Are you looking for ideas and inspiration on how you can achieve your human rights goals? Then you’re in the right place. Below, we have over 250 examples of successful human rights tactics.
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The South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) organizes raids and rescue operations to liberate child laborers. SACCS is a conglomeration of more than 750 civil society and human rights groups throughout South Asia that aim to eradicate bonded and child labor.
Using a constitutional provision that had never been invoked, Comisión Nacional Pro-Referéndum (CNR) organized a referendum in Uruguay, so that the public could vote on the congressional decision to grant impunity to human rights abusers employed by the military. In order to petition the government to hold a popular referendum, CNR needed, within one year of the impunity law’s passage, to collect the signatures of 25 percent of citizens who were qualified to vote.
Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio (Children for Identity and Justice Against Forgetfulness and Silence, or H.I.J.O.S) organizes targeted demonstrations in front of the homes of people who have been identified as perpetrators of human rights abuses. These demonstrations, called escraches (“unmaskings”), publicly expose the abusers and allow communities to express their moral condemnation.
The Bolsa Escola program in Brazil provides families with a monthly stipend so that children can attend school rather than working in the streets. The program, which began in the city of Brasilia, was created with the realization that the working children of today are the poor adults of tomorrow. Bolsa Escola was expanded to a federal program in 2001.
The Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has created an online searchable database of traditional ecological knowledge to prevent private companies from patenting that knowledge. The Traditional Ecological Knowledge Prior Art Database (T.E.K.*P.A.D.) is located at ip.aaas.org/tekpad.
The Centro de Documentación y Archivo (CDyA) opened police files to the public after the country’s 35-year military dictatorship.
The constitution of Paraguay, like the constitutions of five other Latin American countries, includes the right of habeas data: the right of former prisoners to control data collected about them and their experiences. After filing a petition to obtain his own file, Martin Almada, a former political prisoner, accompanied by a local judge, found thousands of detention files in a police station in Lambare in 1992.
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors in North America, promotes shareholder resolutions to change unjust or harmful corporate policies and practices. As of 2003, the current combined portfolio of ICCR member organizations was estimated at about $110 billion.
The Women’s Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights (WILD) has used the United Nations Convention to End Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to advocate for human rights at the local level.
The Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC) in Ramallah, in the West Bank, organizes a free summer camp to rehabilitate traumatized children. The camp offers recreational, artistic and rehabilitative activities intended to help children support one another and deal with their personal traumas and fears.
BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, along with the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre, organized the first National Tribunal on Violence against Women. Held in March 2002 in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, the tribunal was unofficial and not legally binding, but the testimony was real. Thirty-three women testified, sharing their experiences in order to help the public learn about the abuses suffered by women in their homes, in their communities and at the hands of the government, including sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape and female genital mutilation.
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