Our Work

Background

Rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution of India and supported through Universal Declaration on Human Rights by UN in 1948 are the basic tenet of human right assured to every individual, irrespective of caste, creed, colour, race, origin, sex, religion etc. Human right violations are insidious and appears in many forms. Major concerns of human rights violations at the current time are violence over Dalits, tribal & religious minority’s issues. Deprivation & denial of access of marginalised communities over natural resources for livelihood, communal violence, bonded labour, child labour, human trafficking, custodial deaths, displacement as well as gross violation of environmental measures by industries & mines jeopardising survival of local/indigenous communities, high handedness of administration in suppressing democratic movements & killing of innocents by Police and so on. Ineffective governance, biased judiciary are some of the factors that help perpetuating human right violation in different forms. Protecting the marginalized and safeguarding their interest is possible if the democratic processes are not compromised and the democratic institutions are allowed to function as per the constitutional mandates? CSNR is intervening to strengthen civil societies, for ensuring that both the process and the institutions are not demeaned.

Intervention

• CSNR has built capacity of community level change agents, social activists and Human Rights Defenders (HRD) on the area of fact-finding skill, documentation of case histories and how to carry forward advocacy led interventions. They were made aware on how to take the help of democratic institutions, mechanisms, norms and forums for redressing the grievances of the poor and marginalized population affected by human rights violations.
• CSNR has launched series of advocacy initiatives to bring reforms in Policing in Odisha. The initiative that drove reform was strengthening of a state level civil society forum of human rights with the help of National and State level Human Rights institutions for addressing cases of human rights violation.

What has been done so far?

• CSNR along with CCFD conducted a study titled ‘Reaching Communities-Needs of People’s Movements’.
• Study & advocacy for police reform, advocacy for health rights, Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of human rights advocacy and others have been undertaken (on the basis of findings and recommendations of the study as mentioned above).
• CSNR has launched seven fact finding mission on issues such as Health & environmental hazard, Rehabilitation & resettlement, Police atrocities, Forced eviction, Minority issue.
• CSNR has conducted policy research on five issues such as Rights of minorities and violation of right of belief, conditions of PwDs from minority communities, Fair compensation and transparency in land acquisition, Forest Right Act and forest dwellers, Critical analysis of PESA.
• CSNR has developed awareness, education and communication materials on citizen’s right issue as well as on right of the communities over common property resources.
• CSNR is providing fellowship support to the human right defenders working in the area of land and environment.
• CSNR has built strategies to help communities’ access justice and defend their rights through the existing legal mechanism. CSNR has filed 80 complaints to statutory human right institutions, out of which 70 complaints have been registered and are currently under trial.
• CSNR is running free legal aid clinics to people belonging to the marginalized communities.

Accomplishment

• Study report on 'Reaching Communities-Needs of People’s Movements' has been published.
• Total 300 numbers of social activists, change agents and Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) across the state have been trained and they are now quite adept in fact finding and documenting case histories of human rights violations. They are now competent to undertake advocacy interventions on human rights violation cases.
• The Human Rights Defenders (HRDs), activists and community level volunteers have successfully intervened in 80 numbers of human rights violation cases.

Current Engagement

• Monitoring of Violations of Rights: Tracking violation of Rights (access, possession, ownership, usufructuary rights, protection against forcible alienation/displacement) and entitlements of Adivasis, Dalits, women and marginalised communities over land, forest, water resources.
• Information Collection and dissemination: Collection of information from other sources; on-field visual and oral evidences from the fields like photographs/video/audio records, statements of victims, witnesses & duty bearers; documents & reports from the government offices and other relevant stakeholders. And analysis of these information and required dissemination.
• Conducting workshops, meetings, strategy planning meetings for campaign.
• Resuming dialogue with the authorities & concerned duty bearers on human rights violation cases.
• Media campaigns: Press conference, release and publication of violation cases.
• Lobbying with Legislators and Political Parties.

Ways Ahead

• To monitor & campaign against water, air and soil pollution due to industrial wastes and other pollutants released from mines, industries and processing plants at Jajpur and Keonjhar Districts of Odisha.
• To build capacity of the communities to claim ownership over their traditional habitats and community resources in South Odisha.