BARONESS COX OF QUEENSBURY was appointed a Life Peer in 1982. A former deputy speaker of the House of Lords, she is a tireless advocate for international human rights. She visits the most forgotten ...people in the world - often in highly dangerous conditions - to carry their stories of abuse and persecution back to the West. She has risked her life many times while taking aid to war victims in Armenia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and South Sudan, and Syria. Honorary Vice President of the Royal College of Nursing, Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, recipient of the Wilberforce Award and of the Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, she has also received honorary degrees from universities on three continents. Her motivation is profoundly Christian: "Faith without deeds is dead; love without action is dead." This new edition has been revised throughout to bring Baroness Cox's remarkable story up to date.
This paper focuses on providing a nuanced understanding of how COVID-19 lockdowns in Zimbabwe exacerbated the vulnerability of women human rights defenders (WHRDs). It utilises a desk research ...approach to narrate the lived experiences of WHRDs in a context where historically they have faced abuse, exclusion, and social and political stigma. COVID-19 evolved from a public health crisis to a sociopolitical and economic crisis that affected multiple groups. Government responses to COVID-19 exacerbated the 'hostile environment' specifically for WHRDs in different social and virtual spaces, and they had to grapple with the multi-dimensional crises of livelihoods, health, state repression, and everyday survival. Civil and political liberties came under severe attack in Zimbabwe after March 2020. The most apparent were the violations of the right to freedom of movement and the right to freedom of association (including the right to religion) through curtailment of population mobility as well as postponement of political and elections-related activities on 25 March 2020. In all these spaces WHRDs were targeted by government and their activities curtailed by the curfews imposed within communities. The soaring economic crisis and the effects of COVID-19 are intertwined with police brutality, abduction of political and media personalities including WHRDs, and harassment of press and silencing of WHRD voices. State-sponsored attacks against women have come in the form of beatings by the police and army, and arrests under the guise of enforcing COVID-19 restrictions. This paper also highlights the agency of WHRDs to continuously create spaces and ways to keep fighting for improved service delivery in the face of increased state repression, by confronting institutionalised impunity, risking jail to protect and promote civic and political rights, and challenging oppressive traditional practices.
Human rights defenders (HRDs) fight for various human rights and address concerns related to corruption, employment, the environment, and other issues. They also challenge powerful state and private ...stakeholders and seek justice for human rights abuses. Therefore, HRDs are increasingly becoming targets of violent attacks and abuse with the aim of silencing them. This article begins by providing a brief definition of HRDs and then proceeds to outline the risks associated with their work in defending human rights. It also identifies the perpetrators responsible for these violations. The article categorises the types of abuses against HRDs into two main categories, with a particular focus on the widespread tactic of using the legal system to target and silence defenders in Europe, which is also emerging globally. It introduces a taxonomy of various types of violations through the legal system. By categorising the types of violations against HRDs and establishing a taxonomy to aid in identifying these tactics, the article seeks to deepen understanding and awareness of the varied abuses experienced by HRDs, as well as their deviation from human rights standards, providing a valuable resource for academics, practitioners, and defenders.
The role of women human rights defenders in Colombia is fundamental. The conditions of socioeconomic inequality, gender-based inequalities and discrimination, and the armed conflict have been complex ...scenarios in which women's leadership in the defence of human rights and peace have played a leading role. The creation of diverse collective processes and social networks at the local and national levels have been crucial strategies in the work of women defenders, their advocacy, and their forms of resistance. Their impact is undeniable. However, the work of women human rights defenders in Colombia has not been easy and has been frequently threatened. Hundreds of women human rights defenders have left the country as exiles over the past three decades or have been forcibly displaced within the country to protect their lives, many have suffered direct attacks, and some of them have been killed. The forms and impacts of violence against them have differential characteristics with respect to other defenders, which reveal the presence of gender stereotypes. In addition, indigenous, peasant, and lesbian, bisexual and trans women (LBT women) defenders face aggravated risks. Paradoxically, their visibility in the defence of peace has had very high costs for them after the signing of the Peace Accord between government and FARC-EP guerrillas in 2016. Women here are at a differential risk not only because they support the Peace Accord implementation in contexts where there are sectors that oppose it, but because they have gone beyond the low-key behaviour that is still expected for women in the political arena in many places of Colombia. Despite all this, they continue to lead the defence of human rights and their political advocacy has led to the creation of specific protection programmes for them by the Colombian state, the implementation of which is currently a challenge.
Masculinity and manhood are prerequisite characteristics desired and demanded from every male individual born in Indian society. They are taught to become an 'Ideal Indian Man' from the time they are ...born. Critical reading of masculine attributes is an important facet of feminist discourse. Men who become a part of this quest and movement as 'women rights activists', fighting against gender inequality, are often ridiculed and discouraged. In this context, this paper brings out the narratives and struggles of being a male 'women human rights defender' in India. According to the information published on the official website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are people of all genders who work, promote, defend, advance, and advocate for gender equality, and stand for the cause of human rights of women. Hence, going by the definition mentioned above, I argue that a feminist man working relentlessly on women's issues will surely fall under the category of 'women human rights defenders'. Their personal experiences and struggles as WHRDs working in their local areas voice varied forms of challenges, stigma, ostracisation, and life risks that otherwise go unnoticed, unspoken, and at times trivialised because of their gender. With an objective to bring out a broader conversation between masculinity studies and feminist scholarship, this paper analyses the challenges of being feminist male WHRDs. To examine this position as a WHRD, the paper will look into the questions of (1) being a man who is always looked upon with suspicion as a person occupying a privileged gender position; (2) a man working on gender-sensitive issues such as human/sex trafficking, child abuse, violence, conflict, and displacement; and (3) his regional location and social class. This paper will structure details of different forms of gender-based lived experiences of selected male WHRDs working in various districts of Assam and West Bengal, through personal interview methods.
Abstract
The last decades have witnessed a conceptual opening of human rights practices, hitherto prerogative of a chosen few legal experts, towards a multiplicity of subjectivities. This afforded ...human rights scholarship to address subaltern histories and reckon with past exclusions. Conversely, critical deconstruction and empirical diversification have aggravated the seemingly basic, yet thorny quest for defining human rights activism and identifying human rights defenders. This not only poses a challenge to research but, foremost, opens human rights concepts to abuse and undermines protection regimes. In this contribution to the Journal of Human Rights Practice’s Anniversary Issue, I trace the definition dilemma as it emerges from emancipatory developments in human rights practice scholarship. I am not pretending to solve this dilemma; rather, I offer ‘metaphorical dislocations’ changing the terms of discussion to elicit new avenues of thought. Taking common allusions to the economy of human rights as my point of departure, I pursue Marx’s critique of political economy as a metaphor to describe human rights activism as a labour practice that a) produces discursive value qua rendering violence legible and b) transforms activist cultures socio-politically. Hence, I encounter the subjectivity of human rights defenders in the tensions between the co-dependent dimensions of practice and its political representation. The aspiration of this think piece is to emphasize the importance of co-constructing common foundations in the research on human rights activism, and to provoke responses leading us out of the all-too-well known trenches of debate.
Abstract Historically, icons of social movements were treated as outcasts by established structures of social control. When activists break unjust rules to promote human rights, their noble causes do ...not seem to fit the commonsensical frame of ‘the deviant’, which brings up some questions. When they infringe norms to promote rights, how are activists inserted in the crime framework? How do people perceive their actions and why? This article aims to address these questions, by using the case study of migrant human rights defenders in Hungary. It navigates phenomena such as stigmatisation and criminalisation, and presents positive deviance, supranormality and functional stigmatisation as alternatives to traditional perspectives.
Resumo Historicamente, os ícones dos movimentos sociais foram tratados como párias pelas estruturas de controle social. Quando defensores de direitos humanos violam normas injustas para promover direitos, suas nobres causas parecem não se encaixar na noção de “desvio” advinda do senso comum, o que impõe algumas reflexões. Quando ativistas infringem normas para defender direitos humanos, como suas condutas se inserem na moldura legal de crime? Como as pessoas percebem suas ações e por quê? Este artigo tem como objetivo abordar essas questões, a partir do estudo de caso de defensores de migrantes na Hungria. Abordando fenômenos como estigmatização e criminalização, o artigo apresenta as figuras de desvio positivo, supranormalidade e estigmatização funcional como alternativas às perspectivas tradicionais.
The so-called ‘green shift’ poses dilemmas in developing sustainable sources of energy while ensuring the respect and protection of the rights of affected communities. The article seeks to advance ...understanding of how prevailing conceptualisations of Sustainable Development – as formulated in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – are constructed and adopted at different scales and are implicated in and shape struggles over land and environmental conflicts. The exceptional geographical conditions for wind energy production in the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca have led to significant investments in wind energy projects. In Unión Hidalgo, two projects are already in operation, the focus here. A content analysis was carried out of 36 documents published by three key actors involved (local defenders, companies, and the government at the state and federal levels). The results are then triangulated with insights from semi-structured interviews with local environmental defenders. The article shows how rights-based dimensions are perceived in a highly variable way and power relations unfold in discursive practices. That the project was eventually stopped, does, however, suggest the polyvalence of human rights, but that they are highly contingent – in this case, critically, part of social mobilisation, domestic litigation, and extra-territorial obligations of a company headquartered in France, all of which appear to rebalance power asymmetries uncovered in the analysis here.
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