Radio Miraya
2785: Know Your Rights: The Universal Periodic Review, Working Towards the Realization of Human Rights in South Sudan
A very good morning to you and welcome to Know Your Rights Program on Radio Mariah. Well know your rights program. It's a program that comes to you every Friday and of course he's talking about your rights and other people's rights and of course how to address them as well when violated. It's 20 minutes past 9 a.m. in the morning of Friday and it's July the 19th. Of course the year is 2020 for my name is David Willem and today we'll be discussing and looking at the Universal Periodic Review now. Working towards the realization of human rights in South Sudan. Human rights of course is a very very important thing is a right that every human being deserves for being a human being of course and quite a lot of rights that we have to respect and observe now. Here we mean the studio we'll be discussing and helping me to talk about this Universal Periodic Review and also how we can work towards the realization of human rights and looking at the human rights situation in South Sudan is Mr. Kaunda David. Mr. Kaunda David is the program manager for Malna South Sudan. Mr. Kaunda good morning and welcome to Know Your Rights. It's good to have you here this morning. Yeah good morning sir. Good day everyone. Kaunda David has mentioned the basic program manager at Malna South Sudan and a member of the UPR civil society coalition. Our coalition works tirelessly to advocate for human rights advances here in South Sudan collaborating with various stakeholders to ensure a better future for all. Right that sounds great. Now as we look at this particular you talked about the collision but first also let's talk briefly about your organization which is the Malna South Sudan. Let's get to know about it. What does a Malna South Sudan do? Yeah a Malna South Sudan is a national NGO and what a Malna is an Arabic word meaning hope and you know that as a country went through a lot and we still want to hold into the hope to take this country to a better place where all of us desire. And Malna one of our core thematic areas is governance and under governance we do have projects on human rights. Last year we had the Human Rights Festival here in Cuba and this year we'll have the second phase of the Human Rights Festival as well and we also do conflict mitigation and peace building and under human rights also we address issues of good governance we also have been so passionate on issues of public finances management. I just came from Torit and we had a budget dialogue on a realigning state budget to the state development plan and to the national development strategy. So how do we link the state budget the national budget to the state I mean to the national development strategy priorities. Otherwise if we don't do that then we will not have development indicators for the country. So we do a lot in terms of governance, peace building, human rights and conflict mitigation among other thematic areas that we do. All right great to know that. Now let's get back to our topic of course and we're talking about the universal periodic review and we're working towards the realization of human rights in South Sudan. Now before we even talk about the universal periodic review there's quite a lot of misconception sometimes when you talk about human rights itself. Some people look at it as a foreign thing you know it's a commercial, human rights, it's a condensed into all that. You define for us really in our context and break it down as possible for us to understand human rights. Now if someone talking about human rights what are we talking about? What you say this is actually true one time I was facilitating a workshop in in one of the states and then one of the participants told me that yeah David Azmah, human rights, betacunde, they human wrong Zato right that they are human wrong. I said why that these human rights have even done more worse than good I said but how and that tells us of course exactly the misconceptions around human rights so but what I would like to say from the universal declaration of human rights, human rights are fundamental rights and freedoms that every person is entitled to for example their right to life no one wants to die. Now if you're saying it is a foreign is that foreign? Death is not foreign no one should kill you. No body should take your life away from you and it is in our constitution. Now and talk about the right to quality education. Nobody wants to be left behind when it comes to education. The right to quality and accessible health care services. Nobody wants to continue paying taxes and you don't get the service for you to get good treatment in public hospitals. These are fundamental basic rights that are not foreign. They're right to food. No one needs to die of hunger you get. So these are some of the basic for example a right to own a property. Okay if you bought a land nobody should take it away from you. Is that foreign? You bought your own land and somebody wants to take it away from you. Is that a foreign thing? It's your right you know and when you we talk of child rights you know a child should not be you know married before a marriage about age or before she becomes an adult. So these human rights are basic fundamental rights and freedoms that every person is entitled to simply by virtue of being human. They encompasses a wide range of values and principles including the right to life, liberty, equality and dignity among others. Now to those who still have misconceptions on human rights being foreign. Let me tell them this. The coat of um of South Sudan there are three words in it. Yes. Do you remember Sebi? Yes. Can you tell me those three words? One is freedom. There is unity. On the coat of um if you go to the the president's office and all government being including some booklets printed on it you'll see justice, liberty, and prosperity. Now what is justice? The Adala. So you know this country was brought from oppression from freedoms as we are taken away rights that we are taken away and when we got it we say we are building it on three foundations. Justice, liberty, and prosperity. This is what we have as a country. It's not foreign and you can go and check it this out. Absolutely. Yeah and the coat of um is one of the national instruments. So this is what I want to tell to people that our country the foundation is justice, liberty, and prosperity. Great. Now you've had right there later if you have any question please don't hesitate. You can share your thought with us by calling us later on 0 9 2 9 6 8 6 2 9 7. We'll be opening the lines. You can as well send us a text message and ask my guest here in the studio mr. Calendar David on 0 9 1 2 1 7 7 1 4 1. That is our text message line. Now as we continue let's get back to uh the the collusion and talking about you know uh the universal periodic review. You are a member of these uh civil society collusion. Just tell us about all the civil society and what uh what is the collision rather all about before we get to the universal periodic review. Yes I mean not being mentioning the member organizations but I will be telling the listener there to know about this collision. So the south Sudan civil society collision for universal periodic review which is the SSCC UPRA is a loose network of organizations dealing with human rights established in 2016. The aim is to enlighten citizens on their fundamental human rights strengthen the capacity of non-state actors and other stakeholders in order to advance the human rights situation to improve social justice in South Sudan. Now our vision our vision is a peaceful coexistence through exercise of good governance and fundamental respect of human rights to improve social justice in South Sudan. Meanwhile our mission of the collision is to realize a peaceful and just South Sudan through institutional reforms capacity development to enhance respect for human rights at all level. That's great and that's what the collision does now. When we talk about the universal periodic review many might not understand educate us. What is this universal periodic review all about? Yeah uh this might sound too big to the listener but I just want to say that uh the the UPRA which is the universal periodic review you know South Sudan is a member country of the United Nations. So the UPRA is a unique process under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council where the human rights records of all UN member states that South Sudan is one are reviewed every four to five years. So every four to five years the the UN Human Rights Council review the the records the human rights records of their member states and this is done in a period of four to five years. It involves a comprehensive assessment of the country's human rights situation and the implementation of previous human rights recommendations. So this is basically about the UPRA. Yes and this is done you said yearly or partly? Four to five years. Four to five years. Yes and why is this important? Why is this process important especially to the people of South Sudan? The UPRA is very very very important uh to to South Sudan and the whole world. Why? For South Sudan the UPRA is critical as it provides a platform for international community to assess our progress in human rights and offer recommendations for improvement. It also promotes transparency accountability and a spirit of dialogue among stakeholders in fostering a culture of human rights respect and protection of humans in our country. Yes and now as we talk about this just just give us a brief about how is it done what was the process or like to how does it work here for you mentioned how important it is so the people can access the or know the human rights situation and give recommendations but how does this process work? Okay the UPRA structure does so that states are reviewed in cycles so with each cycle taking three to four years to complete in the first cycle for example let me just put it in a very simple way the fastest step of the cycle is report on the state of human rights is prepared by the country and the review like South Sudan is going to be reviewed South Sudan will prepare its report country report on the status of the human rights in the country but also independent institutions like the Human Rights Commission can also generate their independent report and share and then we have the civil society they will prepare what is called the shadow report the shadow report to cross check whether with the government yes so these are the kind of reports that will be shared by the UN Council and then uh so the first step in the cycle is the preparation of the reports of the country that is under review then the second is the country under review then appears before the UPRA working group of the United Nations so then you go and present your report the third step is the report of the working group is prepared now once the working group looks into the country report then they will generate their report where they give recommendations for example the last cycle South Sudan had 258 recommendations to be implemented to improve the human rights situation in the country so in the third is phase or cycle I mean the first step the report of the working group is prepared and then the fourth one is that the report of the working group is adopted is adopted by the human rights council so once it is adopted then it will be shared by the countries that are reviewed so then the last one will be now implementation and follow up where the country will develop implementation matrix especially for the recommendations that the country has accepted because they can accept or they can reject so those recommendations that the country has accepted then the country will then develop an implementation matrix to implement them to improve the human rights situation in the country now let's look at the last universal periodic review of South Sudan how does it look like like what are some of the issues that were raised that really are of concern like basically what what does it say about the human rights situation in South Sudan like I mentioned earlier on there are 258 recommendations now the government noted 36 of them noted means okay no no no we have seen it okay but then but there is a good gesture our government was able to like accept or support 222 recommendations were supported and if you look at those recommendations they are looking at they actually they report and the recommendations looked at the issues of ratification and accession of international instruments and we are grateful that you had them of the protocols was ratified the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disability which has also been ratified so that was one of the things and then administration of justice and fair trial some of the recommendations look at issues of administration of justice and fair trial then a review of the national laws and policies and you've been if you're being following the national laws have been undergoing review accept the national security bill which has been on review and you you have had the public doubt crime on some of the provisions on some of the provisions there yeah and then the accommodations also bring something to do with improvement on transitional justice civil and political rights for example freedom of opinion freedom of expression and access to information this is an area that the recommendations looked at also the recommendations point out issues do it right to participate in public affairs and right to vote for example the elections that are coming another interesting areas that area that the recommendations focus on in terms of improvement is economic social and cultural rights and under this we talk about the right to education the right to quality and accessible health care the right to food and I think this is for example for south Sudan to achieve this we had of his excellency the president when he was opening the parliament last time and he gave a directive on implementation of free primary education so this is actually something that can also improve the the human rights situation in terms of rights which is on economic social and cultural rights so these are some of the the areas that actually the recommendations highlight in terms of improvement for example a pursue the stages of accession to the convention to the governance and the conventions mentioned in the report and then a tech necessary measures to reform the judicial system and ensure its independence in order to end impunity and enhance access to justice this was a recommendation by Libya and many others all right now you've just told us about the recommendation of course on what needed to be done by the country but what does the report say when it describes south Sudan in terms of the human rights violations what does it say where are we actually what is the situation like back home here uh in in terms of overview you know the report is is very specific it looks at for example economic social and cultural rights one of the recommendations say continue to increase the investment in education and reduce the rate of children dropping out of school and this was a recommendation done by China all right and and so the the report looks at specific issues but um i i i don't think it does ranking like in terms of other situations yeah like other uh bodies might do maybe uh where your situation lies but they look at the issues and they give recommendations so the interest is for you to like it's done in a dialogue manner now now as civil society called using that is working of cause with the government and and other sectors in these particular recommendations after they were given to south Sudan have you seen any implementation efforts that have been put in place so far yeah i think on the side of the government i can say yes because uh in terms of if you look at one of the recommendation which is the ratification of the conventions uh uh which is saying that pursue the stages of accession to the conventions and uh uh the the governance and conventions mentioned in the report uh ratification uh we had of the Maputo protocol and of course the the the also convention of the rights of persons with disability so what is remaining is now i think the domestification so the ratification is done and then it need to be domesticated for example the Maputo protocol we now need the anti gbv bill to be passed uh and which will help actually in the domestification of some of the rights uh uh embedded in the Maputo protocol uh the right to education also so uh if the the free education the free primary education if it can be practical uh practically in rolled out in the schools then that is when we will say that uh the documents ratified are now being domesticated and are being now put into practice so if you look at the persons with disability convention on the rights of persons with disability uh uh in terms of programs now is there awareness for persons with disability to know their rights as part of the convention is there popular campaigns done to roll out these and other services that are to achieve those provisions in that convention that remains the question that we need to look at all right if you just join us you're listening to know your rights on radio mirai program that comes to you every friday and yes we are discussing today about the universal periodic review working towards the realization of human rights in south Sudan now my guest here in the studio is mr konda devitt who is the program manager for a manna uh south Sudan if you have any question that you like to ask please don't hesitate you can give us a call on 0-9-9-6-8-6-2-9-7 you can as well just send us a text message and our text message line is 0-9-1-2-1-7-7-1-1 for one well let's take our first call on this particular program hello Miraya good morning good morning Miraya yes welcome your name please and what are you calling from Gabriel is good to have you welcome do you have any comment or question that you like to ask my guest here in the studio okay my question to the guest in the studio is as a human right is a right to leave and is right to everyone are you listening to me yes i i'm listening to you very well i'm also getting new government go ahead okay okay there there are other people who cannot respect humanity and then there is other some random killing everywhere i do you think human rights are there and what mechanisms would be used to stop those rampant killing of the other people the other people who cannot respect the humanity all right thank you my question to the guest in the studio thank you Gabriel thank you for your question and yes we give a chance to our guest right now to answer your question now he said of course there is the right to live but there are some people who take the laws into their hands and probably take away lives what happens in this scenario yeah i think the roadmap to to address the issue that Gabriel our race is that fast we really need to build our institutions so that when we build our state in institutions we can see rule of law and when there is rule of law Gabriel i think some of these issues can be addressed because first if we build our institutions and we impress good governance there will be rule of law and when there is rule of law there will be no impunity but where such incidences happen and there is no rule of law impunity is seen and then that still leaves the status quo very very bad and the issues of peace and security is also something that we need to collectively work and make sure that South Sudan is a peaceful place for all of us to live in all right so i will say one first build institutions and then put rule of law all right let's take some calls you can still talk to us here no you're right hello good morning james in bia lei you know jana lei is all my body has any time to have the type of board let's have the target i mean the whole bama like i had a car but in calistm of japan you can roll a little mobile actually i'll board you know how to roll a mobile mobile as mobile as well as low hot i'm day a concase five maryman see this ability maruma board a hot the amount of disability and the amount of disability and the amount of disability is the ability to model the human mind is so well as i do in the store they can't consider what is the high they make it much better the common best fit in world women a gentleman who makes it popular the count yet and any amount of people who are concerned they call in his auto kalaskas sukran sukran calist james bia mamosa rakavitak fi bernamiktena tanoiurayj and to alnabadi fusale a diuttenafy studio kanda david uh james bia is talking particularly of well let me call it miscarriage of justice basically he said sometimes sometimes you you discriminate yeah just this yeah sometimes you are the victim but you're being blamed here and you don't get the justice and your rights are you know not given to you why is that so why is it happening in the country and how can we tackle that and he also raised the issue of people with disabilities not given their rights sometimes in in most places yeah yeah i really hear him and uh i hear you uh what was his name james bia james yeah i hear you james and this is not only you cry but there are many people who also bear with you that pain so why why why some people don't get justice why of course uh there is corruption and when we talk of corruption corruption happens in in very many ways so for example if there's a case and then someone goes and bribes somebody to to to to to to buy justice then some of the injustices definitely injustice can be there yeah abuse of power uh things like uh uh bribes those also can can can constitute to that but also like i earlier on said we need to really improve the rule of law in our country where nobody is above the law if you reach that stage where there's no one above the law whether you're my brother if you've done something i'm the one to take you and say uh uh this one you have to face it that is how by the way we were we were we were south Sudanese all our cultures trained us you know you are you are disciplined even your neighbor you can discipline your child but i don't know how you lost accountable for the actions accountability was right when you're young when you're young ita can sere guquemut the fataw kasuma takata kanang or galana macere guquemu takayamu takayamu saloon takayamu takayamu takayamu takayamu takayamu takayamu takayamu takayamu takayamu takayamu takayamu so we need to be accountable in our actions and we need to really improve rule of law for us to have justice and then persons with disability i really hear their cries say it's i went to do uh a workshop in uh in the eastern equatoria and one of the persons with disability came to me and said david thank you very much for bringing this workshop to this whole there is a certain a workshop that was organized they took them to amara and going up there you know there was no provision for them to go they have to go home and not attend that workshop so you know so we need to start addressing the issues of persons with disability now that the government have ratified the convention on the uh persons disability uh uh so yeah it need to be domesticated in terms of when we are building us houses structures uh you we need to have a provision where these people can access the facilities absolutely and then uh so domestication of this this is really very crucial uh it should not just remain on the pepper but which you roll it out up to the grassroot level so that they are able to realize these rights that we are talking about in the conventional persons disability i agree totally because you find that in many countries like in many cities or many big buildings even the building plan itself before it's presented to the government before it is approved uh actually it has to see that there are provisions for people with disability actually we are being having a conversation that we also need in the elections we need the uh uh uh they call it to a ticket there's women listening representatives no women list you we too do it we also need uh persons disability list that they go direct okay for the election so that they are they also have the the right to election absolutely yeah in this so there are many rights that these people need all right if you just join us you know you're listening to know your rights on radio me right this is a program that comes to you every friday at nine a.m after the news and yes we are discussing about rights of everyone and also working towards the realization of human rights in south Sudan if you have any question please don't hesitate well our lines are still on and we'll be taking a quite uh three or two more good morning good morning yes good morning subal care good morning how are you i'm fine thank you how are you fine fine your name and where are you calling from subco locobango say it's good to have you subco locobango say uh please go ahead with your question okay yes i welcome also our guests in this video there yes i have i have only two questions to us yeah the first one is uh i wanted to because i'm a citizen of this nation and then the way that we the citizen being handled our resource it seemed to be we have been abandoned and this is whereby you see a lot of a lot of things have been going you say this is a unknown government when they kill somebody they will just say it unknown government unknown government until when will this unknown government will finish and where did they get even the gun and where did they get this given name by calling unknown government so to me i need to know am i right number two so in other words you're saying that the government or the authorities are not doing and now in trying to arrest people who are committing this kind of crimes and in the process of causing violating human rights yeah number two is number two is uh suburb William uh times it's now i want to go to to Juba yes are you there subco locobango say was seemed to have i lost the line there let's take another call so we can give a chance to our guests to answer all two hello good morning yes how are you i'm fine thank you how are you yeah i'm good my name is johnson wretch johnson wretch okay 2022 and i was not you all you are you are interviewed with me together with i am hmm online okay both yes welcome uh well thank you so much possible i would like to welcome the guest from the the guest from the studio i believe um is a counter David uh malice oxidami you always doing a lot of things now to be children brief earlier you were talking about the young convention of the PR of both the university the universal poetic review yes the one for personal disability okay okay the rights of persons with disabilities yes i think now i want to ask a question here now you are only talking about people with the ability they are right to be included in a photo at all next step of society now what are the obstacles how can i know that okay now what are the obstacles that uh that will that right will will get by right i will like to lend them what what okay can you please yes okay i said that what are the obstacles like for example how can i identify the obstacles that that right will be the articles they'll get you know what to go obstacles okay obstacles obstacles okay yeah okay okay how will i know that hmm how how they uh you're like uh uh man uh uh mana program so how will they support people do they support people with disabilities okay okay we were done with our reasons so that i can just want to attach them all right i'm not going to support the music i'm doing music and also i'm supporting me all right all right thank you thank you so much jones and red for talking to us um yes uh david you you you begin with jones and reds before we come to soko loko bongoshi yeah jones and asked a very pertinent question on how can he know that there are obstacles affecting them one of the things i will encourage him is to to get an access to the convention on persons disability hmm and let him read that document the document clearly spells out the core core uh rights and uh for persons with disabilities so that when he knows now he can be able to ask for this so the first thing is for him to know his right as per the convention but also as per the constitution and any other law that grants them their rights once you know that then you are able to to claim it how do you know uh the challenges that you you face for example limited accessibility some of the persons disability they lack uh facilities for access like mobility to to move but i'm happy that uh the the the minister of gender child social welfare they have the rehabilitation center uh around customs there they do provide these uh uh uh mobility uh items to support the the issue of access yeah but also the limited accessibility comes in terms of infrastructure uh johnson i was saying that some of the buildings the way they are constructed cannot allow you to go up and access services in that so transportation even public facilities you know so even saying some toilets even they don't favor some persons with disability absolutely uh and and that makes it very difficult for them so discrimination and stigma is one of the the the obstacles that uh you know but these people uh some people when they look at persons ability they say this person cannot be given this job how will he you know can he do it very fast you know they begin to question this and that is discrimination and stigma which is not allowed so there are many uh obstacles like lack of awareness and education can be an obstacle barrier to education can be an obstacle limited health care services can be an obstacle even poverty and the economics exclusion poverty and economic exclusion can be also uh uh an obstacle right let's conclude with uh Sokoloko bongo say he did mention and talked about well a lot of killings taking place but they're just being termed as a known gunman and he's really tired of this the issue of uh unknown gunman first of all for us to address this issue we need to enhance security measures and we need to strengthen uh rule of law enforcement or they uh the measures can be strengthening rule of law and forcing security agencies actually need to improve their capacity to detect and apprehend unknown gunman so our security need to beef up their capacity so if they cannot handle if they cannot find out where this unknown gunman is then all of us are in danger yeah so our security need to beef them their capacity up so that they're able to detect and apprehend unknown gunman and then conduct you know targeted operations and patrols in areas where these unknown people are suspected all right this is an immediate or something but also this amendment demobilization can be one of the thing political dialogue to sort out some grievances community engagement and awareness for those who are doing it should stop it all right this are some of the things that's the time we have thank you so much for coming to know your rights this week we do appreciate your time and hope to see you again in other programs thank you thank you so much and yes with that we come to the end of the edition for know your rights for this week edition well catch me next week if you can same time same program same radio station i've been with you seven William do have a very very lovely weekend and as i always say please let the weekend not weaken you bye bye for now