Editor: Polli Hagenaars, Netherlands and Merry Bullock, USA/Estonia

Table of Contents

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • International Day for the remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition;
  • Call for support for Afghanistan and Afghani Women

GNPHR NEWS

CONTENT AREAS: ARTICLES AND NEWS

  • Children’ rights
  • Climate change
  • Covid-19 and human rights
  • Crimes against humanity – enslavement
  • Human Rights Education
  • Human Rights and Psychology: theory, epistemology, ethics
  • Indigenous peoples’ rights
  • Mental Health and Human Rights
  • Migrants / Refugees
  • Women / Family

REGIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS

  • Europe
  • Latin America

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS

PUBLICATIONS

CONFERENCES, EVENTS, EDUCATION, CALL FOR PAPERS, GRANTS

GNPHR

HIGHLIGHTS

August 23, International Day for the remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition

In the night of 22 to 23 August 1791, men and women, torn from Africa and sold into slavery, revolted against the slave system in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) to obtain freedom and independence. The uprising set forth events that eventually led to the abolition of the slave trade.

In 1997, UNESCO established 23 August as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition to pay tribute to all those who fought for freedom, and to continue teaching about their story and their values. The success of this rebellion, led by the enslaved themselves, is a deep source of inspiration today for the fight against all forms of servitude, racism, prejudice, racial discrimination and social injustice that are a legacy of slavery.

The Slave Route Project, launched by UNESCO in 1994, examines the foundations, forms of operation, and consequences of the slave trade and slavery in different regions of the world. Through research, development of pedagogical materials, preservation of archives, oral traditions and sites of memory related to slavery, it aims to contribute to a better understanding of the impact of this history on our modern world, highlight global transformations and cultural interactions, and contribute to intercultural dialogue.

Related information:

https://www.un.org/en/events/slaveryremembranceday/

Call for Support for Afghanistan and Afghani Women

Let’s Open Our Doors for Afghan Women: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVcbfdEoAAM4cbl4SexS40D8_BZdwUEPFqyb2mmgIookv1hA/viewform

GNPHR NEWS

  • GNPHR invites you to contribute to the blog series!! Blog-Opinion pieces can be on general human rights issues; human rights education or strategies for raising the profile of human rights within one’s institution or professional life. Students are welcome to submit a blog on human rights issues/topics from the perspective of students, including on student needs for learning about and addressing human rights. Please contact the GNPHR Blog editor (blogeditor@humanrightspsychology.org) with ideas for the blog  you would like to write!
  • GNPHR invites you to send news/information/events about relevant human rights issues or activities for publication in the bulletin.

CONTENT AREAS: ARTICLES AND NEWS

Children’ rights

How a child-friendly lens can transform urban planning. Catherine Lucas, The Lancet, Child & Adolescent health, July, 2021. By 2050, the global urban population is set to nearly double and 70% of the world’s children will live in cities. How do we make sure this urban growth is as healthy, sustainable, and liveable as possible? This question is at the heart of a new book by author and children’s play advocate Tim Gill. Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities is a handbook for policy makers, local authorities, planners, architects, and designers, which argues for putting children at the centre of urban planning processes and sets out how this can be achieved.
One consequence of this approach is a dramatic decrease in children’s independent mobility compared with previous generations. Gill offers a striking illustration of this change with a map of the roaming rights of four generations of a Sheffield family: whereas a child aged 8 years could walk 6 miles (almost 10 km) unaccompanied in 1919, his great-grandson was only allowed to roam 300 m to the end of his street in 2007. After a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the movements of children and adults alike have been severely restricted and education turned on its head, we are perhaps better placed than ever to recognise and address what Gill calls the “gradual, creeping lockdown” that children have been experiencing over the past century, as well as its consequences for children’s physical and psychological health, independence, socialisation, and learning.

Culture of cover-up saw hundreds of children abused in Lambeth, report finds.
Mark Easton, BBC News, August 1, 2021. Staff and councillors presided over a “culture of cover-up” that led to more than 700 children in south London care homes suffering cruelty and sexual abuse, an inquiry has found.The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse strongly criticised Lambeth Council for allowing abuse in five homes from the 1960s to the 1990s. It said abusers were able to infiltrate homes and the foster system. Lambeth Council has made an unreserved apology to the victims.

Know their names Myanmar. ALJAZEERA, April 2021. According to the UN Child Rights Committee, about 1000 children have been arbitrarily detained, taken as hostages when security forces were unable to arrest their parents. Children have also been affected by major disruptions to schooling, health care, and access to safe drinking water and food.

Climate Change

Ecocide must be listed alongside genocide as an international crime. The Guardian, 22 Jun 2021. An international team of lawyers co-chaired by Philippe Sands QC and Dior Fall Sow has presented the outcome of its work announced in November last year to develop a legal definition of ecocide. This is a crucial step towards adding ecocide to the list of other major offences recognised by the international criminal court (ICC), including crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
The proposed definition of ecocide describes the crime as one of recklessness; the perpetrator acted in the knowledge that there was “substantial likelihood” of serious harm arising from their conduct, but they acted anyway.
“At Kew, our new Manifesto for Change aims to bring together all relevant knowledge on biodiversity patterns, threat risks and sustainable uses to identify Tropical Important Plant Areas for conservation. For instance, we have successfully worked with partners and the Cameroon government to reverse a logging concession for the highly diverse and unique Ebo Forest. Activities that directly or indirectly threaten the conservation of such areas could be a top priority for evaluating claims of ecocide in the future.”

Special issue on psychology and the environmental crisis, The European Psychologist, Vol. 26, Issue 3 • July 15, 2021. The EP has published a special issue on psychology and the environmental crisis that I co-edited. They have kindly made this available to download free of charge and in addition there are a collection of papers from back issues on the same topic that are also free to download.
Three papers focus on leadership and social change, building on group-based processes grounded in the dynamics of social identity theories. Four papers discuss  health impacts and possible interventions in the context of climate change and finally there are two papers that cover what we can learn from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
A link to some thoughts from the co-editors.

Covid-19 and human rights

The COVID-19 pandemic and maternal mental health in a fragile and conflict-affected setting in Tumaco, Colombia: a cohort study. Andrés Moya, Pieter Serneels, Alethea Desrosiers, Vilma Reyes, Maria José Torres, Alicia Lieberman,The Lancet Global Health, Published Online June 24, 2021, Open Access. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health have been understudied among vulnerable populations, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings. We aimed to analyse how the pandemic is related to early changes in mental health and parenting stress among caregivers, many of whom are internally displaced persons (IDP), in a conflict-affected setting in Colombia.
Results showed that the likelihood of reporting symptoms above the risk threshold increased by 14 percentage points for anxiety (95% CI 10–17), 5 percentage points for depression (0·5–9), and 10 percentage points for parental stress (5–15). The deterioration in mental health was stronger for IDP, participants with lower education or pre-existing mental health conditions, and for those reporting a higher number of stressors, including food insecurity and job loss.

Young people’s mental health  during the Covid 19 pandemic. Cathy Creswell, Adrienne Shum, Samantha Pearcey, Simona Skripkauskaite, Praveetha Patalay, Polly Waite, The Lancet Child-adolescent, Vol 5 August 2021. There has understandably been widespread concern about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions on the mental health of children and young people, with evidence of recent increases in the prevalence of mental health problems.1 Yet there has been relatively little evaluation of how mental health has changed over the pandemic and varied for children and young people living in a range of circumstances. One exception is the Co-SPACE study, a UK-based longitudinal online survey of parents and carers of children and adolescents aged 4–16 years, and adolescents aged 11–16 years, who have been invited to participate monthly since the fifth day of the UK’s first national lockdown in March, 2020. Co-SPACE has now run for over a year, and more than 8700 families have provided data using the well validated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Economic hardship, special educational needs and neurodevelopmental disorders, parental stress, and child and adolescent mental health are closely related. However, the disruption caused by the pandemic has put these risks for child and adolescent mental health in stark relief.

Crimes against humanity – Enslavement

Bosnia’s High Representative Imposes Genocide Denial Ban. Nermina Kuloglija, Balkan Transitional Justice,  July 23, 2021. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s top international official, High Representative Valentin Inzko, used his power to impose amendments to the country’s criminal code to ban the denial of genocide and the glorification of war criminals.
Valentin Inzko announced on Friday that he has imposed an amendment to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s criminal code to outlaw the public denial, condoning, trivialisation or justification of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes when this is done in a way that is “likely to incite to violence or hatred”. Inzko said he was imposing the changes because he was “deeply concerned that prominent individuals and public authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to deny that acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed during the armed conflict”.
He also said he was concerned that “individuals and public authorities publicly question the legitimacy of judgements issued by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and that individuals and public authorities honour or praise convicted war criminals”.

‘Surviving the Omarska Hell’: Ex-Detainee Remembers Six Months in Camps. Azra Husaric and Irvin Pekmez, Balkan Transitional Justice, August 6, 2021. On the anniversary of his transfer from Omarska to Manjaca detention camp in August 6, 1992, a former detainee from Prijedor recalls what he and his son went through – and why they still love the town that saw so much suffering. He remembers the time in the camp up to August 1992, before his transfer from Omarska, when he witnessed torture and stared death in the face. He says he could not think about anything else but the smell of blood and cries of pain caused by the horrible mistreatment taking place in the interrogation rooms.
“What was in the heart of those men, the amount of hate that made them torture people in that way, kill them, take them out every evening, break their arms and legs during a 15-day period, making them die in agony?” he wonders.

Biden Administration Transfers Its First Detainee From Guantánamo Bay. Carol Rosenberg and Charlie Savage, NY Times, July 19, 2021. The Biden team picked up where the Obama administration left off with the repatriation of a Moroccan man, reducing the prison population to 39. The transfer of the man, Abdul Latif Nasser, 56, was the first sign of a renewed effort under President Biden to winnow the population of prisoners by sending them to other countries that promise to ensure the men remain under security measures. Mr. Nasser was never charged with a crime.
The transfer process, which was pursued by the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, had atrophied under Donald J. Trump. With Mr. Nasser’s departure, there are now 39 prisoners at Guantánamo, 11 of whom have been charged with war crimes. At its peak in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan, the prison complex at the U.S. naval base there held about 675 men. Far more complex policy decisions about transfers await the Biden team, including whether to transfer a mentally ill Saudi man, Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was tortured at Guantánamo and is considered to have been one of several candidates to be a potential 20th hijacker on 9/11.

Opening Remarks at Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma. Roman Kwiatkowski, Chairman of the Association of Roma in Poland, 2 August 2021. On August 2, 1944, the Nazis finally liquidated the so-called Gypsy camp Auschwitz Birkenau. This is a symbolic date, officially confirmed and recognized as the Holocaust Memorial Day of the Sinti and Roma by parliaments and governments of many states, including the European Parliament. Since then, the commemoration of the victims is no longer a private matter of their families and the few survivors of the Holocaust. We remember of the victims and commemorate the genocide on our people, so that no one will ever remain indifferent to Romani history. As Yehuda Bauer wrote, the problem we have with Holocaust is not that the perpetrators were not human, but that they were human, they were just like us.’

When They Came for Me. The Hidden Diary of an Apartheid Prisoner. See under PUBLICATIONS.

Emancipation Day — August 1 Canada, marks the actual day in 1834 that the Slavery Abolition Act came into effect across the British Empire. Emancipation Day celebrates the strength and perseverance of Black communities in Canada. Slavery was abolished in Canada on August 1st, 1834, when it was made illegal across the British Empire. This is known as Emancipation Day now. It is celebrated across Canada but especially in Ontario, where communities have parades, block parties, and festivals celebrating black culture and accomplishments. Up until then, humans were still held in bondage and considered to be property, although the selling and trading of slaves was made illegal in Canada in 1807.
Sites: Slavery in Canada, The Black Loyalists and the Maroons, The Underground Railroad, Indigenous Peoples Slavery, Emancipation in Canada, 17th and 18th Century Ontario Black Life

Amsterdam mayor apologizes for city fathers’ role in slavery. Aleksandar Furtula and Mike Corder, Washington Post, July 1, 2021. Mayor Femke Halsema apologized for the involvement of the city’s rulers in the slave trade during a nationally televised annual ceremony in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Thursday, July 1, 2021, marking the abolition of slavery in its colonies in Suriname and the Dutch Antilles on July 1, 1863. The anniversary is now known as Keti Koti, which means Chains Broken. Debate about Amsterdam’s involvement in the slave trade has been going on for years and gained attention last year amid the global reckoning with racial injustice that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year. “It is time to engrave the great injustice of colonial slavery into our city’s identity. With big-hearted and unconditional recognition,” Mayor Femke Halsema said. “Because we want to be a government for those for whom the past is painful and its legacy a burden.” While apologizing, she also stressed that “not a single Amsterdammer alive today is to blame for the past.”

Speech by Kajsa Ollongren, Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations of the Netherlands, at Slavery Remembrance Day. ‘Eleven million enslaved people were transported across the Atlantic. Some 445,000 of them ended up in the Dutch colonies. An unknown number perished during the journey.
Today we commemorate and celebrate the fact that 158 years ago, on the first of July 1863, the Netherlands officially abolished slavery in Suriname and what were then the Netherlands Antilles. But even then, it wasn’t really over. People were forced to work the plantations for another ten years.’

Enslaved. The United Nations Outreach Programme. Educating the world about the history of slavery, the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies, including racism. UN Enslaved series.  2021 Theme: “Ending Slavery’s Legacy of Racism: A Global Imperative for Justice”. The theme reflects the global movement to end injustices whose roots lie in the slave trade. The theme highlights the importance of educating about the history of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, to bring about an acknowledgment of slavery’s impact on the modern world, and action to address its long-lasting effects. The theme guides the Programme’s development of educational outreach and remembrance to mobilize action against prejudice, racism and injustice.

Online Discussion of Enslaved, Episode 6 “Abolition”
To mark the UNESCO International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, join us for an online discussion about Episode 6: “Abolition”. Episode 6 explores the circumstances that brought the transatlantic slave trade to an end. The discussion is organized by the United Nations Outreach Programme on the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, the International Decade for People of African Descent, Fremantle and Associated Producers Ltd./Cornelia Street Productions. Register for the online discussion and watch Episode 6 (screening available from 16-28 August).

Human Rights Education

New Lesson in HRE USA Curriculum Integration Guide. Human Rights Education Associates (HREA). A new lesson, entitled “Digital Rights”, was added to HRE USA’s Curriculum Integration Guide.  The lesson was prepared by Karen Hopkins and Shabnam Mojtahedi, HRE USA members in Washington DC and field-tested by HRE USA member and social studies teacher Jake Torsiello with students at Randolph HS in Randolph Twp.

Webinars: Psychology’s contribution to global human rights. Leaders in psychology from around the globe discussed how the applications of psychology science and practice can combat discrimination and promote human rights.  In April, 2021, three members of the Global Psychology Alliance hosted a webinar on psychology’s contributions to a number of human rights, particularly as related to discrimination. Tiago Lima, PhD, from the Brazilian Society of Psychology discussed racism; Beatriz Torre from the Psychological Association of the Philippines presented on sexual and gender minority rights; and Darren Bernal, PhD, from the American Psychological Association, reviewed socioeconomic inequality. Participants learned how they can use their psychological expertise to promote human rights and equity in their countries, expanding the applications of psychological science and practice across the globe.  Racism and human rights in Brazil. Tiago Lima, PhD, from the Brazilian Society of Psychology, discusses psychology’s contributions to combating racism in Brazil.  Psychology’s contributions to global human rights: A focus on social inequity. Darren Bernal, PhD, from the American Psychological Association, explains how psychology can address poverty and socioeconomic inequity.  Organized psychology in support of LGBT human rights. Beatriz Torre, MA, from the Psychological Association of the Philippines, describes how psychology can promote sexual and gender minority rights in the Philippines.

Human Rights and Psychology: theory, epistemology, ethics

Prozess gegen IS-Rückkehrerin : Die Tochter der Terroristin. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Julia Schaaf, 8 July 2021. German Islamists who ran the household for IS fighters in Syria will be sentenced to prison terms after their return. A trial in Berlin is now negotiating the children’s suffering for the first time.
It is the penultimate phase of her stay in Syria. Nadia B. and her three children have left the territory of the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS). A few months after her husband was killed by a bomb, the Islamist fled in September 2017 with little more than diapers in her backpack: three slices of Arabic bread, two cans of tuna, water, money, and a cell phone. Across the desert to Idlib, a whole night’s walk.

Indigenous peoples’ rights

Supporting Indigenous youth to heal intergenerational trauma. The Lancet, Child and Adolescent Health, April 2021. Have you heard of Gen-I? Not Gen-X or Gen-Z, but Generation Indigenous: young people living with all the challenges of being a developing human, as well as the complex inheritance of their Native histories, inextricably mixed with Colonial history. In 2017, the US Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) launched Champions for Change, or Gen-I Ambassadors, a selection of young people working to improve the lives of their communities and peers. Each Ambassador has a unique cause: some are working on food sovereignty, while others focus on educational support; some work to address the high rate of youth suicide in their communities; others seek to improve foster care systems. Madison White of the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne, a 2019 Champion for Change, says on the CNAY website: “As intergenerational trauma survivors (and those who are still suffering), we must shift our minds from focusing on what has been lost, and change it to the conscious awareness of what we can still learn.”
Intergenerational trauma is a phrase developed by Dr Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, working with the Takini Network. Takini means “survivor” or “to come back to life” in Lakota, and the Takini Network was formed to host workshops and education on the needs of different Tribal Nations to address intergenerational trauma and healing. In 1985, they chose the terms historical trauma, historical unresolved grief, and historical trauma response, seeking greater nuance than post-traumatic stress disorder for the suffering faced by Indigenous peoples. Intertwined with intergenerational trauma is the ongoing challenge of decolonisation: “The Western clinical framework includes a focus on treatment and measurable clinical outcomes, whereas in many…communities the emphasis remains on healing and achieving balance rather than treatment”, states a 2016 US Department of Health and Human Services report on trauma in American Indian and Alaska Native youth.

Mental Health and Human Rights

Mental Health and Human Rights Info (MHHRI) Newsletter June 2021. Newsletter No 3 2021.  The invisible problem: What do we know about sexual violence against boys and men? Download the MHHRI GBV manual

Migrants / Refugees

Introduction to International Migration; Population Movements in the 21st Century, see PUBLICATIONS.

Women / Family

Murdered women: A history of ‘honour’ crimes. Rana Husseini, AL JAZEERA, 1 August 2021. Throughout history, women have been held responsible for upholding the ‘honour’ of their families – often with deadly consequences.
Violence against women has been documented throughout history. Most of the ancient civilisations – among them the Assyrian, Roman and Sumerian – had penal codes that condemned “women adulterers and their partners” while allowing men to publicly have mistresses with little or no punishment at all.
The late Dr Vivian Fox, a US university professor who specialised in family and women’s history, argued that Judeo-Christian religious ideas, Greek philosophy and the Common Law legal code have all influenced modern Western society’s views and treatment of women.
“All three traditions have, by and large, assumed patriarchy as natural – that is male domination stemming from the view of male superiority,” she wrote in the Journal of International Women’s Studies. “As part of the culture perpetuated by these ideologies, violence towards women was seen as a natural expression of male dominance. “Ordained by the Gods, supported by the priests, implemented by the law, women came to accept and to psychologically internalise compliance as necessary. Violence towards women in all its forms has and still thrives in such an environment.”

REGIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS

Europe

FRA / FRP Europe. https://fra.europa.eu/en. FRA has launched its report on ‘Encouraging hate crime reporting: the role of law enforcement and other authorities.
Barriers to reporting hate crime across the EU hinder victims’ access to protection and justice, finds FRA’s latest report ‘Encouraging hate crime reporting: the role of law enforcement and other authorities’. Many victims do not report attacks, as it is too difficult or they do not trust the police. FRA calls on EU countries to encourage hate crime reporting, improve its recording and ensure victims can get support, protection and justice.
“EU countries have a duty to ensure access to justice for all. But too many hate crime victims do not report being attacked and too many countries do not record hate crimes properly,” says FRA Director Michael O’Flaherty. “This needs to change. Countries should simplify reporting and improve hate crime recording, investigation and punishment to fully uphold victims’ rights.”

Latin America

A call to the human rights movement for going broader and refining the interdisciplinary tools to push for dignity. Viviana Krsticevic, Open Global Rights, July 26, 2021.  ‘I hope to contribute to the debate by reflecting on some of the experiences and strategies of the human rights, women’s rights, and land rights movements in Latin America. In looking to where the movement should be headed, I highlight three issues relevant for developing effective strategies to advance rights, keeping in mind the regional and global challenges we are facing.’
This article is part of a series developed in partnership with the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. The series draws on contributions from scholars and practitioners who participated in the Institute’s November 2020 Conference entitled “Human Rights at a Crossroads? A Time for Critical Reflection on the Human Rights Project.

Protections for LGBTQ+ People. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and Red Lésbica Cattrachas have won a historic case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights setting sweeping new protections for trans people across Latin America. The ruling by the Inter-American Court not only holds Honduras accountable for the murder of trans activist Vicky Hernández, it also establishes sweeping new protections for LGBTQ+ people across Latin America. . RF Kennedy and Human Rights, June 28, 2021.

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS

Network of Concerned Historians, Annual Report 2021,This twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Network of Concerned Historians (NCH) contains news about the domain where history and human rights intersect, in particular about the censorship of history and the persecution of historians, archivists, and archaeologists around the globe, as reported by various human rights organizations and other sources. It mainly covers events and developments of 2020 and 2021. Disclaimer.The fact that the NCH presents this news does not imply that it shares the views and beliefs of the historians and others mentioned in it.

The Generation Equality Forum, held in 2021, has kickstarted a 5-year journey to accelerate ambitious action and implementation on global gender equality. The Forum, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by the governments of France and Mexico in partnership with civil society and youth, took place in Mexico City from 29 – 31 March 2021 and in Paris from 30 June – 2 July 2021. The Forum generated $40 billion in financial commitments, as well as multiple policy and program commitments. The Forum’s ambitious action agenda will be driven by multi-stakeholder Action Coalitions, who together developed a Global Acceleration Plan to advance gender equality.  This ambitious effort to achieve a global inflection point on gender equality recognized the fact that over twenty-five years after the historic Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, implementation of gender equality has been slow. The Forum  brought together global leaders to drive concrete actions to accelerate progress.
The Forum reaffirmed the value of multilateralism and brought together the leadership and participation of various stakeholders – civil society, governments, youth-led organizations, the private sector, international organizations, cities, trade unions, media and more – focusing on intergenerational and multi-stakeholder partnerships.
The kick-off to the Generation Equality Forum took place in Mexico City from 29 to 31 March 2021, followed by Paris from 30 June to 2 July 2021. Read the report.

PUBLICATIONS

When They Came for Me. The Hidden Diary of an Apartheid Prisoner. John R. Schlapobersky, May 2021, Berghahn Books.  In 1969, while a student in South Africa, John Schlapobersky was arrested for opposing apartheid and tortured, detained and eventually deported.  Interrogated through sleep deprivation, he later wrote secretly in solitary confinement about the struggle for survival.  In this exquisitely written memoir, the author reflects on the singing of the condemned prisoners, the poetry, songs and texts that saw him through his ordeal, and its impact.  This sense of hope through which he transformed his life guides his continuing work as a psychotherapist and his focus on the rehabilitation of others.  Apartheid and its resistance come to life in this story to make it a vital historical document, one of its time and one for our own. John R. Schlapobersky is a leading psychotherapist and author based in London. He is a training analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis and was a Founding Trustee of Freedom from Torture in 1985. Publications include From The Couch To The Circle: Group-Analytic Psychotherapy In Practice (Routledge, 2016), which won the American Group Psychotherapy Association’s Alonso Award in 2017 and is in translation to other language editions.

Introduction to International Migration; Population Movements in the 21st Century, Jeannette Money & Sarah P. Lockhart. Routledge, 2021. Introduction to International Migration introduces students to state-of-the-art knowledge on international migration, a contemporary issue of central importance to virtually all countries around the globe. Original chapters by prominent women migration scholars cover a complex and multifaceted issue area including various types of migration, the mechanisms of migration governance, the impact of migration on both host and home societies, the migrants themselves in a transnational space, and the nexus between migration and other aspects of globalization. Key topics include labour, gender, citizenship, public opinion, development, security, climate, and ethics. Refugee flows are tracked from beginning to end. Photos, figures, text boxes with real-world examples, discussion questions, and recommended readings provide pedagogical structure for each chapter. Intended as a core text for courses on migration and immigration and a supplement to more general courses in global studies, this book is appropriate for both undergraduate and graduate students in the variety of disciplines that deal with the challenges of international migration.

“Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice”: Extended Interview with Dr. Rupa Marya. In an extended interview, we continue our conversation with Dr. Rupa Marya, co-author with Raj Patel of a new book which examines the social and environmental roots of poor health. “We need to understand that it has to be a multi-modal response to this pandemic,” says Dr. Marya. She also discusses the influence of indigenous resistance on the creation of this book, and how this matters today in understanding the fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and Enbridge’s Line 3.

“The Ants and the Grasshopper” Raj Patel’s New Film Aims to “Decolonize” Climate & Health Solutions. We look at a groundbreaking new documentary on the climate crisis and the global food system, “The Ants and the Grasshopper,” which follows the journey of a Malawian farmer as she tries to end hunger and gender inequality in her village, and tackle climate change in the United States. “In this film, what we’re trying to do is decolonize the view of how it is that we fix the climate crisis and the health crisis by foregrounding the wisdom of peasants from around the world, whether they’re in the United States or from Malawi,” says co-director Raj Patel.

Vistas of Modernity, decolonial aesthesis and the end of the contemporary, Rolando Vázquez, , Japsambooks, 2021. In this decolonial essay Rolando Vázquez introduces his critique which offers an option for thinking and doing beyond the dominant paradigms. It provides a critical analysis of modernity understood broadly as the western project of civilization, while it seeks to overcome the dominion of western epistemology and aesthetics and their embedded eurocentrism and anthropocentrism.

CONFERENCES, EVENTS, EDUCATION, CALL FOR PAPERS, GRANTS

Webinar: Youth Voices Matter – Human Rights Education Listens to You(th)!
August 12th is International Youth Day! Join HREA for its next webinar:Youth Voices Matter – Human Rights Education Listens to You(th)!  Time: Thursday, August 12th , 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. EDT. Dr. Felisa Tibbitts, Executive Director and Co-Founder of HREA, will share “Results of a Study of U.S. Youth Engaging in Social Change”.  Dr. Phill Gittins, Education Director of World Beyond War and Rotary Peace Fellow, will give a presentation on “Beyond Participation: The Intersection of Youth, Peace and Human Rights”. Young members of international youth networks will lead a conversation about the role of youth in human rights education, peace building and social activism.  Kindly pre-register by clicking here.

Virtual Panel Presentation
On 23 September 2021, from 20:00 to 21:30, there will be a virtual panel presentation on the forthcoming book Emancipatory Human Rights and Higher Education. The panel presentation will be led by editors Felisa Tibbitts(Chair in Human Rights Education and UNESCO Chair in Human Rights and Higher Education, SIM, Utrecht University) and Dr. André Keet (Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation and Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Engagement and Transformation, Nelson Mandela University). Register here.

ICP2021 – Conference Human Rights, Dignity and Justice – October 22-24, 2021. https://icpweb.org/icp-annual-conference/icp2021-virtual/ Join your colleagues for 2 days of exploring psychology and human rights!

14TH European Public Health conference, 10 – 12 November 2021, virtual edition. Theme: Public health futures in a changing world. https://ephconference.eu/index.php

CONTACTS: Published by the Global Network of Psychologists for Human Rights – www.humanrightspsychology.org

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *