Human Rights Commission

ORGANISATION

The IFSW Human Rights Commission is an experts’ committee of not less than four representatives and with the IFSW President, Secretary General and the IFSW Representatives to UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNICEF and to Amnesty International serving as ex-officio members.

Each region has a Regional Focal Point for Human Rights issues to support the work of the Human Rights Commission and to establish links to the member organisations and their respective contact persons for human rights.

The Secretary shall represent IFSW in the joint committee with International Association of Schools of Social Work in the role of co-chairing the same committee.

For more detailed information please refer to the following folders to left under Human Rights.

The tasks of the IFSW Human Rights Commission is to
• identify and carry out an international human rights agenda on behalf of the federation
• co-ordinate the work of member organisations in relation to human rights issues,
• work in conjunction with International Association of Schools of Social Work, Amnesty International and appropriate agencies and programs of the UN system and/or other relevant organisations including trade union related organisations to secure the protection of social workers´ human rights,
• take initiatives to and supports the IFSW leadership in preparing statements on human rights issues and related matters,
• provide support to individual social workers suffering a denial or violation of their human rights,
• make representations to Governments where the rights of individuals or groups of social workers have been violated or are threatened,
• publicise with member organisations cases of social workers whose rights have been violated or are threatened,
• disseminate information and literature regarding Human Rights and Social Work and to work towards the inclusion of Human Rights as a major subject in Social Work training in all schools of social work world wide.

Since1988, IFSW has a Human Rights Commission. The Commission coordinates the work of IFSW in relation to human rights issues, cooperates with International Association of Schools of Social Work, Amnesty International and other human rights organisations to further human rights in social work action and education and to support individual social workers, social work students and social service workers suffering a denial of their human rights, making representations to Governments and publicising cases. The Commission is also involved in human rights education for the profession.

In the period 1988 – 2004 the Human Rights Commission was made up of the Secretary and five regional representatives as well as alternate commissioners in some regions.

Over the years a number of individual cases have been brought forward and action taken in support of their Human Rights. For a list of cases please refer to the HRC case archive.

In 1989 the Human Rights Commission took part in writing and producing a Manual “Human Rights and Social Work” in collaboration with the United Nations Centre for Human Rights in Geneva and the International Association of Schools of Social Work. The manual has been extremely successful and a best seller for the centre reprinted once and today translated into many languages (link).

The Human Rights Commission was also instrumental in preparing and publishing the CRC Manual Social Work and the Rights of the Child.

The Human Rights Commission took part in a Human Rights seminar in Quezon City, Philippines January 24 – 27 1995, First Asia-Pacific Social Workers’ Consultation on Human Rights and Development. In connection with the Asia-Pacific regional conference in Brisbane 1999 a workshop on Human Rights and Social Work was held.

At the 1996 General Meeting of IFSW in Hong Kong an IFSW Policy Paper on Human Rights was approved.

IFSW was represented through its Human Rights Commission in a special mission that visited East Timor at the time of the Popular Consultation in August 1999. An extensive report was written by the team and published by IFSW The report of the IFSW Assessment Mission to East Timor,13-22 November 1999.

In 2002 the General Meeting decided to merge the IFSW Human Rights Commission with its equivalent within the International Association of Schools of Social Work into a Joint IFSW/IASSW Human Rights Commission. The leadership, Secretary of the joint committee was to be filled on rotating basis every four years with the other organisation holding the Deputy Secretary in joint co-chairing of the commission. The structure never fully came into realisation and function. A new structure was proposed and approved by the General Meeting in 2004.

Since the General Meeting 2004 in Adelaide, Australia the Human Rights Commission is made up of at least four individual human rights experts and ex officio members. To support the Human Rights Commission in its work a Human Rights Network of Regional Focal Points and national contact persons in each country is established.