communications, Author at Franciscans International

The lack of respect for the human rights of asylum seekers, refugees, migrant workers, and indigenous people in Thailand remains concerning. The country is now recognised as a global centre for human trafficking: it is a country of destination, origin, or transition for many men, women, and children, many of whom are subjected to forced labour. An estimated 450,000 stateless people live in its territory, including many Rohingya people, who have fled persecution in Myanmar.

Thailand was reviewed on May 11th 2016, by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), in Geneva. This was Thailand’s second UPR review. In collaboration with the Marist International Solidarity Foundation (FMSI), Franciscans International (FI) prepared a joint submission, based on information shared by human rights defenders in the country with whom FI and FMSI partner regularly. The report highlighted key human rights violations with regards to asylum seekers, refugees, migrant workers, indigenous peoples, minorities, and victims of trafficking.

In addition to preparing the submission, FI joined partners in hosting a conference at the United Nations during which members of Thai civil society were able to give first hand information about the violence and lack of protection suffered from human rights defenders. They shared stories of disappearances and killings of human rights defenders with no real investigation from the authorities, forced evictions of indigenous people living in forests, and growing harassment of those who express disagreement with the government. Panelists noted that more than ten countries called for Thailand to ensure concrete measures to protect human rights defenders; and underlined the importance for Thai authorities to ensure the implementation of these measures.

Participants of the conference released a statement reflecting on the UPR and making further recommendations for the Thai government regarding the implementation of measures to protect human rights defenders.

People with albinism face particularly difficult stigma in Tanzania, as local beliefs have cemented the perception that they are unnatural or cursed individuals. They are rejected by their families, avoided by their peers, and discriminated against, from school yards to court rooms. In many cases, people with albinism have suffered violent mutilations at the hands of traditional leaders who lead people to believe this puts an end to their “magical properties.” Although the Tanzanian government has taken action to put an end to such violence, ritual killings continue, highlighting that more robust measures need to be taken in terms of protecting the victims and persecuting the perpetrators.

Franciscans International (FI) and partners Edmund Rice International and the Marist International Solidarity Foundation, used the process of Tanzania’s second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on May 9, 2016 to document and share the alarming information about the plight of people with albinism, and propose recommendations to the government, in a joint submission.

The submission also addresses continuing difficulties for marginalised populations to access quality education, high infant and maternal mortality rates, and concerning issues around child labour and the sexual abuse of children. FI has been working with partners in Tanzania since the country’s first UPR in 2012, monitoring the implementation of the recommendations accepted by the Government, and preparing for the second UPR by lobbying member states and gathering information for the submission. In July 2015, FI and partners organised a national consultation in Arusha, to share information and organise for the UPR.

Several official recommendations were made to the Tanzanian delegation at the UPR session, around education, health, and child labour, reflecting FI and partners’ concerns. A remarkable 27 recommendations were made around the issue of albinism and harmful practices, indicating global concern over the plight of this population in Tanzania. FI and its partners in the country will continue monitoring how the Government implements these recommendations, and will be working with local human rights defenders to keep the government accountable to its commitments.

The International Board of Directors of Franciscans International (FI) held its semi-annual meeting at the Geneva office of FI from April 22-25, 2016.

Joe Rozansky, OFM, was elected as the new President of the Board. In September 2015, he finished up ten years in Rome as the director of the OFM Office of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC); while there he also worked closely with Romans VI, the JPIC group of the Franciscan Family. He has now returned to work in the Formation Program of his province, to which he has dedicated many years of his ministry. Joe succeeds Doug Clorey, the previous representative of the the Secular Franciscan Order (OFS) on the Board, who just completed his four year term as President of the Board.

Ruth Marcus, the newly appointed representative of the OFS, a lawyer from Malaysia, was welcomed to the Board, and Carla Casadei was voted to continue her service as Treasurer.

The Board bid farewell to two FI staff members: Francesca Restifo who was the Director of Advocacy (stationed in Geneva) and Amanda Lyons who was the Program Coordinator for the Americas Program (stationed in New York). It welcomed the new Director of Advocacy, Sandra Ratjen who recently began her responsibilities at FI.

The President’s report spoke of the evaluation process underway to establish a sense of the current status of the organization in view of planning for the future. The present financial stability of FI allows for the possibility of taking a long term view of its activities and the possibilities for the coming years. Two areas discussed were the possible redefinition of the presence of Franciscans International in New York and the establishment of an Advisory Group of Franciscans interested in the promotion of human rights issues at the United Nations.

Papua New Guinea’s Court has ruled the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island to be illegal, and ordered the PNG and Australian Governments to take steps immediately to end their detention in PNG.

Franciscans International has been actively advocating for Australia to close Manus Island’s migrant detention centre for the past two years, highlighting cases of human rights violations in the Centre, and inviting partners to repeatedly share their testimonies with the Human Rights Council.

Read the ABC article here.

Image: Manus Island Detention Centre © Green MPs, Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

“We need to wake up to the realities that are not always discussed in the main rooms of the Human Rights Council, “ urged Mr Adrien Zoller of Geneva for Human Rights and Global Training, referring to gross human rights violations perpetrated by States towards minority populations and indigenous people in their territory. Mr Zoller was moderating a panel discussion about on-going discrimination and state-supported violence against ethnic minorities in Asia.

Franciscans International (FI) and several partner NGOs hosted the discussion on March 15th at the UN, as a side event to the Human Rights Council, to give leading advocates and human rights defenders in Burma, Japan, and West Papua the opportunity to share their experience and analysis of state policies towards minorities, including indigenous peoples.

In all three countries, indigenous people and minorities have experienced arbitrary arrests and violence, including extrajudicial killings, with very limited (if any) access to justice. In Burma, for example, 600 human rights violations have been committed by the army alone, against the Kachin people in the North of the country, and not one case has been brought to justice.

In Okinawa, Japan, the local indigenous peoples’ protests against the construction of a new American military base was met with excessive force and arbitrary arrests by the Japanese State, who has never recognised their right to self-determination and stripped them of their language and culture. In West Papua, 2015 holds the record in mass arrests and cases of ill-treatment. Young Papuans are regularly shot at by police forces during peaceful protests, or tortured as political activists, even if there is no proof of political activism. Anyone who criticises the government – indigenous journalists specifically – becomes a target for military violence. Cases are rarely investigated or brought to justice.

The panellists agreed that governments should be pressured to putting an end to aggressive and violent measures against their minorities and indigenous peoples, and that close UN-monitoring of each of the three countries should continue.

Active for years in advocacy for human rights in West Papua, FI considers the debate as a further opportunity to expose the case of West Papua to the international community and policy makers present for the Human Rights Council. The event allowed indigenous voices to be heard at the UN, empowering grassroots advocates to share their experience and first hand information at international level, where the reality of human rights violations is not always presented so explicitly.

Despite recent efforts by the UN and the African Union to deal with the sociopolitical upheavals and violence following the 2015 electoral process in Burundi, the human rights and humanitarian situation in the country remains a great source of concern. Armed groups with external backing are threatening sociopolitical security, and arbitrary detentions, torture, and killings continue to be reported daily. So far, 250 000 people have fled the country.

On March 16th, 2016, Franciscans International joined Dominicans for Justice and Peace, Caritas Internationalis, and the World Evangelical Alliance to host a debate at the UN that explored the root causes of the present situation of violence. The panelists, including Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, attempted to explain the situation, all the while identifying key ways in which the international community could support UN monitoring and recommendations, engage in effective and inclusive processes of mediation, and put in place a protection mechanism to ensure the security of the population.

The panelists noted that Burundi had shown several warning signs of the impending crisis, but that the international community had not been quick enough to respond. They also pointed to the lack of trust and real dialogue between government and opposition. Fr Emmanuel Ntakarutimana OP, former chair of Burundi’s National Independent Human Rights Commission noted that economic and social rights had been somewhat set aside in favor of civil and political rights, causing general dissatisfaction and hopelessness among young people who are concerned about their future, leading them to violent political parties.

Panelists, echoed by interventions from the floor, called for an increase of external observers and mediators to permit a more inclusive dialogue between factions in Burundi. They asked for the UN to strengthen the monitoring of the country, including giving support to the National Human Rights Commission, and to create mechanisms that reassure the population. The debate ended in urging the Human Rights Council to keep Burundi as a priority on its agenda in order for peace to make its way back to the country, and to allow the large number of refugees, including many journalists, to return to the country in safety.

Mohammad Ali Baqiri fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan with his brother’s family when he was just ten years old, leaving his parents behind. He came to Australia in 2001 by boat from Indonesia, where he spent three years in Australia’s detention center on Nauru. At that time, all incoming asylum seekers arriving by boat were to be detained in offshore centres while they waited for their application for refugee status to be processed. Although the detention centers closed down between 2008 and 2012, they have now reopened and are still in use at this date.

In the Nauru detention center, Mohammad was exposed to several acts of violence and abuse, as he witnessed how Australia’s offshore detention system brought people to hopelessness and acts of self-harm. Many Afghani detainees on Nauru ended up following the Australian government’s urge to go back to their country and were later killed by the Taliban. Those who are still alive are repeating their journey, twelve years later, waiting for a boat in Indonesia to take them to Australia.
When Mohammad was finally granted a visa, he was placed directly in 8th grade, with no special English classes to help him. He had to learn English and face the mockery and racism of his peers.

Today, Mohammad is 24 and finishing up his law and business degrees at university in Australia. He is using his experience to be a voice for asylum seekers and refugees everywhere, insisting that seeking asylum is a right and not a crime, explaining that people flee their homes out of desperation, not out of choice. Mohammad is seeking to shed light on the inhumane conditions in detention centers, stating that no child should ever go through what he went through.

Mohammad addressed the UN in Geneva on Tuesday, March 15th, in a side event to the Human Rights Council, telling his story, and urging the Australian government to comply with its international human rights obligations, to close its detention centers, and to put an end to the business deals that are currently financing the centers. The event, that also featured first hand information about the current situation of women in detention, was organized by Franciscans International, Edmund Rice International, Destination Justice, and ChilOut, a long-time partner of FI that advocates for the rights of children in migration detention.

The current economic and development model encourages a food system dominated by agri-business; a system which exploits people, natural resources and exacerbates social and gender inequalities. Local communities are displaced, workers are exploited, rural populations are forced to move to the city as they are faced with unpunished land-grabbing. While States rely increasingly on foreign investment and transnational corporations, they are becoming less inclined to comply with their human rights obligations, leading to unregulated and unsustainable development projects. Coupled with cultural patriarchal practices, this economic model works against women’s equal enjoyment of their rights, and often condemns them to violence. To overcome these structural barriers and violence, women are organizing and advocating for their rights, including the right to food and nutrition, at diverse levels and in all regions of the world.

On March 8, 2016, on International Woman’s Day, Franciscans International (FI) joined a group of NGOs and civil society partners, including FIAN (Food First Information Action and Network), in creating a space at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to give visibility to specific violations related to the right to adequate food and nutrition. A panel of women’s rights activists from social movements around the world and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food shared the struggles they’ve encountered in accessing adequate food.

From appalling work conditions for women workers in tea plantations in India, to desperate migration in Togo where phosphate mining and land grabbing have displaced entire communities; from the invisibility of women peasants’ work in Spain, to under-nutrition and healthcare discrimination in Guatemala, these women’s stories illustrated not only the gross inequalities that women suffer from, but also the need for greater accountability from States and from transnational corporations to uphold women’s human rights.

The women’s stories also underlined the interconnections between the right to food and women’s rights. For example, women are often reduced to being families’ main providers of food security and nutrition, based on stereotypes about gender roles. This often results in stark inequalities in access to productive resources and to economic opportunities. But women are much more than mere providers of food, and their rights are key in addressing the right to food. “Women, whether they are peasants, plantation workers, fishers, pastoralists or indigenous, are already challenging the dominant economic and development model and risking their lives to claim their rights,” noted FIAN’s Secretary General, commenting on International Women’s Day.

The testimonies of these women echo and strengthen FI in its continued efforts to call for a legally-binding treaty on business and human rights. One of our most basic rights – the right to adequate food, especially for women – is threatened daily by today’s global economic system. States and transnational corporations must be held legally accountable for protecting communities’ most basic rights.

The “Love Never Fails” International Congress, hosted by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum in Vatican City, on February 25-26th 2016, gave an opportunity for Catholic charitable organisations to come together to discuss the relevance of their work in today’s world. The Congress was organized to mark the 10th anniversary of the Pope Benedict XI’s Encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God Is Charity).

Featuring inter-religious perspectives on love and mercy, and testimonies about the work of Catholic charitable organizations in some of the world’s most difficult places, the Congress reaffirmed the relevance of Deus Caritas Est and the work of charitable organisations in the world. In his message to the Congress, Pope Francis restated the importance of caritas and indicated that it “is at the center of the life of the Church and […] is truly the heart of the Church.”

President of Franciscans International’s (FI) board of directors, Doug Clorey, attending the Congress as FI’s representative, was able to meet Pope Francis. He took the opportunity to present FI’s work to him, explaining how FI advocates at the United Nations for the promotion, protection, and respect of human rights, social rights, and environmental justice.

The need to address systemic change was noted at various points during the Congress, but no organization was asked to speak in depth on the subject. “This is an area in which FI could make a valuable contribution and better balance charity with justice”, reflects Doug Clorey. As is stated by Pope Benedict XI in his Encyclical, “we need to build a just social order in which all receive their share of the world’s goods and no longer have to depend on charity.” Convinced that eradicating poverty is more than a moral duty, and that it is in fact a legal obligation under existing human rights law, FI can indeed to contribute to the dialogue in this area.

Greatly concerned by the increasing number of people who find themselves excluded and marginalized from the current global economic system, Pope Francis has urged the Church to give particular attention to vulnerable and poor populations who are often “without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.” In his recent inauguration of the Jubilee Year of Mercy on December 8th 2015, Pope Francis encouraged Catholics worldwide to “open wide the doors of their hearts” to forgive others and work against social exclusion. “Mercy and forgiveness must not remain beautiful words,” he said, “but must be realized in daily life.”

On December 17th 2015, at a Press Conference held at the Holy See Press Office (Sala Stampa) in Rome, Franciscans International, along with ATD Fourth World and Caritas Internationalis, presented its publication “Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty: A Handbook for Implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human” as a tool for combating extreme poverty; a tool that echoes with the Pope’s concern about today’s “economy of exclusion and inequality.” Defining extreme poverty primarily as a human rights violation, the handbook puts forward key elements for mobilizing and empowering people and communities to advocate for better policies. The handbook’s human-rights based approach recognizes all people as rights-holders and ensures that States are held accountable to upholding those rights.

“The elimination of extreme poverty is not only a moral duty, but also a legal obligation, by virtue of the provisions of international law on human rights. As is enshrined in the UN’s Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights: ‘Extreme poverty is not inevitable. It is, at least in part, created, enabled and perpetuated by acts and omissions of States and other economic actors; the tools for ending it are within reach,'” stated Francesca Restifo, FI’s Advocacy Director. “Our starting point was the expertise, knowledge and experience of our partners at local level,” she explained about the development of the handbook. “This handbook is the result of their concerns and their contributions.”

Mgr. Bernardo Johannes Bahlmann OFM, Bishop of the Diocese Óbidos in the North-East of Brazil shared the potential impact of the handbook on the communities of his diocese, mostly indigenous communities whose rights are so often being violated by deforestation. “Franciscans live in close contact with communities affected by poverty in all parts of the world,” added Fr. Michael Perry OFM, Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, noting how a rights-based approach to poverty is in line with Franciscan spirituality, putting human dignity at the center of poverty reduction efforts. “These Franciscans seek to establish a strong bond between the protection of human rights and the protection of the environment.”

FI is using the launch and promotion of its handbook “Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty: A Handbook for Implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights,” and the movie “Extreme Poverty: Standing Up For Rights” to push for and exemplify a rights-based approach to addressing extreme poverty at the UN, among Catholic leaders, and with our partners on the field.

Watch summary video of Press Conference here.

Download the handbook here.

Background: Extreme poverty is a result of injustice – people living in poverty do not just suffer from a lack of income, they usually face considerable barriers that prevent them from enjoying fundamental rights, such as the right to food and nutrition, to housing, to work, to health, and to education. They have to accept dangerous working conditions, unsafe housing, and limited access to healthcare, and bear the consequences of a lack of nutritious food, unequal access to justice, and lack of political power. These barriers and subsequent deprivations are interrelated and mutually reinforcing, resulting in a vicious circle of poverty, powerlessness, stigmatization, discrimination, and exclusion. FI and partners developed the handbook “Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty: A Handbook for Implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights,” and the movie “Extreme Poverty: Standing Up For Rights” to promote an approach to extreme poverty that centers on rights and empowers those living in poverty to participate in decisions and policies that affect them. FI is promoting the handbook both at the UN, and with its partners at field level, and is currently developing training material and support workshops in the field, so as to have an even wider-reaching impact.