2009 Grantee Successes

Grants that make a difference

The Fund’s grantees are changing the world for the better, every day.  Here are just a few of their accomplishments in 2009:

·  In August 2009, Centro Para Acción Legal En Derechos Humanos (Center for Human Rights Legal Action – CALDH) won a precedent-setting legal victory when a Guatemalan federal court handed down a first-ever sentence for the crime of ‘forced disappearance.’ During Guatemala’s decades-long armed conflict that ended in the mid-1990s, an estimated 45,000 people were “disappeared.”  CALDH’s victory, in which a former military commissioner was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for each of the six victims that disappeared from their indigenous community, is the culmination of more than ten years of work that started with pressing for forced disappearance to be classified as a crime. 

·  In April 2009, after persistent activism by LAW-Uganda, the Ugandan Parliament passed a comprehensive Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act. The law recognizes that women and children are particularly vulnerable, and establishes protections for victims from automatic arrest or deportation and referral to shelters or clinics where victims can receive legal and psycho-social support. The Act also prescribes penalties of 15 years' to life imprisonment for traffickers.

·  In Thailand, Environmental Litigation and Advocacy for the Want (ENLAW) won a landmark environmental justice case on behalf of eleven heavily-polluted communities. The court ordered that the Map Ta Phut industrial area in Rayong province be declared a “pollution control zone,” which forces the state and polluters to act urgently to mitigate the impact of pollution on residents.  This landmark decision has the potential to establish the environmental rights of communities in other industrial zones as well.

·  In November 2009, after sustained advocacy by Fund grantees, the Tunisian president pardoned and released 60 prisoners from the Gafsa mine basin who had been jailed since June 2008 for organizing demonstrations to protest corruption and poor working conditions. Fund grantees provided legal aid to the arrested protesters, documented trial irregularities that resulted in heavy jail terms, and generated media coverage in major European newspapers. This victory is an important step for activists combating a regional trend of imprisoning dissidents to silence poor communities protesting economic and social rights abuse.

·  Bureau pour le Volontariat au service de l’Enfance et de la Santé (Volunteer Office in the Service of Children and Health - BVES) has made extraordinary progress in the fight to end the brutalization and exploitation of children in the DRC, negotiating the release of 2,961 children from armed groups in the first six months of 2009.  BVES also works to prevent conscription of children by advocating directly with the military on children’s rights and protection issues.  As a result of this work, several commanders have directed their soldiers not to recruit children.

·  In India, Association of Strong Women Alone (ASTHA/ASWA) persuaded the state of Rajasthan to almost double pension support for poor widows, and helped thousands of widows secure $877,000 in social security benefits and almost $370,000 in labor contracts. In Rajasthan, as in much of India, single women and widows are denied government benefits and employment opportunities as a result of their social status. ASTHA/ASWA’s successes and its training for women outside of Rajasthan have led to the formation of ekal nari sangathans (women alone organizations) in neighboring states.

·  In Guatemala, COMUNDICH set a groundbreaking legal precedent when a court ruled that rural land titles could be registered in the name of indigenous communities. The ruling secured a permanent legal title for a Ch’orti indigenous community, who previously had to pay rent to the municipal government for land they’ve occupied for centuries. Using their successful legal strategy, COMUNDICH is now working with additional communities.

·  Thanks to the advocacy and legal aid of Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (Democratic Association of Moroccan Women – ADFM), the Moroccan Minister of the Interior declared in September 2009 that women and men of the Soulaliyate tribe would equally share funds generated by the sale of the tribe’s collective lands. The money generated by these sales was previously distributed only to men within the tribe. This victory was a milestone both in its immediate effects for the Soulaliyate women, who have traditionally had to rely on their husbands or male relatives for survival, as well as in the success of ADFM in broadening the grassroots women’s rights movement in Morocco. 

·  In September 2009, after a highly effective media campaign and litigation pursued by Thai grantee the Migrant Justice Program of the Human Rights and Development Foundation, the parents of a seventeen-year-old Burmese worker—killed while working under dangerous conditions—settled claims against their son’s employers in Chiang Mai. Thailand is home to more than two million Burmese and Cambodian migrant workers, who, excluded by Thai labor laws, are exploited by abusive employers and endure dangerous working conditions. The 250,000 baht ($7,143) settlement provides hope for these workers, and has potential to establish employer accountability for labor rights violations.

·  Due in large part to the Foundation for Development, Democracy, and Human Rights’ work to enable women to exercise their political rights, in 2009 in eastern Sierra Leone 50 percent of local ward representatives and 30 percent of district council members are women. This increase in women’s leadership in local governance is critical to ensuring that recent national women’s rights victories—criminalization of domestic violence, guarantees of women’s property and inheritance rights, and consent and minimum age for marriage—are implemented on the ground and translate into real and positive changes for women and girls.

For more information about Fund grantees, please see our 2009 Grants List.

December 2009