PWESCR (Programme on Women’s Economic Social and Cultural Rights) initiated a collective process under the broad umbrella of the People’s Collective on Economic Social and Cultural Rights to articulate the myriad voices from India’s civil society.

• The short term goal for the Collective was to develop an NGO Report in response to the Government of India’s Report.
• The long term goal, however, was two fold: to develop a core group of organisations to monitor women’s economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) in India, and to raise awareness around international human rights standards and their relevance to local and national struggles.

This international programme of training on Economic, Social and Cultural (ESC) Rights enforceability approaches brings together Non-Governmental Organizations from Benin, Cameroon, France, India, Mali, Senegal, Togo and the Philippines. We decided to pool our experiences, notably via this website, in order to mutually build our capacities and share them with other stakeholders. Partners: Aoudaghost Network : Senegal Unit Benin Unit Togo Unit Malian Unit and the Malian ESC rights (...)

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.

This document compiles exchanges of the first international training session which took place in Bamako, April 14th-17th, 2008. The themes addressed were: the various steps of mobilising civil society on ESC rights (Setting up ESC rights platforms, Indicator setting with participative enquiries and collection of data, Lobbying, advocacy), the participation in the elaboration and modification of laws integrating ESC rights and the drafting of shadow reports.

The second international seminar of this programme took place in Bangalore (India) in June 2009. We discussed the thematics : Organizing civil society into a broad social movement, Monitoring the UN Committee on ESC rights’ recommendations, Monitoring administrative and judicial practices and Mobilizing for the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

FEDINA (Foundation for Educational Innovations in Asia), a secular non-governmental, non-profit organization, was established in the year 1983 with its headquarters in Bangalore. FEDINA works towards the empowerment of the marginalized groups of our society: tribals, Dalits, poor women, small farmers, landless labourers and informal sector workers and slum-dwellers in the South Indian states Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Pondicherry.

FEDINA works with marginalized people and unorganized sector workers in the slums of Bengaluru, Bijapur, Tumkur cities and supports organizations working with unorganized sector workers in general, or particularly focusing on dalits, tribals and women, in the 5 southern states of India.

An illustration of the organization of civil society into a broad social movement is the national campaign “Social Security Now” carried out by FEDINA and other organizations in order to give informal workers the access to social security. Started with 14 organizations from different parts of India coming together to form a consortium in 2006, it is currently a consortium of 500 organizations consisting of peoples’ movements, trade unions, civil society organizations, farmers associations and other groups.

Two years after taking office as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to food, Prof. Olivier De Schutter presents a review of the progress made by a number of countries in implementing the human right to food at national level.

On October 1st 2009, more than 500 retired persons took to the streets of Bangalore, Southern India, for a day of rallying on the occasion of the International Day of Older Persons.

After a procession in the city’s avenues, there were speeches by activists and lawyers, as well as music and theatre throughout the day.

Fedina’s cultural team and Okkuta, the federation of retired people’s associations, demonstrated their anger on Saturday, June 27, 2009 in front of this hospital.

With billboards, leaflets, and 20 minutes of performances: songs, dances and sketches, they denounced abuse, neglect and discrimination against the poor and the elderly within public hospitals.

In India as well as in the Philippines, it is mainly associations who defend economic, social and cultural rights in a situation where public authorities violate these rights on a daily basis.

Flashback on the last regional workshop that was held in Bangalore in May 2009.

Anjali poses with her three sons in front of her house, between open air sewers and a swampy private property. We are in the Rajendanagar District, in the heart of the huge Koramangala slum, in Bangalore. Anjali’s parents fled the poverty of Tamil Nadu rural areas over 40 years ago. Anjali is now 37 and has never known any other life than the one in the slum of this South Indian megalopolis.

The place is southern Andhra Pradesh. In the village of Company, a name given by British settlers when they used to trade here, some twenty Yanadi tribal families live in huts, at the edge of the forest. (...) Today their presence is threatened. The forest ministry still hasn’t granted them title deeds, as it should have done under provision of the law. For that reason, the inhabitants of Company have no access to government programs that would allow them to have running water, electricity and staple commodities at reduced prices for the poor.

Who would dare go and see the local authorities to ask for water taps in the village, for a title deed for land cultivated for generations, or for access to the temples like everyone else in the population? Not one of the 1,400 inhabitants of the Dalit quarter of the village of Thettu would have dared do that a few years ago. And yet the 1950 Constitution bans any discrimination against caste members. So, theoretically, the Dalits have the same rights as the rest of the population.

Amnesty International has described the Indian government’s decision to reject the bauxite mine project in Orissa’s Niyamgiri Hills as a landmark victory for the human rights of Indigenous communities.

Civil society plays an important role not only in monitoring and orienting public policies and legislation but also in monitoring administrative and judicial practices so as to ensure their compliance with the legislation, identify problems and find solutions.

1. Administrative Set up
2. Judicial Processes
3. Monitoring Administrative & Judicial Processes

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.