Reports

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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CSHRO develops the educational manual on the international mechanism of human rights

The Civil Society and Human Rights Organisation (CSHRO) organizes its educational manual on the international mechanism of human rights. Afghanistan State as member state of the United Nation has ratified several international human rights conventions. Its important that the state of Afghanistan deliver periodic reports of the human rights situation to the UN system based on the requirements of these conventions. The same time the civil society response to the international human rights convention is also dependence on the state report to the international human rights structures. The CSHRO works to provide an educational manual on the international mechanism of human rights for the civil society actors, Afghan state institutions and human rights activists. The manual will be produced during upcoming one year. Based on the strategy of CSHRO on May 24 th a consultative gathering of CSHRO member organizations will discus the structure and methodology of the manual. During the gathering a working group of Afghan civil society experts will be designed. The working group will work in collaboration of Danish Institute for Human Rights experts to develop the first draft of educational manual. The DIHR experts will provide international experiences to the working group. The CSHRO Executive Secretariat facilitates the activities of working group. The working group shares the first draft of the manual to member organistions and some national experts to enhance the quality of the manual. The final draft of the manual will be presented to member organizations during the second consultative gathering on January 2013. The second gathering of CSHRO will approve the manual. The manual will be printed by CSHRO. A team of trainers will be trained by CSHRO in order to train manual in Kabul and provinces of Afghanistan . The international mechanism of human rights manual will be disseminated to…

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Awareness rising is one of the main components of CSHRO forth phase

During the last thirty years Afghanistan has experienced wide-base human rights violation. The different political regimes misused the human rights values for their political agenda. In the same time the warlords and military and political groups have violated fundamental human rights principles in Afghanistan. During the last thirty years the military and political parties straggled against each other to capture the political power in Afghanistan . During this period of time around two million Afghans have been killed and around two million Afghans have become disabled. According to CSHRO studies lack of information in the political structure and lack of awareness of human rights values among the Afghan population is one of the main reasons of human rights violation in the country. According to CSHRO analyses the main aspect of human rights violations have been recorded in the field of civil rights. Torture, political prosecution, limitation of freedom of speech, restriction of freedom of association and lack of freedom of media have been considered as the main area of violations of human rights during this period of time. After the Taliban regime the new Afghan constitution grantees the human rights values equally to all citizens of Afghanistan . Based on the new Afghan constitutional support the civil society institutions were established in post Taliban period in Afghanistan . CSHRO organized itself in 2004. During this period CSHRN has been mainly engaged in the fields of coordination amongst civil society, capacity building of its member organizations, advocacy and promotion of human rights. According to CSHRN, awareness rising about human rights values is one of the most important elements for promotion and protection of human rights. Therefore CSHRN General Assembly has decided to encourage all member organizations to become more active in the field of public awareness about human rights…

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