WE DID IT! WE ARE WINNERS!
That’s right, this past Thursday we successfully held our
office’s side event “Youth for Human Rights and the Common Good” at the 34th
session of the Human Rights Council! With co-sponsorship from 21 countries and
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, we had one of the most
supported side events during the session (so basically, all those emails and
phone calls were actually useful!).
(I made this flyer. Just so you know. I'm very proud of it.) |
The past week was spent preparing the panelists for the
event, helping them prepare their speeches, and teaching them about the UN
system (like UPR, treaty bodies, etc.).
Or at least, that’s what some people were doing this week. I
was generally in the office or at the UN, working on the flyer or taking notes
on the different meetings happening regarding Item 3. We all also went to a
side event hosted by the Holy See on the issue of unaccompanied minors (which
are migrant or refugee children that travel to another country with no adult
assistance). As you can imagine, children are the most vulnerable travelers,
especially when they have no adult assistance, as they are more likely to be
subjected to abuse, trafficking, and other forms of exploitation.
But back to the side event!
All the interpreters showed up and were able to get their
accreditation badges so that they could get into the UN, which was a huge
weight off my shoulders. They all went up to their booths and I double-checked
the sound and let the moderator know which language was on which channel so
that everyone could listen to their language of choice. The panelists all got
situated, as did the keynote speaker (Michel Forst, the Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights defenders), the moderator (Nuno Cabral from the
Permanent Mission of Portugal), and the presider (Ambassador Carmen Elena
Castillo of El Salvador).
Me telling the moderator the language channels |
Gotta get some hot chocolate for two of our awesome interpreters! |
The panelists were from five countries and they all did
somewhat different work. Zareh from Syria works in the oratory with children
7-18 and has a special group that he mentors. Prence from Congo is a teacher
and travels to remote villages to teach children and their communities about
their rights. Marian from the Philippines has done literally everything, from a
mobile education library to medical missions to political lobbying for
anti-bullying and anti-corporal punishment. Peter from Slovakia is getting his
degree is theraputical education and lives and works with marginalized
children, particularly the Roma children. Then there is Guillermo, who runs
human rights education programs for people, usually young adults, that are
being detained in prisons.
Room during the side event. Pretty good turnout! |
Now, don’t you feel inadequate?
But really, all the panelists have been super fun and we’re
all pretty sad to see them go (they’re all leaving this weekend L). There wasn’t a super
strong language barrier as only one of them didn’t understand English well
(Prence speaks French), but there were some interesting translations going on
between people speaking in Spanish or Italian which then had to be translated
into English while Pedro was translating it into French for Prence. We are very
multicultural here at the IIMA Human Rights Office!
At the side event, they all spoke very well about their work
and their goals regarding human rights education. The one thing that I think we
maybe should have done differently was instead of having all the States ask their questions and then asking the panelists to
answer them, we should have probably let a few people ask questions, let the
panelists answer those, and then have some more questions. Over ten different
State representatives asked questions, some of them asking multiple questions
during their speaking time. That’s difficult for experienced speakers to
handle, not to mention for our panelists (who have never done anything like
this). They handled themselves well though.
So the whole point of this side event was to offer an opportunity
to let States hear from actual young people regarding human rights and human
rights education. Often at the UN, people forget about young people. The
Convention on the Rights of the Child is applicable for children up to 18.
However, once you hit eighteen, you are suddenly a full adult. The UN forgets
that, for all intents and purposes, most people do not suddenly become fully
functioning adults the day they turn eighteen. Heck, I was still in high school
then, and I was definitely not an
adult. I was like, a pre-adult. So the fact that the UN hasn’t really addressed
the challenges facing young people is kind of a big problem.
Luckily, El Salvador championed a resolution on youth and
human rights last year (HRC Resolution 32/1) and the UN Security Council
acknowledged the role of youth in peace and security in its Resolution 2250 in
December of 2015. This shows that the UN is moving in a more positive direction
regarding the role and importance of young people in international policy
formation. After all, young people are the ones who are going to have to live
in the world that the current policy-making generation is creating; therefore,
they should probably have some say in what is going on. Some people may think
that young people aren’t aware enough to have good opinions, but if I’ve
learned anything from graduate school, my time in Kenya, and the panelists that
I’ve been hanging out with all week, it is that young people are far more aware
than most people give them credit for. They are also far more frightened and
far more hopeful that what’s gone wrong can somehow be fixed.
Our generation is the most globally aware generation that
has ever existed. We have more opportunities for cultural diversity and appreciation,
and we are more likely to meet people from other countries and traditions. That
doesn’t make each person perfect. Discrimination is obviously still a thing.
However, the younger generation truly is willing
to dialogue if people will listen.
And that, if nothing else, is cause for hope.