10 December is celebrated as Human Rights Day!
This year’s Human Rights Day theme “2022 Theme: Dignity, Freedom, and Justice for All” is focusing on addressing and finding solutions for deep-rooted forms of discrimination that have affected the most vulnerable people in societies including women, and girls, indigenous peoples, people of African descent, LGBTI people, migrants and people with disabilities, among others.
Human rights are basic rights that cover everything from health to the freedoms of every person. Human beings are born with certain inalienable fundamental rights. The right to equality and peaceful existence is a basic and inseparable right of the human being.
The United Nations Convention was held on December 10, 1948, to formalize the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) which identified human rights as fundamental to the achievement of peace and progress. This declaration has been taken as a primary document to define the birthright of human beings to certain innate and inalienable rights. Since then 10th of December is celebrated as the world’s human rights day.
NGOs play a crucial role in the preservation and promotion of human rights, especially in the areas of developing countries, where there is less knowledge of the importance of human rights. NGOs practice promoting public awareness while conducting institutional advocacy, and lobbying to stop any kind of violation. It not only assists in developing society and improving communities but also works in the promotion of citizen participation.
“The 21st century will be an era of NGO.”- Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary-General
There are a few things that NGOs should always focus on while performing their responsibilities along with the practice of human rights. Here, I am going to talk about the major roles of NGOs that it plays in the protection and promotion of human rights.
Providing Information
NGOs works at the local level and they are the one who knows the problem of those people at the roots better than the Government. They have better access to the people facing the problems. Here, NGOs play an essential role in providing information to the Government along with the human-centric solution. NGOs have functioned as the conscience in the field of human rights by taking prompt action to investigate the instance of human rights by undertaking spot studies and publishing the observations.
“If the NGOs do not provide the flow of information, documentation and data collection then the human rights implementation system
at the UN would stop those NGOs.”- William Korey’s.
NGOs disseminate information about human rights in general. Education on ‘human rights issues contributes to the improvement of human rights situations by themselves because people learn about their rights and thus increase the possibility of claiming them. May it be a campaign, organizing courses, releasing publications, and organizing events (seminars, round tables and etc.) on various topics of human rights; thereby increasing public awareness of human rights can be done.
Lobbying
NGOs play a role of an influencer in keeping cooperation with the Government and its fellow organizations. They are active members working in different sectors based on human rights. NGOs lobby powerful decision-makers to take account of the interests of marginalized people and influence the Government to change its favor to the public.
Aid/Assistance
The role of NGOs nowadays is very significant and effective. Many NGOs are coming forward in giving legal assistance to vulnerable communities who do not understand the right and cannot afford legal services because of economic, social, or other reasons. It has been common to be concerned with NGOs with humanitarian assistance and human rights. NGOs should focus on the relief and sustainable development of society by coordinating with the Legal Services Institutions at the central level.
Eliminate Social Problems and Health Issues
Human rights are the rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. It includes the right to life and liberty and freedom from slavery and torture. NGOs have played a pivotal role in managing human trafficking, prevention of HIV/AIDS, educating teaching, and training vulnerable people, childcare, providing counseling related to health issues, and promoting human rights laws and rules among the people by going from the local level to the central level.
Bridge Between Government and Local People
As I have discussed before, NGOs are the only factor that can easily access the local people and deeply understands their problems. They can understand where the problem lies for the lacking of human rights. NGOs reach more than the Government. There is a need for cooperation between the two levels of grassroots organizations aiming to impact the state’s decisions to encourage the fact that the impact of transnational NGOs is limited by the internal politics of target states. Thus, national/local NGOs erode sovereignty from the inside; meanwhile, international NGOs are seen as external to state sovereignty. Usually, advocacy NGOs (like Amnesty International) threaten and weaken state sovereignty rather than service-delivering NGOs. The latter’s aim is to change the status quo in favor of the interests of the people that they are representing and pressure the governments to support the issues that are addressed by NGOs.
However, not all NGOs have been successful to achieve their goal of maintaining equal rights for all. The government should prioritize the work and activities of the NGOs that are providing services continuously in the sector of human rights. Ngo’s focus should be made for expanding its programs, campaigns, and skits from yearly to bi-yearly to monthly. They should provide clear data about their work. NGOs should carry the role of facilitator between the people and the Government with innovation and sustainable solutions.
Human rights can be secured with the joined work of both the NGOs and the Government. Only then those efforts put together towards building strong national human rights systems will go a long way to ensure that the SDGs work for everyone.