National human rights bodies to work for greater cooperation

Sarath MALALASEKERA

A conference of Human Rights Commissions of South Asian countries on human rights awareness and national capacity building was held in India recently.

The National Human Rights Commission of India convened the regional conference to emulate the best practices of each of the National Human Rights Commissions which have been formed in different countries depending upon the political setup, administrative convenience and needs of the countries.

Delegates from Sri Lanka, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives and Nepal participated.

The Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission was represented by Commissioner M.T.M. Bafiq, Education and Special Program Director Miss Shirani Rajapaksa and IDP Project- Program Manager Senaka Dissanayake. The main objective of the conference was to identify areas where there can be greater cooperation and coordination of efforts towards protection and promotion of human rights, Director Shirani Rajapaksa said.

Reiterating the need for closer mutual cooperation between NHRCs on capacity building and promotion of human rights awareness participants agreed upon and adopted a resolution relating to six concerns.

They are to work towards national capacity building through sharing experience, information and best practices on human rights, to take steps to promote human rights awareness, towards this end, hold conferences at least once in two years, apart from exchanges of visits, training programs and bilateral or regional cooperation between the NHRIs, to work together to identify and cooperate on capacity building for dealing with human rights issues like human rights awareness, human trafficking and migrant labour.

They hope to work collectively at UN fora, including the Human Rights Council, for an independent status for NHRIs, distinct from NGOs, to appeal to the respective Governments to support and provide necessary wherewithal to NHRIs to ensure that they become fully compliant with the Paris Principles, which includes administrative and financial autonomy.

It was agreed that the NHRIs have an advocacy role in this regard.