By Guadalupe Marengo, Head of Human Rights Defenders and Global Relief Programme at Amnesty International
2024 has been a particularly difficult year for human rights, with many of those in power successfully promoting a discourse that threatens the most basic concepts of rights and justice.
Millions of people across the world experienced inequality, injustice, conflict and even genocide. Among them, brave human rights defenders have risked their own lives and safety to shine a light on abuses and fight for justice while governments have, at best, failed to take sufficient action to protect them and, at worst, attacked them.
Their stories would fill thousands of pages.
There is, for example, Zholia Parsi of the Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women, who continues to campaign against gender persecution in Afghanistan even after having been detained, tortured and then forced into exile for protesting against the attempt to erase women in her country. Or Leonela Moncayo, a young woman from Ecuador, who is part of a community-led campaign to end toxic gas flaring near their homes, and who continues to fight despite facing intimidation and attacks.
The work of activists like them is essential not only to ensure human rights are respected but also, as the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders recently reminded states, to ensure development is sustainable, equitable and inclusive.
Protecting human rights activists, and their crucial work, was one of the reasons behind the development of the global Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998. The document, agreed by states at the UN by consensus, urges those in power to develop robust systems to ensure we are all able speak out, organize, and hold those in power accountable, without fear of reprisals.
However, while the 1998 text was a crucial milestone, it has failed to translate into effective actions to truly protect human rights defenders from the constant attacks they endure, the multiple systems of oppression they face, and the diverse challenges posed by the struggles they engage in. I would encourage anyone to look at the HRD Memorial, an online database profilingthe thousands of defenders killed since the Declaration was adopted.
In the two and a half decades since the HRD Declaration was passed at the UN, the challenges have only become more complex. When we organized the World Human Rights Defenders Summit in Paris in 2018, human rights defenders from across the world shared the the difficulties they faced in a context of deep socioeconomic inequality, discrimination and violence on the basis of gender and sexuality, colonialism, racism, forced migration and barriers to mobility. These struggles are taking place against a backdrop ofthe climate crisis and a plundered environment, ridden with conflicts, corruption, authoritarianism, and the challenges posed by new technologies.
Having a thriving and diverse community of human rights defenders with the necessary means, safety and space to call out those in power and develop alternative solutions to society’s problems is essential to secure a better future.
Guadalupe Marengo, Head of Human Rights Defenders and Global Relief Programme at Amnesty International.
At the summit defenders called on states to take concrete steps to protect human rights defenders.
To this day, their call remains largely unheeded.
Instead, in the last few years, the roll back on human rights and the assault on defenders has been accelerating. Meanwhile, the most basic and until now largely agreed upon ideas of justice are being constantly called into question.
I see this every time new laws further restrict freedom of expression, assembly and association. Every time defenders are assaulted, criminalized, and defamed. I also see it in more subtle ways, such as when funding and resources are used to stifle certain voices and amplify others, or when human rights struggles of discriminated and marginalized people are delegitimized and painted as dangerous or dubious, just because they are critical of those in power.
A world where human rights defenders are safe is a safer world for us all.
Guadalupe Marengo
But that doesn’t mean that we won’t continue fighting.
Earlier this year, as a follow up to the Paris Summit, an international coalition of civil society organizations working alongside human rights defenders, including my team at Amnesty International, published the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders+25. It summarizes the decades of learning about the current challenges faced by defenders, and supplements the original declaration with guidelines grounded in progress made by human rights law and practice during the past 25 years. For example, it recommends that states put in place protection measures that consider the collective and intersectional aspects of human rights struggles, to put an end to the stigmatization and criminalization of defenders, and to tackle violations facilitated by technology. It also includes recommendations on how to protect those who are displaced and exiled, and on the roles and responsibilities of non-state actors, such as companies.
Having a thriving and diverse community of human rights defenders with the necessary means, safety and space to call out those in power and develop alternative solutions to society’s problems is essential to secure a better future.
2024 was a tough year, so my wish for 2025 is that states all around the world live up to their commitments, acknowledge the key role human rights defenders play in fighting injustice and ensure that they can do so without fear.
A world where human rights defenders are safe is a safer world for us all.