Secretariat established for human rights groups

NON-governmental organisation Oxfam International has supported various women’s human rights defender organisations in the Highlands region to establish a secretariat.
The women’s human rights defender movement in the region will be amalgamated under the new secretariat to perform more effectively and extensively, according to team leader Mary Kini.  Kini, who was one of the founders of Kup Women for Peace (KWP) group in Chimbu, said women’s human rights defenders, working in the Highlands provinces with law enforcement agencies, churches and other NGOs to protect and promote human rights would now come under one secretariat.
“We want to strengthen awareness campaigns on human rights, do networking with partners using Christian principles to protect and promote human rights not only for women but men as well,” she said.
Kini and secretary Lilly Besoer from the Jiwaka-based NGO Voice For Change, thanked Oxfam International for funding the workshop and mobilising them together to form the secretariat.
“Instead of different individual organisations performing similar tasks at our respective locations, we need an umbrella organisation to coordinate us,” Besoer said.
“The formation of the secretariat for Highlands’s women’s human rights defenders is a way forward.”
She said they promoted and protected not only women but everyone whose rights have been deprived in various ways.