Human Rights Seminar

Hard-Headed Practicality at the Brisbane Social Forum's Human Rights Seminar
By David Jackmanson

NOTE: This is comment, not straight reporting. I am trying to faithfully report the ideas and attitudes of each speaker, but I have chosen many terms because they made better reading. Especially please do not assume that any speaker has seen, or approves of, this report, or what I have said about them or their ideas.

The Brisbane Social Forum 2006 was better than last year's, which was also good.

While there are some on-going faults that should be looked at, I heard a lot of people who stood out because they were NOT just there to parrot the same old conservative-left* line.

The Saturday morning session I attended was about human rights. I was skeptical, because I am not going to give my energy to help to pass a law that I think will have little or no effect. But the people who spoke, even the one who had spent a lot of time with the UN human rights process, all seemed to not be fooled by the idea that just passing a new law will solve any real problems.

The first speaker was Kim Pate, from the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, who spoke mainly about the 20th anniversary of equality provisions in the Canadian Human Rights Charter. Many, she said, were not being protected by this law, even though the law says they are protected. She was skeptical of courts - she thought that 'half the time' they are not the place to argue (for a start, lawyers are expensive, and they don't like informed clients) - but still, they are often the only place to get even half a chance at justice for the female prisoners she works for.

And she spoke very tellingly of the reaction from those prisoners when she suggested that court challenges and so on were not the right way to go - THEY insisted that she carry on with her legal work. Obviously the women she works for thinks it's useful.

Pate also spoke about pushing academics to do the sort of research that the powerless need, and about forming links with other organisations for nation-wide campaigns.

Next to speak was Deb Kilroy of Sisters Inside.

She talked about a government report on systematic discrimination against women prisoners in Queensland that her organisation had to push hard for - in fact the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission's first reaction was to deny that there was any systematic discrimination. The report finally got done, but the government has disowned it. Sisters Inside is trying to get female prisoners to lodge formal complaints about their treatment - but the fear of retaliation is a big rock in their way.