Advancing Human Rights Committee Calls, First Thursdays: Please Join Us!

Photo: Damian Dovarganes/AP

By Barbara L Nielsen
Co-chair, Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee

We are looking forward to our second AHR meeting on Thursday, April 5, and to being able to address issues under the AHR umbrella, and not only those important issues we have worked on in the past, such as CEDAW and UNSCR 1325 and its progeny on Women, Peace, and Security. Lots of people are focusing on women in ways that haven’t been in the mainstream press much until recently. Indeed, even the New York Times has put up a feature on some of the notable women it has overlooked in its obituaries since 1851, and has also published many articles on the #MeToo movement. And big and little marches and rallies took place all around the country and world in January.

And of course we have had all the assaults with weapons, including on children in schools, but now with the possibility that the NRA maybe, finally, a little, might have its clutches on legislators begin to be loosened. And a bunch of big and little marches and rallies took place all around the country, just within the week of this article’s preparation. These actions have been motivated by a potentially new group of activist voters—those high school kids whose peers have been terrified, shot, maimed, killed, in these school shootings and who, in many cases, are going to be of voting age within the next 12 months or sooner.

We are hearing that Ohio is gearing up to ban all abortions—no exceptions—yet another and more draconian assault on a woman’s right to control her own body, and other evidence of reproductive choice and reproductive rights being diminished abound. On the Ohio legislation, one Op-Ed (again, from the New York Times), suggests that this is being undertaken merely to push the legal wrangling into an opening salvo with the ultimate goal of getting a chance at overturning Roe v. Wade once and for all.

So we are having more, large and public outcries these days, but is anything proving to be effective against these numerous and disparate assaults on human rights? How effective can we be in moving our communities and governments away from the status quo?

Ana Rosa Diaz and Silvia Alfaro Walle at a Wal-Mart protest. Photo courtesy of the NGA.

Then there is human trafficking—thought by many in America to be mostly sexual slavery, which is by far the most profitable form of trafficking, but actually, the more widespread occurrence is labor trafficking, whether in the fields or other agricultural endeavors (including the meat-packing industry), or in domestic or other service circumstances. Immigration and border crossing rhetoric and policy are interrelated with this issue.

We have members who are concerned about and working around these and related issues and we would like to hear and learn from each other. We welcome everyone in the Section for whom these are issues of interest and concern. What are your ideas on how we can best address the myriad human rights issues that concern us? Can we work together to be effective, and if so, how? What forms of activism are we engaged in now, and what would make sense for us in the future? Do we have members who want to work within the UN framework to move the US forward on some of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda issues? CEDAW? More Cities for CEDAW? Work in direct action? Other ways? Please join our call to share what is important to you and your ideas for moving us forward!

We will have our next AHR 2018 meeting on Thursday, April 5.

These are Maestro conferencing calls that require registration. If you are not registered already for this Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee call series, please do so using this hyperlink:

Note: Our Racial Justice Working Group of the AHR Issues Committee has begun meeting on the fourth Thursdays of the month, at the same times (5/6/7/8 pm). In these Maestro conferencing calls, discussion, learning and activism on and about issues around race, racial justice, racism, and related matters are most directly being focused and addressed.

Click here for the hyperlink for registration for the Racial Justice Working Group:

For more information, contact:
Barbara L Nielsen, Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee Co-Chair, bln.sf.ca@gmail.com