Table of Contents - East and Horn of Africa Human Rights ...

Regional Workshop on Women and Minority Human Rights Defenders
human rights defenders as premised in international human rights instruments, and thereafter
specifying the rights of individuals. The UN further interprets and ensures compliance with
these standards. For instance, the Human Rights Committee which is a treat body established to
monitor rights spelt out under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
has defined non discrimination on the grounds of sex to include ‘ sexual orientation.’
The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders takes existing rights of individuals and applies
them to human rights defenders, and further represents the right to a remedy. He notified
members that the UN system established the office of Special Rapporteur on Human Rights
Defenders whose mandate is to scrutinize and protect human rights defenders across the globe.
From the discussion that followed, Agreed Common Grounds from this session were that:
� Member countries of the East and Horn of Africa Region have signed up to many
international human rights treaties protecting human rights and obliging the state to
undertake its duties in upholding its citizen’s human rights. As a result, there are
institutions and structures set up at national, regional and international level to protect
rights of HRDs.
� The mandates of these institutions are broad and comprehensive enough to give the vital
protection to human rights defenders.
� However, these mechanisms have their own limitations and human rights defenders do
not always have the requisite confidence to use them. Further, states parties are not fully
complying with their obligations under these mechanisms thus making implementation
difficult.
� Despite the existence of these organs, human rights defenders are still suffering and it is
clear that there is still a great deal of work to be done to improve the situation of human
rights defenders. As such, the efforts of other players such as civil society organisations
and international human rights NGOs is critical to supplement the work of these
institutions and to compel the states to implement their human rights obligations.
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