Institute trains partners in Tunisia

Human rights education is the training that is supposed to make us aware of and claim our human rights. But what does it mean to learn this through a human rights based approach (HRBA)?

23 participants from Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen tackled this question during a course in the second and third week of September 2014 taking place in Nabeul, Tunisia.

- We are very pleased with the result and the dedication of our participants. They got the idea that HRBA not only is a new method of doing things but actually a paradigm shift, explains project manager Una Verdel, who undertook the course.

Claiming rights

Simply put, using human rights based approach to human rights education means two things:

The rights holders, everyday people, are to be educated on their rights, enabling them to claim them while their rights are respected all through the process.

The duty bearers, the state representatives, are to be educated on their obligations and how to fulfil them – also while having their own rights respected.

It is not a given that teaching human rights means that the rights of the learner are respected. For instance, in certain countries, children are taught the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but corporal punishment is still allowed.

- This has nothing to do with human rights education. Learners get the contradiction between the message and reality, and then human rights lose credibility, Una Verdel says.

A useful new tool

The course was conducted by the Danish Institute for Human Rights and was open for cooperating organisations and institutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. And the participants embraced the course.

- I can definitely use it in my own organisation, but I actually also got the idea to use these methods in my work in the Libyan oil sector. We fight corruption and I think this can help us in that fight, Nadia Jaouda of the Libyan Heritage Multicultural Organisation says.

Abdulla Musleh of the Sister Arab Forum, an organisation devoted to women rights in Yemen, supplements:

- I cannot wait to get back and use these methods when I train our own staff.