Why no human rights mechanism in South Asia, but other regions in world have them?

Counteview Desk
A civil rights group, Peoples' Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), has floated an online petition titled "Governments of South Asia: Time for the Establishment of a South Asian Human Rights Mechanism", stating that South Asian states should work towards the establishment of a regional mechanism for human rights at the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) SAARC level in order to create better conditions for peace in South Asia.
Such a mechanism, says the petition, should act as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of masculinity driven militarist traditions as a weapon of war and conflict. " Such regional mechanisms are important in order to minimise the potential risks of armed conflict", it insists.

Text:

On 15 January 2005, human rights groups from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, PVCHR (India), INSEC (Nepal), People's Forum for Human Rights (Bhutan), Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, LOKOJ (Bangladesh) and Wiros Lokh Institute (Sri Lanka), met with an objective of a united South Asia, working for the common good, in Varanasi, India.
This convention was named People's SAARC, leading to the formation of a South Asian People's Forum, with myself as its coordinator. Afghanistan and SAARC charter on democracy were later added to SAARC on recommendation of convention. This was indeed an excellent effort to build human rights mechanism in SARRC countries where the discourse of human rights is still in its nascent stage." says Founder of PVCHR, Lenin Raghuvanshi.
Established in 1985, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) sought to promote peace and stability in the region through strict adherence to the principles laid out in the Charter of the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement. Given that the UN Charter has been the basis for evolution of several instruments on human rights, SAARC has also taken some important steps in the right direction. Key instruments and initiatives of SAARC include:

Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution, 2002
Convention on the Promotion of Child Welfare in South Asia, 2002
Social Charter, 2002
Charter on Democracy, 2011
Initiatives relating to climate change, heath, food security, mutual assistance on criminal matters, combating terrorism and drugs.

Justice KG Balakrishnan, Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, India attended an International Conference on 'Regional Human Rights Mechanisms in South Asia' organized by the National Human Rights Commission, Bangladesh in Dhaka, from the 17th-18th November, 2014. He made several interventions during the course of discussions as one of the key speakers.
The Conference discussed various issues of human rights in South Asian countries. These related mainly to the problems of migrant workers, trafficking in women, child right issues and climate change.

The Conference emphasized that the Human Rights Institutions of South Asia Region would require to make concerted and collective efforts to address the human rights violations and stressed upon the SAARC Member nations to develop a strong regional human rights mechanism for the purpose.
It also urged the SAARC countries to ensure that all of them had a national human ri institution in conformity with the Paris Principles.
Europe, Americas, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Arab States have successfully established regional mechanisms, South Asia lags behind. Recognizing the need and importance of regional mechanisms for the realization of human rights, the United Nations General Assembly and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action have specifically called for their establishment.
We call on South Asian states to work towards the establishment of a South Asia Human Rights Mechanism at SAARC level which is going to create bettering conditions for peace in South Asia and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of masculinity driven militarist traditions as a weapon of war and conflict.

---

Click here to sign the petition

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Warning bells for India: Tribal exploitation by powerful corporate interests may turn into international issue

By Ashok Shrimali* Warning bells are ringing for India. Even as news drops in from Odisha that Adivasi villages, one after another, are rejecting the top UK-based MNC Vedanta's plea for mining, a recent move by two senior scholars Felix Padel and Samarendra Das suggests the way tribals are being exploited in India by powerful international and national business interests may become an international issue. In fact, one has only to count days when things may be taken up at the United Nations level, with India being pushed to the corner. Padel, it may be recalled, is a major British authority on indigenous peoples across the world, with several scholarly books to his credit.

Gujarat Bitcoin scam worth Rs 5,000 crore "linked" with BJP leaders: Need for Supreme Court monitored probe

By Shaktisinh Gohil* BJP hit a jackpot in the form of demonetisation, which it used as an alibi to convert black money into white in Gujarat. Even as party scrambles for answers of how the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), whose director is BJP president Amit Shah, received old currency worth Rs 745.58 crore in just five days, and how Rs 3118.51 crore was deposited in 11 district cooperative banks linked with Gujarat BJP leaders, a new mega Bitcoin scam, worth more than Rs 5,000 crore has been unraveled.

Counterview

Search This Blog