Uvira, 10 September 2015 – From Tuesday 8 to Wednesday 9 September 2015, the local NGO “Arche d'Alliance”, in collaboration with the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office of MONUSCO-South Kivu organized a capacity-building workshop for ten member Organizations of the “Uvira and Fizi “Network of Human Rights Association (RADHUFI). For two days, they reviewed the mechanisms for the protection of human rights activists in the South-Kivu, more precisely in the Territories of Uvira and Fizi.

During the opening of the workshop on Tuesday, the Territorial Administrator of Uvira, Samuel Lungange Lenga, invited members of the Network to “work with professionalism and in close collaboration with local authorities”. He said it is true that human rights activists have often denounced human rights violations but to lack of good collaboration with the authorities, no solution could be found immediately. The human rights activists, in turn, requested that the Authorities stop considering them as their “opponents”, every time they denounce human rights abuses.

The first day was dedicated to the knowledge and command of the concepts relating to the legal mechanisms for the protection of human rights activists; issues such as security protocol for human rights activists (with a case study in the South-Kivu) was addressed and an experience was shared with the Protection Unit of the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in the South-Kivu. On Wednesday 9 September, participants were educated on the methodology to handle cases on the protection of victims and witnesses of sexual violence. Previously, they did a stock-taking of the measures for the protection of victims and witnesses of sexual violence.

Claude Habamungu Mihigo, the focal point of the Network for Human Rights Associations in Uvira and Fizi-RADHUFI, on behalf of the participants, thanked the organizers of the workshop. He highlighted the difficulties faced by the human rights activists when carrying out their mission: “the problem, he said, is that the majority of the people,

including public authorities, ignore the human rights activists and believe they are their opponents like the politicians. Human rights activists conduct advocacies for judiciary assistance and sensitize the other actors to bring them to respect the human rights. A forum for exchange between the local authorities and human rights activists is being established to facilitate interactions among them and a better understanding of the work of the human rights activists.

On Thursday 10 September, the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office organized a similar training for the civil Society organizations on the protection of the victims and witnesses of sexual violence.

Jean-Tobie Okala