyond conceptual debates to explore country level practice around emergent rights based approaches to development, and their relationship with more established practices of participatory development. Drawing from the perspectives of a cross-section of Kenyan civil society groups, the paper examines the extent to which these approaches overlap, and evaluates the prospects for an integrated and sustained approach to civil society's questioning of institutional arrangements that foster unequal relations. |
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Malaysia |
 SUHAKAM (Human Rights Commission of Malaysia ) Report on Trafficking in Women and Children: Review of laws on human trafficking needed
According to this report, trafficking threatens the world community by allowing a safe haven for trafficking syndicates, funding illicit activities and facilitating the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV Aids. Trafficking cuts across borders and preys on the most vulnerable – the poor, disempowered and illiterate children and women. During one of their visits to the Kajang Women's prison, SUHAKAM Commissioners observed a large number of foreign nationals, mainly young girls, under detention. In their conversations with some of these girls, it became clear that there were women and young girls brought to Malaysia from other countries and were either forced or sold into the sex trade. Many of these women are victims who once had dreams of having a good job, a family and a future. Being concerned with this human rights violation, and mindful of the fact that trafficking in persons is an evil that can have a deeply corrupting influence on the enforcing agency and can only be defeated by the joint efforts of legislators, law enforcement and NGOs working together and with their counterparts internationally, SUHAKAM organised dialogues with various stakeholders throughout the year 2003 and in early 2004 ; visitations to detention centers and interviews with some victims of trafficking in these centres; and the Forum on Trafficking of Women and Children — A Cross Border and Regional Perspective held on 13 and 14 April 2004 in Kuala Lumpur.
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| Nigeria |
Nigerian civil society makes human rights violations report available to the public
The long-awaited report of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, completed in May 2002 after two years of public hearings, has now been made public by civil society organisations. In December 2004, given the Supreme Court ruling that the panel's original mandate was unconstitutional, the government said it was not planning to publish the wide-ranging report, which is popularly known as the Oputa report after the name of the panel's chairman, retired Chief Justice Chukwudifu A. Oputa. The panel's deliberations covered not only specific human rights abuses, but also responded to a wide variety of grievances and issues presented by individual and group petitioners. The panel was most controversial for the refusal to testify of three former military rulers, Ibrahim Babangida, Muhammadu Buhari and Abdulsalami Abubakar. The final report included the recommendation that they be investigated for suspicious deaths and barred from governing Nigeria again. The full 7-volume report and summary recommendations are available, and contain a timeline and an extensive set of links to news articles on the Oputa Panel report.
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| Northern Ireland |
 Bill of Rights in Schools: A Resource for Post-primary Schools
A major resource on human rights education has been launched by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. The comprehensive guide will support teachers in exploring human rights issues as part of the curriculum in secondary schools in Northern Ireland . The materials were developed through a unique partnership of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the Department of Education and all five Education and Library Boards. The new teaching resource was extensively piloted by teachers in 30 schools and has been distributed to all post primary schools across Northern Ireland.
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| Pakistan |
Violence against women still a huge problem in Pakistan : Report
Two independent reports on domestic violence against women in Pakistan have found that the country is suffering increasing levels of abuse in spite of legislation to provide women with protection. 'The State of Human Rights in 2004', the annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) was released in Islamabad, covering the period from January to October 2004. It said that although there is increased awareness of the issue and discussion at both official and non-official levels, little had been achieved . A second report compiled by the Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid organisation (LHRLA) recorded some 4,302 cases of violence against women which had been reported in the print media and more than 1,000 cases of sexual abuse, during 2004. |
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| Uganda |
Saying 'No' To Sex - A Woman's Right
This article by Jennifer Bakyawa explores the issue of the relationship between women's rights and communication campaigns. She uses the Ugandan example of "ABC" - Abstain, Be Faithful, Condom Use - one of sub-Saharan Africa 's rare success stories in the fight against AIDS. The author proposes that the ABC message may be catchy, but it does not automatically protect married women. Tens of thousands of Ugandan women have died from AIDS, the vast majority of them monogamous wives infected by their husbands. The article cites Human Rights Watch (HRW) as stating that there is a problem with ABC prevention programmes because they rest on the assumption that women have the same decision-making powers as men over sexual choices. In August 2003, HRW claimed in its report Just Die Quietly: Domestic Violence and Women's Vulnerability to HIV in Uganda that the government's failure to criminalise domestic violence and marital rape "is costing women their lives". The report revealed that 34 of the 50 women interviewed by HRW confessed that their husbands physically forced them to have sex. |
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| United Kingdom |
A more equal society? New Labour, poverty, inequality and exclusion
The study, 'A more equal society?', was published by a team of members and associates of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics that brings together the expertise of a range of authors to provide an evaluation of Labour policy towards poverty and social exclusion between 1997 and 2004. It considers the challenges the government faced, examines the policies that were chosen and the targets set for them, and assesses results. The key areas under examination include Child poverty; Working-age poverty; Pensioner poverty; Income inequality; Employment; Education; Health; Poor neighbourhoods; Ethnic inequalities; and Vulnerable groups. It is a priced publication. |
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Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society: The Government's Strategy to Increase Race Equality and Community Cohesion
The British Home Secretary Charles Clark MP launched Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society: The Government's Strategy to Increase Race Equality and Community Cohesion on 19 January 2005. The strategy sets out one strand of the British government's overall drive to improve fairness and opportunities for all in Britain; how it will ensure that a person's ethnicity is not a barrier to their success and how the government will foster the cohesion necessary to enable people from minority and majority communities to work together for social and economic progress. |
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Rethinking Crime & Punishment: The Report
Rethinking Crime & Punishment (RCP) is a four-year initiative set up by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation about prison and other forms of punishment. It was set up in 2001 in response to widespread concern about the UK 's growing reliance on imprisonment. Despite its financial, social and human costs, prison has enjoyed a growing appeal as a response to crime in many countries. Numbers in prison in England and Wales grew from 40,000 in 1980 to 64,600 in 2000 with projections that it could reach 93,000 by 2010. A key reason for this has been the perceived pressure of public opinion. Politicians, judges and magistrates have responded to their perception of a climate of opinion that is thought to demand an increasingly harsh approach. The aims of RCP have been to increase public knowledge about prison and alternatives, encourage public involvement in criminal justice and inject fresh thinking into the debate about crime. This report finds that a comprehensive and constructive new approach to crime is needed. A positive agenda, based on prevention and treatment of causes, alongside much greater public involvement in alternatives to prison, would enjoy widespread support. |
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| Pregnancy discrimination at work: a qualitative study
In September 2003, UK's Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) launched a General Formal Investigation (GFI) to examine pregnancy discrimination in employment in Britain . The overall aims of this investigation were to reach a greater understanding of the incidence, costs and causes of pregnancy-related discrimination and disadvantage in employment; the effectiveness of the legal framework; the costs to individuals, employers and to the economy in general; and to find out the extent of women's awareness of the law and their access to advice and redress; and to make and widely publicise recommendations to help reduce the problem, with follow-up work as necessary.
Also read
- Survey of women who were in work during their pregnancy to explore the incidence, and their experiences, of pregnancy discrimination
- Survey of employers investigating their experiences of managing pregnant women or those on or returning from maternity leave |
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New Forced Migration Online resource: Image Database 
UN launches new plan to battle child abuse in armed conflicts 
International Death Penalty Abolition Day (1 March 2005) 
Make Human Rights Education a reality 
Strengthening efforts to combat gender violence against refugees in Kenya 
International Campaign on Women Human Rights Defenders - Global