AI organises human rights workshop

Obuasi, Sept. 29, GNA - Amnesty International, Ghana (AIG), has organised a day's capacity building workshop for 40 participants on economic, social and cultural rights of the individual at Obuasi. Obuasi was chosen because of its numerous challenges it was facing from the activities of mining companies.

The workshop discussed issues such as the right to housing, water, human rights campaign methods, responsibilities of government and corporate bodies, the citizenry and civil society in the provision of economic, social and cultural rights. Mr Ofori Adusei, an Accra-based lawyer and former chairman of AIG, stressed the commitment of the organisation to ensure the respect for human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of the United Nations.

He said for the past eight years, AIG had engaged in the economic, social and cultural rights of the people with strong advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty. Mr Adusei said membership of Amnesty International now stood at over two million and that AIG was not affiliated to any government or political party. Miss Malavika Vartak, Co-ordinator, Global Forced Eviction Programme Centre on Housing Rights and Eviction, who led the discussions on the various rights, noted that forced eviction was a serious human rights violation.

She observed that the poor and the marginalized should have access to housing, adding "housing should not be discriminatory. "We are not saying everybody should put up a house but that everybody should have a place to live and be protected from eviction," she explained.

Miss Vartak it was unfortunate that some people perceived poor people as burdens to society, but said their contributions to the socio-economic development should be recognized. She said the government's support by way of providing low-cost housing facilities should, therefore, not to be seen as charity.