{"id":4178,"date":"2014-12-10T21:02:42","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T21:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.africlub.net\/awdf\/?p=4178"},"modified":"2015-08-13T12:31:02","modified_gmt":"2015-08-13T12:31:02","slug":"whose-human-rights-day-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awdf.org\/OldSite\/whose-human-rights-day-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Whose Human Rights Day is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><span lang=\"en\">by Val\u00e9rie Bah<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\"><strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/strong>During these 16 days of activism, we also celebrate Human Rights Day, a day for which the United Nations has proposed the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/events\/humanrightsday\/\">slogan, \u201c365,\u201d<\/a> suggesting that the world should embrace the idea that every day of the year should be Human Rights Day.<strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">It\u2019s an apt theme, given the fact that earmarked days can send the message that the public should accept atrocious norms most of the time as long as it occasionally organizes high level ceremonies or sets aside five minutes of silence. Similar criticism has been levied on the celebration of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/nile-cappello\/why-i-refused-to-observe-_b_4931258.html\">International Women\u2019s day<\/a> and<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theroot.com\/articles\/history\/2014\/02\/black_history_month_all_year_carter_g_woodson_wanted_it.html\"> Black History Month<\/a> in the US. Commemorative days imply that the majority of the time belongs to a wretched status quo.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">The same could be said of the geographical provenance of human rights, sometimes dismissed as a \u201cwestern\u201d construct. I will illustrate with examples from two countries in Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">Recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), more than 200 Congolese human rights defenders signed off on a press release denouncing politicians for framing them as enemies of the state. The press release complained about a campaign led by DRC politicians to paint them as traitors and destroy their public image in light of an unfavorable human rights report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">In the context of <a href=\"https:\/\/wazaonline.com\/en\/power-people\/drc-government-clampdown-on-violence-questioned\">\u201cOp\u00e9ration Likofi (\u2018punch\u2019 in Lingala)\u201d a DRC government campaign<\/a> to reduce the incidence of violent crime in Kinshasa, these Congolese human rights observers have drawn attention to extrajudicial killings and summary executions which took place throughout the campaign by publishing their findings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">The report of these Congolese human rights defenders came on the heels of other damning reports on Operation Likofi filed by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) which resulted in denials from the Minister of the interior and the <a href=\"http:\/\/uk.reuters.com\/article\/2014\/10\/16\/uk-congodemocratic-rights-idUKKCN0I52SR20141016\">expulsion of Scott Campbell<\/a>, the UN envoy for human rights from the DRC. These reports were mostly dismissed by politicians as foreign interlopers. Even the local media has taken this stance. Several newspapers have published cartoons depicting foreign and local human rights defenders as absurd defenders of criminals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.africlub.net\/awdf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Whose_opt.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4182 \" src=\"http:\/\/www.africlub.net\/awdf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Whose_opt-300x216.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"318\" height=\"229\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\"><i>(Translation: \u201cGo away, Campbell!!! You\u2019re creating more problems than solutions&#8230;\u201d) <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\"><i>The article linked to this comic exSource: digitalcongo.net<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\"><strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/strong>In Togo, widows face abusive rites, including seclusion, and sometimes forced sex, although the nation\u00a0is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and its constitution and family code make provisions for the protection of women&#8217;s rights, indicating a schism between traditional and adopted laws.<strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">In light of this, a civil society organization, <i>Association de femmes pour la sant\u00e9 et le d\u00e9velopement<\/i> (ALAFIA), which strives to promote girls&#8217; education, livelihoods for women, and access to reproductive health, has lobbied community leaders, including queen mothers, to curb practices and traditions that harm widows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">Through two years of advocacy, ALAFIA was able to change laws in several cantons to abolish these rites. In one of the locations where they operate, a head of canton abolished long widowhood rites.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">An interesting aspect of ALAFIA&#8217;s advocacy is that, though they rely on donors outside of Togo, they refuse to see it as an externally-imposed initiative, but rather as a movement driven from the inside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">\u201cWe have found strategies to promote the perception that this is an external initiative,\u201d said Berthe Adzoavi Tattey from ALAFIA, dismissing the suggestion that the fight for human rights is associated to any particular identity. \u201cFor example, even Christian religions have come in from outside (of Togo) and denounced certain practices.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\"><strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong>Today is Human Rights Day. Even so, it is Togo\u2019s Human Rights Day; it\u2019s the DRC\u2019s Human Rights Day; it\u2019s <i>our<\/i> Human Rights Day.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Whose Human Rights Day is it? - The African Women&#039;s Development Fund (AWDF)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/awdf.org\/OldSite\/whose-human-rights-day-is-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Whose Human Rights Day is it? 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