Human Rights Articles

Compiled and edited by Mary Adams, Karen Castellon and Therese Hartwell 

All event content (including videos of each session, speaker bios, and Event Booths) is available here: Human Rights in Focus Virtual Conference

Day 1: Thursday, November 4, 2021

1. The view on human rights is changing – we are growing, redefining and re-understanding that everyone deserves to live a life with decent work where culture, color and gender join together in a safe world. Day 1 provided an overview of human rights issues.
2. Intersectionality is the human rights acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression and we must consider everything and anything that can marginalize people – gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, etc. Human Rights is intersectional – as evidenced by issues faced by women refugees.
3. FAWCO’s United Nations Team continues to promote equality through education, advocacy and action. The Women’s Human Rights Teaching, Learning and Advocacy Resource learning modules will serve as a foundation for educators and activists around six themes dealing with the most pressing challenges to women’s human rights today. 
4. The past FAWCO Target Projects continue to thrive and expand in capabilities in their support of women and girls. Many FAWCO members continue to support these organizations as donors, sponsors and volunteers. This means that the overall FAWCO impact from the original fundraising goals has more than tripled.
5. Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, veteran journalist, and Heather Barr, Human Rights Watch activist, reported on Afghanistan and discussed on-the-ground relief measures based on political, medical and health requirements that provided deep insights into the country, culture and how financial support is best directed. While many people have fled the country, there still remain many citizens in place to forge the next chapter. 
6. Paula Lucas shared her expertise on violence against Americans abroad. Her history of abuse, escape and re-emergence and determination to set up an aid organization is commendable. How can FAWCO help her pass on her knowledge, maintain her organizations and continue to be a lifeline to overseas Americans? Other organizations such as the NO MORE Global Directory fill in the gap as a global hub of information and resources for victims of violence in 196 countries.
7. Human Rights Watch shared their point of view that when it comes to ending abuses and bringing perpetrators to justice, some victories are big, and others are merely steps on a much longer journey to change. But each step represents progress on the many issues they work on around the world.  
8. Human Rights Watch keynote speaker Kimberly Emerson reminded us of Eleanor Roosevelt’s keen assessment of advocacy, “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person… Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
9. Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death. The FAWCO Human Rights Team believes in an integrated learning approach and collaborates with the other Global Teams to share initiatives and provide a voice for women and girls. Reading aloud the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has become an annual ritual near its anniversary date of December 10.
10. As part of the FAWCO Refugee Network, AAWE member Asma Darwish does advocacy work to promote change and tries to be the “voice for the voiceless, for isn’t that what advocacy is all about?” The Team’s work with human rights organizations strives to mainstream the unheard voices of migrant, stateless and refugee women living across Europe. 

Day 2: Friday, November 5, 2021

1. The FAWCO and FAWCO Foundation Stand Up Against Human Trafficking Symposium in 2016 was the basis for the Human Rights in Focus virtual event. The focus of Day 2 was Trafficking in Human Beings.
2. Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. It is a marketplace where human beings are bought, sold, traded and used. Human trafficking includes sex and labor exploitation, organ trafficking, forced begging, forced criminality, child marriages and child soldiers. Women and girls remain disproportionally affected by human trafficking, accounting for 71% of all known victims.
3. Human trafficking is a market-driven billion-dollar industry. It is the only industry in the world where supply and demand are the same thing: human beings. Valiant (Val) Richey, OSCE, suggests: If we want to stop the creation of more victims, then we must stop the demand.
4. Most people think that fighting human trafficking means successful convictions in court of traffickers. La Strada International focuses on access to justice for victims. Two of their key focus areas are victim compensation and ensuring that victims are not  punished for crimes they committed while under coercion.
5. After two decades of voluntary initiatives that did not address the root causes of labour trafficking in the cocoa industry, it is time for systemic change in the sector, to tackle poverty, child labor and deforestation, and to advocate for consumer awareness.
6. We know that intervention is important to stop human trafficking, but prevention is even more vital. Survivor narratives are a key to understanding vulnerability, control methods and criminal activities. Technology is being used in a new way to inform, equip and mobilize communities to identify human trafficking.
7. The FAWCO Foundation Breaking the Cycle Development Grant funds organizations that help reskill, resocialize and reintegrate survivors of human trafficking. As destructive a force that COVID-19 was, it did bring unusual and positive digital transformation opportunities to victims at The Bridge2Hope Academy, a 2020 recipient of the FAWCO Foundation Development Grant. Donations from downloading the e-book, Hope is the Thing with Feathers, will supplement this grant.
8. Houston, Texas is becoming a model in safeguarding children against sexual exploitation by using vulnerability research, building self-confidence and positive body images, engaging with parents, using technology to build rehabilitation pathways and adopting  the Nordic model to focus on criminalization of sex buyer demand.
9. The media has an important part to play in raising awareness on human trafficking. CNN acts as a megaphone to amplify survivor stories through the CNN Freedom Project. 
10. The power of cinema can open your eyes to the world of human trafficking. Suggestions include Stopping Traffic, a film that features “heroes of the anti-sex trafficking movement.” Other recommended films are Joy (2018) and The Whistleblower (2010). 

Day 3, Saturday, November 6, 2021

The focus of Day 3 was lesser known violence against women.

1. Music makes a human rights impact. The song, "Keep Moving Forward" opened the NGO Forum of the 4th UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, becoming its unofficial anthem. Emma’s Revolution consistently writes songs about critical issues happening in the world and enthusiastically lends their voices to the movements those issues inspire.
2. The FAWCO Target Projects (across disciplines of education, health, environment and human rights) enable members to get a keen view of human rights defenders who speak up to raise awareness with their stories of victimization and empowerment.
3. Strangulation has been identified as a control method and murder pattern in domestic and sexual violence. Prosecutors in the US are teaming with forensic nurses and NGOs to create new pathways to change laws, provide law enforcement with better tools and integrate health and trauma care with police response.
4. The majority of countries in the world have laws setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 years old. In the United States only six states have such legislation. Both child and forced marriages are a human rights abuse with little recourse for victims because they are minors who are trapped in archaic cultural or religious traditions.  
5. International advocacy is easy to do: simply connect with groups that support your human rights goals, as well as joining the FAWCO Global Teams. Americans can easily and effectively advocate for human rights topics by forming collaborative networks to educate their state legislators’ offices and local newspaper staff as an opportunity to raise awareness in communities. 
6. In this digital age, we think that social media is key to advocacy, but history proves that the ripples of change can start with one person’s fight to make a difference. Consider your power as a human being to be a changemaker by asking yourself what you want to accomplish and then develop a personal strategy.
7. The Expo Booths acted as digital kiosks to provide additional information on how to take action to stand up for human rights with our speaker organizations and learn more about FAWCO and our partner and sponsor, London & Capital.   
8. Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations: “Human rights education is much more than a lesson in schools or a theme for a day; it is a process to equip people with the tools they need to live lives of security and dignity.”
9. The event brought together real people with real stories to share of hardship, violence, sorrow and most importantly, hope and inspiration that we can all make a difference. As Hibo Wardere replied when being bullied about her activism, “I am a woman. Get over it.” We too can respond, “We are women. Let's get on with it!”
10. What was your main takeaway from this Human Rights in Focus event?  What will you do now?