Amnesty International: Championing Global Human Rights

Amnesty International (AI)

The vision of AI is to make sure that every person in the world enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other international protocols. (“Amnesty International”, 2015) In order to pursue its vision, AI’s official mission statement reads:

“Amnesty International’s mission is to conduct research and take action to prevent and end grave abuses of all human rights – civil, political, social, cultural and economic. From freedom of expression and association to physical and mental integrity, from protection from discrimination to the right to housing – these rights are indivisible.” (“Amnesty International”, 2015)

Since its inception AI has been active in campaigning and

(“WHAT WE DO”, 2015)

The major thrust of AI’s work is to spread awareness of grave abuses of human rights and pressure concerned authorities and governments to consider and take corrective actions in ending those abuses.

AI does not have an administrative authority over jurisdictions to bring in change in the status of human rights and to end its grave violations, but it --- with the assistance of its diverse and global membership of ground workforce, researchers, and activists --- strives towards getting the abuses of human rights heard far and wide through campaigning; lobbying governments and corporate world by reminding them of their promises for respecting international human rights law i.e. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example (“WHO WE ARE”, 2015)--- ; spreading the statistics through local, national, and international media coverage, and reporting of rights-status in different

It was also meant to campaign against and to end the outdated draconian law used by the Malaysian government in curbing the voices of criticism by violating her commitment to international conventions and treaties like International Bill of Rights at UN, for example.

In this story the challenges faced by AI campaigners and activists in voicing for Zunar’s release are yet to be seen.

The second example of one the recent campaigns of AI is the call to Minister of Justice and Human Rights of Burkina Faso to take concrete steps in addressing the widespread practice, especially in the Sahel region, of forcefully marrying the under-aged girls. It is prohibited under national laws of Burkina Faso to allow under-aged and forced marriages as it is under International conventions to which this country is a signatory. (“Burkina Faso”, 2015)

The purpose of this campaign was to pressure Burkina Faso authorities to respect the human rights laws and to spread awareness among public as to how the government has turned a blind eye to this grave violation of human