17 July 2007
Human Rights Defenders Focus of July 18-20 Conference
Civil society groups scheduled to participate in State Department event
Washington -- Defending human rights defenders will be the focus of a July 18-20 conference that will examine such issues as eliminating the worst forms of child labor, protecting migrant workers, increasing corporate social responsibility and combating racial, religious and gender discrimination.
The conference comes during a time, as pointed out by human rights groups, that some governments such as in Cuba, Russia, Zimbabwe and Venezuela are constraining nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society groups in an attempt to restrict freedom of expression, association and assembly.
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which will host the conference, told USINFO that the event brings State Department employees from around the world together to discuss their work on these issues. The theme of the 2007 conference is "Defending the Defenders" -– ways to help those who advocate for human rights and democracy.
“The conference will focus on ways to ensure the effectiveness of our work and its relationship to other U.S. foreign policy objectives, such as the global war on terrorism, peace and stability, and trade initiatives,” according to the bureau.
A number of State Department officials are scheduled to speak at the conference, including Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, and Barry Lowenkron, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. Other U.S. officials scheduled to participate represent the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The United States budgeted over $1.2 billion in human rights and democracy programming in fiscal year 2006 to help defend human rights and promote free and fair elections, the right to worship freely and the right of workers to organize.
ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY
The conference will include participation by civil-society groups and NGOs such as Freedom House, Amnesty International and the International Red Cross. Also scheduled to participate are three Washington-based groups -- the Fair Labor Association, the International Research and Exchange Board and the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The Philadelphia-based Jones Apparel Group will be represented at the conference by Desta Raines, the company’s compliance manager. She will participate in a panel discussion on corporate social responsibility and human rights.
Raines told USINFO July 16 that her presentation will stress that State Department human rights and labor officers play an important role in their overseas’ assignments of maintaining contacts with foreign governments with the aim of ensuring that workers in the global marketplace are protected by internationally recognized standards on labor rights.
The State Department’s Human Rights report for 2006 says these standards include prohibiting the use of any form of forced or compulsory labor, setting a minimum age for employing children, and establishing acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work and occupational safety and health.
Raines said she hopes the conference brings about increased collaboration “across the board” between the private and public sectors and NGOs on protecting worker rights overseas. Raines’s company is a designer, marketer and wholesaler of branded apparel, footwear and accessories. Her job, she said, is to monitor how foreign factories contracted with her company are treating their workers.
Corporate social responsibility refers to how the private sector can generate profits while also acting as responsible corporate citizens who offer quality jobs and serve communities as a whole. (See related article.)
WORK OF FREEDOM HOUSE
Thomas Melia, Freedom House’s deputy executive director, told USINFO his organization produces a yearly report, similar to that produced by the State Department, on political rights and civil liberties on every country worldwide. Melia said his presentation at the conference will examine the similarities and differences between the reports by the State Department and Freedom House and how his Washington-based organization arrives at its human rights assessments.
Melia is a regular speaker at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, which provides training for officers and support personnel of the U.S. foreign affairs community.
Concurrent sessions at the conference will include a discussion on the “Year of the Pushback: Repression of NGOs.” That session will focus on trends to restrict civil society and ways to provide support to defenders of human rights and democracy.
Another session will discuss approaches to preventing abuses and promoting migrant workers’ rights. Mark Taylor, the State’s Department’s senior coordinator in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, will participate in the panel discussion, along with representatives from several NGOs.
In addition, a session will be devoted to “Freedom of Expression in the Internet Era,” which will discuss challenges to the media in restrictive environments.
The full text of the State Department’s 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices is on the department’s Web site. The full text of Freedom House’s country reports is available on the organization’s Web site.
For additional information about U.S. policy, see Human Rights.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
