FIAP Franciscans International Asia Pacific

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FIAPFranciscans International Asia Pacific
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Background
Aitape Diocese West Sepik Province
West Papua
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Social Justice Issues

• Disabled people exploited in boarding houses
• People with HIV/AIDES and
• Homosexual teenagers struggling to be accepted
• Short term imprisonment of women
• Detained Asylum seekers
• Asylum seekers not permitted to work

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The 2 Feet of Social Justice
Systemic Change
Charitable Works
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2005
Charitable works

• 2006

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• Unbalanced

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Lessons

• Vulnerable people intelligent, highly skilled
  risk-takers
• Immigration process flawed, cruel
• Responsible citizens ashamed
• Powerless

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Balance
Franciscans International
Asia Pacific
Charitable Works
Systemic Change
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From Local to Global

Improved conditions UNHCR Geneva
Regional Meetings Governments


Asian Womens Groups
Issues for WaR world-wide Regional Meeings


Conclusion Accepted by all Governments


Women victims of gender-based violence
Aust. Government WaR Program
Increased resources WaR Program Australia
International Handbook to protect women and girls
in camps throughout world
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New York
Geneva
Bangkok
Franciscans International
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Formal Structure
FIAP Bangkok Office (2008)
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Programs

• for grassroots Franciscans

to influence international human rights
standards, and to bring witness to human rights
violations
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Systemic Change
Education
Advocacy
The Right to development The Environment Human
Rights Peacemaking
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The Right to Development

• Physical survival
• Intellectual, Economic, and
• Political development

suffering deprivation marginalization understandi
ng meaning implementing policy
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The Environment

• Uncontrolled use of natural resources
• Forests
• Land
• Water
• Fisheries

A powerful minoritys over consumption, over
production
Deteriorating ecosystems Depleting
resources Proliferating inequality
Poverty Conflict
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Human Rights

• Thematic Issues
• UN Commission on Human Rights
• Migration in Europe
• Religious Freedom
• Human trafficking
• Violence against Women
• AIDES
• Extreme poverty
• UN Norms on transnational businesses
• Optional Protocol to ICESCR

Regional/Country Issues West Africa Latin
America Asia Eastern Europe Western Europe North
America Oceania
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Peacemaking

• Facilitate peaceful
• solutions to
• Violence
• Conflict
• War

Monitor disarmament process Official written and
oral interventions at UN forums
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F I and F I A P
Partnership of all humanity
Environmental protection Participation in
resource conservation and environmental protection
Social development Personal well-being and
community well-being
Economic Development Increases productive
capacity of poor people
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Submissions to UN 2006

December Hague Conference on Dalit
Women October Human Rights Council and the Right
to Water July General Assembly Informal
Interactive Hearings on international Migration
and Development July FIAP meeting in
Bangkok May-June High level meeting on AIDS in
New York Feb-Mar Commission on the Status of
Women Human Rights Situation in Papua,
Indonesia Right to Education in Pakistan
Human Rights Mechanisms
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Human Rights in Occupied Iraq

• Recommendations
• Uphold and respect international lawre civilians
• Ensure establishment of a sovereign Iraqi
  government
• Programs bring about material, economic and
  psychological reconstruction
• Rebuild infrastructure health and education and
  legal institutions
• Bilateral relationships re aid and cooperation
• Commission on Human Rights monitoring

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West Papua

• Issues
• 1.Indonesia unprepared to dialogue with Papuans
• 2.Implementation of Special Autonomy Law
  unresolved.
• 3.Political interests are destroying social
  cohesion
• 4.Heavy Indonesian military presence
• 5.Cycle of impunity prevents protection and
  promotion of human rights
• 6. Judicial system protects perpetrators
• 7. Papuans feel unprotected
• 8. Timber illegally appropriated, illegal fishing
• 9. HIV and AIDS second highest in Indonesia
  trafficking of persons, and alcohol abuse
  unchecked
• 10.Migrants dominate job market
• 11.Benefits from mining, logging and fishing not
  invested in public service

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West Papua
FI Recommendations

• Peace Initiatives to address conflict and build
  peace
• Recommend UN Commission on Human Rights to
• Protect the life of the Indigenous Papuans and
  treat as equal citizens
• Indonesia fulfil international obligations
• Indonesia grant full access to Human Rights
  Commissioners
• Convention on Elimination of Racial
  Discrimination
• Mainstream Human rights education
• Indonesians fully participat in the PapuaLand
  of Peace program

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Franciscans International

• The UN Instruments are the
• sacred scriptures for global governance
• understood by every race and
• every faith.
• Written specifically to protect the vulnerable in
  society and
• the environment.

Asia Pacific Update
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FIAP
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International human rights the problems and the
possibilities of working in Asia Pacific Chris
Sidoti Executive Director, International Service
for Human Rights in Geneva

• THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION
• One third of the worlds surface area
• but a large part of it is ocean, mountains and
  desert
• Two thirds of the worlds people
• with nations ranging in size
• from China and India, each with over 1 billion
  people
• to Nauru, Tuvalu and Kiribati, each with only a
  few thousand people

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THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION

• Not one region but six!!
• The Pacific
• South East Asia
• North east Asia
• South Asia
• West Asia
• Central Asia
• and in each there is a reflection of the
  diversity of the Asia Pacific as a whole

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SOME COMMON OPPORTUNITIES

• The peoples of the Asia Pacific
• their drive and energy and
• sheer determination
• cultures of ambition and motivation
• the hunger for change
• the kids!!
• The collapse of authoritarian regimes
• but the difficult management of transition
• Natural resources, including good agricultural
  lands and seas
• but the threats of environment disaster
• Wealth!! Asia is not Africa
• Diversity itself

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WHAT CAN UNITE THE ASIA PACIFIC?

• Contribution of the Christian churches as
  institutions that are across the region
• Within the diversity of Asia it is impossible to
  find values that are
• common to all Asia and
• exclusive of everyone else
• Human rights as the unifying vision

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THE UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

• The language of rights has its origin in time and
  place but it is not the exclusive product of any
  one religious, cultural or political tradition
• In fact Catholic Christianity came very late to
  the human rights cause, affirmed only in the
  early 1960s by John XXIII and then by the Vatican
  Council
• The religious texts of all major religions are
  silent on rights but they all resonate with the
  concepts we now call human rights
• Common values of compassion, human dignity and
  respect
• Justice (righteousness) as the basis of
  vertical and horizontal relationships

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Human Rights Training in the regionCross
cultural interaction
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Greater awareness of Human Rights Issues from a
Franciscan Perspective
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Right Relationships Resources
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Greater awareness of Human Rights Issues in the
Asia Pacific region
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A specific spiritual approach to human rights
and political realities
Franciscans International (FI) works on behalf
of the poor for peace, justice and the care of
creation
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Resources WE can offer FI Asia Pacific

• Intellectual encourage students, ex-students and
  parishioners to attend Human Rights workshops in
  Bangkok
• Encourage members of other congregations and
  parishes to participate in the workshops.
• Offer personnel to assist with courses
• Spiritual keep the project in our community
  prayer
• Host Franciscan youth for World Youth Day
• 3. Economic contribute seed funding until the
  project is self sustaining

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• There is a need there is no specific catholic
  human rights training in the Pacific

• Economically
• it is do-able, if each
• congregation in each country contributed

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3. Human Rights training and advocacy
would have a Franciscan basis

• 4. FI Asia Pacific would link into FI
  Internationals global vision

http//www.franciscansinternational.org/
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Franciscans International Asia Pacific
Charitable Works


Systemic Change