MOSAIC - The training kit for Euro-Mediterranean youth work

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Many human rights issues are naturally controversial. Critical dialogue and
exploring conflicting issues are part of human rights education. Human rights
cannot be imposed; one of the best ways to introduce HRE is to relate human
rights issues to young people’s lives and reality.
In some countries, speaking of human rights can be dangerous. While it is important
for everyone to discuss and learn about human rights, young people
should not feel pressure to engage in human rights activism in ways that make
them feel unsafe.
Everyone can do something for human rights and human rights education –
writing petitions and participating in demonstrations are not the only ways to act!
The values and principles of human rights as codes of conduct among human
beings apply in any youth activity.
Human rights are violated and challenged everywhere, in all the countries involved
in Euro-Mediterranean co-operation, even if it is also true that the scale
of the violations of some rights is much more serious, widespread or accepted
in some countries than in others. Human rights education activities in this context
should avoid stigmatising one society or state, but should rather emphasise the
need for everyone to act in their own context for the benefit of the human rights
of all. Whenever human rights are violated somewhere, human rights are
threatened everywhere!
Notes
1. See www.amnesty.org.
2. See www.hrw.org.
3. Haytham Manna’a, based on Abu Muhammad al Hassan Ibn Ali al Hussein Shuba al-Harrani (al-Halabi), in Arabic,
4th century ah, 184, quoted in Arab Human Development Report 2004.
4. The first Geneva Convention was entitled “for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in
Armed Forces in the Field” and was first adopted in 1864. The Geneva Convention “relative to the Treatment of
Prisoners of War” was first adopted in 1929, and was followed and revised by the third Geneva Convention,
signed in 1949.
5. The declaration text can be found in various languages at www.unhchr.ch/udhr/index.htm.
6. The covenant can be found at www.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm.
7. The First Optional Protocol can be found at www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_opt.htm.
8. The Second Optional Protocol can be found at www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_opt2.htm.
9. See www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr.htm.
10. Information on state signatories can be found at www.ohchr.org/english/law/index.htm.
11. See www.ohchr.org/english/law/cerd.htm.
12. See www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw.
13. See www.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm.
14. See www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm.
15. See www.ohchr.org/english/law/cmw.htm.
16. See www.ohchr.org/english/law/disabilities-convention.htm.
17. See www.coe.int. More information on the Council of Europe can be found in Chapter 1 of this T-Kit.
Themes