HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGNERS INTERVIEWS
YOUTUBE CLIP
Emmanuel Umpula Nkumba, Executive Director, Action Contre I’lmpunite
pour les Drotis Humains (ACIDH), The Democratic Republic of Congo
(ACIDH is an NGO that campaigns against violations of human rights
perpetrated by the mining industry in DRC).
In the mining sector in Congo there are a lot of companies who have been on the
market right now and are compromising economic, social economic rights for
Congolese. The arrival of the companies should not be seen as only a bad thing,
it is an opportunity because it brings employment to the people around and for
the economy around the mining companies. But, on the other hand, you have got
difficulties for the community around because of environmental problems. We
have two sides of the arrival of the companies.
Again with these kind of factors you have got the companies on one side and the
state and the powers on the other side and in between you have got the potential
- the communities. And their NGO has to deal with the three factors. There are
no real remedy mechanisms or judicial mechanisms in Congo. NGOs have a key
role in assisting and helping the victims when corporate abuses against human
rights occur in Congo around the mine. This mission has the NGO in favour to
their community. It is the main reason why we are here in Edinburgh for the
conference. We are here to better understand and participate in discussion
around the work through peers and also to provide discussion with our groundbased people in Congo.
Bhanumathi Kalluri, Director, Dhaatri Resource Centre for Women and
Secretariat of International Women and Mining Network, India
(The International Women and Mining Network brings together women
exploited by mining projects either as communities displaced or as workers
in highly exploitative working conditions).
We mainly work on women’s rights and especially indigenous women’s rights,
their land rights and national resource rights but particularly in the context of
displacement and mining projects, rehabilitation and policy issues around
women’s rights whether it is women in mining labour or women displaced and
affected by big projects. We are not just working in India but we are
representing also a platform which is the only local platform for women affected
by mining projects and this is called International Woman and Mining Network.
Since I am representing the women’s network on mining and a lot of work is on
advocacy and campaign support with regard to women’s rights with
governments and with international bodies, I thought this was a good
opportunity to get to know more about the work of NHRIs (national human
rights institutions) and also exchange strategies and other experiences of how
they [others] have been dealing with NHRIs in their respective countries. A lot of
interesting issues are being discussed and there are a lot of common issues that
are coming out also. In the last few sessions that I have been participating in we
seem to have the same kind of problems and human rights violations that
different kinds of business interests are imposing on our governments and on
our countries so I hope that we will be able to come together as a collective voice
that will be reflected at the end of this workshop conference and maybe come up
with a declaration where it is a clear and, you know, strong association of what
human rights defenders are talking about from different countries experiences that business interests are really violating human rights and there is an
important role for the national human rights institutions to take this new
challenge of addressing the violations that are coming out of the, you know, the
different business and corporate abuses that are happening.
Women’s rights are not really being directly addressed even in human rights
groups because issues are very invisible although women are the main human
rights defenders - are people who directly fight for their land rights or their
resource rights or their community rights. So I hope that these issues are also
taken across to different countries and even in Scotland people are listening to
the voices of the women who are very invisibly being affected by what happens
in the western world and the decisions that are being taken with regards to
business interests by the western world in the more marginalised countries and
more third world countries. So I hope that, you know, these women’s issues will
be supported and there is a strong solidarity that we can build from Scotland.
Arnold Christopher Laisser, Legal Officer, Integrated Program for AgroPastoralist Development (OLIPAD), Tanzania
(OLIPAD is an NGO that helps people from marginal, rural communities
maintain sustainable livelihoods).
The countries which are most responsible for the violation of this human right
particularly are Britain and the Netherlands, they are the countries that are
conducting this business of the cut flower companies. And the way we can make
them accountable for whatever the activities they are doing to violate human
rights - literally this thing is legally binded and it is backed-up by the constitution
for our country, Republic of Tanzania, action 12 - is provided that every citizen is
entitled to a clean safe and healthy environment and also the framework
legislation which is Environmental Act of Tanzania. Also, section 8 of that
particular legislation also says that there must be an environmental impact
assessment conducted at the establishment of any project just to makes sure that
the project will not be environmentally harmful, it will be friendly to the
environment. Since that is the legal requirement, therefore, should any company
be corporating in a way that they violate the human right when it comes to a
clean and healthy environment, we can actually make that company accountable
by taking them to the court and this we have been we doing. And we have
already done it and we are still doing it just to seek for the courts remedy to stop
this particular company continuing to conduct some activities which tend to
endanger the health of the community so that is how we actually held them
accountable. They violated particularly when it comes to the issue of
international environmental law on the issue of the clean and healthy
environment. It is actually violated because the activities which they are
conducting does not really observe the issue of ensuring and declaring that
community is enjoying heath, safe, and clean environment. I mean defending
themselves by coming up with these principles, or loopholes, and though to me I
don’t think those principles are applicable because if somebody has been healthwise affected with certain economic activities I fail always to understand how
you can actually equate the health hazards to monetary composition. Because
even if you pay this person money - but the person has already been affected
health wise - so I don’t want to encourage loopholes but to insist that such
protection not be actually allowed to be conducted within the residential or in
any community which tends to endanger the infringement of their rights.
The message which I have to the British consumers of the cut flowers is that they
should discourage actually the consumption of those flowers or else they should
insist to the companies involved in the production that they make sure that they
actually compromise the issue of production and the issue of consumption to
mean what that they should always do it precautiously - make sure that during
the production activity they should observe the human right aspect especially to
the right of health, clean and safe environment from the workers themselves., I
mean that they should be provided with protective gear - , respiratory marks, the
gloves, the gum boots - just make sure they are working and to a required
standard for any worker. And also they should discourage the issue of polluting
the environment by just releasing the dead water direct into the water sources
which is highly consumed by the local community members together with their
livestock.
So the consumers can play a great role by actually forcing and pressuring the
companies to observe those standards during their production or else they
should refuse to buy their products.