A human rights defender can be anyone who, alone or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights in a peaceful manner. It can be a community leader, a trade unionist, a journalist or yourself!
Defenders can be of any gender, age, from any part of the world and from all sorts of professional and personal backgrounds.
Women human rights defenders, are defined by OHCHR as “all women and girls working on any human rights issue and people of all genders who work to promote rights and rights related to gender equality”.
Environmental human rights defenders are defined by the UN as “individuals and groups who, in their personal or professional capacity and in a peaceful manner, strive to protect and promote human rights relating to the environment, including water, air, land, flora and fauna”.
Indigenous human rights defenders are indigenous individuals, groups and organisations working to assert and defend human rights, including the rights of Indigenous peoples. For more information please see here.
LGBTI human rights defenders are people who act to promote or protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons.
Business-related human rights abuses are human rights harms that are committed by a state or a business through acts or omissions in the context of business activities. Business activities include everything that a business does in the course of fulfilling its objectives, decisions, purpose or strategy.
A remedy is the substantive outcome that can make good a human rights abuse. It can take different forms such as apologies, restitution or rehabilitation, for example. For a remedy to be effective it needs to be: