Philomena Addo

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Addo, 54, a widow and mother of three, lost her farmland to a gold mine and became an activist order to represent her community in negotiations with the mining company. Photo: Jeff Deutsch/Oxfam America

Since today, December 10, is international Human Rights Day, I am just reading over a short history of the drafting of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted on this date in 1948. Despite the fact that the UDHR is a “declaration” and not a formal binding treaty, it has served as the foundation of the modern human rights movement: Every time a country references one of its articles in a constitution, or cites it in a legal decision in a court, the UDHR continues to gather strength and move the world to a place where there are no excuses for violations of basic freedoms.

The notion of basic rights is behind our work at Oxfam, so I am also thinking about those people we work with who are fighting for their own rights, and those of others, every day. Here are just three examples that stand out:

1. Philomena Addo, a local political representative in a small town in Ghana, told me last year that she is negotiating with mining companies from a position of strength, now that she understands her basic right to be consulted: “Now they know if they want to work here they need to come and ask for our consent. Now they recognize we know our rights, and that is why they are respecting us.”

2. Ines Santizo, working in Guatemala to help women survivors of domestic violence to understand their basic rights to live free from violence. She told me that she tries to teach women three things about themselves: “Who I am, what I am worth, and what I am capable of doing.”

3. The courageous people and organizations involved in Oxfam’s worker’s rights program in the US: Some of the most basic rights in the UDHR do not apply to farmworkers in the US, such as the right to a basic minimum wage, for example. The right to form a labor union (Article 23) is also routinely denied.

Eleanor Roosevelt was the US representative on the UN committee that wrote the UDHR, she said that in the field of human rights “to stand still is to retreat.” This is one of the reasons Oxfam places the basic rights of people at the center of our work, and why we won’t stop working on them.

Mary Amo, 33, is a community volunteer trained by Oxfam's partner Wacam to negotiate on behalf of her community with the international mining company AngloGold Ashanti. Photo by Jeff Deutsch/Oxfam America.

In a small village in Ghana called Anwiam, Mary Amo shows us her house, or what’s left of it. A massive outflow of waste water from an underground mine shaft had submerged her neighborhood, washing away the entire back of her house. She and her mother and sister had taken some sections of metal roofing to build a make-shift wall, but did not have the resources to properly rebuild.

Amo had an opportunity to attend a workshop with Oxfam’s partner in Ghana, Wacam, about two years ago. She learned that having half your house washed away was a violation of her basic right to live in a safe environment, and how to engage in dialogue with the international mining company responsible for the outflow, AngloGold Ashanti. Before she and her neighbors understood their basic rights, Amo says “no one respected us here.”

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Meena Amirir says all human beings have the right to go to school. Photo by Louise Hancock/Oxfam

I can only begin to imagine what my life would be like if I didn’t know how to read, if books and a daily newspaper weren’t part of my diet, if I couldn’t decipher the train schedule or track the supermarket ads, if highway signs were incomprehensible and recipes were just a jumble of symbols. I’d feel trapped. And helpless.

What must the women in Afghanistan feel?

Just 12 percent of them over the age of 15 are literate. That means that countless women in one of the poorest nations in the world must depend on others to navigate much of their lives, a dependence that can’t help but weigh heavily on a country desperate for development. Read the rest of this entry »

The Amazon Defense Front's Attorney Pablo Fajardo says the case against Chevron is about the basic human right to live in a healthy environment. Photo by Coco Laso/Oxfam America.

Some big news out of Ecuador this week: A judge in Nueva Loja (also known as Lago Agrio, or “bitter lake”) issued a guilty verdict against Chevron and is fining the company $8.6 billion for polluting this fragile northeastern region of the country for more than 20 years. Media reports say this is the biggest judgment ever against any company for an environmental case.
Those of us following the case are glad to see that justice can be achieved by the people of the Amazon against one of the most powerful companies in the world – but it’s also clear from the history of this case that Chevron will do whatever it takes to avoid paying a single penny to the people who have suffered for decades. The struggle is not over. Read the rest of this entry »

Father Marco Arana of Peru. Photo by Jessica Erickson/Oxfam America.

 Over the past few years I have written several pieces (on this blog and in our magazine) about Father Marco Arana of Cajamarca, Peru. He’s one of about 30 people who TIME says are making a difference and is part of their “Heroes of the Environment” special section in the magazine this week.

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Yesterday, the body of U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy was transported to Boston for a public memorial at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. All day, the doors of the library have stood open to mourners. Some of our own staff have headed down from our Boston headquarters this evening to the library to pay their respects as well.

Oxfam’s Raymond C. Offenheiser listens as the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy speaks at an event in Washington, DC, in February 2006. Photo by Christopher O. Banks

Today marks a sad day for those in Boston and for the nation.

For those of us who have spent decades working on human rights—whatever our political leanings—Senator Kennedy was an institution. We always knew where he stood. We could always count on his office to take on the tough request, to tackle the thorniest issues, to champion the most controversial issue. As one of the few organizations to express concern about the invasion of Iraq and the humanitarian catastrophe that followed, we were strengthened by Senator Kennedy’s leadership on this issue.

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Here at Oxfam we are following Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tour of Africa closely. She seems to be tackling some of the tough issues: political violence in Kenya and democratic reforms and government accountability in Angola (which just became the largest oil producer in Africa, with an economic growth rate of 18 percent).  Nor is Secretary Clinton is shying away from one of the continent’s worst crises: widespread gender violence in eastern Congo, where 600 civilians have been killed and thousands of others have been raped since January. For those who are following the situation, Marcel Stoessel, Oxfam’s director in the Democratic Republic of Congo,  blogged about his first-hand experience in Congo. Colleagues here at Oxfam America shot a short video about gender violence in Congo that includes some striking testimonial from Congolese women.

Tomorrow is the 60^th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, so the fact that the conflict in DR Congo is in the news seems fitting. It’s been 60 years since we set out to ensure that civilians would be protected from violence. If you want to know why the Geneva Conventions are still relevant today, think about life in the Congo—especially for women and girls.

Local groups of human rights activists such as this one in Matola Gare, outside Maputo, are working hard to educate people about the rights of women under the 2004 Family Law. A new domestic violence bill will add more work in the education of women about their rights in Mozambique. Photo by Brett Eloff/Oxfam America.

We are just hearing some good news this week from our program officer Michael Chimedza in Maputo that Mozambique’s parliament has passed a bill on domestic violence. This is a significant milestone for women in that it now allows police and prosecutors to act directly against perpetrators of domestic violence against women and children as a “public crime” or criminal matter. This is significant: the police no longer have to wait for a victim to file a formal complaint to take action. Read the rest of this entry »

Father Marco Arana:

Reports about recent conflict in Peru have me thinking about a day I spent last November, riding around in the back of a truck in Cajamarca. I was with Father Marco Arana, a Catholic priest, writing a story about his work for our magazine.

At one point we passed a contingent of heavily armed men. Father Arana whipped out his phone and called his office to report their location. The men were elite police officers, he explained to me after he’d hung up, part of a DINOES unit (Dirección Nacional de Operativos Especiales, sort of like a SWAT team). They are used to quell violence that occasionally flares up near the Yanacocha gold mine when local farmers and indigenous people protest a lack of water or other problems that they attribute to mining. This type of violence is part of a pattern: indigenous people, farmers—those without sufficient political clout to get their local government to address a problem—sometimes block a road, or seize an oil well, anything to get someone to pay attention. Hopefully their protest will spur an official to come and talk with them, maybe promise to fix a problem, and everyone can go home.

Or DINOES can come.
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Community meeting in a small village in Ghana, where explosions in a nearby mine pit routinely shake people

Going out to visit farmers in villages displaced by mines is usually a sobering experience. I’ve done this in Ghana, Mali, Peru, and Honduras. A few farmers get a job at the mine, but they seem to be lucky. Most of the time the farmers tell me tragic stories:

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