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Gambia News : 45th session of African rights commission ends News
The 45th session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) ended in Banjul on Wednesday with a call for the improvement of the human rights record in the continent.
Gambia’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Marie Saine Firdaus, said in her closing remarks that to achieve this required the collaborative partnership of member sates, civil society and the international community with the African Commission.
“It is only through these collaborative efforts that we can hope for an end to unjustified waste of human lives and degraded living endangered by human rights violations,” she stated.
According to her, “As a government we have committed ourselves to this cause and will ensure that we realize it for the benefit of our people in particular and humanity in general”.
Firdaus urged all member states that have not ratified the protocol to do so and those that have ratified it to include in their periodic reports to the African Commission information on the level of implementation of the protocol on women.
She said the primary objective of the forum had been met “for the benefit of our peoples whose hopes and aspirations rest in our collective efforts to ensure the promotion and protection of their human rights as enshrined in the Africa Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and other related human rights instruments”.
She expressed the hope that as human rights promoters and protectors, the forum provided an opportunity to “genuinely and frankly” discuss of human and peoples’ rights, concerns, progress made and challenges encountered.
Bahame Tom Mukirya Nyandga, Acting Chairperson of the Commission, said the struggle for protection and realization of human rights was “a hard and long journey” adding that African states continued to face the multiple challenges of poverty, conflicts, impunity, environmental degradation, disease and other forms of human rights violations.
He said Somalia was at the top of the list as it had continued to suffer a humanitarian crisis as a result of the conflict.
“We condemn the wanton violations of the human rights of the civilian population, in particular, women and children.”
Nyandga commended Uganda and Burundi for their sacrifices on behalf of Africa to assist Somalia to re-establish security, state institution and order.
He said the Darfur region of Sudan, the Great Lakes Region, Chad, and the Central Africa Republic continued to attract the attention of continent.
“The scourge of massacres and displacements, the abductions, rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated by armed militia against women and children in the north Kivu and eastern DR Congo by the FDLR/Interahamwe, and the Lord’s Resistance Army in north DR Congo and Central Africa Republic, continue to be major issues of concern to the African Commission.”
Nyandga said the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic had continued at a time African states were caught between the proverbial “rock and hard place” due to the dire economic situation the continent found itself in the global financial crisis .
“Millions of our people, men, women, children, remain impoverished, living below a dollar a day. The attainment of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 remains out of reach of the continent.”
He added: “Widespread and systemic corruption and the continued inability by many governments to provide their citizens with the most basic economic and social services, in a continent with abundance of natural resources, remain a matter of grave concern to the African people.
“The communities have no access to clean water, adequate housing, food, education and primary health care.”
Nyandga said the situation was worse for indigenous people across the continents , who suffered marginalization and lived under conditions of deprivation, adding that these challenges were testimony to the fact that there was a great deal of work which remained to be done before human and peoples’ rights were fully realized on the continent.
2522 times read
- This is just all talk. Human rights has never existed in Africa and never will. Corruption, racism, sex discrimination, tribalism, religous intolerance...the list goes on. Only an honest government will go anyway towards the eradication of these...
(Posted on June 13, 2009, 7:21 PM David Riddington)
- Is it just Marie Saine Firdaus, or are all African peoples rights fighters deliberately blind, deaf, dumb and selfish?
(Posted on May 31, 2009, 3:35 AM Lamin Jallow)
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