2.  PROJECT DESCRIPTION   (in brief)

This is a project to provide assistance to the victims of human rights violations and marginalized people described as target groups, with an easily accessible institution at the district level to obtain help to seek relief available to them from state institutions   and to provide immediate assistance to such victims and their families   to continue their life as best as possible with the limited resources at their disposal; and provide for an institution   to collect, document,   analyse and study   the data so   collected, and to make such data available to concerned institutions to understand the trends and patterns of such violations of human rights to devise appropriate preventive measures.    
 
 2.1 Objectives;
 
i.  To establish at the district level in the key conflict affected areas,   an institution easily accessible to   the target group   to     provide information about   any violation of their rights and seek assistance to take further action in that connection.

ii.  To help the target group to obtain speedy relief from State institutions responsible for dealing with violation of their rights, such as the Police, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the Courts of law, etc.

iii.  To provide legal assistance to those victims who had not received adequate and satisfactory relief from the State institutions, such as to appeal to a higher authority or the Courts in respect of such relief granted or otherwise.

iv.   To provide assistance to the affected persons in the target groups   and/or his family to re-start their lives after being affected by the violation of their rights, as for instance, a physical disability, loss of a breadwinner, displacement etc.

v.  To conduct programmes to raise awareness among the people of their rights under the law and to conduct advocacy campaigns in this regard.

vi.  To collect and document all information relating to incidents of human rights violations in the respective areas, enter them into a data base for research and analysis by appropriate persons to understand the trends and patterns of such incidents.

vii.  To use the data collected for advocacy purposes to devise ways and means of preventing human rights violations in the future and dealing with impunity by perpetrators of such violations.

 2.2     Activities:
 

i.  Documentation Unit

The documentation unit will consist of personnel having experience in collection and entry of data into a data base specially prepared from this purpose. The data would be accessed from the reports of incidents human rights violations appearing in the newspapers in all three languages, English, Sinhala and Tamil. Confirmation of the incidents and the particulars about the incidents shall be obtained from the District Offices of the CHA.   Such officers will also provide to the documentation unit all particulars of incidents that come to their notice by was of complaints or otherwise. The data would be collected by the district officers in a data entry form to be made available by the documentation unit.
 
  The documentation unit has developed a draft control vocabulary to categorize the violations and incident types in order to systematically analyze the data. In addition, The Documentation unit assists the Colombo Knowledge Centre (CKC) team to expand their news sources by adding in 3 Tamil newspapers. The information collected will be disseminated by the information unit at head office of the CHA.
 
                  ii.  Web Portal

With the aim of using modern IT technology to support human rights activism via the documenting and tracking of violations. CHA created a web portal to set up a centralized cataloguing of human rights violations reported through out the country and promote timely action where it's necessary by human rights protecting organizations to address these violations and protect the rights of the people. The main focus of the initial actions would be to safeguard the liberty of the citizen in the country. The alarming rate of abductions, arrest and detention needs to be address within a very brief time where if you don't the chances of losing a life of an individual is very high in the country. Been very transparent of the complaints file and action taken by various government actors we are hoping to encourage the responsible government authorities will be more vigilant in performing their duties. We will focus on immediate intervention on cases where immediate intervention is necessary to safeguard the liberty of an individual.
 
The system CHA has proposed will allow any individual who has access to the internet to report any incident they have witnessed, or have heard about from a third party. This will be exposed to public at different stages as time goes by. Once the system proved to be fool-proof we will open it up for the whole public to report in on human rights violations.  
 
Authenticating the information received will be done by a team who will monitor the web portal. This team includes the web master of the CHA and the documentation unit and the relevant office of the IHR. They will function as the verifying organization with assistance district network.   The Documentation Unit will be monitoring the daily reporting of incidents and also follow it up with other agencies that operate at ground level.

The team with support of the CKC team could also scan the web on local news and add on more additional information relating to the same incident to make a strong case. This will ensure the authentication of the data in the database. Information which is passed on by other organisations could be made available by creating links to the organisations' websites. Information provided will be transferred to the Documentation Unit at the CHA head office via a secure channel using latest IT technology.  
 
 
 iii    Human Security Programme
                 
Human Rights Monitoring Group (HRMG) - In order to monitor and assist victims of human rights violation, an independent advisory group was formed on the initiative of CHA. It systematically monitors incidents of violation of human rights taking place in Sri Lanka. Information on such incidents are provided to it by the Documentation Unit and the District Officers of the CHA.   The whole purpose was to establish a group comprising local eminent persons to observe the manner in which investigations and inquiries into grave human rights violations are being conducted. This advisory group consists of human rights activists who are also academics, lawyers, senior civil servants such as Former Commissioner General of Prisons, A retired High Court judge is the head of this unit.   Some of the lawyers are now active practice before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.
 
They meet at regular intervals and make appropriate observations and recommendations to relevant authorities and organisations on the applicable international standards especially relating to the provisions of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Social and Economic Rights, towards the better observance of the rule of law in Sri Lanka.   Such recommendations often comprise practical measures to address violations of human rights, particularly relating to the plight of people affected by the conflict, the plantations workers, rights of the detainees, conditions in the Prisons, etc to name few.   The HRMG also looks into violations of human rights as in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. This unit also makes substantive proposals concerning reform of existing and laws and the functioning of the legal system. For example the HRMG wrote to the National Human Rights Commission     pointing out the impropriety of its decision to impose a time limit of three months for invoking the jurisdiction of the Commission to entertain applications in relation to violations of human rights, The HRMG also inquired from the last of Commissioner of Inquiry into Disappearances on their findings on the complaints made to the Commission as the report had not been made public. The HRMG also issued a statement concerning problems faced by the people when crossing the Meddavachchiya check point.
 
To facilitate the smooth the functioning of the HRMG, the CHA has appointed 6 persons as Human Rights Desk Officers to function in the districts of Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna.     However, due to the inadequacy of resources CHA has not been able to appoint more officers in several vital areas which are presently covered by other CHA staff travelling to these areas as and when time permits and the authorities allowed access to such areas.   This position will change if officers are located in these places on a permanent basis.   The CHA has an officer based in Colombo to record data received from the districts, to prepare reports based on the information received and to make them available to the HRMG. A network has been created in the district and national levels to monitor on a monthly basis the human right situation in those districts.
 
CHA provides the necessary logistical support, including meeting the running cost of the office of the HRMG, the payment of its staff and the maintenance of the office and its equipment.

   Under this set of activities, measures will be taken to provide an avenue to entertain complaints and record statements relating to cases of human rights violations. Such information will also be used to ensure effective investigations into the matter.   Monitoring the current pattern in human rights violations in the country will enable the law enforcing and implementation authorities to realistically assess the situation. National and international level networking will be promoted. CHA provides legal assistance with the support of Institute of Human Rights which is a sister organisation of the CHA.
 

iv.   Activities of Human Rights Desk Officer.   (HRDO)
 
Their main task is to accept human rights violation related complaints at district level for the purpose of action, advocacy, raising awareness, also for documenting. Subsequently, HRDOs will facilitate to provision of livelihood assistance to families of victims of human rights violations and monitor their progress and report. The HRDOs are managed by the Programme Officer of the Human Security Unit based in Colombo.

The functions of the HRDOs will include the following -
 
•Receiving complaints of hr violations and attending to requested assistance.
•Organizing legal and documentation clinics
•Assisting the District Lawyer by providing relevant information.
•Organizing and participating in Psycho-social forums
•Participating at district human security meetings
•Organizing Community Protection Network meetings
•Doing regular field visits.
•Participating at District consortia meetings.

v. Data Entry Officers (DEOS)
   
  DEOs will be based in Colombo and their functions will be as follows:
 
•  Recording of data received from districts on daily incidents of human rights violations.
•  Preparing of reports based on the information receive from districts and provide them to HRMG member for further action.
•  Work with Human Security officer to assist victim's family to locate the missing person, to provide legal assistance and refer them to psychosocial unit for counselling.
•  Preparation of meeting minutes and other related administrative tasks.
 

iv. General Advocacy and Reporting on Human Security related issues at District /    
    Regional and     National level.

The CHA's Advocacy team addresses the issues of vulnerable groups, the underprivileged and victims of human rights violations such as arbitrary arrests with no charges made. This advocacy in partnership with individuals and organizations networked by PHRMI. The persons and organizations are chosen for such advocacy by a process of identifying the best suited to obtain positive results at the administrative or policy determination level. In essence that advocacy team seeks to bring about the equity, dignity and freedom of citizens who need assistance for redress.
 
The advocacy team comprises the following staff of CHA and meet on weekly basis with the identified district based issue.

Executive Director / Manager Relief and Rehabilitation/ Assistant Manager Advocacy / District advocacy officer/ Legal officer/ National programme officer/ Manager Peace unit/ Programme officer Advocacy / Programme officer Human Security/ Coordinator PHRMI/ Programme Officer Environment/ Livelihood Coordinator   and Psychosocial District liaising officer.
 
Issues such as those that relate to   livelihood, poverty alleviation, children's rights, minority rights , women's rights , rights to the disable housing and educational issues, ,Rights of plantation workers such as housing, access to health, education facilities for their children and ensuring the upward mobility of this section of our citizens who have been trapped in poverty for nearly two centuries since their arrival in this country as   cheap labour   for the tea and rubber estates during colonial times.