
© point-of-views.ch
12 December
2016 (OMCT) – What set off Olga
Guzmán Vergara was the inequality she herself faced in her country as a
woman. Then her determination to fight injustice quickly moved onto to
denouncing all violations of human, social, economic and cultural rights.
While her
motivation to speak out for others was easy to find, she was not prepared to
discover that her biggest challenge as a human rights defender would be her
stigmatization by the general public, leaving her with few allies to count on.
“In, Mexico
when you say that you are a human rights defender, people immediately think of
you as a defender of criminals, that you are against security policies,” said
Ms. Guzmán, currently Advocacy Director at the Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos
Humanos. “It might put you at risk because the authorities do not
like what you do, and even society does not support your work. So you have both
sides against you.”
The current
global trend towards populism is troubling for Ms. Guzmán who sees in this the
conjuring of human rights defenders as “public enemies,” who can bare the blame
for society’s ills and someone to “declare a war against,” as did Mexico when
it launched in 2006 an all-out war on drugs that triggered a human rights
crisis. Yet this is a failure of the human rights movement to make its voice
heard outside of a “human rights bubble” of like-minded activists who are in
the know, but surrounded on the outside by a generally indifferent and misinformed
public.
Becoming more
society-friendly
“I think we
have to be more friendly with society, in terms of how we spread our messages,”
she said. “How do we get out of this bubble? Because we don’t have to be
convinced that torture is a horrible crime, but I think that we haven’t been
able to convince the others on the outside.” Ms. Guzmán, who holds a Master’s
degree in International Political Science from Kent University, believes that
it is the work of human rights defenders to raise awareness and “to make people
angry” that human rights violations continue to occur in our age. Putting the
public in the victims’ shoes is the only way to do that.
Whenever she
has met people who were not angry after the disappearance of students, for
instance, and who think “they probably did something bad,” Ms. Guzmán reminds
them: “You could be the next victim of a human right’s violation. And if you
don’t want to become a victim, then support the movement in order to create the
structure to avoid this from happening again, and again.”
In September 2014,
43 students from a rural school were enforcedly disappeared in the state of
Iguala, Guerrero, triggering an uproar among the Mexican and international
human rights community.
Working in
concert
Guzmán
believes that furthering cooperation between groups, creating more coalitions,
sharing ideas and innovating, the human rights movement will also speed up the
democratization of the human rights challenges affecting us all.
“Indigenous
communities, all the underdogs: women, LGBT communities, youth, they are
getting empowered and we are making our voice louder,” Ms. Guzmán concludes as
her hope for a change which, she believes, will come from the grassroots.
Ms. Guzmán’s
organization, CMDPDH, is a long-standing partner of OMCT, and member of the
SOS-Torture Network. Together they submitted before the UN Committee Against
Torture a case against Mexico that they won, meaning the alleged crimes of
torture were recognized and sanctioned. OMCT and CMDPDH have also cooperated on
advocacy that will most likely lead to an anti-torture law to be adopted
momentarily at the time of writing.
This article
is part of a series of 10 profiles to commemorate International Human Rights
Day, 10 December, and to recognize the vital role of human rights defenders
worldwide.
To see the campaign video, please click here.
OMCT wishes to
thank the Republic and Canton of Geneva and the OAK Foundation for their
support. Its content is the sole responsibility of OMCT and should in no way be
interpreted as reflecting the view(s) of the supporting institutions.

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