Making human rights real for all helps to keep democracies healthy

Human Rights Day Oration by Catherine Branson QC, President of the
Australian Human Rights Commission, Sydney, Friday 9 December 2011.

Many years ago, when I was a very young solicitor anxious to be taken
seriously by my employers, I needed to do some banking in my lunch hour. When I
arrived at my bank, I was confronted by a long queue. I assessed the pace at
which it was moving and decided that I could get served and still make it back
to the office on time. You can imagine my astonishment when, arriving at the
front of the queue, the teller asked if I would mind stepping aside so that she
could serve the men behind me who would need to get back to work! When, not
long afterwards, someone from the same bank telephoned my husband because, as he
said, he thought that my husband would like to know that his wife’s bank
account was overdrawn (as it turned out because of a bank error), I changed
banks.

Trivial incidents you might think - but in each case symptomatic of views,
widely held at the time, about the role of women and their assumed financial
dependency on men.

Of course, while we can’t claim success, we have come a long way on
gender equality since then. A lot of people put a great deal of effort into
ensuring that community attitudes towards women changed. Together they did a
wide range of things – they told stories about the human impact of sex
discrimination, they challenged stereotypes and dispelled myths, they drew
attention to our obligations under international conventions, they advocated for
anti-discrimination legislation, and increasingly women have modelled success
and leadership in all areas of public life. We recognise all of these things now
as educational strategies; these people provided human rights education to the
community on the right to equality.

Building understanding and respect for rights remains an important challenge.
We will all be better off if more of us are empowered to address violence,
harassment and bullying and to assist those who have newly arrived to feel at
home; if more of us understand how we unwittingly exclude those with disability
from so much of public life.

The benefits of human rights education are not just reaped by individuals. I
agree with the distinguished lawyer and philosopher Martha Nussbaum who has
argued that democracies need competent citizens who understand about rights. To
paraphrase her words, loss of the abilities to make sound judgments and
criticise authority and to sympathize with the marginalised and the different,
jeopardises the health of democracies and our hope for a decent world.

It is for these reasons that the Australian Human Rights Commission has
adopted building understanding and respect for rights as a key priority.

I am delighted today to be able to introduce a key initiative of the
Commission; Something In Common. Something In Common is a social media
initiative. We have chosen this medium for two reasons. First, social media is
used by 97% of people in the 18 to 30 age range, 81% for 31 to 50, and 56% for
over 50; a majority in every age bracket. Secondly, using social media is
comparatively inexpensive. We can reach numbers of people via this medium that
we could only dream of reaching through traditional media.

Our new initiative is backed by research. This research confirms what many of
us suspected; that most people are much more interested in the practice, than
the law and theory, of human rights.

Something In Common seeks to build on this interest. It engages with
individuals about human rights in ways that will inspire them to promote, defend
and apply human rights in their daily lives.

Our research has identified two key areas for inspiring human rights action
and creating empowered citizens.

First, though everyone today seems busy, people are looking for creative,
interesting human rights facts that encourage discussion.

Secondly, positive human rights respecting behaviour is readily achieved when
people have the opportunity to connect with real people, and to hear real
stories about human rights.

To respond to the desire for human rights facts, as part of our Something In
Common project we have developed a microsite – Tell Me Something I
Don’t Know dot gov dot au. Tell Me Something I Don't Know presents a
series of human rights facts that are arresting and sometimes shocking. You have
some examples of these facts on the small coloured cards on your tables. But
facts only take people so far along an educational journey.

If people are interested in a fact they find on the microsite, they can click
to ‘dig deeper’ and go to the Something In Common dot gov dot au
website, which has rich media content including videos – demonstrating
ordinary Australians taking extraordinary human rights actions. Some of our past
human rights awards winners share their stories. Beside stories, Something In
Common also contains timelines of important human rights history and activism.
In addition, there are a number of engagement features where users have the
opportunity not only to add their own stories to the site, but to contribute to
Australian film reviews that deal with human rights issues, to respond to polls
and commit to taking a number of online and offline actions.

These sites are linked through a social media presence on Twitter and
Facebook as the Commission seeks to empower citizens everywhere, wherever they
may be.

Let me conclude by giving you just a taste of this key educational initiative
of the Australian Human Rights Commission ....

Promotional video: 1 minute and 44 seconds.