OUR TIME IN AMNESTY by SARAH KELLY-HANNON & KATIE FEERICK (Transition year students)

We were working in Amnesty International Ireland, from Monday 14 December to Friday 18 December, for community outreach, as we are in transition year. We wanted to work, at Amnesty International, for our community outreach week, because we had heard about the work Amnesty do, and we were interested to find out more.

Amnesty International works to protect and respect, the human rights, of all people throughout our world; through campaigning and international solidarity. Amnesty International Ireland has, like Amnesty sections all over the world, priority countries, which are decided upon by the members within that country. Amnesty International Ireland’s priority countries are: Mexico, Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Zimbabwe.

During the course of the week, we worked on a variety of things including a research project on the War on Terror; took action on different cases; and read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We joined the Facebook transition year network; and looked at different websites about mental health.

Some of the cases we read about were quite shocking, such as a man who was supposed to be executed by lethal injection. He went through a painful ordeal, where the nurses tried to find a suitable vein in his body. Unable to do so, his execution was postponed. He knew however that he would be put through the same ordeal again, as the method of execution remained unchanged.

Our week at Amnesty was very interesting. We learned a lot about human rights, and what happens when they aren’t respected or protected. Most importantly, we learned that a difference can only be made, if people take action. We are going to stay involved in, Amnesty International Ireland, by going on the website and taking action regularly.

THE STORY WITH SLAVERY, by Paul Glynn- Transition Year Student

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4

According to the Universal Declaration of Human rights, slavery in all its forms is forbidden, and no one has the right to have to forcedly serve another person. Despite this, slavery is still a continued practice in many forms in parts of the world today. Bonded labour, human trafficking and the use of child soldiers are carried out both in places where poverty and poor standards of living are common, and places where you might not expect to find such violations of rights.
India is home to more slaves than any other country in the world. It doesn’t seem surprising, seeing as India is home to over one billion people – a quarter of them living on less than $1.25 a day. Many of these slaves are trapped in bonded labour – a type of modern slavery, also known as debt bonding, which basically involves the slave being employed for an amount of time to pay off a debt. Owners of bonded slaves are often corrupt – they take them in, claiming that they have major debt to pay off, and then keep them under their control for a very long time – they will still be ‘paying off their debt’. Bonded labour is the most common form of slavery in the world today – however, it is also one of the least publicized forms.
Not all Indian slaves stay in India, though – they can be smuggled to countries anywhere in the world through illegal trafficking. Human trafficking is a form of modern slavery, and is one of the most common forms in the developed world. It generally involves people from developing countries being smuggled into a more developed country – the smuggled person is usually under the impression that they are going to get a good job and quality of life in their new home country through an ‘agency’, but what often waits for them on the other side of the border can range from intensive labour and debt bondage to prostitution. Both adults and children are tricked into such conditions through traffickers, who claim to have a paying job for them. Hundreds of people from a number of impoverished areas, mostly Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, are trafficked into Ireland and the UK every year. Women and girls in particular can be at a risk of being tricked into sex slavery through the human trafficking network.
Slavery in any form is a sad, cruel practice, and despite its prevalence in impoverished areas, steps can – and should – be taken to help stop it. There are many ways to do this – you can boycott products that involve poor workers’ conditions, you can write letters to governments to find out more about their policies on slavery – you could even start a campaign in your school, highlighting the injustices caused by slavery. The right to freedom is fundamental, and everyone has the right to be independent from captivity – whether they are prisoners of conscience, protesters and activists, or slaves and forced labourers.

Students join Amnesty volunteers and staff carol singing and raising money to support the work of Amnesty, on International Human Rights Day

Students from Terenure College, Castleknock Community College and Presentation Secondary School, Warrenmount participated in the carol singing to celebrate International Human Rights Day and helped to raise money to support the work of Amnesty.

Students from Castleknock Community College


Amnesty staff, volunteers and students from Terenure College,
and Presentation School, Warrenmount

AMNESTY STREET COLLECTION

Amy Long from St Aloysius School, Carrigtwohill was delighted to bump into George when herself and her fellow students from the School were doing a Street Collection for Amnesty Cork Group.
A total of €867.43 was collected by students from Mount Mercy School, Model Farm Road and St Aloysius School. Many thanks to the members of the public who were able to support the collection.
If you would like to find out more about Amnesty Cork, contact Jay on 087 8128236.

Ciaran O'Carroll, Amnesty student activist reports from Copenhagen on Climate Change

Climate Change Refugees Need International Recognition:

By the year 2050 global warming is likely to cause 150 million people to abandon their homes and become refugees according to a new report by the Environmental Justice Foundation.  In 2008 alone, more than 20 million people were displaced by climate-related natural disasters, including 800,000 people by cyclone Nagris in Asia, and almost 80,000 by heavy floods and rains in Brazil. However the people that are being  forced to move due to climate change currently have no adequate recognition in international law which denies them political, legal, and human rights.
 
“We must not lose sight of existing human rights principles in the tug and push of international climate change negotiations. A human rights lens reminds us there are reasons beyond economics and enlightened self-interest for states to act on climate change…”
Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
 
In  Africa, an estimated 10 million people have migrated or been displaced over the last two decades mainly because of environmental degradation and desertification. Low level islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are acting as the canary in the world’s coal mine, quickly sinking into the ocean one by one.
On November 25, 2003, the Papua New Guinean government authorized the government-funded total evacuation of the Carteret islands, effectively making them the worlds first official climate change refugees. The Maldives (population 300,00) is set to become the first country to literally disappear off the face of the earth. The democratically-elected president, Mohamed Nasheed said If things go on as usual, “we will not live. We will die. Our country will not exist” during an underwater cabinet meeting held to highlight their plight in October 2009.
To add to the injustice to these poor displaced indigenous populations they also have some of the lowest per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The 50 Least Developed Countries contribute less than 1 percent of global carbon emissions.
Almost two decades ago, the IPCC suggested that the “gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration”. Environmental factors leading to migration may be fast occurring – such as more intense tropical cyclones – or longer-term, such as desertification, or sea level rises that inundates low-lying regions.
To date only $154 million has been disbursed by the UNFCCC to ameliorate the effects of climate change. In 2008, despite the onset of financial collapse, the nine biggest US banks alone paid US$32.6 billion in bonuses.
It is essential that international law be updated to protect climate refugees and given the same rights as refugees under the 1951 Geneva Convention. A new legal instrument, either a protocol under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or a stand-alone convention has should be enacted around five basic principles:
 1. Planned and voluntary resettlement and reintegration (as opposed to ad hoc emergency relief responses).
2. Climate refugees should be treated the same as permanent immigrants as they cannot return to their home.
3. It must be tailored to entire group of people, including entire nations, as is the case with small island states.
4. Support for national governments to protect their people will be required (as opposed to the existing refugee regime).
 5. The protection of climate refugees must be seen as a global problem and a global responsibility. “In most cases, climate refugees will be poor and their own responsibility for the past accumulation of greenhouse gases will be small…the responsibility of the industrialized countries to do their share in financing, supporting and facilitating the protection and resettlement of climate refugees.

Our Lady of Mercy College, Beaumont hold International Day with a big focus on campaigning for Amnesty!