Mary Lawlor: Young campaigners deserve our respect - and protection
Members of Aam Aadmi Party shout slogans demanding the release of Indian climate activist Disha Ravi, during a protest in Mumbai, India, Monday, February 15, 2021. Picture: Rafiq Maqbool/AP
Last year, 50 young people aged between 12 and 24 gathered together as the National Youth Assembly on Climate for a day of discussion in Dublin on issues relating to the environment, climate change, and sustainability.
They voted on recommendations to the Government and subsequently presented them to the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications.
These recommendations will be considered for inclusion in the Government’s Climate Action Plan 2024. There have been similar efforts made to include the perspective of youth with the Children and Young People’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss. This is a welcome approach that recognises the agency of children and young people and that they not only represent the future but are active, engaged, and vocal about rights protections in the present too.
It is safe to assume that none of the children or young people who participated in these assemblies faced risks because of their engagement.
Yet sadly, this is the case for all too many children and youth who protect, promote, and advocate on human and environmental rights issues around the world. Last year, I convened a meeting of 40 children and youth human rights defenders from 38 countries so that I could hear first-hand some of the threats they are subjected to when carrying out their human rights work.
What I heard forms the basis of a report I will present on Tuesday to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva entitled 'We are not just the future — challenges faced by child and youth human rights defenders'.
One of those I met last year was 13-year-old boy Francisco Vera from Colombia, who last June was named UNICEF’s first youth advocate for environmental and climate action for Latin America and the Caribbean.
When he was 9, he launched a movement called Guardians of Life to elevate the voices of young people on environmental issues. When he was 11, Francisco was forced to relocate to Spain with his mother following death threats he received for calling on the government to provide better internet access to children studying online.
I also met with 17-year-old Palestinian girl Janna Jihad who started making videos of what was happening in her village when she was only seven.
She told me how she had already faced years of threats for her documentation of human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, and how Palestinian children there were subject to Israeli military law, and prosecuted in military courts lacking fair trial rights and protections. The risks young Palestinians face have increased exponentially since October 7.
I heard from Disha Ravi, a 24-year-old climate defender from India, about how she had been arrested on charges including sedition and criminal conspiracy for her alleged involvement in sharing an online toolkit on climate activism. In September, her appeal against a bail condition requiring her to seek permission each time she travels abroad was rejected by India's high court.
And late last week I received information that an explosion had taken place outside the home of a 14-year-old climate activist in Ecuador who had voiced her opposition to routine gas flaring.
The previous week she had attended a session of the Biodiversity Commission of the National Assembly of Ecuador to demand compliance with a previous ruling that the state must “eliminate all gas flares that significantly contribute to the climate crisis”.
Children and young people are doing vital work defending human rights in every region of the world. This work is all the more important at a time when international human rights standards are under scrutiny, including as a result of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Although the risks child and youth defenders face vary greatly, in my consultations with more than 100 young people throughout the course of last year, there were a number of common challenges they cited.
It was clear that these human rights defenders did not feel they were receiving the appropriate recognition or support for their work; that they were generally not consulted by their governments or by their peers on matters that affected them; that there was an ageism prevalent within the human rights movement that meant they were not taken seriously; and that their youth was often used against them by authorities who tried to remove their agency by saying that they had been ‘manipulated’ or ‘brainwashed’.
Their most commonly cited requests were for protection, access to funding, and legal assistance when they were being criminalised.
I worry that as legislation is increasingly introduced in traditionally democratic countries to restrict peaceful protest, there is a danger that young people will be dissuaded from becoming involved in human rights work for fear of the trouble that may accompany it.
Yet given the state of the world today, we badly need them to carry the torch of human rights forward and supporting them while they engage in this work as children is of crucial importance.
Ireland has adopted an admirable position in facilitating the involvement of children and young people in public processes at home and I am hopeful that this report will encourage the Government to provide greater support to child and youth human rights defenders abroad.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
