2023 was an important year for us in the human rights community. We celebrated a double jubilee – 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and 25 years of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, as well as 30 years of the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR). As the foundational instruments for human rights globally, the UDHR and the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) crystallise international human rights standards and legitimize the work of HRDs around the world, while the OHCHR functions as the fulcrum around which such international human rights efforts are coordinated. As a major player in the human rights space at the regional, continental, and international level, DefendDefenders was actively involved in commemorating these milestones. At our own commemorative gala here in Kampala, representatives of diplomatic missions pledged their respective governments’ commitments to the values and provisions of the UDHR and the Declaration on HRDs, while Uganda’s Justice Minister committed his Ministry to publish a National Action Plan on Human Rights by March 2024, and invite HRDs and human rights stakeholders to further discuss the Human Rights Defenders Bill currently before the Ugandan Parliament. Yet the year was far from rosy. As HRDs continued to be endangered for their work from Sudan to eSwatini, ensuring their safety and protection remained our primary priority. We continued to scale our protection program, with over 885 HRDs and their families benefiting from our emergency protection support, ensuring that they continue to do their work safely but not silent. To further scale our protection efforts, we signed a historic memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Justice for Peace, Netherlands, which will see our own Ubuntu Hub Cities initiative collaborate closely with Netherland’s Shelter City Initiative to better all round expertise in relocation of HRDs at risk. On the advocacy front, DefendDefenders maintained multi stakeholder engagements at the UNHRC and the ACHPR, participating in the 52nd,53rd and 54th sessions of the UNHRC and the 77th session of the ACHPR, respectively. Our sustained advocacy at the UNHRC was particularly critical to maintaining international pressure on the Sudan, which finally resulted in the establishment of an international a fact-finding mission (FFM) that will aid future accountability processes designed to secure justice for current rights violations. As is our tradition, most of this advocacy is undertaken with the close involvement of HRDs. This year, we supported over 50 HRDs to participate at both the UNHRC and the ACHPR, ensuring that final resolutions taken bear their input and reflect the situational context of the countries in focus. The broad spectrum of our work and our frontline advocacy engagements have continued to open more opportunities for collaboration with like-minded peers and organisations. In August, DefendDefenders officially assumed the responsibility of hosting the next phase of 5 years of the Consortium for Human Rights & Media (CHARM) in Sub-Saharan Africa. CHARM is a partnership of 7 organisations – Fojo Media Institute, Magamba Network, Civil Rights Defenders, CIVICUS, Wits Centre for Journalism, Women Leaders for Development and DefendDefenders, committed to advocating for greater civic space in Sub-Saharan Africa. We also entered a two-pronged partnership with social media giant- Meta to launch an online HRD fund to support HRDs impacted by their activism, and a free-to-access online training program for digital activists to enhance their capacity and resilience to continue working safely. Building the capacity of HRDs to endure and survive digital and physical threats around them is our core area of interest, and this year alone, over 600 HRDs were beneficiaries of our capacity building initiatives on physical and digital security, MDR and resource mobilisation. We will continue to pursue more of these efforts and seek collaboration with like-minded peers committed to engendering a safer working environment for HRDs in Africa. I invite you to read more of our work for 2023 and wish you a prosperous 2024.
Hassan Shire,
Executive Director, DefendDefenders
Chairperson, AfricanDefenders