The Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR) in partnership with the Network of African National Human Rights Institution (NANHRI) conducted two separate trainings with Women Human Rights Defender in concession area on the Draft Human Rights Defender Policy.
With support from European Union, the trainings aimed to increase the knowledge of Women Human Rights Defender on the draft Human Rights Defender Policy and ensure that Human Rights Defender Policy specifically address the issue of Women Human Rights Defenders.
Speaking at both trainings in Bomi and Bassa counties, on October 7 and 23, 2024 respectively, the Executive Director of the INCHR, Urias Teh Pouh, described the trainings as a tool intended to empower women to advocate for their rights under Mineral Development Agreements and be able to established grievances mechanism where issues affecting them can be channeled and addressed.
“These trainings are meant to empower you to use the appropriate channel to advocate for your rights under existing Mineral Development Agreements,” the INCHR ED said.
He averred, “When concessions are been negotiated most often it is done by men and women are left out. When these concessions are established, their lands are taking away and women are now left without job and most of those who are employed by the concession are men because they have formal education. Women naturally depend on the soil or subsistence farming. They are left vulnerable and that also leads to domestic violence.”
He added that the INCHR and partners objective is to delve into the Mineral Development Agreement (MDAs), reviewed the elements in the agreements that inform women’s rights, so that Women Human Rights Defender can be able to use that instrument to advocate for more rights for women in the next reviewed of the Mineral Development Agreement.
“Our intervention, as an institution, into Mineral Development Agreement is to tease out provision that have elements around women rights, so that when women rights are violated, they will get to understand that they have rights within the MDAs,” ED Pouh observed.
