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Human Rights advocate Mary Robinson visits IDS
29 July 2009 - Debs Shenton
The Centre for Social Protection recently hosted fifty UNICEF field officers for its annual two week training course on Social protection. The course is in its third year, but this year’s participants were particularly lucky to have former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson as a guest speaker at the formal dinner.
Mary Robinson was the first woman President of Ireland between 1990-1997 and United Nations High Commissioner between 1997-2002. She is also the founder and President of the Realising Rights Ethical Globalization Initiative, aimed at putting human rights standards at the heart of global governance and policy-making and ensuring that the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable are addressed on the global stage.
In her speech she praised the work of the UNICEF staff in their ongoing task of protecting and caring for the worlds most vulnerable children, and stressed the importance of UNICEF’s role in upholding children’s rights. She highlighted the recent 'Demand Dignity' campaign from Amnesty international which highlights the barriers to maternal health in its report 'Fatal Flaws: Barriers to Maternal Health in Peru' (pdf), and examines the high levels of maternal mortality amongst poor and indigenous women in rural Peru and evaluates the impact of recent government policies designed to tackle the problem. As a grandmother she shared her own worries about her grandchildren growing up in a changing world, and her concern around climate change impacts.
To date little systematic research has examined the human rights dimensions of climate change, yet almost every human right is threatened. Climate change will create new health risks, threaten food and water supplies, destroy land and livelihoods, and lead to forced migration and conflict. Global warming will cause widespread human suffering that will disproportionately affect people in countries already lacking the resources to meet basic human rights obligations.” (From the foreword of Climate Change and Human Rights: A Rough Guide published by The International Council for human Rights Policy)
Debs Shenton is the Team Administrative Coordinator for the Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Team.
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