Human Rights in Ireland

We are very pleased to feature this guest contribution from Catherine Kenny, a researcher on an IRCHSS-funded Senior Fellowship project, led by Professor Siobhán Mullally, University College Cork. The research team includes Dr Cliodhna Murphy, Post-Doc Fellow. The project will focus specifically on recent developments in the EU and selected Member States: Ireland, UK, France, the Netherlands and Sweden.

In recent years there have been significant developments in the expansion of international human rights standards for the protection of non-citizens. This blog post examines the progressive development of international standards relating to the rights of migrant domestic workers, a group that is marginalised not only because of their frequently precarious migration status, but also because of the often hidden and isolated nature of their work. In 2011 the ILO adopted a Convention and Recommendation on Decent Work for Domestic Workers. The rights of migrant domestic workers were the subject of the first General Comment adopted by the UN Committee on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families in 2010. Domestic work, and the particular challenges faced by migrant domestic workers, is also addressed by the UN CEDAW Committee in their 2009 General Recommendation on Women Migrant Workers. These developments and their implications for EU migration law and policy is the subject of a recently launched Irish Research Council Senior Fellowship project, led by Professor Siobhán Mullally, University College Cork.  Read Full Post »

Following tonight’s successful performance of Whoop it up for Liberty! in Druid Theatre, Galway we would like to share the texts from which extracts were chosen and included in the performance. This link will bring you to a google document which contains the original, full extracts, which have been modified for use in tonight’s performance. It also links the documents to their original source, if available online, and, where relevant, contains links to the images which we feel connect with the pieces chosen for the performance. Thanks again to everyone for supporting this project – we hope we have made a contribution to the open democratic arts, and to exploring further some aspects of Ireland’s human rights history. The performance has been recorded, and we hope to share some clips from the recording with you in the near future.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton today delivered a speech in Geneva to mark Human Rights day. This speech focused on LGBT human rights and is quoted in full below. It is certainly worth taking the time to read or watch, the video can be watched here.

Good evening, and let me express my deep honor and pleasure at being here. I want to thank Director General Tokayev and Ms. Wyden along with other ministers, ambassadors, excellencies, and UN partners. This weekend, we will celebrate Human Rights Day, the anniversary of one of the great accomplishments of the last century.

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Many thanks to everyone who supported our funding efforts for Whoop it up for Liberty! Thanks to your support, we reached our funding target and are well on our way to producing this exciting performance in Druid Theatre, Galway on 10 December. Rehearsals are gearing up, and we have an amazing mix of people with personal experience of rights-violations, professional actors, and community activists involved in the performance.

We released many of the tickets for this event to those who donated to the project on Fund It, however, there are still a limited number of tickets available to anyone who would like to attend the performance in Galway on 10 December. The venue is fully accessible, and there will be a hearing loop provided at the performance. We are currently looking into providing other accessibility features, and would like for anyone who is interested in attending to let us know what their requirements are, and we will do our best to ensure that the performance is inclusive and accessible to all, within the constraints of our budget.

To reserve your ticket for the performance, contact Liam Thornton, and if you have specific accessibility requirements, you can contact me. We will be recording the performance on the night and will hope to make the recording available online afterwards – and will also publish the script of the performance on the blog after the performance.

We delighted to welcome this guest post from Senator Jillian Van Turnhout on the efforts of the Independent Group in the Seanad to criminalise the purchase of sex.

On 12 October 2012, the Independent Group of Senators tabled a motion in Seanad Éireann to criminalise the purchase of sex in Ireland in order to curb prostitution and trafficking. The impetus for the motion was twofold. First, recognition that demand for prostitution in Ireland is intrinsically linked to increased cases of woman and girls being trafficked into and around Ireland for sexual exploitation. Second, recognition that trafficking for sexual exploitation is a modern form of slavery, an egregious human rights abuse and a violation of international law.

Having given my consideration to a number of arguments against criminalising the purchase of sex in Ireland, I find myself unconvinced by them. Read Full Post »

 As announced in August, the Human Rights in Ireland blog will host a performance on 10 December at 6pm in Druid Theatre, Galway to celebrate Human Rights Day. The event is called 'Whoop it up for Liberty!' - an ironic quote from Connolly's Reconquest of Ireland. As part of the performance, actors, local people and community activists will read aloud from texts commemorating key moments in Irish history which relate to the theme of human rights. The performance will feature first person narratives which highlight the experiences of workers, women, people with disabilities, travellers, language rights activists, asylum seekers, children, prisoners and many others as they relate to human rights in Ireland – from historical perspectives right through to the present day. Thomas Conway, literary manager of Druid Theatre, will direct the performance, which will be followed by a question and answer session where the texts and themes will be further discussed.
 

Since this is a not-for-profit event, we are seeking support to cover our production costs. The director and actors involved are generously volunteering their time, and in order to do justice to the inspiring texts used to create the script, we would like to make this as professional an event as possible. The event has been listed as a creative venture on Fund It to secure crowd source funding for the performance. This link will take you to the Fund It page for the event where you can watch a video clip of some of the actors involved reading from a draft script - and we would appreciate if readers of the blog could repost the link via social media. Donations received will go towards the cost of hiring the venue and rehearsal space, lighting and sound, recording the performance, providing catering for the cast and crew after the performance, producing programme notes for the event, and making the performance accessible to all.

 

This will be the first time an event of this kind has been performed in Ireland, using first-person narratives to explore historical and present-day experiences of human rights across a broad range of issues: identity, belonging, democracy, politics, solidarity, and exclusion. We hope that people will contribute what they can to make the event a success – and we hope to see as many of you as possible on 10th December in Galway!

The cuts agenda in the UK continues to cast a particularly deep shadow over Northern Ireland. The gleaming edifice of the Titanic Quarter (pictured left) in Belfast bears witness to the scale of public spending in Northern Ireland. Nonetheless, the 15-year and £7 billion development project remains, in an irresistible pun, the tip of a public-spending iceberg. As Henry McDonald flagged-up this week, public spending in Northern Ireland continues to outstrip levels in the remainder of the UK: Read Full Post »

The definition of refugee includes those who are members of a particular social group. Section 1 of the Refugee Act 1996 defines this ground as including (amongst others) those persecuted for reasons of their sexual orientation. In a recent United Kingdom Supreme Court decision, HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department the question that arose was whether a person had to be ‘discrete’ in relation to their sexuality so as to avoid persecution by the state. The High Court and Court of Appeal for England and Wales response to this question was ‘yes’. The UK Supreme Court, however, rejected this approach. Lord Roger (at para. 76) inverted the question posed in this case, questioning whether:

a straight man or woman could find it reasonably tolerable to conceal his or her sexual identity indefinitely to avoid suffering persecution.

Fiona de Londras noted in a previous post, how Irish decision makers were finding against the credibility of refugee applicants for not knowing or being involved in the gay rights movement or arguing that they could be ‘discrete’ if returned to their countries of origin. This is a wholly incorrect approach Read Full Post »

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman have been named as this year’s recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. In announcing the award, the Committee underlined the importance of women in the securing of peace and stated that:

In October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325. The resolution for the first time made violence against women in armed conflict an international security issue. It underlined the need for women to become participants on an equal footing with men in peace processes and in peace work in general.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is the current President of Liberia. She is Africa’s only female Head of State, was named by Forbes magazine as the 62nd most powerful women in the world and by the Guardian as one of the most important women in politics in the world. President Sirleaf, was first elected President of Liberia in 2005, following the civil war, under President Charles Taylor, which had claimed thousands of lives and had been part of the wider war in the region, including  other states such as Sierra Leone. President Sirleaf has overseen the transition to peace in Liberia and has been heavily involved in securing debt relief from multilateral agencies such as the IMF and states such as the United States . An issue discussed in another post here. Read Full Post »

Tomorrow, Ireland will have its human rights record reviewed under the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedure. Last December, Danielle Kennan and I hosted a blog-symposium that considered some aspects of Ireland’s human rights record in areas such as the role of civil society in informing the UN Human Rights Council of potential human rights issues in Ireland, the rights of children and the rights of prisoners. Since this symposium, there has been engagement by government and non-governmental organisations with wider society on problematic areas of Irish law that may not meet international minimum human rights protection standards. The final Irish UPR Report can be accessed here, while the UN summary of civil society submissions can be viewed here.

Rights Now will be live streaming Ireland’s UPR examination by the UN Human Rights Council from 8.00 am on Thursday, 06 October 2011. For those in and around Dublin, Rights Now will be hosting a breakfast viewing of Ireland’s UPR Review from 8 am in Liberty Hall, Dublin.  In Cork, NASC, the Irish Immigrant Support Centre, will be hosting a viewing (as well as their open day) over coffee from 8 am in Mary Street. In Limerick, Doras Luimní will be hosting a viewing of Ireland’s UPR examination from 8am.

I do stand by the comments I made last December: Read Full Post »