Report on the Extended Fellowship

Executive summary

Short term relocation schemes for human rights defenders (HRDs) at risk have grown substantially in recent years. They are an important tool in combating threats to a defender’s safety and providing a period of respite and capacity building. However, it is widely acknowledged that more support needs to be given to HRDs who, due to prolonged situations of risk, have to leave their countries for longer periods. To address this gap, the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, piloted an Extended Fellowship Programme for HRDs from areas of prolonged conflict.

Four defenders (Fellows) spent eighteen months at the University with the aim of strengthening their capacity and supporting them to continue their activism whilst outside their country of origin. During the Programme the defenders had access to a wide range of university classes, workshops and specialist training, strengthening their knowledge and understanding of human rights. They also had time to develop their research skills and fundraising capacity enabling them to undertake longer term strategic planning to support their human rights work and the communities in their home regions.

The benefits of short term relocation have been documented.1 This report focuses on additional and particular benefits of longer term relocation, as part of a broader programme of worth under CAHR’s UNESCO Chair to inform strategies to support HRDs in exile. The key benefits of the Extended Fellowship Programme were:

• Sustained and enhanced activism: The level and scope of the HRDs’ activism work was greatly enhanced during the Fellowship. The Fellows were able to resume, refocus and continue their human rights activism and remain engaged with their activist communities. Prior to the Fellowship, the HRDs had needed to stop or substantially curb their work, due to high levels of risk. The security of working outside their country allowed them to elevate their profile and levels of advocacy.

• High level advocacy: The long-term nature of this Programme enabled connections with parliamentarians, government officials, funders, and organisations supporting HRDs to be built over a period of time leading to an amplification of the HRDs’ human rights work and an increase in their level of protection.

• Holistic wellbeing and safety: The HRDs reported significant health and wellbeing improvements by the end of the programme. Ongoing access to healthcare was particularly beneficial to those with chronic medical conditions that had previously been neglected or had received less attention than needed. The defenders also reported benefiting greatly from regular wellbeing sessions, long-term individual counselling and the support they received from CAHR staff and local supporters.

• The University as a site of support and protection: Being based at a university brought benefits in four areas: 1) Wide-ranging educational and training opportunities, including academic courses and skills training (fundraising). 2) Prestige and status, which elevated self-esteem, enhanced advocacy and access to high level events and institutions, and provided security, for example when travelling. 3) A broad-based university infrastructure, which supplied wrap-around capacity and protection support, including IT training/security, physical security and legal advice. 4) Access to multiple platforms for enhancing the voice and visibility of defenders (if appropriate), both within the university and externally.

While all of these benefits may to a degree come with shorter periods of relocation, what was noticeable about the longer term fellowships was that these impacts were significantly elevated, and intersected in powerful ways, to provide step-changes in the defender’s work.

The defenders faced two notable challenges during the Fellowship:

• Security: The heightened risk these defenders faced to an extent followed them onto the fellowship. One HRD experienced transnational repression in the form of digital threats from government officials and members of the diaspora community. Physical attacks and abductions were carried out by the ruling military junta on another HRD’s family members. Greater consideration needs to be given to protecting HRDs’ families remaining in the country of risk and to ensuring sufficient measures are in place to guarantee the safety of HRDs during relocation.

• Travel: All of the HRDs faced challenges related to securing a UK visa and/or being able to safely leave and return to their country of residence. Some of the HRDs had to undertake risky journeys to reach the UK consulate office in another region for visa processing; some needed support to exit their home country safely.

Key lessons learned:

• The benefits of longer term relocation can be cumulative, generating intersectional outcomes over time and between the different aspects of defender activism and protection.

• An extended period of relocation also enables deeper links to develop between the defenders, the university and the local community, also contributing to activism and protection. This took several forms for CAHR, including the integration of defenders into local activism and into the Centre’s research projects.

• Defenders at high risk often never fully ‘escape’ their risk, as it accompanies them abroad and when they travel, notably in the forms of ongoing trauma and transnational threats. This means that hosts need to provide additional forms of wrap-around support and protection.

• The huge demands of every aspect of longer term fellowships, from travel and arrival to psycho-social and wellbeing support needs to the complexities of departure and onward protection require that such schemes are adequately resourced.

• Universities are well suited to providing longer term support for defenders, as a range of existing characteristics - status, infrastructures, resources, networks - can be mobilised to enhance both defender activism and their protection.

• For some defenders at risk a one year relocation is seen as the optimal length of time to be away from their communities. After a longer period some defenders have become so embedded in the host community that they struggle to contemplate returning to their region of origin.

HRDs in Westminster during an advocacy trip

Authors: This report was written by Patricia Bartley with support from Paul Gready and Pippa Cooper at the Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York