Human Rights: Vernacularization

Spring 2013

Vernacularization

• how are human rights “translated” to engage with local customs, to ensure they make a difference locally?

• process called vernacularization/ localization (Sally Merry)

• much of work of human rights organizations involved with this process

Case Study: Female Inheritance, Hong Kong

Background

• 1899: Britain leases New Territories from China, promising to respect Chinese customary law

• Including law of male-only inheritance

Lai-Sheung Cheng• Father died without will; brothers inherited house and

sold it (1991)

• Cheng refused to leave without share of proceeds, citing Qing dynasty custom granting a right to stay in family home to unmarried women after father’s death

• New owner massively harassed her

• Decided to make this public: contacted governor, newspapers

Linda Wong

• Social worker at Hong Kong Federation of Women’s Centers

• Contact made through a newspaper

• Knew other women were in similar situation and organized a meeting

Hong Kong Council of Women• Had prepared shadow report in conjunction with

report to Human Rights Committee (which monitored compliance with ICCPR), 1991

• framed female inheritance issue in terms of human rights

• Western women with academic backgrounds

• Provided intellectual framework for activists and legislators -- made it impossible for government to plead ignorance

Legal Crisis

• realized that New Territories legislation applied to all people living in New Territories, not just indigenous Chinese – excluding all women from inheritance

• legal crises: amendment was needed, and this led to a public discussion

Anti-Discrimination Female Indigenous Residents Committee

• Originally, women affected by inheritance rule did not frame claims in terms of rights, but wanted to persuade male relatives (often remote ones) to be more compassionate

• did not work, so eventually this committee was founded

• Included Linda Wong, Lai-Sheung Cheng was chair

• access to “rights thinking” in the background

• Led to translation of kinship grievances into language of rights and equality – bigger concerns than original worries about particular relatives

Testimonies

• Organized individual testimonies to the relevant legal bodies, and to the media

• Made these testimonies effective

• often women who literally did not know the relevant terms before, and needed directions to find their way downtown to the hearings

Opponents: The Heung Yee Kuk

• Political organization of rural male leaders

• Positioned themselves as defenders of tradition and culture

• Expressed worries about clan property owned by outsiders

• Wildly overreacted, lost sympathies (threatening to rape activists, etc.)

Anna Wu and Christine Loh

• Members of the legislature

• Educated, Wu a lawyer

• Took up the concerns, connected them to human rights/ international law

Success

• 1994 – inheritance law was amended

• Indigenous women had no further-reaching interests in activism

• Different women’s groups involved did not see each other much, had different backgrounds, and literally spoke different languages

Another example: Tostan

• Goes back to activities of American exchange student (Molly Melching); community empowerment

• mission is to empower African communities to bring about sustainable development and positive social transformation based on human rights

Tostan means ‘breakthrough’ in West African language of Wolof

• Since 1991, Tostan has brought 30-month education program to thousands of communities in ten African countries: Burkina Faso, Djibouti, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Somalia, and Sudan

FGC - Prevalence: • Not exclusive to Africa

• More than 130 million women worldwide

• commonly performed btw 4 and 8, also earlier or later

• Locally deeply entrenched - tied to status, marriage-prospects

Types of FGC

• Typical: partial or total removal of clitoris (clitoridectomy)

• might include narrowing of vaginal orifice

• four types, depending on precisely what operations are performed on vagina

From Tostan’s website “In 1997, a group of women from the Senegalese village of

Malicounda Bambara stood before 20 journalists and declared their decision to end the practice of Female Genital Cutting (FGC), a centuries-old tradition in their village. The women had participated in Tostan's basic education program, and the knowledge they had gained in classes on human rights and health led them to make this momentous decision. Since 1997, 3,307 villages in Senegal, 298 in Guinea, and 23 in Burkina Faso, as well as villages from three other African countries, have joined the women of Malicounda Bambara in abandoning this harmful practice.”

Why does it work? “Tostan takes a respectful approach that allows villagers to

make their own conclusions about FGC and to lead their own movements for change. In the modules on human rights, participants learn about their human rights to health and to be free from all forms of violence, and they discuss the responsibilities they share to protect these rights in their community. In sessions on health, they learn about the potential immediate and long-term harmful consequences of the practice and discuss ways to prevent these health problems in the future. Thus, rather than blaming or criticizing, the Tostan program places villagers in charge of decisions regarding the practice. However, ending FGC is not a requirement for communities to participate in the education program.”

Point is:

• FGC has advantages only via social expectations and compliance

• If social expectations are modified and compliance terminated, there are no more advantages

• human rights language helps to bring this about

Question of appropriate intervention

New York City Human Rights Initiative (NYC HIR)

http://www.nychri.org/

From their website

• Vision: NYCHRI’s vision is to help end economic and social injustice and discrimination in New York City. By advancing the human rights framework in New York City, we envision moving toward a NYC in which all New Yorkers will have the right to housing, food, education, labor, criminal justice, health care, child welfare, and social welfare regardless of race, color, creed, age, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, gender (including gender identity and gender expression), sexual orientation, disability, or marital status.

From their “Frequently asked questions”

Q: How are “human rights” different than “civil rights”?A: Existing civil rights laws prohibit the government and in some instances

private actors from discriminating against people based on certain characteristics, such as race, gender, age, sexual orientation, national origin. Human rights principles provide a broader framework for preventing and eliminating the social and economic harms caused by discrimination. Under the human rights framework government agencies have an affirmative duty to promote equality of opportunity so that every member of the community is able to participate fully in economic, cultural, social and political activities.

Target

• Human Rights in Government Operations Audit Law (HR GOAL)

• Proactive approach to human rights standards – let’s supervise before litigation become necessary

• Perform audits to discover discriminatory practices (drawing on CEDAW and CERD)

• Women of Color Policy Network, the Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund), Amnesty International USA, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

• Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center is the lead coordinating organization.