NYU Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights Blog

2022 Fellows

A Slow “Justice”

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Zoe Lee / Burma Task Force – Justice For All /Chicago, IL, USA 

The meetings with about a dozen members of Congress went well. These meetings have been the most enlightening of all the work I have done here. Congressional staff range from enthusiastically supportive to completely disengaged. We have had to find work-arounds to certain principles, for example, Republican preferences to not appoint special envoys under the pretense that it diminishes the power of Congress to employ checks and balances and instead puts greater power under the executive. Such was the argument brought up in one of our meetings with Congressional staff. However, it seems that this principle only applies in certain cases, and we ought to call them out on these inconsistencies. These members of Congress were more than happy to support a Special Envoy on Antisemitism during the 2019-2020 session, and yet are unwilling to do the same for a Special Envoy on Islamophobia. 

In Congress inconsistencies abound. The question is how to approach the question; straight confrontation is unlikely to be productive, but a gentle nudge is just as likely to be ineffective. Walking the fine line in between the two is a constant struggle, but there seem to be few other options. 

There do appear to be certain issues which enjoy broad bipartisan support. Those mainly concern China. As we have seen recently with Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, most actions that counter Chinese interests gain support from members of both parties. We have found the same to be true regarding the Uyghur in both the UFLPA and the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act. Whilst the motivation for each party may differ in supporting such acts, there is nonetheless common ground to be found. As we have mentioned in our course previously, perhaps the best way to motivate action going forward is to show that the interests of all parties involved are served in a common action. 

As my work with Burma Task Force comes to an end, I can say that while justice does move forward, it is an extraordinarily slow and gradual process, and upon its conclusion it saves few in peril. Justice is political, it depends on the whims of the few and almost always arrives much too late. The UN’s highest court proceeds with the case of the Rohingya despite the Tatmadaw’s objections whilst the Rohingya continue to languish in camps. That is justice as it is conceived today. 

Reflections and Lessons

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Eric Raimondi, Still I Rise, Greece

My work this summer is coming to an end. When I first envisioned interning with Still I Rise as a Gallatin Global Human Rights Fellow, I was excited to return to this organization because I know the work they do consistently has a positive impact on the people they serve. I wanted to assist Still I Rise in the areas of research and communications, and thanks to the flexibility of the organization agreement, I was able to do that.

Still I Rise Logo
Logo of Still I Rise

As my past blog posts demonstrate, my work has involved a range of tasks, including drafting press releases, researching data and legal developments related to migration, and writing internal and external reports. I wanted to have an impact on the organization while at the same time learn from the work in order to guide my future endeavors. For example, my most recent project was to research and draft a report on the parallels between the EU and Greek asylum legal frameworks. While this experience allowed me to contribute my skills and previous knowledge to Still I Rise, this was also exposure to working alongside human rights researchers.  

Due to unforeseen circumstances, my work ended up being a blend of remote and in person work in the field. For about a month and a half, I was based in Greece to collect testimonies and engage with people involved in the asylum process on the Aegean islands. However, for the remainder of the internship timeline, I was based in other locations and completed the work remotely. When I wasn’t in Greece and worked remotely, I found it more difficult to schedule my time and coordinate all my tasks. Although I was still successful when I worked remotely, I largely preferred the in person work because of the face-to-face interactions with colleagues it offered.  

Overall, I am pleased with my experience with Still I Rise and am more knowledgeable about the human rights field. In the future as I consider other career and academic opportunities, I hope to draw from this informative experience.

Looking Forward

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Reem Djebli/ Wise Afghanistan/ San Francisco, USA

As I eagerly await the remainder of the responses from the surveys so that I may begin analyzing the replies, I feel a renewed sense of confidence that the issue of women’s access to education in Afghanistan will one day be non-existent. It comes as no surprise to me that women across the nation have brilliant ideas on how to bridge the gap between men and women, and moreover improve the literacy rating for the country overall. If given the opportunity to (safely) voice their visions for how to create an equitable education system, they would gladly do it. These are just the initial sentiments I have based on the research I have been conducting. Once I have synthesized my findings into a proper policy proposal, I hope that it will demonstrate the brilliance and creativity of the women I have had the privilege of speaking to and reading about. 

Many of these women feel that the outside world is missing the bigger picture when it comes to women’s education. To them, they have historically seen the issue being tossed around as a political tool for the benefit of several parties, the P.D.P.A. (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan), the U.S.S.R., the U.S. government, the Taliban, etc. To them, they see the way forward is not to abandon their religion, culture, families, or country, but to embrace the feminist spirit of organizing for education that they want on their terms, as they’ve been doing for decades. What’s notable about many of the Afghan women I came across in my research is that they have a deep sense of connection to other Afghan women across ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. Even those who have had the access to education since they were children, express the notion that they want their sisters who have been systematically disenfranchised from educational opportunities due to their economic status to have the same opportunities they have had. They see their fight for women’s education as inseparable from the vision of a liberated and strong Afghanistan. 

The spirit of Afghan women’s organizing around access to education is powerful and inspirational. To ensure a bright, equitable, radical educational model to come for Afghan women we must continuously uplift and center their voices in any discussions regarding their future.  I would like to leave off with a powerful quote from Sima Samar to reflect on, the former Minister of Women’s Affairs in Afghanistan and a lifelong human rights advocate. In her article “Feminism, Peace, and Afghanistan” she states “I have been threatened by militia forces and told to close down my operations of educating Afghan girls. I always met such demands with the truth: that my crime would be giving girls pencils and paper, a crime I was willing to be hung in public for.” 

Listening attentively

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Luisa Fernanda Alarcón Criales

Fundación Red Mujer-es Warmi Yuma

San Agustín, Huila, Colombia.

Working with Warmi Yuma

Writing with the birds that sing along the keyboard under the sunshine of a beautiful day surrounded by my most beloved companions, three adorable dogs and two crazy cats, I have to say that so much has happened, yet not much. I’m slowly starting to feel grief of leaving this powerful place and the amazing people I have encountered.

Working with la Fundación has been a learning experience of slowing down and be present with them. They are tremendously diverse in their knowledge and their focus of labor varies in all different factors such as food, art, political organization, animals, herbs, handicrafts, archeology, biology; yet to try to place them in one sort of knowledge for each is to loose them as a whole complex human being. They have been tremendously generous and open, which has allowed me to be.

My initial proposal and idea of what I would encountered has been modified since my arrival. The truth is that there has been little activity, but meaningful things have happened. We have focused our time and my job in here in the auto-ethnography workshop. Their ideas and ways of coming along with a project is unmeasurable. I’m fascinated by what would the final product be off their individual projects. It doesn’t seem soon to be, but we will continue to work at a distance so that I can support them as much as I can.

This territory has taught me to listen, to listen as the form of observing, of learning, of knowing, of being. To listen to its deafening evening silence, to listen to my motorcycle speak to me and let me know when to change speed, to listen to the dogs that don’t like me riding my motorcycle in the middle of the night by myself and in complete darkness, to listen to the roosters tell each other stories, and to the dogs scream from mountain to mountain who is coming down the road. Therefore, my attention is now fully on noise and silence. The acts of silence between women, the silencing of the organization, the noises they produce as forms of resistance, the relationship to noise and silence that the sculptures in the region produce as themselves and the stories they represent.

Children's Archaeological Park of the Maternity-Quinchana

 

 

Traditional Knowledge and Western Science

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Maggie Stutz, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Anchorage, Alaska.

All summer, the small but mighty ACAT (Alaska Community Action on Toxics) team has been preparing for the big trip to Nome and Sivuqaq (St. Lawrence Island). Nome is a small remote town in northeastern Alaska, and Sivuqaq is a small island off the coast near Russia. Sivuqaq consists of three villages. Gambell is on the far side of the island by Russia; Savoonga is near the middle of the island; Northeast Cape is on the end of the island closest to Alaska.

During the Cold War, the United States Military established Aircraft Control and Warning radar stations, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, and a line of Distant Early Warning stations on Sivuqaq. Between 1948 and 1956, seven military installations spread about 2500 acres on the native people of Gambell’s land. In 1951 the Native Village of Savoonga granted the Air Force land at Northeast Cape to build a White Alice site. A letter from the Savoonga Tribal Council to Charles Jenus, Area Director, Alaska Native Service, United States Air Force, dated April 7, 1951, shows how the people of Savoonga requested that any garbage or refuge not be dumped in the streams or beaches because it could affect the seal breeding grounds. When the military abandoned the bases, they left behind fuel drums containing petroleum products, containers of PCBs, and above and underground fuel tanks. These toxins contaminated the food sources the Yupik people have hunted and eaten for generations.

Between 1985 and 2014, the Army Corps of Engineers spent about $120 million on cleanup. Although in 2014, they determined the cleanup was sufficient, miles of wire, transformers, fuels, heavy metals, asbestos, solvents, and PCBs were left behind. People residing on the island collectively live on contaminated land and eat contaminated food. Due to the contamination, this population of 1,600 (about 800 per community on the island, Gambell and Savoonga) has higher percentages of PCBs and Mercury in their blood and higher rates of cancer than the rest of the United States.

The contamination of fish and other local resources is especially hard on the indigenous communities of Sivuqaq because about 70 to 80 percent of families eat traditional food —bowhead whale, walrus, and seals. Despite efforts to call on the U.S Army Corp of Engineers to reevaluate their cleanup efforts with the new data that the community of Sivuqaq and ACAT has collected, there has been no such effort.

Despite the disregard from the United States government, we went to Nome to conduct a field institute. We met about 20 people from the island in Nome and spent the week with them. We spent the mornings in the classroom learning about GPS systems, mercury, PCBs, PFAS, and other contaminants in the area and how to test for them. In the afternoons, we all went to different water sources in the town and tested for contaminants. We took water samples, set up mercury filters to test the air, and set traps for Stickleback fish. The week’s point was to teach people from Sivuqaq how to collect data, proving their environment is contaminated through Western scientific methods.

Our trip to Northeast Cape was canceled last minute due to runway issues on the island and was rescheduled for next year. Due to this, we headed back to Anchorage a week early. Although this schedule change was disappointing, my week in Nome was terrific. I learned a lot and met amazing people from the Island and around the country.

I love working with ACAT and helping this community fight back against this injustice. Still, I think about how we perpetuate Western science’s power over Indigenous knowledge. The people of Sivuqaq knew their environment was contaminated due to the military sites before we came in and “proved” it with Western science. The United States government only respects data and knowledge if it was found and “proven” through this Western research method. However, we only re-stated the facts the people from Sivuqaq have been saying for decades. Why do we respect and only listen to facts and statements if they have been found through the Western scientific method? There are other methods and ways to know if something is true. I understand that this is the system currently in place. It is helpful to find data through the Western scientific method that supports what the people of Sivuqaq have been saying to hold the government accountable because our legal system only respects and listens to data found through this method. But, I wish there was a way to fight back against the unequal weight we put on Western science.


Constraints and Scarce Resources in the Human Rights Space post-Covid

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Huma Umar
Sakhi
New York City, USA

The final few weeks of my internship have slowed down a bit as I’m working on transitioning most of the clients I was working with directly to my team members. My team had also been dealing with a backlog of new clients due to limited advocates and more and more people seeking services, so some of my time recently has been spent on establishing contact and overcoming the backlog.

Every week throughout my time at Sakhi so far, I remember thinking at some point that I could do more, that I wasn’t doing enough. Retrospectively, as I look at my spreadsheet of clients and their needs and the plan I’ve made with them going forward, I’m realizing that I’ve done a lot more work than I’ve maybe realized and acknowledged, even for myself. Quite early on I realized the right amount of professional distance I needed to maintain with the recollections of trauma that were being shared with me for my own ability to work and advocate, and honoring these boundaries for myself has allowed me to not be burnt out (along with a very supportive team), which is what I was most anxious about.

Yet, I think I wasn’t adequately prepared for other challenges that came about due to just NGO work. One of the biggest challenges was essentially that funding for gender-based violence, especially organizations that supported survivors of intimate partner violence, really increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, though, with things returning back to “normal”, this funding has really started to dry up, leaving organizations with a range of logistical issues — at Sakhi, this has meant that the amount of emergency funding we offer to clients has become quite limited.

This has been frustrating, because along with informing clients about limited mental health and housing resources, as well as limited pro bono lawyers, I have on occasion also had to inform survivors in difficult and uncertain circumstances that we can support them with only a very little amount of emergency funding. As this internship winds down, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on the dynamics of NGO-work specifically, and the seemingly ever-present scarcity of resources related to this work. The experience at Sakhi has been very grounding in familiarizing me with the stark realities of the human rights non-profit space. At this point in time, funding seems like the biggest issue, but in an atmosphere of constant scarcity, how does one begin to try to reimagine and reinvent the ways human rights work is being done? How do we reorient the status quo in human rights work while remaining dependent on systems that are unwilling to provide holistic assistance?

Reflections and Reimagination with Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project

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Laura Zhang

Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project

Los Angeles, USA

I finished my summer projects with Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project just about two weeks ago now, and look back on the experience with great sincerity. Though working virtually and physically distant from the office had its difficulties, I continue to be motivated as a thinker and student by the sheer force of the Esperanza team to work collaboratively. As a result of the immersive work environment, I was able to complete many projects including a database map of more than ten categories of resources in LA County for unaccompanied minors, multiple bilingual resource guides to be distributed at legal orientations regarding social services, secure donations for the Opportunities for Youth program, teach workshops, and do individual legal orientations with clients. 

Working with Esperanza has opened up many new questions for me and my concentration such as: How can language invade legalized statist frameworks as a tool for livelihood and liberation? Immigration law continues to be complex because the state itself is to be held accountable for the displacement of so many people. How does violence and suffering become corroborated/ a tool of the state to perpetuate the limitations of the possibilities of life? What does it mean to document and what are the stakes? As a way to think through these questions, I am interested in finding ways to distort the grip of Western and contemporary conceptions of life to realize self preservation in human rights. 

I really saw the possibilities of this idea through my work with the Opportunities for Youth (OFY) program at Esperanza. In July, OFY served the largest number of youth ever since the start of their program in educational workshops, classes for the youth, and individual services. The capacity in such a program continues to be strained- only two interns including myself and one staff member were a part of it. As I transitioned out of my role for the summer, however, OFY hired a youth mentor whose role will be to push forward the programming capacity and offerings for youth at Esperanza beyond their legal proceedings. To be a part of so many programs at Esperanza has been an example of how the bridge between legal and social services offered for unaccompanied minors will continue to be strengthened. I am really excited to see the ongoing possibilities of community empowerment in immigration work, to not only reimagine what it means to be human, but how to preserve that kind of selfhood. 

 

The Fight for Human Rights in Vieques

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Karen Santos, HASER/La Colmena Cimarrona. Vieques, PR.

People are surprised when I tell them there’s no hospital in Vieques. A couple were even skeptical. They rushed to pull their phones out and google if what I said was actually true. Can one argue that Viequenses are being displaced not only because of natural disasters (that destroyed a weakened infrastructure due to colonial exploitation) and climate change but also because of Human Rights violations? Some of the more pressing Human Rights issues are regarding the access to proper public transportation (affecting the mobility of a community that must get to the Big Island to visit doctors and even to buy food. Also concerning is the absence of medical care (read more about Jaideliz Moreno Ventura’s case here) or the attack on their education system. Many public schools are closed every year. In contrast, charter ones seem to be in vogue (read more here ). The lack of services in Vieques is certainly a Human Rights violation. And it is intentional. They are pushing Viequenses out of their land. They don’t want them there.

Escuelas Pa'l Pueblo Tour

But who are they?

New outside investors are buying more and more land on the island, attracted by paradisaic beaches and generous tax breaks. They come to Vieques paying exorbitant prices and paying in cash. Viequenses, and Puerto Ricans in general, soon run out of housing options (rent or buying), as they can’t keep up with such high prices. These new settlers are driving entire communities out (read more about gentrification in Puerto Rico here).

With all these traumatic situations unfolding every day, I keep thinking about how Human Rights (discourses and organizations focused on them) allow communities to try to influence and take control over the issues that directly affect them. In many cases, communities can only access resources or interact with the State through NGOs. But let’s remember, Human Rights are obligations for governments. It is the government’s responsibility to promote and protect them. In the case of Puerto Rico local officials must act to address Human Rights issues, but especially the United States must assume its responsibility. Not only because of its colonial power status and its effects on the archipelago, but also because of the implementation of measures like PROMESA and La Junta. There’s literature on how austerity plans, like those implemented in Puerto Rico by La Junta, threaten Human Rights and can result in their violation (read more about austerity plans and Human Rights in Greece, office of the High Commissioner on austerity measures).

Despite such harsh conditions, Viequenses are finding ways to organize themselves and fight for their rights. La Colmena Cimarrona is an example of that. They know the fight will be long and hard, but they’re ready. Ready to feed Vieques and build a better country. The country they want.

Conditioning soil before planting corn

 

Planting pineapples

Unaccompanied Minors

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Nikki Myers

Al Otro Lado

San Ysidro, CA/ Tijuana, MX

My main assignment at Al Otro Lado for the past month has been to handle cases for humanitarian parole that deal with unaccompanied minors. An unaccompanied minor is, by definition, a person under 18 years of age crossing the border without a legal parent or guardian. These cases require an additional training by AOL to handle, specifically due to the risks involved with children crossing without adult representation. These cases can get messy when evaluating the presence of human trafficking, and sponsors need to be investigated more thoroughly than with adult cases. For example, a case is likely to be denied if the sponsor was the child’s “coyote” (a term used for individuals who help families cross the border for a fee), or if they are not an immediate family member. These cases are also handled by Child & Family Services instead of Immigration, so that way undocumented parents feel safe to claim their child once they cross into the U.S.

Ending my internship with this assignment has brought together the puzzle pieces of the immigration system in my mind. If the U.S. government understands how important child safety is, and purposefully will circumvent immigration laws to ensure that children are taken care of when they arrive in the U.S., then why isn’t the same protection offered to adults facing gang violence, poverty, and other forms of trafficking? Title 42, the law banning asylum-seekers due to Covid-19, remains in place despite the fact that most public places in the U.S. do not require masks or proof of vaccination anymore.

For children and adults alike, I’ve noticed how essential it is for AOL to offer comprehensive education to migrants about the immigration process and their rights once they cross into the U.S. Many migrants are forced to represent themselves through each step of the process, sometimes among people who don’t even speak their native language. In every step of the process, migrants are given resources for lawyers, education, work permits, and more, which has proven essential in ensuring the success of migrants once they have crossed. 

Abolition and Local Laws 16 and 194

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Sophia Opferman, Urban Justice Center – Freedom Agenda, New York, NY
As the summer comes to a close, I continue to grapple with the relationship between reform and revolution. There are two staff community organizers at the Freedom Agenda, Edwin and Ashley, along with another college intern, Doris, who I was fortunate enough to spend time working with this summer. Many of our conversations lead back to reform and revolution. Inherent to the work of the Freedom Agenda is a belief in abolition and a fundamental disagreement with the practice of incarceration as it exists in the United States today. On the other hand, the Freedom Agenda’s work at this moment is fighting to accelerate Local Law 16, which mandates the transfer of Rikers Island land, building, and facilities to local city administration. By 2027, Rikers Island will be closed, leaving the city to establish smaller, community-run jails with increased community oversight.

This goes against many traditional lines of abolitionist thought, as many would see closing one jail in order to open a new one as a perpetuation of the system rather than an overhaul of incarceration as a whole. While it may not be explicitly abolitionist or revolutionary to close Rikers just to open another jail, the reality of this project, on the ground, would serve to cut the imprisoned population by 75% – from 14,500 on Rikers to around 2,800 across the new borough-based jails. Additionally, the new jails are subject to Local Law 194, which would amend the bill of rights for incarcerated people in New York, and would mandate improved minimum standards in jails such as access to natural light and fresh air, improved clinical spaces with 24-hour access to emergency response, heating, and air conditioning, visiting spaces that are suitable for children, at least one window in each cell, etc. Again, this may not seem explicitly revolutionist, but perhaps revolution is the sum of meaningful reforms.

On the other hand, as many who have survived Rikers know, just because there are laws in place to protect certain rights, jails and prisons across the United States are extralegal institutions with little to no oversight and the ability to abuse incarcerated people with impunity. I will continue to grapple with this reality and the question of how to affect little changes on the ground while maintaining the abolitionist mindset that recognized reforms as a drop in the ocean of what needs to be done to truly inspire a revolution.