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International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

October 8, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Pauline Canham

In focus

UK Covid policy on care homes violated human rights

social-distancing-4977401_1280Amnesty International has published a report As if Expendable which shows that the UK government adopted policies that “directly violated the human rights of older residents of care homes in England”. The report specifically highlighted the decision, in the early days of lockdown, to send elderly patients out of hospital and into care homes without being tested, putting other elderly care home residents at risk. This, Amnesty said, violated their rights to life, health and non-discrimination and, as one care home manager expressed, treated people who had made contributions to society throughout their lives as “expendable”.

More than 18,000 care home residents died with Covid-19, and Amnesty is calling for a public enquiry to start immediately in order that urgent lessons can be learned. Donatella Rovera, the author of Amnesty’s report told Channel 4 that the government “forgot about care homes” and that elderly patients were released from hospitals at very short notice into care homes which did not have mechanisms in place to support a protective environment for the most vulnerable. “Care home managers were unable to obtain PPE” and staff were not trained to deal with the crisis. She

The report also discovered that a number of care homes across the country were asked to insert Do Not Attempt Resuscitation (DNAR) forms into residents’ files as a “blanket approach”. One care home manager was told by the local Care Commissioning Group, “none of your patients over the age of 75 will be admitted to hospital”. Amnesty International UK’s Director, Kate Allen, said “The Government made a series of shockingly irresponsible decisions which abandoned care home residents to die”, calling it “a scandal of monumental proportions”.

Though, in theory, visits to care homes by families were allowed to begin again in July, access is still severely restricted due to lack of available testing, meaning that elderly and vulnerable people remain isolated. One dementia charity, John’s Campaign says care homes in England are still refusing face-to-face visits, which are essential for those with severe dementia. 70% of care home residents across the country have dementia, a neuro-degenerative disease that erodes a person’s sense of self and maintaining family connections are crucial for their survival. The charity understands the need for caution, but there are other risks besides Covid-19 and dementia sufferers needs should be taken into account.

In a separate case, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is supporting Cathy Gardner in her action against health Secretary, Matt Hancock, seeking a judicial review into the government’s failure to protect care home residents. Mrs Gardner, who lost her father during the pandemic , is a member of the group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK , the same group Boris Johnson refused to meet in late August.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said “From the start of the pandemic, we have been doing everything we can to ensure care home residents and staff are protected”, adding “This includes testing all residents and staff, providing over 228m items of PPE ring-fencing over £1.1bn to prevent infections in care homes and making a further £3.7bn available to councils to address pressures caused by the pandemic – including in adult social care.” Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat Leader, Sir Ed Davy commented on the report, saying it was “an utterly damning indictment of the way in which this Conservative government has treated some of the most vulnerable in our society”.

Other stories making the headlines around the world

World

  • UN: Deny Rights Council seats to major violators (Human Rights Watch)
  • Stillbirths an unnecessary, unspeakable tragedy (UN News)
  • Report reveals linkages between human trafficking and forced marriage (UN News)
  • People with mental health conditions living in chains (Human Rights Watch)

Africa

  • UN Refugee agency condemns ‘brutal and callous’ killings in Burkina Faso (UN News)
  • Guinea: Steer clear of campaign hate speech, top UN officials warn (UN News)
  • Starvation used as weapon of war in South Sudan conflict, UN rights body finds (UN News)
  • DR Congo: Children suffering ‘unrelenting violence’, UNICEF deeply concerned (UN News)

Americas

  • Anti-LGBT persecution in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras (Human Rights Watch)

Asia

  • Myanmar: Mass detention of Rohingya in squalid camps (Human Rights Watch)
  • Kyrgyzstan: respect rights while restoring order (Human Rights Watch)
  • 39 countries at UN express grave concerns about China rights abuses (Human Rights Watch)
  • Protesting secal assault in India isnt a consipracy (Human Rights Watch)
  • Myanmar: Election fundamentally flawed (Human Rights Watch)
  • Indonesia strikes loom over environmental safeguards and workers rights (The Guardian)

Europe

  • Belarus: There is no sustainable development without human rights (UN News)
  • Finally good news for asylum seekers in Italy (Human Rights Watch)
  • UK Government to review Human Rights Act (Law Gazette)

Middle East

  • Egypt: Police beat man to death, family says (Human Rights Watch)
  • Iranian human rights campaigner released from jail (Middle East Eye)
  • Saudi Arabia continues to conceal its human rights abuses (Middle East Monitor)
  • Victims of Yemen’s proxy war are screaming in pain but no-one is listening (Sky News)

Disparity and drop-out: COVID-19 deepens educational inequality in Morocco

September 27, 2020September 27, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Noureddine Radouai

 

All over the world, the new academic year has started under unprecedented circumstances, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Morocco is no exception.  Decision-makers in the education sector differ on the best way to continue the learning process, while containing the spread of the virus.

The ministry of education in the North African kingdom has chosen a blended approach, in which parents can opt either for attendance or online learning modes for their children.  This ‘policy to have no policy’ deepens the divide between those who have the luxury of making that choice, and those who struggle daily to make ends meet.  This article discusses the impact that COVID-19 has had on the education sector in Morocco, in deepening the vertical inequalities (between social classes) and horizontal disparities (between cities and villages) that already existed prior to the pandemic.

As was the case in every nation in the world, Morocco was infected by the coronavirus. Swiftly, the kingdom followed a strict – somewhat repressive – lockdown in an attempt to contain the pandemic. These measures were justified because the country has a fragile and underfunded health sector, incapable of dealing with a large number of daily infections. Moreover, education was affected by the outbreak, classes were suspended in schools and lectures were delivered online since March. The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training made an effort to finish the academic year in these unprecedented conditions in the schooling process. To ensure equal opportunity between students from different social backgrounds, the unified national baccalaureate exam (the final high school exam) focused only on topics covered in face-to-face classes completed before the lockdown.  Despite these efforts, there are deeply ingrained inequalities that already exist throughout Moroccan society, and in the education system, that are exacerbated not just by the pandemic but by a lack of government policy to address them.

Classroom in Rabat in May 2014 FADEL SENNA AFP 

Disparity and dropout in Morocco’s education sector

The school dropout rate is a significant issue in Morocco.  In a 2018 report, the Supreme Council of Education, Training, and Scientific Research indicated that Morocco has succeeded to lower the primary school dropout rate to 2.2% in cities and 4.8% in the urban regions. Yet, the rate increases in secondary education to reach 12.9% in urban centers and 16.8% in rural areas.

The same report demonstrated that starting from the secondary level, the disparity in access to education between urban centers and rural areas, and males and females, widens significantly.  For instance, in 2016-2017, secondary education rates are 96.9% for urban children (with parity between boys and girls) and 75.8% for their rural counterparts (81.9% male and 69.4% female). Moreover, inequality increases in high school education. The high school rate in urban centers is 86.3%, while it drops substantially in rural areas to 49% for males and 32% for females.

These statistics illustrate unequal access to education between males and females as well as between cities and villages.   COVID-19 worsens the situation, as the pandemic widens social inequality between the rich and the poor and increases levels of poverty and unemployment, which eventually affect the ability of families to educate their children.

 

Poverty and unemployment

In a recent report, Oxfam International stated that the aggregate wealth of billionaires in the Middle East and North Africa increased by $10 billion during the Covid-19 pandemic, while around 45 million people have been pushed into poverty. According to a report from Haut Commissariat au Plan, the Moroccan economy lost 589,000 jobs, of which more than 88% were in rural areas, with total unemployment reaching almost 1.5 million.

With a rise in the poverty rate, access to education became a heavy financial burden on the shoulders of poor families, as online education requires electronic devices they cannot afford to buy.  In Morocco, poor families do not only consider education a right, under the Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the kingdom signed on January 26th, 1990, and ratified on June 21st, 1993, but it is the only tool available for them to penetrate the social pyramid and improve their socio-economic conditions and those of their relatives.  However, if education requires additional financial resources to obtain devices and internet connectivity, poor children will likely abandon their schooling.  Consequently, the child’s fundamental right to education under Article 31 of the Constitution will not be met and poor families will never be able to get out of the poverty trap.

The social and economic impact of COVID-19 is enormous. Yet, the greater effect is on vulnerable and poor communities. Haut Commissariat au Plan estimates that the percentage of citizens vulnerable to poverty in Morocco will increase from 17.1% in 2019 to 19.87% in 2020. These numbers indicate there will be an additional million poor in 2020.  Moreover, COVID-19 will hit hard those who work in the informal sector; particularly low-skilled Moroccan and foreign communities, both migrants and refugees. Consequently, the current unemployment rate increased from 9% to 13% at the national level, from 7.8% to 12.2% in the centers, and 10.6% to 14.1% in the rural areas.  As families struggle to afford both basic living expenses and the extra financial burden of online learning, many poor students will be forced to drop out of education. Since poor Moroccans live hand-to-mouth, this situation will lead to widening inequalities in access to education across the kingdom.

Retrieved from National Tribune

Internet connectivity

There is a significant disparity in connectivity between urban centers and rural areas, where 14 million (40%) of Moroccans live. According to the World Bank, in 2015 only 47% of the rural population had access to the internet compared to 76% of urban households. This digital gap between the two communities violates the constitutional rights of rural citizens to access different sources of information including health consultancy and education opportunities, as entitled by the Constitution.

According to the same World Bank report, the main factors that contribute to this reality are related to the prices of subscriptions and equipment compared to the average income in the semi-urban and rural areas. The private internet providers concentrate their efforts on the populated urban centers, where the purchasing power is high and demand for services is strong.  Students in rural areas often suffer from a lack of suitable classrooms, schoolbooks, and other educational materials. It is not unusual to see in the same classroom pupils from different grades being taught by one teacher, due to a lack of funding for facilities and teachers.

According to a 2019 Freedom House report, the variation of connectivity between urban and rural areas persists and network coverage is unequal.  In its latest annual report in 2017, the National Agency for the Regulation of Telecommunications (ANRT) stated that city residents are more accessible to the internet than village dwellers, with a rate of 67% to 43%, respectively. This disparity is attributed to the high level of illiteracy, particularly among rural women, which represents another serious challenge facing universal internet access in Morocco. The illiteracy rate in rural areas in Morocco is 47% of which 60% are women.

 

Conclusion

COVID-19 deepens the gap between social classes in Morocco and makes it difficult for the poor to penetrate the social hierarchy and improve their living conditions. In the North African kingdom, education is one of the main black holes in social policy. As COVID-19 pushes one million citizens into poverty and reduces people’s income, families struggle to secure basic needs for their children and internet connectivity and electronic devices will be out of reach, forcing more children to drop out of education.  A 2013 survey showed that the share of national income of the richest 10% in the country was 12 fold of the share of national income of the poorest 10%, and as the education gap between social classes widens those inequalities persist.

As the new 2020-2021 academic year is about to start, the Minister of Education and Vocational Training decided that it is up to parents to choose if they want their children to attend classes in schools or study online. While the only role of decision-makers is to make a decision, this is clearly a policy to have no policy, and simply deepens further the existing inequalities in society.  While those who can afford it will be free to make that choice, it is a violation of the right to education of those who cannot afford access to the internet.  As in many countries, COVID-19 worsens an already catastrophic social situation in Morocco, in which basic rights are absent.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nour Noureddine Radouai is a master’s degree student in Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar.  He obtained his MA in Media and Cultural Studies from the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and he earned a BA, with honors, in Mass Communication, with a minor in International Affairs, from Qatar University.  He is interested in social policy, economic development, and the political economy of the MENA region. 

International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

September 23, 2020September 24, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Pauline Canham

In focus

China forces thousands of Tibetans into labour camps

 

tibet-895493_1280More than half a million people in Tibet have been coerced by Chinese authorities into a labour program so far this year, moving rural labourers into ‘military-style’ camps to retrain them to work in factories in the textile and construction industries.  A Reuters-corroborated report, by the Jamestown Foundation also found that Chinese authorities have set quotas for the mass transfer of these re-trained workers to other parts of Tibet and China.

Tibet is a predominantly Buddhist, autonomous region of China and the situation there has been compared to the well reported Uighur ‘re-education’ camps in the Xingjiang region of China.  The independent Tibet and Xingjiang researcher who drafted the findings, Adrian Zenz, said “It’s a coercive lifestyle change from nomadism and farming to wage labor.”  Zenz makes particular reference to similarities with Xinjiang, stressing that the focus is on “military-style training management to produce discipline and obedience” and the need to change “thinking and identity” and “weaken the perceived negative influence of religion”.  The policy documents examined show that in addition to vocational skills training, something called “gratitude education” is included to boost loyalty to the Party.

According to the Chinese government, the program is designed to develop “work discipline, Chinese language and work ethics” and change “can’t do, don’t want to do and don’t dare to do” attitudes towards work.  China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a statement to Reuters, saying that reports of ‘forced labor’ are lies and all workers are involved in the program voluntarily and are properly compensated.

Two weeks ago, a global coalition of 321 civil society groups from 6 countries urged the UN to tackle China’s human rights violations through an independent international mechanism.  John Fisher, Geneva director at Human Rights Watch said the global coalition, which includes 50 UN experts, organisations and governments, “are all demanding an end to China’s impunity at the UN Human Rights Council”.

Meanwhile, at the UN General Assembly this week, as Trump and Xi face off, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres warned the international community about the perils of a “great fracture” between the two largest economies of the US and China, saying “we must to everything to avoid a new Cold War”.

 

 

Other stories making the headlines around the world

World

  • The UN is only as strong as its members – Guterres tells UN75 event (UN News)
  • The world must not be neutral on enforced disappearances (UN News)

Africa

  • Mali: Rights expert calls for ‘immediate release’ of former officials detained during coup (UN News)
  • Violence leaves more than 300,000 ‘completely reliant’ on assistance in northern Mozambique (UN News)

Americas

  • US officials’ pandemic response impaired the right to vote (Human Rights Watch)
  • US reframing of human rights harms women and LGBT people, say advocates (The Guardian)

Asia

  • Myanmar: Mounting child death toll during Rakhine village assaults must end, urges rights expert (UN News)
  • DPRK nuclear activities still a ’cause for serious concern’ says UN atomic energy chief (UN News)
  • Turkmenistan: Denial and inaction worsen the food crisis (Human Rights Watch)
  • 18 yr sentence for outspoken tycoon shows growing intolerance for dissent in China (Human Rights Watch)
  • Myanmar: Stop prosecuting peaceful protestors (Human Rights Watch)

Europe

  • Spain violated the right to inclusive education of a child with disabilities: UN committee found (UN News)
  • Belarus crisis under the spotlight at Human Rights Council (UN News)
  • UK seeks to stop justice for war crimes (Human Rights Watch)
  • UK: Gender recognition reforms a ‘missed opportunity’, say human rights organisations (Amnesty International)

Middle East

  • Sadiq Khan urged to boycott Saudi hosted G20 Mayors summit (The Guardian)
  • ‘Deep concern’ as Saudi Arabia bids to rejoin Human Rights Council (Scottish Legal News)

International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

August 19, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Pauline Canham

In focus

Belarus president orders a crackdown on protests

protest_actions_in_minsk_belarus_near_stella_august_16-2

After 10 days of protests, Belarus President Lukashenko is escalating efforts to regain control, giving orders to crack down on unrest, saying “There should no longer be any disorder in Minsk of any kind.”  His comments came after exiled opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called on EU leaders to reject the results of the election, which put Lukashenko on 80% of the vote.

Lukashenko meanwhile has accused the opposition of an “attempt to seize power” and is threatening action against 35 members of the opposition council which includes artists, writers and business people, whilst he gave awards to security officials assisting in the crackdown. One woman described her ordeal during 2 days of detention, where she witnessed a carpet of men’s bodies being kicked and beaten with batons by police officers in black uniforms. Some were “stripped naked, crouched on knees and elbows and the riot police were beating them to a pulp.”

Members of staff at state broadcaster Belteleradio have walked out, declaring the election “illegitimate”, with one presenter saying she could “no longer smile out from the TV screen” after what she described as a “crudely rigged election.”

The EU have declared their support for the people of Belarus following a summit in which they confirmed that they will pursue sanctions against members of the Lukashenko regime. “We don’t recognise the results presented by the Belarus authorities” said Charles Michel, the European council president. Angela Merkel confirmed the EU’s position, saying that the EU stands beside the peaceful protestors against President Lukashenko’s rule but “Belarus must find its own path” without “intervention from outside.”

Joanna Kazan-Wisniowiecki, UN Resident Co-ordinator in Belarus, expressed her concerns over “deeply troubling” allegations of the torture of detained protestors and has a requested an urgent meeting to discuss human rights issues with authorities. If the reports are confirmed, they would “point to systemic problems in the management and oversight of detention facilities in Belarus.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that authorities must “show restraint in responding to demonstrations” and underlined the importance of allowing all Belarusians to “exercise their civil and political rights.”

 

Other stories making the headlines around the world

 

World

  • UN marks World Humanitarian Day (UN News)
  • WHO Chief urges fair access to vaccines (UN News)

Africa

  • UN appoints independent investigators to probe abuses in Libya (UN News)
  • UN demands immediate release of Mali President (UN News)
  • One million flee escalating violence in Burkina Faso (UN News)
  • Ethiopia opposition figures held without charge (Human Rights Watch)

Americas

  • Anger in Brazil as 10 year old rape victim’s identity revealed online (BBC)

Asia

  • Bridging Asia Pacific digital divide vital to realize tech benefits (UN News)
  • Myanmar bars Rohingya candidates from elections again (Human Rights Watch)
  • Two more Philippine activists murdered (Human Rights Watch)
  • Relentless crackdown on opposition in Azerbaijan (Human Rights Watch)

Europe

  • Bosnia and Herzegovina should recognise sex crime survivors rights (UN News)

Middle East

  • Supporting communities and refugees in lebanon is a top priority (UN News)
  • Escalating repression of journalists in Jordan (Human Rights Watch)
  • Children forced to beg or work as hunger eclipses fear of COVID19 in Yemen (The Guardian)

 

 

 

 

 

Inaccessibility to online learning in India: Re-imagining a rights-based approach

August 16, 2020August 16, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Shrutika Pandey and Rongeet Poddar

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disruptive impact on the education sector in India, as it has around the world.  The imposition of a prolonged nationwide lockdown has rendered traditional classroom learning impracticable and has led to the advent of online education as an expedient tool to prevent further reduction of teaching hours. However, the adoption of e-learning tools raises concerns of inequitable access and further widening of the socio-economic divide.  In this article, the authors argue for the adoption of a rights-based approach by the Indian state to address the widening digital divide and facilitate educational attainments.

Deeply entrenched inaccessibility

National Statistical Office data (2017-18) reveals that just 10.7% of households in India have a computer while only 23.8% enjoy access to internet facilities. The rural areas and the poorest households particularly bear the brunt of unequal access. Furthermore, the national figure for persons of above the age of 5 with the ability to operate a computer and the ability to use the internet also stand at a lowly 16.5% and 20.1% respectively.

A recent survey conducted in the state of Bihar has also revealed how structural factors constrain access. In many instances, the children in the family do not retain control over devices such as smartphones which are bare-minimum for online classes. The survey has also highlighted how gender-based disparities restrict access to e-learning for children. A disproportionate burden of the household chores often limits the participation of girls. Likewise, the boys in the family are also engaged in work as the pandemic has had an adverse impact on the family’s economic well-being.

Children with special needs are excluded from remote learning while many with disabilities are also struggling to attend online classes.  As a consequence, distance-learning has increased the likelihood of drop-out rates.  The integration of a rights-based paradigm must therefore be integral to an inclusive educational policy to bridge the digital divide as outlined by UNESCO.

Inaccessibility_1

Legal regime in India

The Karnataka High Court in India has recently issued an order to enable private schools to conduct online classes, limiting the screen-time in consonance with the Pragyata guidelines for remote learning, issued by the central government. The order was issued in response to a blanket ban on online education by the state government. The government decision had been challenged to be violative of Article 21A of the Constitution of India.

Article 21A (added by the 86th Amendment to the Constitution, 2002) imposes a mandate on the state to provide free and compulsory education to children between the ages of 6 and 14. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (hereinafter mentioned as the Act) was enacted in 2009 to pursue the goal of universal education in India. However, the current state of affairs demands a thorough re-evaluation of the existing regime in acknowledgement of access disparities. The definition of ‘access’ must be evolved from mere physical proximity to schools to include social, geographical and qualitative access to a formal, fully functional school with infrastructural facilities, learning materials and human resources.

However, access to internet and other e-learning facilities has been left outside of the purview as the Act did not envisage such a prolonged phase of social distancing, enforced due to the pandemic. Thus, the law is rendered ineffective under the present circumstances, failing to ensure effective and equitable access to online learning tools.

Inaccessibility2

Education as a human right

An effective and equitable access to education requires policymakers to reimagine education as a human right in India.  Section 9 (c) of the Act lays down that children belonging to disadvantaged groups must not be discriminated against and prevented from completing elementary education ‘on any ground’.   A liberal interpretation of the provision offers a wider export to the phrase ‘on any ground’ to include digital access in its ambit. Moreover, Section 12(1) (c) requires unaided schools to provide ‘special facilities’ for students belonging to the economically weaker sections admitted in their schools and claim reimbursement for the same from the Central Government.

Lastly, the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 also requires educational institutions and state authorities to provide ‘inclusive education’ to disabled children. The statutory mandate must be read in the context of a Kerala High Court decision, upholding a student’s right to access the internet within the right to life under the scope of Article 21 of the Constitution.  The decision recognizes that internet connectivity is indispensable in the pursuit of holistic education.

The ‘balancing of rights’ approach is integral to adopting an inclusive education policy in the immediate future.  The concept is not alien to Indian constitutional jurisprudence and has been affirmed in a landmark Supreme Court judgement which unequivocally pronounced the right to privacy.  The apex court in India clarifies that that a balancing test must not be restrictive such that it constrains the effective operation of a fundamental right.

In the instant case, the fundamental right to free and compulsory education under Article 21A of the Constitution must be reinforced by the anti-exclusionary principle enshrined within the right to equality under Article 14.  The provision of education has to be reinvigorated by the guarantee of non-discrimination such that no child is left to bear the brunt of digital divide.  The disparate impact doctrine adds another dimension to the right to equality as it prohibits indirect discrimination resulting from facially neutral policies.  India’s constitutional jurisprudence thus bears immense potential to reinvigorate the right to access education if a guarantee of internet access and non-discrimination is read into its ambit.

Inaccessibility3

International standards

The judiciary in India has often resorted to international law instruments to broaden the scope of fundamental rights in India.  The goal of enhanced accessibility in education has been underlined in the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) General Comment 13.  Education is recognized as a human right under Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Articles 13 and 14 of The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)  It serves as a vehicle for empowerment and bears the potential to lift ‘economically and socially marginalized’ children out of poverty.  General Comment 13 highlights the importance of computer facilities and information technology for an educational institution. The CESCR urges state parties to be flexible to ‘adapt to the needs of changing societies’. However, the insistence on ‘adaptability’ cannot compromise a state party’s immediate obligation to ensure accessibility in violation of the principle of non-discrimination.  Article 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) also recognizes the right of children to education on the basis of equal opportunity.

The existing jurisprudence on an inclusive education also requires states to ensure effective participation of children with disabilities in remote learning.  In International Association Autism Europe v. France, the European Committee of Social Rights held that France had failed to significantly raise the proportion of children with autism being educated in either general or specialist schools in comparison to other children. Limitation in accessibility constituted indirect discrimination and was thus held to be a violation of the right to social integration for disabled children as mandated under the revised European Social Charter.

The Committee relied on the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Thlimmenos v. Greece which had laid down that the principle of non-discrimination under Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights ‘is also violated when States without an objective and reasonable justification fail to treat differently persons whose situations are significantly different’.  CESCR General Comment No.5  further requires states to provide necessary support to bring persons with disabilities ‘up to the same level of education’ as their non-disabled peers.

 

Conclusion

India’s National Education Policy, 2020 offers a cue to overcome the insurmountable barriers of exclusion in the long run as it seeks to adopt technological tools that would enable better participation and improve learning outcomes. There have been recent attempts to install digital screens at public libraries to enable access to online classes. Television and radio platforms have also been utilized to bridge the digital divide for students belonging to disempowered communities. The fundamental premise of a rights-based approach rests upon recognizing the educational needs of all children without discrimination. A comprehensive appraisal of children’s lived experiences thus can alone lead to the inception of innovative strategies that are truly equitable. The state has a positive obligation to ensure a wider reach of e-learning facilities by aiding educational institutions.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Shrutika Pandey

Shrutika Pandey is currently engaged with Human Rights Defenders Alert at New Delhi as a Litigation Assistant.  She has previously written on topics concerning human rights in several national and international blogs.

 

Rongeet Poddar

Rongeet Poddar is a recent graduate of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences and is set to join an Indian law firm. He has previously contributed to multiple blogs on commercial laws and human rights.

 

The walk back home: India’s migrant crisis and the plight of Indian labourers

August 2, 2020August 3, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Shreya Shrivastava

The lockdown imposed by the Indian government on 24 March 2020 forced the labour class to head back to their villages and gave rise to what may now be called the deadliest consequence of this pandemic; the impact on the migrant population of India.  India’s lockdown – considered to be the largest and most stringent lockdown in the world, as ranked by the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker – brought with it a set of difficulties for already marginalized, excluded, and otherwise vulnerable individuals, groups, and communities.

In light of this, this article will examine the recent migrant crisis in India, and offer analysis into the recent dilution of labour laws by several state governments.  To conclude, I will look at how this pandemic merely lifted the veil upon the lack of recognition of the abuse and neglect of the Indian labour class and the likelihood that their pitiful situation will become even worse post COVID-19.

The_Walk_Back_home_pic1

 

Understanding the crisis

Being the second most unequal society in the world, almost 90% of India’s workforce (up to 450 million people) are employed through the informal sector which consists of low paying positions such as domestic workers, caretakers, street entertainers, and fruit stand owners. With the onset of COVID-19 in March, India registered a rapid increase in the number of cases so a haphazard lockdown was put down by the Modi Government.

For those 21 days, a group that was portrayed as disobeying the rules of the lockdown, and consequently labelled as insensible, and subject to ridicule, was India’s migrant labourers.  Only when heart-wrenching photos, such as one of a child trying to wake his dead mother in a corner of a railway station, gained media attention, did the public give a second thought as to why these people were willing to risk their lives to return home. When the veil was lifted, 110 deaths had been reported of migrants attempting to return home, many of whom were hit and killed in truck and road accidents while the rest were exhausted in terms of money and resources.  Of those who did succeed in returning back, many tested positive for COVID-19.

A question that arises here is why were so many workers moving between two homes, instead of remaining in one?  The answer lies in the unplanned urbanization that India has witnessed.  Even though most migrant labourers in India would prefer to work in their villages or nearby towns, factors such as irregular jobs, huge debt burdens and a lack of better opportunities force them to seek better employment opportunities in the cities. Considering the structural imbalance of opportunities and employment in villages as compared to cities, how could the government not predict this mass exodus when imposing the lockdown?

The reason is quite simple; the lack of a robust ‘updated and comprehensive’ data collection system to record temporary and seasonal migration rendered the government ill-prepared to anticipate the responses of these communities during such a critical moment of crisis.

While migration data from a 2011 census was partly released in 2019, important details such as data about sectors in which migrant workers are employed, are yet to be released.  Also, the only district-to-district migration data available comes from 2001.  In 2017, the inter-ministerial Working Group of Migration report recommended an accelerated time-schedule for the release of data, along with the release of migration data at administrative levels below the districts, so as to identify micro-geographies of movement, but to no avail.

The_walk_back_home_pic2

The inappropriate government response

At a moment in time when the government was expected to come to the rescue of these workers, instead they embarked on changes to working conditions branded as “barbarous” by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.  Rather than providing workers with the resources and job security they were desperately seeking, three Indian states (UP, MP and Gujarat) diluted their labour laws.  As part of what has been referred to as deregulation efforts, the process of hiring and firing has been made easier within firms operating with 50-100 workers in order to enhance labour flexibility.  In addition,  relaxed factory inspections and license regulations have been brought into effect, widening the scope for willful or genuine bureaucratic lapses.

Reversing hard-won labor rights in the 20th century, the working hour shift is now extended from 8 to 12 hours, with minimum interference from labour unions.  MP’s CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan opined that the shift in working hours was brought under section 5 of the Factories Act which allows for exemption from its provisions for up to three months.  The MP state government was hoping that the Centre would give its affirmative nod to such a suspension for a minimum of 1000 days.  However, what remains overlooked is that this exemption can be given only during a ‘public emergency’, a narrow concept which includes within it a threat to security due to war or external aggression.  Uttar Pradesh has approved the suspension of labour laws for 3 years, making certain exceptions for laws related to the abolition of child and bonded labour, women employees, construction workers and payment of wages, as well as compensation to workers who experience accidents while on duty.

All this is being done under the guise of reviving the Indian economy, functioning on the assumption that regulations signify state control whereas deregulations promote economic growth.  The fact that regulation and deregulation are considered to be the antithesis of one another yet are two modes in which state and capital operate together, is being completely overlooked.  No economy is devoid of the state’s presence.  What is construed as deregulation is a controlled form of state intervention which gives a free hand to capital for economic growth.

Law has two aspects to it: one which deals with punitive measures and the other which provides social security, of which the state is the sole guarantor.  The changes being pitched to deal with the punitive measures, is now through the control of private entities thereby minimizing the role of the state. Whatever economic growth India reaps out of this plan will be a result of the deep casualization of labour.  Reports show that ‘contract labour’ has risen dramatically from 7% to 35% over the last thirty years, illustrating a move towards  a system of sub-contracting in which the responsibility from the top shifts downwards to workers subject to reduced labour rights.

The question arises as to why, instead of protecting the interest of workers, this unfortunate time is being used as an opportunity to relax labour laws which does little to solve the issue at hand.  Why did a crisis that required a supportive response from the government, do the opposite and instead strengthen their capitalist ambitions? This hints at an ulterior motive behind this strategic deregulation, that the government might be using the excuse of this pandemic to further its own agendas. Furthermore, the group to which these laws will be applicable constitutes only a minority of the workforce (about 10% of the formal workforce), as migrants are often in occupations in which labour laws do not even apply.

Conclusion

A two-pronged conclusion can be drawn looking at the state of the labour force in India. The pandemic brought to the forefront the pre-existing economic imbalance and vulnerabilities of India’s labour workforce.  These informal workers weren’t ‘running away’ in a protest against working conditions, wage arrears, or any other work-related grievances.  They were simply returning home to their families during conditions of a global emergency.  Still this caused a major dislocation exposing an underlying structural crisis.  This crisis wasn’t fundamentally due to the pandemic, but rather the pandemic exposed the pre-existing structural fissures which were until now hidden behind the powerful government narratives of a ‘Shining India.’  However, post-pandemic, the workers’ grievances are likely only to increase, given the recent actions of state governments.  Not only will they have to leave their homes again to return to their work, the jobs that will be waiting for them will now be more precarious, more demanding and impose harsher conditions with no job security, thus illustrating that, pandemic or not, the abuse of Indian labourers continues.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ShreyaShreya is a 3rd year Student of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow pursuing B.A. L.L.B (Hons) with a keen interest in dispute resolution, public policy, and human rights law. She wishes to pursue the same in the future and believes that ideas are what truly matters.  In future she wishes to build a platform wherein every individual has respect and can freely voice their opinions.

International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

July 29, 2020July 29, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Alana Meier and Amita Dhiman

 

This week’s stories in focus:

The Continued Plight of Rohingya Refugees

Rohingya_1On July 27 Malaysian authorities found twenty-six Rohingya refugees, including women and children, hiding on the northern islet off of Langkawi, Malaysia. The people were feared drowned and believed to have been transported by local fishermen from a larger vessel out at sea in order to sneak in undetected. The Rohingya have been detained for further investigation and will be handed over to the immigration department.

This year thousands of Rohingya have risked the dangers of similar boat trips in order to avoid persecution in Myanmar – formerly called Burma – and the widespread poverty within refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.

For decades the Rohingya people of Myanmar have experienced gross violations of their human rights, being subjected to systematic discrimination, statelessness, and targeted violence. This has led mass numbers of Rohingya to flee. The largest and fastest exodus of refugees took place following the violent military crackdown against Rohingya Muslims that began in August of 2017 which the United Nations has declared as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’,

Hundred of thousands fled to places like Cox Bazar, the world’s largest refugee camp, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees are now stuck living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, conditions which have only worsened amidst monsoon season and with the spread of COVID-19.

International obligations ignored by Southeast Asian governments

Rohingya_2Muslim-dominated Malaysia has become a common destination for boats arranged by traffickers promising refugees a better life abroad.  For instance, 269 Rohingya were detained on arrival in Langkawi last month having transferred from a larger ‘mother-boat’ on which dozens of others were believed to have died and thrown into the sea. The suspected smuggling boat had been intentionally damaged so it couldn’t be turned back to sea.

Hundreds of Rohingya refugees have been stranded at sea for weeks and months, many dying in the process, during attempts to reach Southeast Asia. Against international law and regional commitments, governments have blocked them from safely landing and seeking asylum and failed to launch search and rescue operations. Malaysia does not recognise refugee status, and Prime Minister Muhiddin Yassin recently stated the country could not take in any more Rohingya due to their struggling economy brought about by the coronavirus.

Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch states, “The reality is if they want to deal with both movements, they have to work with the source country. They have to deal with Burma to agree to allow these people back and with safety and dignity in the form of repatriation that the international community can approve of.” Amnesty International has urged Malaysia to stop the ‘cruel and inhumane’ practice of sentencing refugees to jail terms and caning under alleged immigration offences. While Malaysia has been content blaming and criminalising the Rohingya, what is truly needed is pressure on Myanmar to change its policies.

 

Turkish Internet Law- A threat to Freedom of Expression

Turkish_SMlawThe Turkish ruling government has passed new legislation that would tighten its grip on social media and censor freedom of expression online.  The law which is an amendment to existing regulations of publications on the internet, known as the Internet Law, was adopted without any changes by Parliament’s Justice Commission on 23 July and passed through Parliament on 29 July.

The new law will compel social media companies with over one million users a day to have representatives based in Turkey who are Turkish nationals,  and non-compliance would be fined up to 40 million Turkish Lira ( approx. 5 million Euros).  Other amendments force social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to comply with demands by the government to block or remove content within 48 hours and provide reasons for any refusal to comply with requests within that same period.  One of the other provisions requires social media platforms to restore the data of customers, so as to aid Turkish government to track down dissenters, which could lead to their prosecution for what they have said or shared online.

States, under various International Human Rights standards are under an obligation to provide for the Right to freedom of expression to all people alike and hence, such acts of proactively monitoring online content or imposing intermediary liability regimes contravenes the spirit on which this right is founded upon i.e. free expression.

The current proposal is a revised version of the April draft, adding provisions to order the full removal of content and increasing the level of fines that social media companies could face for non-compliance. In January 2019, after a Constitutional Court ruling, Wikipedia was unblocked by the government after 3 years.

“The government claims this law is needed to protect personal rights, national security and public order.’’  However, these amendments are a threat to the fabric of free speech and expression and would significantly increase the power of the government to censor online content thereby violating International Human Rights Law. Amnesty International suggests that tolerance, education and dialogue should be promoted to counter stereotypes, eradicate discrimination and foster greater equality.

 

Other stories making the headlines around the world

 

International

  • New ECOSOC President outlines focus on pandemic, SDGs and climate action (UN News)
  • Candidates for Next ICC Prosecutor Face Public Hearings (Human Rights Watch)
  • Coronavirus: Reshape the urban world to aid ‘ground zero’ pandemic cities (UN News)
  • Climate emergency ‘a danger to peace’, UN Security Council hears (UN News)

 

Asia

  • Maldives: Migrants Arrested for Protesting Abuses (Human Rights Watch)
  • Malaysia/Thailand: Launch urgent search and rescue missions for remaining Rohingya at sea (Amnesty International)
  • Myanmar: End Unlawful Internet Restrictions (Human Rights Watch)

 

Europe

  • Unaccompanied Migrant Children Sleeping Outside in Paris (Human Rights Watch)
  • Protect people ‘fleeing war, violence’, UN refugee agency urges Poland (UN News)
  • Poland Abandoning Commitment to Women (Human Rights Watch)

 

Africa

  • Kenya: A Mau Forest Evictees’ Plight Intensifies (Human Rights Watch)
  • Zimbabwe: COVID-19 must not be used to stifle freedoms, says UN rights office (UN News)
  • Cameroon: Civilians Killed in Anglophone Regions as Peace Talks Take Place (Human Rights Watch)
  • Libyan authorities shot dead three Sudanese migrants: UN (Al Jazeera)
  • Uganda Criminalizes Comedians Over Satirical Video (Human Rights Watch)

 

North America

  • US Immigration Policies Foreshadowed Violence Against Protesters (Human Rights Watch)
  •  Mexico: Overhaul Police Forces (Human Rights Watch)

 

Latin America

  • Sustained Pressure Against Nicaragua’s Ortega Government (Human Rights Watch)
  • Peru: Women unite against toxic metals pollution (Amnesty International)
  • Argentina lockdown: Reports of abuse by security forces (AlJazeera)

 

Middle East

  • Lebanon: Abolish Kafala (Sponsorship) System: Adopt Rights-Respecting Contract for Migrant Domestic Workers (Human Rights Watch)
  • Security Council stalemate frustrates families of Syria’s missing detainees (UN News)
  • UN: Yemeni activist demands people with disabilities ‘have a seat at the table’ in crisis response (Amnesty International)

 

Australasia and Oceania

  • Kangaroo Point detainees remain in limbo as advocates mark seven years of offshore detention (ABC News)

 

 

Who will control the world’s thermostat? The potential human rights impacts of climate change and geo-engineering

July 23, 2020July 24, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Patrick Lawrance

May 2020 was reportedly the joint hottest month on record and it is estimated that we now have only 6 months to prevent a post lockdown emissions rebound, which will result in a climate catastrophe.  Even with aggressive mitigation tactics, there are increasing fears that we will overshoot our 1.5ºC warming target, with inevitably devastating effects on natural resources, economies and human rights.

In response to impending climate change disasters, a range of technologies have been created to dislodge our current warming trajectory. However, as will be explored below, these technologies remain largely untested and underexplored, with potentially catastrophic results on our ozone, environment and resources, threatening a wide range of human rights as a result.

Among the many climate disaster-delaying mechanisms that are currently being researched, there is a category of potential substitute technologies that fall under the umbrella of ‘geoengineering’.  Broadly speaking, these technologies work by either directly removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or increasing the reflectivity of the Earth to limit heating rates and combat rising global temperatures.

The reality of climate change is a constant looming threat to the fulfillment of human rights globally. While the positive effects of the pandemic on global emissions have been celebrated (and rightly so), they are miniscule in the context of our colossal history of global emissions.

In his July 2019 report, Philip Alston, who recently finished his mandate as the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, laid out clearly the environmental impacts that maintaining our current approach to climate change will incur.  Alongside food insecurity, forced migration, disease and death, he writes that “climate change threatens the future of human rights and risks undoing the last 50 years of progress in development, global health and poverty reduction”, with developing countries bearing 75–80% of climate change impacts.

Legal accountability for climate change responsibility is rapidly expanding, and previously controversial rights such as the ‘right to a healthy environment’ are becoming increasingly mainstreamed.

 

Geoengineering solutions

Whilst a formal, stand-alone right to a healthy environment is not explicitly protected within an international instrument, calls for it to be recognised lend incredible weight to geoengineering technologies and their potential to limit the impacts of climate change and its effects on human rights through environmental devastation.

These technologies can vary massively in approach, scope and expenses. They fall into two broad categories: ‘solar radiation management’ (SRM) and ‘carbon dioxide removal’ (CDR).  SRM technologies can range from the injection of reflective materials into the atmosphere, such as diamond particles; to the introduction of giant space mirrors to effectively reflect the sun’s rays.  CDR technologies can include the mass dumping of iron sulfate into the oceans to increase phytoplankton and decrease carbon dioxide levels; as well as ‘direct air capture’, where carbon dioxide is sucked directly out of the atmosphere – a technology that Dominic Cummings recently secured £100 million from the UK Treasury to pursue.

One form of SRM that is gaining particular traction is known as ‘Sulfur Aerosol Injection’ (SAI).

GeoengineeringMethods-ClimateCentral_900_639_s_c1_c_c

SAI is a form of Solar Radiation Management that works, in essence, to raise the volume of sulfur within the atmosphere and increase the Earth’s reflectivity as a result.  Akin to the effects of volcanic eruptions, it has the potential to decrease, or even reverse, the warming of the Earth. This technology is appealing due to its cost effectiveness, estimated by the Co-Director or Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program to cost between $2 to 2.5 billion annually. This price-tag seems relatively commendable when considering the World Bank’s estimate that natural disasters currently cost $18 billion a year to low- and middle-income countries through damage to power generation and transport infrastructure alone.  In this regard SAI represents a comparatively cheap option to potentially cool the planet to pre-industrial temperatures and potentially negate some of the effects of climate change.

 

Human Rights Considerations

The implementation of SAI is projected to have a range of impacts on the environment, with a number of human rights implications as a result. While the true range of rights potentially affected are not yet known, some of the key issues that will be explored in this article are; the right to information; free, prior and informed consent; the right to health; and the right to food.

Right to information

The current lack of research on geoengineering impacts raises numerous questions surrounding the right to information and issues of informed consent.  At this stage, the level of available resources and research surrounding geoengineering remains relatively inadequate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has commented that, while geoengineering technologies may be theoretically effective in reducing overshoot, they “face large uncertainties and knowledge gaps as well as substantial risks and institutional and social constraints to deployment related to governance, ethics, and impacts on sustainable development.”

This gap in research and governance, allows scope for large-scale and flagrant human rights abuse and indigenous communities are often those that pay the highest price. In 2013 for example, a businessman dumped 100 tonnes of iron sulphate off the coast of British Columbia to increase phytoplankton numbers and decrease carbon dioxide levels as a result.  A claim was then raised by a First Nation community who had been told that this would be a ‘salmon enhancement project’ .  They stated that they would not have given consent if they had been informed of the potential negative effects, or that this project was in fact in breach of two international conventions; The Convention on Biological Diversity and The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes. While a Canadian investigation was launched, no charges were ever laid. This is a stark example of the need for improved governance and enhanced regulation surrounding geoengineering and the collection of free, prior and informed consent, a legal norm specific to indigenous populations and grounded within the provisions of the UNDRIP.

 

Right to health

With regards to SAI, there are significant unknowns which could occur as a result of increasing carbon dioxide levels and generating a new atmospheric make-up.  Within the northern hemisphere, increasing atmospheric sulfur is predicted to cause a chemical reaction that would devastate the ozone layer and could push back ozone recovery in some areas for 30-70 years. Increased exposure to UV as a result would massively increase rates of skin cancer, cataracts, and the reactivation of some viral infections, therefore representing a widespread threat to the right to health. To employ this technology, states would need to undertake a balancing act to consider the individual’s right to health against a global need to reduce the Earth’s heating rate and fulfil the right to a healthy environment.  Without extensive, controlled research of the impacts of these technologies, and an adequate human rights investigation of their results, appropriate balancing of competing rights is impossible to conduct.

Geoengineering2

Right to food

Additionally, SAI is also predicted to severely affect precipitation levels in the global south, playing havoc with monsoon patterns in Asia and Africa and potentially leading to humanitarian disasters and widespread food insecurity.  A change in precipitation levels would directly affect the global south, and a number of developing countries as a result. This possibility would play heavily into criticisms of wealthier states abusing their power without consideration for less prepared nations and exacerbating existing socio-economic imbalances, especially in a scenario where a wealthier state decides to employ these technologies unilaterally without due consideration of its international implications.

The resulting climate catastrophes of precipitation changes could devastate the right to food, which is protected under multiple instruments and explicitly defined by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights. The OHCHR have also stated that freedom from hunger and the access to adequate food needs to be ensured even within the context of natural disasters.  The Royal Society of London have indicated that the effect of SAI geoengineering on weather patterns could impact the food supply to billions of people, raising significant human rights concerns regarding  geoengineering and the right to food.  It sparks essential questions regarding the fairness of states who seek to fulfill a healthy environment and do so at the cost of worsening inequality and increasing climate disasters within the global south.

Other potential impacts

 Another looming drawback of SAI technology is the threat of a ‘termination shock’. Termination shock is a scenario in which the maintenance of SAI technology is suddenly dropped – whether through a breakdown in policy or relationships, the breakout of war, or an unexpected event such as a global pandemic –  causing the collapse of the maintenance of the Earth’s ability to effectively reflect sunlight, with catastrophic results. The termination effect could see the global temperature rising at 20 times their current rate,  with the global south inevitably bearing the brunt of the fallout, multiplying inequalities and power imbalances. The exponential increase in global warming effects would wreak havoc across the right to food, health, water, and adequate standard of living, amongst others. Though the likelihood of this eventuality is low, if materialised it represents a worst-case scenario equal to any of the most devastating future global warming scenarios.

 

Conclusion

There are many other questions raised by the potential consequences of implementing geoengineering technologies that are outside the scope of this piece, and even more still to be discovered. Some of the larger issues include; what role, if any, will international human rights law play in the governing of these technologies? Given the low costs of certain geoengineering technologies, will states unilaterally launch geoengineering missions, or do so in small coalitions? If launched separately, how will these different technologies interact? Which state, group of allied powers or international assembly of powers will maintain them? Or, more simply – who will control the thermostat? The development of this technology undoubtedly requires extensive research and governance, especially considering the overlap between states with the least political influence and states most at risk of its potential adverse effects.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paddy_LawrencePatrick Lawrance graduated with an LLB from the University of Liverpool and is currently pursuing an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex. He is pursuing interests across topics of artificial intelligence, climate change, LGBTQ+ issues and ESC rights.

Spotlight on Louise Melling

July 19, 2020July 19, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

Each month, the HRC Blog features a significant figure from the Human Rights community to go under the Spotlight, answering questions put by students from the University of Essex.  This month, we feature Louise Melling.

 

About Louise

louise_melling_square

Pictured: Louise Melling Photo: ACLU/Molly Kaplan ©2014 ACLU All Right Reserved

Louise Melling is a Deputy Legal Director at the ACLU and the Director of its Center for Liberty, which encompasses the ACLU’s work on reproductive freedom, women’s rights, lesbian gay bisexual and transgender rights, freedom of religion and belief, and disability rights.   In this role, she leads the work of the ACLU to address the intersection of religious freedom and equal treatment, among other issues.

Louise has established the ACLU as a national leader in opposing the use of religion to discriminate and in supporting state advocacy teams that have pushed back legislation that would permit discrimination in the name of religion.  In her time as Director of the Center for Liberty, the ACLU has pursued a program of litigation, advocacy, and public education campaigns that culminated in the 2015 Supreme Court decision recognizing the fundamental right to marry for same-sex couples.

 

Students’ Questions Answered

The students at Essex were really excited to have the opportunity to send in their questions to Louise, to learn more about her work in the field of human rights.

 

Q: To what extent will US domestic law be able to guarantee reproductive rights across the country?  What should be done to establish equal reproductive rights across all states?

A: There are only two ways to establish reproductive rights across the country:  either with an act of congress or a decision of the Supreme Court.  To see advances at the federal level, we need to elect a Congress and a President that believe in equal reproductive rights – the President because the President nominates federal judges and justices, and signs or vetoes bills.  The congress because we need both bodies if we are to pass legislation and we need the senate to confirm or block judicial appointments.

What’s critical to success is for people to press for changes in our law – to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, to provide a backstop against state abortion restrictions; to lift prohibitions on federal insurance plans (for low-income people, for the military, federal prisoners, and more) covering abortion care; to invest in solutions to our very high maternal and mortality rates, particularly for Black Americans.

It can be hard to build the essential momentum, even though people support the change, given the many challenges before us now.

Supreme Court abortion

 

Q: What are the chances of the US Supreme Court ruling against the Trump administration’s moral exceptions in the case of Little Sisters of the Poor v Pennsylvania?  How significant is it to the right to healthcare?

A: There is a many years battle in the United States as to whether employers can refuse to provide insurance coverage for contraception because of religious objections.  I think of this as a question of whether the employer can make its employees pay for its religion by denying the benefit.

The Trump Administration adopted rules providing that all employers with religious objections could refuse to provide the coverage, and virtually all employers could refuse if they had moral objections.  The ACLU has consistently opposed such exemptions.  While we support religious freedom, it is our position that religious freedom doesn’t mean the right to harm others, including by discriminating.

Challenges to the Trump rules went to the Supreme Court.   The Court ruled this month that the rules were authorized by the Affordable Care Act.  Significantly, the Court did not reach arguments that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal statute, authorizes — or requires – exemptions for those who object to providing the coverage.  In other words, the Court did not rule that the federal protections for religious freedom require that the government exempt employers that objecting to providing coverage.

That means we live to see another day and the litigation and public debate – as to whether the constitution or federal statutes protect the right to discriminate – continue.

 

Q: How effective was the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2015? Did the challenges that same-sex marriages face change since then?

A: Most of the ACLU was gathered in a conference room on the day the decision was announced.  There were screams and tears of joy.  The decision said that same-sex couples were no longer treated as strangers in the eyes of the law; gay and lesbian relationships were no longer treated as other and illegitimate.  That alone is profound.

There are still challenges to the right, the one pressed most often takes the form of religious objection.  Businesses continue to go to court to argue, for example, that, because of their religious objections, they must be able to refuse service to couples seeking to buy a wedding cake, rent a facility for a wedding reception, or hire a photographer.  That issue is still unresolved in the courts.

But public acceptance of the right to marry is great, and the right to marry rooted in the constitution.  And now this year the Court recognized our federal statute barring discrimination based on sex to bar discrimination against LGBT people.  The fight is still on but the progress is real.

Rainbow_flag

 

Q: Your decades’ long work with ACLU has involved work on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights. Since President Trump was inaugurated in 2017, there have been multiple policy reversals including the rescinding of transgender student advice published by the Obama administration. How do you think the human rights community can contribute to the continuing fight for the rights of women and LGBTQ individuals in the current political environment and given the rollback on recent protections?

A: There are so many ways to contribute.  In the United States, its critical to support the right to vote – under attack now – and to get out the vote; it’s critical to engage as deeply with state elections as federal, as so many of our rights are decided by state governments; it’s critical to organize, ideally with a long-term vision.  The LGBT and guns rights movements in the US are both seen as having made significant strides toward their aims because they kept their eyes on a long-term goal.  And we need to organize, as much as possible, across movements, to support one another.  Many of us, after all, carry multiple identities, and we aren’t free if we aren’t all free.

 

Q: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has witnessed a drastic increase in domestic violence, the diversion of resources away from vital women’s services and governments avoiding the enforcement of existing obligations. For example, the UK government has suspended mandatory reports on the gender pay gap for businesses. How has the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures affected (or exposed) existing gender inequalities in America and how has it impacted upon your work on women’s rights (in America specifically)?

A: The pandemic has exposed so many inequities.   Who has access to health care.  Who has access to a safe living environment.  Who has access to safe working conditions.  Who is paid a living wage.  Whose work has not been valued.  Who has access to paid sick leave.

When ‘stay at home’ orders first went into effect, my hope was that we would emerge appreciating teachers, nannies, home health aides, cleaners – all the women doing the work that has for so long been undervalued and unseen.  Really, I’d hoped we’d all appreciate how interconnected our lives were and that we need to change policies to value those so essential to the economy and the functioning of so many families.

The US now is so divided – over basics like wearing a mask – that I am less optimistic that we come out of this with bigger hearts and commitment to robust reform.   The exception – I hope – will be with Black Lives Matter and a commitment to dismantling white supremacy.  There is a conversation – and action – unlike anything I remember in my adult life.

George Floyd

 

Q: As the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests have gathered international attention, how do you believe civil rights activists can ensure that their actions continue to gain momentum to trigger real institutional change (in America specifically, given your work with ACLU)?

A: George Floyd’s killing was a turning point. It was a public lynching.  It woke up much of the nation.  And it came after many other police murders, and much activism around policing – in schools, in the streets – and the consequences for Black people in particular.  The fire caught.  Now, in short order, we are seeing change that was long resisted – confederate monuments falling, police budgets being reduced, police removed from schools, chokeholds banned.

The key is to keep up the heat.  The police and Trump Administration seem to be offering ample fodder to ensure that’s the case.

 

Q: After pivotal human rights rulings, historically there has often been resistance to implementation and repercussions in the community as witnessed with the Brown v Board of Education case. Since the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in 2015, have you witnessed a backlash against LGBTQ rights? How have you overcome such obstacles in your work?

A: Change is hard.  I sometimes say that big advances are seismic cultural shifts.  It’s so essential for those who have been excluded, and jarring for those who have been used to one way of being.  And there will always be resistance.

When we talk about resistance to LGBT rights, we say that Plan A was to resist any advance.  Resist marriage. Resist non-discrimination rules.  Once we achieved those advances, Plan B was to punch holes in the gains with religious exemptions.  Plan C is now to foster transphobia.  In the states at the moment, we see that with an effort to pit rights for transgender people against girls and women, often in sports.

No change will stick without cultural change.  The LGBT movement worked hard to humanize gay and lesbian couples before pressing big court cases (even learning that the most compelling spokesperson was a parent talk).  We worked hard to highlight the humanity of transgender people before the court issued its decision this term, with Laverne Cox and my colleague Chase Strangio leading the way.  (As one example, I highly recommend a video of celebrities reading a letter of Aimee Stephens to her employer when she came out.  Aimee’s case – against her employer for firing her for being transgender – went to the Supreme Court.)

And then you just can’t give up.  You just can’t.

 

Q: Controversy is central to a robust democracy.  If we begin to let the government censor our views to make it more comfortable or less controversial, we set ourselves on a destructive path.  When President Trump, used derogatory  and demeaning comments about women, protest photos and statements were removed or blurred.  When the state machinery supports the stifling of freedom of expression and the right to protest, what can we do to make our voices heard and hold the powerful to account?

A: I’m answering this on the Saturday on which John Lewis died.  I would say, we can read his words or those of other leaders who never gave up, and keep on protesting and speaking out and summoning others with our words and actions to join.

John_Lewis_-_Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom

 

Q: The constant debate on a woman’s right to choose vs. the Right of the unborn foetus in the area of Abortion Laws, has been a long journey both for the Courts and ACLU.  There are differing opinions when it comes to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court; how do we as change makers bring about consistency in this process at all levels and influence the courts on these important issues?

A: You only want consistency if the good result is the one that will prevail.   Consistency among all the courts right now would require a decision or more decisions by the Supreme Court; it is only that court that can establish the law for the nation.  But it is best not to run to that Court now on issues of abortion.

Activists can work to build public support for the issue that is in court – even before there is any litigation.  It’s simply easier for the courts if they aren’t being asked to be too far ahead of the public.  And a decision is more likely to stick, and do the work we want, if the public momentum is moving toward increased support for the right.

 

Q: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement and your biggest failure or regret throughout your career?

A: I played a key role in getting the human rights community to see the harms of religious refusals (the calls for a right to refuse to comply with an anti-discrimination mandate), to recognize their implications across movements,  to mobilize to oppose them, and to develop ways to communicate their harms, including calling them out as demands for a license to discriminate.  The work we did, beginning in 2010, before the issue was hot, laid the groundwork so we were ready when the issue percolated and able to achieve some significant and early wins.

I also am tremendously proud of a case I won in New Mexico, where the State Supreme Court held that the state constitution required the state had to cover abortions under its Medicaid program.  (Medicaid is a government insurance program for low income people.  The decision rested on the state equal rights amendment, which means that the court understood the connection between access to abortion and gender equity, and it has made a real difference to the lives of so many in that state.

I am almost sixty.  I worked in the ACLU’s reproductive freedom project for eighteen years.  I worry that I might end my career with the right to an abortion in a worse place than when I began my career.  It is deeply troubling.  It’s troubling because of what that says about how my country thinks about gender justice.  And it’s troubling because of how hard people’s lives continue to be, if we struggle over the right of something so fundamental as whether or not to have a child.

 

Q: Finally, what advice do you have for human rights students about to start out on their careers?

A: Keep a sense of humor to help carry you through challenging times and to celebrate the wins.  Keep your eye on the long-term goal.  Listen.  I have learned so much, and have so much yet to learn, from my colleagues.  And find joy, always.

Statues are falling: The case of HM Stanley – an erasure of history or a necessary revision?

July 13, 2020July 13, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Sinéad Coakley

All around the world, we are seeing the removal or modification of tangible cultural heritage, either by forceful means or by government action. This global debate was triggered by the abrupt and harrowing murder of George Floyd in the USA at the hands of a man employed by the state to protect him. It provoked mass protests around the world highlighting the much overdue need to adequately address systemic racial inequality, institutional racism and controversial heritage.

Colston_StatueThe statues at the centre of this debate across Europe are predominantly statues of men involved in Europe’s much-celebrated imperial exploits. Figures such as Cecil Rhodes, Robert Milligan, and Winston Churchill have come under intense scrutiny across the UK following the dramatic removal of Edward Colston from a plinth in Bristol. We, as a society, now find ourselves at a time of reckoning as we question the statuary on our streets. We need to consider the role that cultural heritage has within our communities and whether removing these statues is a removal of history.

Cultural heritage is an expression of the ways of life of a community, which is passed on from generation to generation. Tangible heritage such as statues and monuments denotes the physical representation of the values, beliefs and traditions of that community. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have reiterated that cultural rights are essential for the maintenance of human dignity and positive social interaction between individuals and communities.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) further affirm that cultural heritage should be recognised and acknowledged for the benefit of present and future generations. Thus, ideally the statues in the public realm should reflect, and be a source of, communal bonds in which all members of the community (local communities and the wider state) can identify with and protect. So what should we do with controversial heritage – cultural heritage that does not promote human dignity and social cohesion?

StanleyTwo communities having this dialogue at the moment are Denbigh and St Asaph in North Wales. Both have had to consider the fate of two statues commemorating a lesser-known historical figure – ‘Denbigh’s Son’ – Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley has come under scrutiny due to his involvement in colonialism as he explored central Africa and worked as an agent of King Leopold II (whose own statue was removed in Antwerp for his genocidal policies in Africa). Both statues are surprisingly recent only having been created in 2011 in the hope to attract tourism.

At the time there was a letter of protest against the erection of the statue arguing that his expeditions have shaped the racial inequality still rife in todays society. Despite this, the statues were still commissioned and displayed. Local artist, Wanda Zyborska, holds an annual protest of the Denbigh statue by re-veiling it in black rubber; the rubber is particularly symbolic given the exploitation of rubber in the Congo. During the recent Black Lives Matter protests, protesters turned their back to Stanley and “took a knee” (a symbolic protest now synonymous to the BLM movement first initiated by Colin Kaepernick in 2016).

On 24th June both councils decided the fate of these statues. Despite persistent pressure from the community to remove them both councils effectively voted to keep the statues in place (for now). St Asaph Council, whose statue depicting Stanley is an obelisk portraying his life, opted to modify the obelisk with a plaque depicting a more neutral explanation of history.

St Asaph 2A working party will be set up to draft the wording that would better reflect today’s climate. This is something that Bristol Council tried in 2018 to address Colston’s role in the slave trade. However, this caused further controversy as it was felt the plaque laundered Colston’s enslavement of black people. Denbigh Council, on the other hand, voted (6-5) that the statue depicting Stanley standing with an outstretched hand would not be removed, but would open up the debate to a public consultation. This consultation will take place once lockdown restrictions are lifted in Wales. Both decisions here have the opportunity to promote much needed dialogue. St Asaph Council has the power to enable the community to decide collectively what is an appropriate and accurate explanation of history. Denbigh Council also has the opportunity to start dialogue and reassess whether the statue has a place within their community.

Other communities have already made attempts to address these questions. The University of Liverpool has agreed to rename a building named after former Prime Minister William Gladstone, for his links to the slave trade. The statue of slave owner Robert Milligan was removed by the Canal and River Trust in London as a way of recognising the wishes of the community. Throughout America, statues of Confederates have been removed. Likewise, Alaskan and Australian communities are deciding the fate of statues of Captain James Cook for his links to colonialism. In London, a commission will be set up to review and improve diversity across London’s public realm to ensure that the landmarks suitably reflect the capital’s achievements and diversity.

The removal of these statues has been met with severe opposition in certain quarters. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has argued that the removal of any further statue is the erasure of our history. This is the predominant argument that underpins a lot of the discussion surrounding these statues and it is something that needs addressing.

Firstly, arguing that the removal of these statues is an erasure of our history implies a role that statues do not necessarily achieve. As David Olusoga correctly states, statues are not particularly good at telling us our history. History is complicated. Pure objectivity does not exist in accounts of the past and there are many interpretations of it. Resisting the removal of these statues is resisting the realities of the new (more objective) understanding of the past. By removing the statues we are no longer giving legitimacy to a history that they infer. British exceptionalism has allowed us to portray our history in a whitewashed manner – ignorant to the mass oppression of minority groups.

Secondly, in some instances the intentional destruction of cultural heritage can indeed be to erase history. Throughout history, cultural heritage has been destroyed in this way because it is an identity marker of a group of people. It is an assault upon a peoples’ identity in an aim to demoralise, disenfranchise and humiliate them, as seen during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. In some cases, the destruction of heritage is part of a broader plan of genocide – to erase the very existence of a group of people and remove them from the annals of history.

Stanley 2However, this is not what is happening here. This is not an assault upon our cultural heritage but a call to acknowledge present day racism and structural inequality by reconsidering the past. There have been calls for the removal of these statues for years. They are not being removed with the intent to erase history or to culturally cleanse a people. Instead, people within the community are demonstrating that there is no space for these symbols of intolerance and hate within the fabric of their community and they reject them. Regardless of the reasoning behind the creation of these controversial statues, we must focus on the message they send in the present day.

It is a message – seen by many of – endorsing colonial iconography and white supremacy. It validates a history of intolerance and grave violations of human rights. By removing these statues of the likes of Colston and Stanley local communities are not removing them as historical figures, nor are they removing them from the historical record – they are simply removing the idea that they are worthy of celebration within the fabric of our culture.

The on-going global pandemic has gifted us with the ability to stop and evaluate the way in which we live our lives at an individual level but also as a community. We need to take this gift and ask ourselves these difficult questions in an open, inclusive dialogue. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to how communities deal with their past. This is apparent in the different approaches taken so far across the UK (and the wider world). Whilst the blanket removal of some statues is welcome, it does stifle the opportunity for much needed dialogue.

I believe dialogue is needed in all communities. It will enable communities to collectively understand their history and cultural heritage exposing why these particular statues are symbols of intolerance and oppression. Cultural heritage is supposed to outlive many human generations and as a result, in considering the public setting in which these statues are placed, communities should be focusing on what message they want, as a community, to send to future generations. We need to consider why we celebrate the figures that we do and whether they merit our reverence – a dialogue Denbigh and St Asaph have been afforded at the moment.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SineadSinéad is currently a PhD candidate at The University of Liverpool. Her research focuses on transitional justice responses to the intentional destruction of cultural heritage in post-conflict states. Her research interests include: minority rights, cultural rights, cultural heritage, transitional justice and international humanitarian law.

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