South Asians for Human Rights

Promoting Democracy, Upholding Human Rights

Two-day int’l seminar ends with Dhaka Resolution 2014

Published in The Daily Star on Nov. 19 ::

Rights activists of South Asian countries at an international seminar in Dhaka yesterday vowed that they would enhance co-operation in finding the issues of human rights violations in the region and work together to resolve those.

In a resolution, they proclaimed that while addressing the rights issues, they would give priority to women and children’s trafficking, situation of migrant workers, and global warming.  

“We are concerned over an alarmingly increasing trend of human rights violations in South Asia which is contravening people’s lives here deeply,” they read from the Dhaka Resolution 2014, through which the seminar concluded.

The two-day seminar, “Towards a South Asian Human Rights Mechanism: Prospects and Challenges”, was organised by National Human Rights Commission, Bangladesh at Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban of Dhaka University.

Over 100 rights activists including 16 from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, took part in the programme, which was divided into seven sessions.

Speaking as chief guest at the closing session, Law Commission Chairman Justice ABM Khairul Haque said South Asian people needed more access to neighbouring countries to know each other better, to know others’ culture to understand the human rights issues.

For this, he stressed the need for visa-free movement in South Asia.

“We have to have the message of human rights in our hearts. We must feel for the oppressed, for the human being. We must not leave it [the problem] to others but sort it out by ourselves,” he said.

In his closing remarks, NHRC Chairman Prof Mizanur Rahman described the human rights issues in South Asia as a common concern and urged the countries to deal with it collectively.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/united-work-to-end-rights-abuses-in-s-asia-vowed-51065