Monitoring Networking and Advocacy

Human Rights Monitoring

Human rights monitoring and reporting is the foundation of all the human rights work that People’s Watch does today. It has set the standard for professional monitoring through scientific fact findings and information collection at incident sites. A Regional Monitoring Associate is placed in each of the state of Tamil Nadu’s 13 regions. They function as People’s Watch’s local advocacy officers, conducting fact-finding missions and public hearings.  The fact-finding reports generated by the Regional Monitoring Associates form the basis for all subsequent action to bring victims due remedy and justice.  The Monitoring Unit also conducts trainings to provide human rights defenders with monitoring skills.

Human Rights Campaigns:

People’s Watch pursues a dual approach to human rights campaigning. It promotes campaigns in areas wherein others have not done so and also extends support and solidarity through participation in various other campaigns in which we do not have a direct stake. Its role is known in the following campaigns:

Citizens for Human Rights Movement (CHRM)

People’s Watch has initiated the “Citizens for Human Rights Movement” (CHRM), a human rights movement at the grassroots level, based on our belief that human rights promotion and protection must be a public and not merely institutional agenda.  Several Taluks and several hundred villages have grassroots units of the CHRM.  These units enable a growing number of individuals to become actively engaged in human rights monitoring, intervention and awareness-building across the state.  Individuals across a broad spectrum of society’s political parties, movements, castes, religions, trade unions, civil society groups, human rights defenders and others form these CHRM units. Grounded in their shared commitment to the values of human rights, these coalitions attract tremendous grassroots support and form Taluk, district and state committees with male and female coordinators as leaders. People’s Watch provides appropriate leadership training, organizes workshops and refresher courses for human rights defenders, and supports the CHRM in any way necessary to sustain its ongoing synergy.  Gradually, these units across the state will emerge as a movement, protecting and promoting human rights with limited institutional support.

Human Rights Intervention

People’s Watch conducts or facilitates legal intervention in cases that it monitors. It pursues action against the state in the courts and before various statutory commissions.  As with the Monitoring Unit, 13 Regional Law Officers conduct legal work on behalf of victims of human rights violations at the regional level.  At the international level, People’s Watch seeks the support and solidarity of different human rights organizations and uses the human rights instruments and mechanisms of the United Nations.

The 24-Hour Helpline

People’s Watch operates a 24-hour helpline out of its Madurai office.  Under attorney supervision, the helpline offers instant access to a variety of services including legal advice, counseling, and assistance to rehabilitation.

Documentation Centre

The Documentation Centre is the “nerve center” of all of People’s Watch’s programs.  It maintains a collection of relevant news items and a library on law and human rights materials, with items in English and Tamil.  The Documentation Centre caters to the internal needs of People’s Watch as well as the needs of outside organizations and individuals. One of the prize collection of the documentation centre is an electronic documentation of all news papers on human rights violations in Tamilnadu for the past 13 years.

Publication Unit

The more access people have to books, journals and other publications in their own language, the more they will engage themselves in the defense of human rights.  The Publications Unit fulfills a central function of People’s Watch by creating awareness and building knowledge about human rights among students, research scholars and various civil society groups. Manitha Urimai Kangani (a Tamil human rights journal) is a monthly People's Watch publication.  The Publications Unit also produces materials on national and international human rights laws, declarations and fact-finding reports.  Training materials and modules are made available in Tamil, Hindi, English and other regional languages, as needed.

Public Relations Unit

People’s Watch has launched an intensively targeted public relations campaign to enhance the visibility component of its work.  The Public Relations Unit uses various means to enhance public interest, awareness and outrage around human rights issues. However, this is primarily addressed through the use of the print and electronic media as well as on the internet using our own web page intelligently. 

(Sudhanthra) Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Domestic Violence and Torture

Sudhanthra is the name of the center where People’s Watch focuses on its programs of rehabilitation of victims/survivors.  It currently operates two such shelters in the state of Tamil Nadu and hopes to expand this program.

By the year 2000, People’s Watch recognized the need for multi-dimensional support for torture victims, beyond monitoring or legal assistance.  Through the Rehabilitation Centers, People’s Watch literally and metaphorically holds victims hands and stands by them until normalcy is restored.  ‘Sudhanthra’ is intended to heal and sustain the physical and mental strength of victims and their families.  Services include food, shelter, counseling, medical and mental health services, legal aid etc. The center in Madurai and Mettur has the services of a physiotherapist who works regularly with the victims who visit these centers for continuous treatment. In addition, the centers are also serviced by medical professionals at regular intervals to cater to those admitted and in order to conduct mobile clinics in and around Mettur area.    

‘Sudhanthra’ is open to victims of torture as well as domestic violence in its many forms- from police brutality to domestic violence.  A portion of the land at the Mettur shelter has been specifically designated for building houses for surviving family members of those killed by the Special Task Force in its scorched-earth efforts to nab Veerappan, a forest brigand.

In addition to the above, Sudhanthra also focuses on a program of supporting the education of children who are children of victims of gross human rights violence or child victims themselves. Over 350 such children are being supported in their education presently and some of them have also joined the staff of People’s Watch after completing their studies in law and other courses. It also conducts an annual summer camp for these children, named ‘SANGAMAM’. This summer camp is a celebration of childhood, looking forward to bringing back the lost childhood of these children.

Institute of Human Rights Education (IHRE)

The Institute of Human Rights Education (IHRE) of People’s Watch  was set up with the vision of  building a human rights culture in society through education. An experiment started in 1997 in a few schools in Tamil Nadu during the UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004) has expanded to a national programme of significance. Today it is part of the United Nations World Programme for Human Rights Education.

Crossing Boundaries:

The program was confined to Tamil Nadu from 1997 to 2005, offered mainly in about 300 SC/ST schools of the govt. of Tamil Nadu and about 250 state aided and private schools. Since 2005, it has expanded to the states of Orissa, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Tripura, Bihar, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala. The program is commencing in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh from 2008. It is poised for further expansion to 4 more North Eastern States of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya from 2009. Today the program benefits 3,25,597 children in 3786 schools through 5045 teachers in 13 states.

National Programme on Preventing Torture in India

The National Programme on Preventing Torture in India is a unique, short-term project intended to demonstrate and combat the widespread use of torture in India, with a deliberate focus on torture practices routinely employed by police.

In the first stage of the project, People’s Watch created nine state-wide networks to monitor instances of torture and intervene on behalf of individual victims.  Volumes of incident reports were collected for the following 9 States in India: Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Bihar.

People’s Watch then launched a national awareness campaign, citing the extensive monitoring data, to 1) generate public and professional condemnation of torture practices within a wider culture of rights, 2) improve enforcement of and adherence to existing constitutional guarantees, and 3) lobby for ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture and stricter domestic laws in India’s Parliament and the individual state legislative assemblies.

A major component of the national awareness campaign was a series of state-level awareness conferences geared towards those professions—lawyers, judges, social activists, doctors, psychiatrists, journalists, and teachers—that may play a role in the elimination of torture.  Police themselves were treated as constructive partners rather than adversaries in this project, and were given awareness training. 

After the year 2008 which witnessed People’s Tribunals on Torture being conducted in all 9 project states followed by a national tribunal in Delhi, the follow up of the cases taken up in the project states, especially where legal intervention is concerned, is the main activity.

Federation of Dalit Villages for Livelihood Rights

The Federation of Dalit Villages for Livelihood Rights (FDVLR) is a livelihood recovery action program that evolved as a result of People’s Watch intervention in the wake of 2004’s devastating tsunami. This initiative reflects People Watch’s belief that support of livelihood is fundamentally linked to human rights. Inland fishing communities, largely comprised of members of the historically vulnerable Dalit and tribal communities lost not only their lives and property in the disaster, but their livelihoods as well. These communities were largely excluded from State relief programs.

The FDVLR seeks to capitalize on the collective strength of the affected communities.  It applies a “community fund model” that draws the community together to make decisions about income-generating projects.  This allows the communities to rehabilitate their livelihoods, while enabling them to fight for their rights. It has conducted 13 NREGA enrollment camps through which over 1200 persons enrolled. Fishing communities are now inviting FDVLR to organize NREGA enrollment camps in their villages. It has in addition also promoted and strengthened women’s empowerment, profiled all families across 46 villages; conducted a survey and monitoring of PDS and the implementation of NREGA; undertaken a school enrollment drive causing no dropout across 46 villages as well has filed 28 RTI petitions during 7 months; it has also secured 206 housing pattas; Communities are now turning to be resource persons for NREGA & Gram Sabha trainings.

Monitoring of National Human Rights Institutions

Since the 1990s, India has seen a growth in statutory human rights institutions.  They number over 130 institutions, with over 500 commissioners exercising their powers.  They have been created under special legislation, some with state and some with national jurisdiction.  They cover a range of subjects: gender, human rights, minorities, scheduled castes and tribes, semi-nomadic tribes, persons with disabilities, children, and the right to information.  These human rights institutions play an advisory role with the governments, a complaints-handling role, and an educational and awareness-building role.

The national human rights institutions enjoy significant power and increasing respect from civil society.  They are expected to adhere to the Paris Principles of 1991 - the UN Guidelines governing National Human Rights Institutions.  Because of their large and increasing role and in the context of these institutions finding it difficult to rise to the people’s expectations, People’s Watch feels the urgent need to undertake a specific nation wide monitoring of these institutions.

People’s Watch is simultaneously a member of the Asian NGOs Network on National Institutions (ANNI) initiated by the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA).

People’s Watch would like to create regular annual reports regarding the functioning of these human rights institutions as well as monitor their performance and their adherence to the Paris Principles.

National Desk on Human Rights Defenders in India

December 10, 2008 marks the tenth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.  In recognition of that milestone, People’s Watch launched a National Desk on Human Rights Defenders in India.  This Desk provides information to human rights defenders about their rights and responsibilities under the UN declaration. It also receives reports from human rights defenders at risk from different parts of the country and then approaches and lobbies with the appropriate authorities to press for urgent government action to protect the human rights defenders in difficulty. The National Desk will additionally also publish an Annual Report on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders in India and gradually work towards a national network for the protection and promotion of human rights defenders in the country. 

The Hunger Project:

This is a recent program for People's Watch and ‘To pilot a model of “e-knowledge resource” that leads to strategic interventions to uphold the principles of participatory democracy in the local governance system’ is the goal of this program. The duration of the project is a period of 09 months during 1st October 2008 to 30th June 2009.

The program will result in a web based database of Panchayat Raj Institutions and related information. Given the fact that it is a pilot effort on which the responsibility of demonstrating success is very high, the project takes a 10% sample from the total number of 614 districts in India, which shall be rounded of to 60 districts.

The e-data base would include contact details of all the elected representatives of local governance system, their tenure, etc. Further, this e-data base would also provide information about the government schemes and programs that are being allocated from time to time by the government, data indicating the performance of such schemes and any other information relating the work allocation to the panchayats. The third major chunk of information would be about the financial allocations and budgeting from the state to districts and then from to blocks and taluks and panchayats. The fourth would be about the gram sabha meetings. The regularity in conduct of meetings, quality and extend of pre-meeting processes and procedural accomplishments, quantitative and qualitative aspects of participation of the members of gram sabha, agenda setting, quality and scope of interactions, resolutions passed, response of the administration and the state to those resolutions etc will form the core contents of this section in the e-data base. The fifth component shall be the best practices, mostly in the form of case studies and news clippings, of PRIs at various levels. This is considered to be an important aspect which could serve as learning for practicing by other PRIs through out the country.

Building a state level platform to Promote & Protect the rights of the persons with disabilities in Tamil Nadu:

Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in general and the women with disabilities in particular encounter different forms of human rights violations perpetrated by almost all walks of civil society, but they fail to fight for justice because of their differing vulnerabilities and lack of institutional support. Even the organizations which claim to work for the rights of the PWDs lack professional knowledge and legal experience in dealing with such violations. It only adds to the miseries of PWDs and the sufferings of Women with disabilities are beyond ones imagination.

People's Watch firmly believes that these issues could be addressed by the PWDs themselves, since their problems and constraints are unique and far from the understanding of a normal bodied person. However, for their limitations and lack of external and legal support they remain ‘voiceless’ which is what PW desires to turn around. Given this understanding, the specific objectives of the project which commenced in January 2009 are the following:

1. Building a state level platform of PWDs: Through this project, PW ensures that a state level platform of PWDs is built to progressively monitor the violations of disability rights that they suffer from. It however ensures that the platform is held and managed by a group of organizations of PWDs who have been committed to disability rights.
2. Capacity building & training: PW accompanies the platform to impart skills of professional monitoring of violations of disability rights.
3. Sustainability plan: PW facilitates the platform to evolve its action plan to progress and sustain its efforts of monitoring and capacity building.