From international principles to everyday reality: human rights education in Australia

The Honourable Catherine Branson QC

Human Rights Education Conference

University of Western Sydney

4 November 2010

---

I join with those who have spoken before me in acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Dharug people, and pay my respects to their elders, both past and present.

May I thank Dr Sev Ozdowski and the University of Western Sydney for the invitation to address this conference, and for inviting the Commission to sit on the advisory committee for the development of the conference. It is wonderful to see such a large conference dedicated to human rights education.

1 Introduction

It is an exciting time to be talking about human rights education.

I think it fair to say that it has been a very long time since we in Australia have seen the significant focus on human rights education from government that we are currently seeing. This focus has emerged from the National Human Rights Consultation process conducted in 2009, and the Australian Human Rights Framework that was announced earlier this year.

Both of these things have laid a solid foundation from which to advance understanding of human rights in Australia, and ultimately, to improve the enjoyment and exercise of people’s rights in this community.

As President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, I am keen to ensure that we take advantage of this opportunity and that we work together with others who share our interest in human rights education to build understanding and respect for rights in our community.

Consistently, repeatedly, the National Consultation in 2009 heard that people throughout Australia think that human rights matter, and that we can do a better job of protecting them.

Australia will be a fairer, more inclusive and more accepting nation if we all better understand our human rights and our responsibilities to respect the rights of others.

For this reason, the challenges identified through the National Consultation are not only for the Australian Government. They are for all of us. And they are serious challenges. This is in part, but only in part, because, for reasons that I believe are worthy of further academic analysis, there are segments of the Australian community deeply antagonistic to human rights discourse.

Wherever we live and work, whatever we do, those of us who seek to challenge the validity of this antagonism must constantly ask ourselves: how can we work towards a fairer, more accepting, more inclusive community; how can we help demonstrate the irrationality of the fear of rights shared by all?

An important part of the answer to these questions is that we can act through human rights education.

The Australian Human Rights Commission, for its part, is determined to play a pivotal role in providing enhanced human rights education throughout Australia.

We will be assisted in doing this by the funding of which the Attorney-General spoke this morning that we have received under the Australian Human Rights Framework to increase our human rights education work. The fresh funding will support a new team specifically set up to develop strategies that promote community engagement.

As a Commission, we decided earlier this year to set ourselves two priority areas for our work over the next two years. The first priority area, consistent with what I have already said, is to build understanding and respect for rights in our community. The second priority area is to tackle violence, harassment and bullying in the community. While this second priority is less explicitly an education priority, the two priorities should strongly complement one another.

One of the fundamental rights that all should enjoy is the human right to a life lived free from violence and from cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment.

At the Australian Human Rights Commission we have become increasingly concerned about levels of violence, harassment and bullying in our community, and their new manifestations – such as cyber-racism, cyber-bullying, ‘sexting’ and so forth.

The prevalence of violence, harassment and bullying is an issue of national importance. Thousands of Australians every day are affected, sometimes profoundly, by violence, harassment or bullying – whether at home, at work, at school, online or on the street. Experiences of violence, harassment or bullying can shatter people’s confidence, limit their opportunities and, in some cases, cause lasting physical and psychological damage.

We understand that discrimination, whether on the ground of gender, race, sexuality or some other ground or combination of grounds, is often a key factor behind violence, harassment and bullying. We believe that addressing this root cause through human rights education will prove critical to building a safer, more inclusive Australia.

 

2 What is human rights education?

 

So what do I mean by human rights education?

Human rights education, as I see it, is about building a culture of respect for human rights. It is not only about providing knowledge about human rights and the mechanisms that protect them, but also about imparting the skills needed to promote, defend and apply human rights in daily life.

Human rights are best protected when they are embedded in the way we think and therefore in the ways we act. If we don’t believe in human rights, then no law, no charter, no parliament and no court will save them.^[1]

2.1 Three Key Elements to Human Rights Education

There are three key elements of human rights education: ^[2]

• first, acquiring knowledge and skills,
• second, developing respectful values and attitudes and changing behaviour, and
• third, motivating social action and empowering active citizenship.

(a) Knowledge and skills

Imparting knowledge about human rights needn’t be academic and abstract. It should translate easily into a practical understanding of how human rights are affected by the way in which we treat one another. Human rights education must illustrate how respect for human rights can have a positive impact on an individual’s day-to-day life.

(b) Values, attitudes and behaviours

Human rights education should also encourage us all to think in terms of values and attitudes that will build a fairer Australia for us all.

Human rights education must make us look within and look without.^[3] It must focus on our individual values, attitudes and behaviours and also on the way our society is structured and operates.

(c) Active citizenship and taking action

The third element of a human rights education strategy is that it should promote active citizenship and taking action. Once we know what human rights are and where they come from, we can use a human rights framework to analyse a situation, to discuss that situation with others and to build a strong and coherent argument for change using human rights principles and language.

Equipped with human rights knowledge and skills, and motivated by human rights values and attitudes, individuals and communities will be confident to stand up for their own rights and to act to protect and promote the rights of others.

(d) Making a difference to international students

The Commission is already seeking to use human rights education to make concrete improvements in peoples’ lives. By way of example, the Commission has been working with international students to build their human rights knowledge and skills. International students in Australia face discrimination and harassment and have been victims of acts of violence. They not only face challenges in ensuring their right to security, they also face problems in the areas of access to justice, housing, information, freedom of religion and culture, and labour rights. These problems are inter-related.

The Commission recently ran several workshops with international students to explain and discuss these rights. One significant outcome from these sessions has been that international students have formed coordinated advocacy groups that are driving the development of a compact with the Government outlining the rights and responsibilities of students studying in Australia.

(e) The challenge of reaching the broader community

International students in Australia are, of course, a fairly distinct segment of our society. Effective human rights education is more challenging when one seeks to reach and engage with the broader community.

In the past much of the work of human rights educators, including the Commission, has focused on educating identified vulnerable groups about their rights – how to exercise them, and how to seek a remedy if they are violated. We have also focused on government and employer responsibilities to respect and protect people’s rights. And occasionally we have worked with targeted perpetrators to help them understand about the rights of others.

Where we have not focused our attentions is on the broader community. If we are to achieve our ambition of a well-developed culture of respect for human rights in Australia; if we want to live in a society where everyone’s human rights are respected everywhere, everyday, then we, as human rights educators, must start engaging with the broader community; with that ‘everyone’.

One way that the Commission proposes to expand its work to engage the broader community is through a focus on bystanders. A focus, for example, on the bystander to bullying – as opposed to the perpetrator or the victim – offers a unique opportunity to convey a message that human rights is about us all.

Focusing on the role of the bystander allows us to say not only that we all have the right to be treated fairly, but also that we all have the power to help ensure that others are treated fairly too. It gives us all agency to make the world a better place and turns defending human rights into something that we can all do. Although this work is still at a preliminary stage, we are looking initially at the role that ‘bystanders’ to cyber-bullying can play by offering cyber support to those targeted and showing their rejection of bullying tactics. There are, however, many safe ways in which, as bystanders to discriminatory or other unfair behavior, we can all act to protect and promote a culture of respect for rights. We can challenge stereotypical judgments and discrimination in our workplaces; we can show respect in the face of disrespect in all sorts of environments. It is our hope that by identifying a role that everyone can play in defending human rights, we can greatly increase the understanding and respect for rights in our community.

 

3 What guidance does the international system provide regarding human rights education?

 

I have described some examples of human rights education in action. I now want to examine the links between the international principles of human rights education and the reality of applying and integrating these principles into everyday human rights education in Australia in schools and in the public sector.

The United Nations World Programme for Human Rights Education, launched in 2004, defines human rights education as a:

Long-term and lifelong process by which everyone learns tolerance and respect for the dignity of others and the means and methods of ensuring that respect in all societies.^[4]

 

3.1 Phase One: primary and secondary schools

 

The first phase of the World Programme Plan of Action focused on integrating human rights education in primary and secondary school systems.^[5] This, no doubt, reflected recognition that mindset, attitudes and behaviours are set at an early age. Personally I see real value in engaging with children even before they start primary school. Very young children can learn that it’s not okay to pick on the child who is different – be that in colour, race, religion or ability. They can equally learn to celebrate and respect their differences. This is what it means to live in a multicultural society.

(a) Discussion of school program in Australia

I think that it is fair to say that the first phase of the World Programme Plan of Action had a limited impact in Australia. In 2008, the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians affirmed education to be an essential element in the building of a democratic, equitable and just society.^[6] In the Declaration all Australian Education Ministers make a commitment to ensuring that Australian students are active and informed citizens, who act with moral and ethical integrity, are committed to national values of democracy, equity and justice, participate in Australia’s civic life and are responsible global and local citizens. While all these values are essentially human rights values, regrettably, I think, the Declaration makes no specific reference to human rights or to the World Programme for Human Rights Education.

(b) What is the Commission doing in school education?

The Australian Human Rights Commission, however, has been mindful of the World Programme and has developed a significant range of human rights education resources for schools throughout Australia. Most recently, in April this year, the Commission launched a new resource, rightsED, to assist students to develop a critical understanding of human rights and responsibilities.

The rightsED resource includes a range of interactive education activities for teachers and students which introduce human rights concepts in an engaging and relevant way. rightsED is guided by a clear set of education principles and learning outcomes. It consists of nine resources which each feature activities around different human rights issues and comprises more than 400 pages of worksheets, resources and activities. rightsED supports learning about issues such as children’s rights, the lives of people with a disability, the importance of cultural diversity and tackling sexual harassment, and the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

The Australian Human Rights Commission is also working with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), education departments, and teachers associations to integrate human rights education into the school curriculum. The development of a national school curriculum by ACARA provides a critical opportunity to ensure that all children across Australia have an opportunity to learn about and develop human rights skills.

3.2 Phase Two: public sector

We are now in the Second Phase of the World Programme for Human Rights Education, which expands the Programme’s focus beyond the school sector to include all areas of study and training at the post-secondary level, for teachers, government officials and policymakers, law enforcement officials and the military.^[7]

Respect for human rights should, of course, be at the core of the public service and must be incorporated into public sector practices and procedures. Public authorities make many decisions every day that impact on people’s lives.

Human rights training has the potential to improve the ability of public servants to meet and respond to the needs of the public they serve. Human rights training will assist them to be more conscious of the impact of their decisions on the rights of individuals. The onus must be on government agencies and service providers to respond to the diversity of the Australian population, those who they are employed to serve should not be obliged to adapt to a model of service delivery designed to meet the needs of only one segment, even if a majority segment, of that population.

The principles of fairness, respect and equality already underpin the ethos of the public service. A human rights based approach will reinforce and complement these ideals, and assist public servants in applying them to law and policy development and decision making in a practical way.

I am pleased that the Australian Human Rights Commission is able to work with the Attorney General’s Department to ensure that the development and delivery of the human rights education and training program for the Commonwealth public sector is of the highest quality and creates a public service that is values-driven and puts people first.^[8]

To sum-up this brief consideration of Australia’s response to the guidance offered by the United Nations, it is, I think, a fair assessment to say that to date Australia has not performed particularly well with regard to implementing the World Programme for Human Rights Education. However, the new Human Rights Framework’s central focus on human rights education in schools and in the public sector gives us the opportunity to do better.

 

4 Conclusion

 

Let me conclude by observing that the challenges of achieving greater public understanding of why human rights matter and of embedding a human rights culture in Australia are great. At the Australian Human Rights Commission we do not underestimate the seriousness of these challenges – and we are more than conscious of the importance of our working diligently, thoughtfully, innovatively and collaboratively, to ensure that they are met.

---

^[1] Billings Learned Hand, ‘The Spirit of Liberty’, Speech delivered in New York on 21 May 1944.

^[2] United Nations Human Rights Council, Draft plan of action for the second phase (2010-2014) of the World Programme for Human Rights Education, A/HRC/15/28, 27 July 2010.

^[3] Equitas International Centre for Human Rights Education, International Human Rights Training Program, Resource Manual 2007.

^[4] United Nations General Assembly, World Programme for Human Rights Education, UN Doc. A/RES/59/113, 17 February 2005.

^[5] United Nations General Assembly, Resolution A/59/525/Rev. 1, 14 July 2005.

^[6] Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, December 2008.

^[7] United Nations Human Rights Council, Resolution A/HRC/RES/12/4, 4 December 2009.

^[8] Commonwealth of Australia, Australia’s Human Rights Framework, 21 April 2010 available at http://www.ag.gov.au/humanrightsframework.