Efforts to Protect and Uphold Human Rights: Human Rights Awareness and Advocacy Campaigns

 By  Akhmad Zamroni

Source: activistsandiego.org

The human rights awareness campaign is a simultaneous movement carried out to instill awareness of the importance of human rights among citizens. Through this action the understanding was instilled that every citizen has human rights and human rights must be protected, guaranteed and respected. A human rights campaign is deemed necessary, especially targeting the grassroots whose knowledge and awareness of human rights are generally lacking.

Human rights awareness campaigns are commonly carried out through various forums. Various meeting forums, formal or informal, are used to increase insight and awareness about human rights. Seminars, discussions, workshops, dialogues and free forums are often used especially by human rights institutions (Komnas HAM) and non-governmental bodies (NGOs) to campaign for human rights to the community. Through informal (non-formal) meetings with the lower class society, human rights activists also often carry out awareness-raising actions.

Advocacy is a movement to assist and defend victims of human rights violations. Advocacy is carried out during the trial process of cases of human rights violations so that victims can receive proper protection and defense and that the cases can be given a correct and fair decision by the court. The targets of advocacy are mainly victims of human rights violations who are economically and politically weak.

So far, especially before the arrival of the reform era, efforts to uphold human rights through campaigns and advocacy were mostly carried out by non-governmental organizations. Non-governmental organizations that are known to be active and aggressively take this route include LBHI (Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia/Indonesian Legal Aid Institute) and Kontras (Komisi untuk Orang Hilang dan Korban Tindak Kekerasan/Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence). Observers of human rights consider these two institutions to be instrumental in efforts to uphold human rights in Indonesia through campaigns and advocacy.