The Voice

Since time immemorial, people have been struggling for their rights and the rights of their family members or fellow citizens. In the modern era, those fighting for the rights of others are called human rights defenders. It has never been easy to struggle for human rights in the discourse of Member States of the UN . Human rights defenders have always been persecuted and even in this modern world, it has never been the priority of States to make efforts to protect these voices of dissent or the voices for human rights. Long after the evolution of International Humanitarian Law, the framework for the protection of human rights defenders found resonance in the discourse of Member States of the UN, when in 1984 the UN began the elaboration of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. In 1998, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), after 14 long years of lobbying and campaigning by international human rights organizations, the UN General Assembly adopted the text of the ‘Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,’ which is commonly referred to as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and its member organizations in various Asian countries have experienced threats; attacks; and restrictions on their right to travel, to assemble and organize themselves as associations of the families of the disappeared, and to campaign against the phenomenon of enforced disappearances.