Reports

Active presence of the civil society & human rights network of Afghanistan «In Afghanistan International Conference in Bonn»

Bonn conference which gained great importance in current situation, defines the role of international community in betterment of security and support of Afghanistan after 2014. This conference which was held in Bonn city of Germany with the huge participation of international community, acquired international coverage, the conference also acquired a lot of significance for the people of Afghanistan . The most important message of this conference is the commitment of the international community for the future of Afghanistan . In this conference, the government of the United States of America , European Union member countries, India Japan, Canada , Australia and all of the engaged countries in reconstruction and security of Afghanistan sent their authorized representatives, expressed their continued commitment of supporting the new system, keeping the values of the democracy, respecting the human rights and the rule of law. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, minister of foreign affairs of the United States of America, expressed her government's support from Afghanistan and insisted on strengthening the civil society, respect for the values of human rights & democracy in her five minutes speeches in this conference. Mrs. Merkel, prime minister of Germany, on behalf of her government as well as on behalf of the European Union called the respect of the human rights, one of the significant preconditions of the states of this Union for supporting Afghanistan . Other participant countries focused on a legal system, based on Afghanistan constitution that reveals the importance of the conference for the people of Afghanistan. Civil society congregation was held one day before this conference in Bonn, 34 representatives of civil society who were democratically elected by the civil society organizations of the country has participated in this conference. In civil society congregation in Bonn , 10 members of Civil Society & Human Rights…

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CSHRN was adopted as the main partner by Tawanmandi ORG

Since 2010, the human rights organizations decided to create a supportive box (fund) for supporting the civil society institutions in Afghanistan in order to coordinate some practical and constructive programs for strengthening the civil society institutions in the country. The Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Swiss are the states that work to bringing together the international help and supports in strengthening the civil society institutions; therefore they have managed many consultative meetings with civil institutions since 2010. The outcome of these meetings is establishing Civil Society Understanding and Supportive center by the name of «Tawanmandi». Tawanmandi has commenced its operations since 2012, and coordinated its activities in three stages. The first stage was forming organizational capacities. During this period, managerial and administrative guidelines and standards were created. The second stage was the early phase of supporting, during this stage a number of civil society institutions were technically and economically supported by Tawanmandi. The third stage of Tawanmandi's activities was concerning with selecting the main partners in different fields. Human Rights is one of the key issues in the programs of Tawanmandi in Afghanistan. In order to better recognize its main partners, Tawanmandi has assessed monitoring, managerial and administrative programs of many organizations. Monitoring groups of Tawanmandi have evaluated and observed the organizational, managerial, administrative and executive structures of the organizations that provided their proposals for strategic partnership with Tawanmandi ORG. In the meantime, Tawanmandi has evaluated their strategic programs and policies, and as a result, CSHRN has successfully passed the evaluation process and was formally recognized as the main partner of Tawanmandi in the field of strengthening human rights in the country. CSHRN's executive programs in cooperation and coordination with Tawanmandi will be started from 2014. These programs will be concerning with human rights advocacy, capacity building…

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Training of trainers educational program & Human Rights Educational School on UN Security Council Resolution 1325

The program that was attended by 95 trainers of CSHRN from 20 provinces was conducted in Safi Landmark Hotel, Kabul. The goal of the program was to train expert and experienced teachers in the field of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and exchanging and sharing of experiences among CSHRN's trainers and other national structures working on the field of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). This program was organized based on the educational manual on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 prepared by the Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan (CSHRN). During this educational program, despite discussing regarding the role of women in peace-building, security, increasing capacity-building and familiarity with the activities of various structures in this regard, the trainers have also initiated significant debates about the opportunities and challenges facing women in the process of state-building, institution-building and strengthening peace. In order to converge in the process of implementing this program, more and more coordination amongst the civil, governmental, media and academic institutions was emphasized during this educational school. During the program, the Afghan Women Network (AWN), War Child Canada, the High Peace Council (HPC), and Humanitarian Assessment for Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA) have shared their programs, experiences and find outs with the participants of the program. The Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan (CSHRN) is to organize some widespread programs regarding the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 by its experienced and expert trainers across the country.

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The Civil Society and Human Rights organizations (CSHRO) main activities in the field of promotion and implementation of UNSCR 1325

Civil Society and Human Rights Organization CSHRO initiated the working program on the United Nation's Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 so called “Strengthening Gender Equality” in Afghanistan . The goal of the program is to encourage the role of women in Afghan society in peace, security and stability in Afghanistan . Meanwhile CSHRO advocates for the promotion and implementation of UNSCR 1325. The program is supported by Ambassador's Small Grand Projects of US (ASGP). The programme has 7 month duration March-September 2011. According to the program CSHRO designed a working program to disseminate broad information about UNSCR 1325. The program covers three provinces of Afghanistan Kabul, Parwan and Bamyan. In each province 100 women are identified according to their educational level. Amongst 100 of women 25 of them are educated and employed in the state and non state institutions and 75 of them are educated but unemployed women. The first group which consists of 25 women is called “Advisory Group”. The group which consists of 75 women is called “Advocator Group”. Additionally CSHRO involved other stakeholders and established another group by the name of “Support Group” which consists of directors and key persons of state and non state organizations. CSHRO has fife strategic key result areas – 1: coordination -2: capacity building -3: public awareness -4: Monitoring -5: Advocacy. This project was designed based on fife strategic key result areas of CSHRO. 1- In the field of key result area Capacity building: At the beginning of project CSHRO organized training workshops on UN resolutions particularly on UNSCR 1325. The purpose of the training workshops was to increase the knowledge of participants about UN resolutions, content of UNSCR 1325 and obligations of state in regard with UN resolutions. Consequently for the “Advocator Group” CSHRO educational section organized a series…

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Submission by Civil Society and Human Rights Network (CSHRN) For Eighteenth Session of the UPR Working Group

(January - February 2014) Of the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review Afghanistan The Eighteenth session of the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) working group will be held from 27 January 2014 to 07 February 2014 examining the human rights records of 14 States including Afghanistan. Afghanistan will send a delegation composed of different governmental officials from different ministries and state institutions to engage in a dialogue with other States on the human rights situation in Afghanistan. During the interactive dialogue between recommending States and Afghanistan, the States will be asking questions and making recommendations, and the Afghan delegation will be regularly taking the floor to answer the questions and comment the recommendations. Probably, most of the recommendations and questions will be inspired by stakeholders submissions to the UPR Working Group. The Civil Society and Human Rights Network (CSHRN) for the first time submits an assessment of human rights situation under UPR reporting mechanism. The CSHRN has already submitted its report to UPR Working Group and made certain recommendations for action by Afghanistan as State under Review (SuR). The report gives an overview of the achievements and challenges since its first UPR review in 2009. And, it also assesses the scope and level of implementation of the recommendations made during its previous review. Here is the copy of CSHRN's UPR shadow report. Click the PDF Icon to Download.

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10 Women’s Rights Defender Organizations have strengthened and updated their Strategies

Based on the capacity development programs, the Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan has initiated reinforcement educational programs of the 10 women's rights organizations in connection with the strategic programs of the member organizations of the network. Based on this program, the 10 active member organizations of the Network which have a valuable and important role in the society have been recognized and their strategic programs have been improved and strengthened. The program was organized in three phases: the first phase was conducting the educational program. During this phase, the officials of the mentioned institutions were trained and capacitated by the secretariat of CSHRN with the support of the strategic experts of the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR). During the strategic educational program, strategic background, strategic management, and strategic activities have been focused. The role of the civil society in the structure of the political system and its importance in the political strategic system has been widely discussed in the program. In this program, the international experts made efforts in presenting some good instances of other countries as great lessons and experiences to be acquired by the 10 mentioned organizations. Beside, the program has provided the opportunity for these organizations to learn the way of using the strategies and arranging and implementing their programs accordingly. The second part of the program was engaged in updating and renewing the strategic programs of the mentioned organizations. By using the find outs of the first stage the 10 women's rights defenders organizations have coordinated their strategic programs in a joint program and presented them to the secretariat of CSHRN. The find outs and the information of the first phase helped them define their strategic goal and as active civil organizations specify their mission. The third phase of the…

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Strategic Capacity building is one of the major components of CSHRN’s programs

Like other social and governmental bodies, the civil society of Afghanistan also needs strategic capacity building. Most of the civil institutions are operating through their daily plans. This caused the programs to remain without any target and strategic background. On the other hand, this shortage has challenged the convergence among the civil society institutions. That's why training and capacity building has been emphasized and expressed as its important working outcome in relation to its strategic find outs by the civil society and human rights network of Afghanistan. Based on this program, the civil society and human rights network of Afghanistan offered educational manual of strategic planning. A working group composed of strategic experts who worked about one year on this educational manual and finally completed it with the support of the international experts especially the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR). Civil society institutions can organize and implement their strategic programs according to this educational manual. The manual is mainly focused on strategic background, vision and the key components of the strategic management. This education manual will play an important role in developing and improving the executive programs of civil society institutions. Based on this educational manual, CSHRN has conducted educational programs of «training the trainers» in all over the country. During this educational program, trainers of CSHRN's member organizations in 24 provinces have been instructed and acquired these guidelines in a systematic way. Under this program, the human rights Summer School in relation to strategic planning for civil society institutions was held in Kabul. Human rights trainers from other provinces were invited in this educational school in order to share their find outs and experiences with each others, and discuss the ways and approaches of improving and using the educational manual. The participants of the school have…

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International Humanitarian Law Promotion in the Framework of CSHRN’s activities

International Humanitarian Law includes states commitments for securing war victims, supporting prisoners of war, serving the war victims and states obligations in reducing civilian casualties. The international humanitarian law has been defined & interpreted in the four conventions of Geneva 1949. These conventions have been approved by the United Nations under universal general rights. Hence, all states parties of the United Nations are obliged to include the provisions of these conventions in their national laws and accordingly form some structures and mechanisms for applying the international humanitarian law in their political and social lives. These conventions are very crucial for states still in conflicts and war. Afghanistan is a country where the international military forces are widely operating. The military forces of nearly 40 countries are here to fight against the international terrorism. During the last 12 years, we were witnessed of huge civilian causalities in which women and children were the main victims. With regret that civilian causalities became one of the main challenges during military operations in Afghanistan . In order to promote the culture of responsibility among the national and international military forces, it's very crucial and important to generalize the international humanitarian law. Developing and promoting the international humanitarian law was one of the main programs of the Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan (CSHRN) in its 4 th phase and has therefore conducted some constructive dialogues among the civil society institutions. Based on these dialogues, civil society institutions requested CSHRN to initiate capacity building programs regarding the humanitarian law for its member organizations. According to this proposal, CSHRN's secretariat has conducted some joint meeting with its member organizations during which a working group of Afghan experts for preparing the first draft of the educational manual regarding the international humanitarian law was…

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The Educational Spring School on International Human Rights Mechanisms

As a member of the international community, Afghanistan has some great responsibilities and commitments in respect with human rights. The UN charter requests its member states to apply human rights values through international human rights conventions. Based on this precious substance, the international law and relations of the governments have been developed. The modern governments have considered the human rights values as their working agenda and apart of their foreign policy. The Afghan government had joined seven international conventions. These conventions include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on economical, Social & Cultural Rights, the International Convention against Torture, the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, International Convention for the Protection of Children's Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the International Convention for the protection of the disabled and handicapped. Based on these conventions the Committees of overseeing the implementation of the international conventions had been established that ask the member states for a systematic report. Afghanistan has experienced various regimes, during the last four decades. During these regimes, as apolitical tool, human rights have been abused and their commitments on accountability and transparency against the international community have not been done. After the collapse of the Taliban regime, opportunities have been provided for more commitments of the Afghan government toward the international human rights mechanisms. Human Rights have been officially recognized as an important component on the national norms by the new constitution of Afghanistan. Human Right and its relevant international conventions changed into a legal resource and the Afghan government was obliged to provide human rights reports. Monitoring the human rights situation is one the crucial procedures for promoting human rights values. Monitoring paves the way for identifying human rights violations…

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CSHRN Executive Director’s Report (2011-2012) to the 7th General Assembly of the network

First of all, I would like to welcome everyone to this significant session and I'm pleased of conducting the 7th general assembly of the Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan. CSHRN has organized its activities based on the legitimate and effective strategy adopted by the member organizations of the network, and initiated extensive programs across the country. CSHRN's programs have provided a very good image for the civil society and its role in promoting human rights values in the country. CSHRN has become one of the most important umbrella organizations in the field of advocacy and human rights values by planning and implementing transparent, effective and valuable programs. Constructive relations with the international community, national institutions and human rights activists demonstrate this principle. During the last two years, CSHRN has focused its activities on the following fields: 1-  Capacity building on human rights concepts and values CSHRN has changed into an important source of learning human rights concepts by supplying and publishing the educational manuals of human rights. These educational manuals clarify the guidelines and concepts of conducting educational programs for civil society and government institutions. Some groups of instructors are being formed based on these manuals that provide the way of educating the member organizations of the network in the capital Kabul and other provinces of Afghanistan . We have provided and published three important and significant educational manuals, during the last two years. The first educational manual had been prepared by the name of «Educational manual of transitional justice», that is the first educational manual regarding transitional justice and its related issues in Afghanistan , which was released in 5000 versions. The second handbook is «educational manual of international human rights mechanisms». This manual, evaluates the UN mechanisms on human rights and also observe…

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