GHRA IS 30

Oct 17, 2009 News

---

October 17 marks the 30th anniversary of the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA).
Founded in 1979 by a group of individuals drawn predominantly from professional, labour, and religious backgrounds, the creation of the GHRA reflected the growing concern of the time with the dictatorial powers accumulated by the then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
A year earlier an infamous referendum approved replacing the Independence constitution (by a voter turn-out of 14 per cent) for one better suited to the prevailing dictatorial realities.
The determination to protect rights of individual citizen against abuse by officialdom – whether planned or fortuitous – that prompted the formation of the GHRA, continued in the intervening years to influence its activism. Case-based protection activities remain the anchor of GHRA human rights activism.
The vast majority of cases handled by the GHRA have involved abuses suffered within the framework of the administration of justice: torture, police brutality, extra-judicial execution, corrupt magistrates, judges, prosecutors and attorneys, unacceptable delays and extortionate fees.
Other areas of concern which feature regularly in GHRA reports over the years concern abuse of the media and freedom of expression, access to NIS benefits, absence of services to address mental illness, sexual violence against young women and girls and the elderly, land/health and identity rights of Amerindian peoples and rights abuses suffered by people living with HIV/AIDS.
Case-based approaches to human rights abuses inevitably lead to concern with the failures or limitations of agencies and institutions which permit them to occur. This second major area of concern has seen the GHRA engage over the years with electoral reform, election monitoring, constitutional reform, reform of laws relating to disabilities, indigenous people, forestry and mining, prison reform, termination of pregnancy, broadcast legislation and national policies relating to HIV/AIDS.
The third general area of GHRA’s work has been in the area of human rights education. Establishing human rights education in the schools curriculum in the late 90s was a high-point of this work.
The GHRA came into existence at a time when the international community was beginning to recognize specific rights related to identity of women and children, a process which progressively expanded to identify rights of indigenous people, people with disabilities and, more contemporaneously, issues of sexual orientation.
Over the period of the GHRA’s existence an important feature of its mission has been to educate the society on the need to adjust its vision and its institutions in order to ensure fairness and protection for all national groupings.
An annually elected Executive Committee has guided the affairs of the Association, along with three Co-Presidents, an arrangement which in the early years reflected the GHRA’s three major sources of membership referred to earlier. A more diversified membership emerged in later years, over seventy of whom have acted as Executive Committee members in the past thirty years.
Peak membership of over seven hundred members occurred during the late 1980s coinciding with the Guyanese Action for Reform and Democracy (GUARD) movement in which the GHRA played a significant part.
In 1998 the Guyana Human Rights Centre was built, providing a more permanent home after almost twenty years in a series of dilapidated dwellings.
In an era in which Guyanese activism is overly dependent on external funding, it remains a source of much satisfaction that the Centre was built from funds raised by the current and past membership who continue to contribute to its maintenance.
From the out-set the GHRA’s work was influenced by the pioneering human rights activism developed during that period in Latin America in response to the military dictatorships then prevalent. The GHRA benefitted from internships, methodologies and the philosophy which shaped that movement, notably the imperative of political independence.
Along with independence – political and financial – the credibility of human rights activism rests on the twin pillars of impartiality and accuracy of information.
Reaching thirty years of age as a civil society institution is an achievement a wide range of persons both in and out of Guyana should identify with and celebrate since its development has been the work of many hands.
The GHRA has been able to operate on modest budgets because it has always benefitted from the generous volunteer spirit of many people and the solidarity of a wide range of individuals, business, religious and charitable organizations.
While much remains to redress with respect to enjoyment of human rights in Guyana, these many persons may justifiably consider that without their efforts the situation would have been much worse.

---

---