We all hold inalienable human rights to be recognized and protected by the states we live in. However, disregard and contempt for human rights persist and some people are at special risk. Through partnership programmes, DIHR aims to enhance civil society organizations within the fields of advocacy and monitoring to empower rights-holders to claim their rights. Monitoring includes research and analytical activities, documentation, data collection, human rights assessments and the development of evaluation techniques. Advocacy activities include preparing strategies to promote certain rights or concerns through lobbying, networking and mobilization of interest groups.
Two of our partners presented in this chapter work directly with monitoring and advocacy in relation to two of the most fundamental human rights issues: discrimination and torture. The NGO All Afghan Women’s Union has dared to combat the extreme discrimination against Afghan women which was institutionalized under the Taliban regime. The fall of the Taliban has improved women’s rights formally, but a worsening security situation continues to expose Afghan women to gross human rights violations.
The prohibition of torture and ill treatment carry a special status in international law. There are no exceptional circumstances whatsoever that may be invoked as a justification of torture, but the unambiguous prohibition has not resulted in freedom from torture. Torture is widespread and demands our action and renewed efforts. Our NGO partner, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), refers to torture as ‘the mother of all human rights abuses’ and the organization strives to combat torture among authoritarian regimes that have reconfigured endemic and deeply entrenched practices of human rights abuse in the name of upholding law and people at risk order. Torture is rampant in Asia, and AHRC has the competence, credibility and local understanding to take on this challenge.
DIHR has supported national or regional NGO networks in Africa, Asia and Europe. A major network activity started in 1998, when DIHR supported the establishment of the Balkan Human Rights Network (BHRN), which consists of about fifty human rights organizations. Working through networks has mainly focused on capacity building, strategic planning and advocacy, supplemented with work on specific issues identified by the network in question. In the case of BHRN, special attention has been paid to harmonizing laws and regulations to secure the rights of the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the region. The last article in this chapter includes a number of compelling stories by Serbian refugees who have faced serious violations of their right to freedom of movement, nationality and property upon their return to what they thought was home.