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

Regional Workshop on Women and Minority Human Rights Defenders
of movement, expression, association and assembly. Defenders have been subjected to false accusations,
unfair trial and conviction. Added to these are vilification campaigns and propaganda against human
rights defenders. In many instances such propaganda is initiated by agencies of the State and distributed
by unscrupulous use of the media. A number of human rights defenders are living in self-imposed exile
after having to flee their country to safeguard their lives or liberty. Reprisals and repressive measures
have been taken against individuals and groups who have reported human rights abuse to international
bodies, including the United Nations human rights mechanisms.
Defenders whose work challenges social structures, economic interests, traditional practices and
interpretations of religious precepts face greater risks. Human rights defenders working on minority
issues and indigenous populations are often at increased risk. Women human rights defenders, in
particular, are targeted by various social and private actors, such as religious groups and institutions,
community or tribal elders, or even members of their own family. They become particularly vulnerable to
prejudice, to exclusion and to public denunciation.
Other challenges include lack of access to information in the hands of the state, and restrictions on the
possibilities of financing human rights defenders’ organizations, which range from financial restrictions to
criminal sanctions; and the restrictions and delays in legal recognition for these organisations.
Defenders, particularly those working on women’s and minority rights, are more at risk of being targeted
by forms of prejudices, exclusion and repudiation by different parts of the social and political
establishment. Women defenders tend to be at risk as a result of the historical disadvantages women and
girls have suffered and that of human women human rights defenders who specifically promote and
protect women’s rights.
Role of National Human Rights Institutions in protecting Human Rights Defenders
NHRIs can be able to effectively protect Human Rights Defenders if they can act independently of
governments, of party politics, and all other entities that may be in position to compromise their work;
through clearly defined jurisdiction; by being readily accessible to the Human Rights Defenders; through
cooperation with the United Nations institutions, the regional institutions and the national institutions of
other countries with competence in the promotion and protection of human rights. They have an
important role to play through their functions of complaints handling, research and human rights
education, visiting places of detention to assess and inspect conditions of the inmates, monitoring the
government’s compliance with international instruments and making recommendations to government to
improve the human rights situation in their respective countries.
Complaints handling
Most National Human Rights Institutions have the mandate to investigate on their own initiative and also
receive complaints of human rights abuses. As such National Human Institutions can register complaints
of human rights violations of human rights defenders. If allegations are made, for example, that certain
Human Rights Defenders have been arrested and are being illegally detained, the National Human Rights
Institution can take up the issue.
The Uganda Human Rights Commission, in particular, in addition to its investigative powers, has powers
of a Court to summon or order any person to attend before it and produce any document or record
relevant to any investigation; to question any person in respect of any subject matter under its
investigations; to direct any person to disclose any information within his or her knowledge relevant to
any investigation, and; to commit persons for contempt of its orders. Furthermore, if the Commission is
satisfied that there has been a violation of human rights or freedoms, may order: the release of a detained
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