Geneva, 10 Decembre 2010- Since the United Nations was established over 60 years ago, there have been dramatic advances in crafting and implementing a system of universal human rights – rights which are, under international law, applicable to each and every one of us: old and young, male and female, rich and poor, whoever we are and wherever we are from.

We know the names of some of those who changed human rights history: those who were in the vanguard of the struggle to abolish slavery, such as William Wilberforce; those who engineered major advances in women’s rights, such as Gloria Steinem, Huda Shaarawi and Simone de Beauvoir. We also know about those who tackled the injustice of colonialism such as Mahatma Gandhi, and those – like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Rigoberta Menchu – who campaigned to end institutionalized racism and discrimination against minorities and indigenous peoples.

GENEVA , 26 June 2010 – “Almost all states have laws that prohibit torture and declare it a crime. Yet many states practice torture and do not prosecute those who commit it. Chilling reports of torture cross the desks of UN human rights officials every day, even though those states that practice it try to keep it tucked away in small, dark places that most of us never see, and many of us would like to think could not possibly exist behind the shiny facades of our 21st century cities.”

Kinshasa, 16 October 2011 - The NGOs Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), The Carter Center and Search for Common Ground, along with the UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO), have launched a competition to reward the best news reports on human rights. The competition is open to all Congolese journalists in print, radio, television and web, in addition to news agencies working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

16 September 2010 - From 30 August to 10 September, 60 journalists and media managers from North and South Kivu province took part in a workshop held respectively in Bukavu and in Goma to reinforce their capacities on media coverage of sexual violence trials. The training was organized by with the collaboration of the canadian NGO 'Journalists for Human Rights'.The objective is to improve the journalists understanding of the judicial system.

“At 8pm, a man with an AK-47 entered our tukul (house) and ordered us to remain seated. I saw that other men had surrounded the tukul. We were scared and decided to run away. The man inside the tukul shot my brother in the back as he tried to escape. I ran into the bush. I could hear my relatives screaming as they were attacked. The next morning I came out of my hide-out and found the bodies of my relatives. My uncle had been hacked to death and my sister-in-law had been cut into pieces. My aunty was still alive but had been stabbed with a bayonet.”

23 December 2009

Women of the Democratic Republic of Congo are starting to fight back, pressing for justice as a fundamental human right in the face of appalling sexual violence. For years now, rape has been used as a tactic of war in the east of the DRC where prosecutions are difficult to achieve.

MONUSCO - Kinshasa, 13 December 2010 - Several Congolese journalists were awarded prizes for best reporting on human rights issues and sexual violence in a ceremony organized on 10 December 2010 by the Canadian NGO, Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), and the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO). The ceremony took place on the International Human Rights Day, marking the 62nd anniversary of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights.

Kinshasa, 25 August 2010 - The Canadian NGO Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) and the UN Human Rights office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have launched a competition to reward the best news reports on human rights. The competition is open to all journalists in print, radio and television working in the DRC.

MONUC/ Kiwanja, April 15, 2010 - The joint office UN Human Rights office (BCNUDH in French acronym) and NGO Centre de recherche sur l’environnement, la démocratie et les droits de l’homme (CREDDHO) recently established a new legal clinic in Kiwanja, North-Kivu. Funded by the Canadian Cooperation for International Development since 2008, this activity is part of the legal and judiciary dimension of the Prevention and Response to Sexual Violence in the North and South Kivu provinces.

MWITWOBE, DR Congo — Five goats and some money used to be the price to forget an act of rape in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but UN staff are telling women they can now go to court.

At Mwitwobe, a village of 5,000 people in Katanga province, about 100 men and women listened attentively to Ashraf Sebbabi, who works for the human rights division of the UN mission in DR Congo (MONUC).

"Rape is a crime. It is important for you to break your silence and denounce it," Sebbabi told the gathering through a Swahili interpreter, who was a member of a delegation alerting people in Katanga to their rights in cases of sexual violence.