By Alicia Louise
At the 25th meeting of the 48th session of the Human Rights Council, a High-Level Panel was convened to discuss best practices, obstacles and the future of human rights education and training 10-years since the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (HRC res 42/7). This panel focused on human rights education and training for youth, aged 15-24.
It was clear that all guests today were committed to protect the rights of the 1.8 billion youth across the world, to a full and qualitative education and training that promotes human rights and responsibilities. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, panellists viewed this as an opportunity to remind States that their obligations towards the fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goal 4.7, have not disappeared. In fact, the current public health and economic crisis was unanimously viewed as a time to renew our efforts in this regard, allowing the youth to take the lead in developing policies and programmes that affect them. Particular attention was given to how we prioritize the return of young people to school-based learning, where education is gender-transformative, safe, inclusive, addresses climate change concerns proactively and delivers the education that they want and need.
How we value diversity and justice online and offline, and actually live out these human rights principles in reality was also a point for consideration. Great care was taken to acknowledge that while human rights education and training can be (and has been) greatly advanced through technology and social media, a large proportion of the world’s youth do not have access to devices or internet services. Ms Gwendolyn Ll. Pimentel-Gana and Ms Leah C. Tanodra-Armamento (Commissioners of the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines), reminded us that while we work on bridging the digital divide, arts and culture remain important aspects of human rights education, as well as work with faith based and civil society organisations. Fittingly, Mr Muñoz Villalobos (Board Member of Universidad Estatal a Distancia de Costa Rica) suggested that countries with a colonial and enslaving history use this as an educational opportunity to learn from and not repeat the past, as opposed to concealing it.
The GICJ believe that we must explore how we incorporate human rights education and training in all areas of our public life, so that the ‘real world’ resembles what children have been taught in their classrooms. There are also human rights violations that occur in schools and college training environments today. For instance, corporal punishment is still a phenomenon that occurs in schools throughout the Caribbean, which greatly undermines the substance of human rights education and training. Moreover, the threat of terrorism, armed gunmen, environmental hazards, discrimination, inaccessibility for students with disabilities and so much more, are antithetical to the fundamental human right to education. In order to achieve the aims of our international human rights obligations, the international community must work hard to eliminate these threats, and artificial and physical barriers to education. We look forward to further discussions on these matters, and positive actions to follow.
Justice, Human rights, Geneva, geneva4justice, GICJ, Geneva International Centre For Justice
