Mobilizing the civil society

The “Summer University on International Solidarity” will take place from 7 to 10 of July 2010 in Bordeaux (France). Terre des Hommes France co-organized a module on Human Rights and Dignity and a workshop on the right to food in the Philippines with the participation of its partner, Bernardo D. Larin from PhilRights.

Last 18th and 19th February, the NGO ASSOAL’s premises provided the framework for this exercise.

More recently, the promotion and the protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESC Rights) in Cameroon were still on the agenda. According to the main recommendation of the Constitutive General Assembly (CGA) of this network, a meeting said to be of planning brought together for two days the actors of the civil society on the human rights theme.

Amnesty International’s (((Demand Dignity))) campaign will initially focus on a few key areas and patterns of human rights abuse which show particularly sharply the interplay of deprivation, insecurity, exclusion and voices ignored. The overall goal is to end the human rights violations that keep people poor.

After the African regional workshop on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESC Rights) enforceability approaches from January 18th to 22nd in Yaounde (Cameroon), Madani Koumaré, African coordinator of the ESC Rights international programme talks about the ESC Rights in Africa.

From October 13th to 16th , almost 40 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) came from the ten regions of the country and took part in start-up activities of a citizen rostrum on Economic, Social and Cultural rights (ESC rights). The Constitutive General Assembly amended and validated its key statutory tools and regulations, and was followed byrights to a training session on ESC rights enforceability approaches. At the end of the meeting, a petition for the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) by Cameroon was signed and an appeal all to the president of the Republic of Cameroon was sent.

In 2002, the CRID set up a study group on ESC Rights in order to coordinate the actions of its members and of various partners working on this topic (such as Trade Unions, Human Rights Organizations…), with the purpose to run advocacy for the drafting and the adoption of an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR.

3000 calories per day and per person, a roof, clothes, access to health services, schools : this is the minimum needed to keep a family alive. It is very far from what the textile workers of Asia have.

Last October 7, on the World Day for Decent Work, workers throughout Asia announced the official launch of Asia Floor Wage (minimum wage in Asia), a campaign to demand a decent minimum wage for textile workers. In this mobilisation, there was an aspect which has become indispensable: unionisation beyond frontiers, between 70 unions, NGO’s and labour rights movements of 17 countries.

Around twenty-five (25) human rights defenders from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, and China gathered for three days in Quezon City, Philippines on February 24-27, 2010 to exchange experiences, stories, insights, and methods in advocating for economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights such as food, housing, education, health, social security, and work.