Human Rights Commission Laments Of Inadequate Funding, Says Its Hampering Operations

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has lamented on the need to activate its dormant human rights fund.

The human rights fund is a contributory fund by governments, corporate organisations, philanthropists and concerned individuals, set aside for prosecution of human rights cases and for assisting victims of human rights abuses. The fund has remained dormant due to lack of expected contributions and donations.

Executive Secretary of NHRC, Tony Ojukwu, decried the dearth of the fund following lack of interest to donate or contribute to the fund by stakeholders, saying that due to inadequacy of funding, the operations of the Commission in respect to seeking redress for victims of human rights violations are being hampered.

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He spoke during an interactive session with Journalists in Abuja on Wednesday.

While urging media to assist in highlighting the inadequacy of funding to the CommissIon, he said: “there is need for government to provide specific budget item for Rape, Social and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), human rights violations arising from emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for government and corporate organizations to contribute to the Huma Rights Fund to galvanize human rights promotion and protection.

He noted that even though there is a legal provision setting up the fund in the CommissIon’s enabling Act but it has not been activated apart from the meagre from the Commission.

He said: Corporate organizations need to contribute to this fund, individuals need to donate to this fund, government need also to contribute to this fund.

“Human rights work entails a lot of emergencies, you can never foresee the human rights violations that will come. Nobody foresaw COVID-19 coming this year; nobody knew that there were going to be an avalanche of rape and SGBV.

“Now, do we need to fold our hands and do nothing? So, that is the challenge posed by inability to have a human rights fund that can be relied upon even by you, even by the civil society who at times are faced with urgent challenges.

“This human rights fund will make it possible for all actors in human rights work. So, we all need this human rights fund so that doing the human rights work will be a little bit easier because you can only work within the limits of the resources that you have.”

Further, the Executive Secretary urged Journalists to analyse existing laws that are in place for protecting human rights like the NHRG Act, Child Right Act, the Violence Against Person’s Prohibition Act, the Consumer protection Act and a host of others so that Nigerians can know the avenues available to them for their rights to be repressed.

Ojukwu noted that ignorance of the law is a major problem confronting Nigerians. He canvassed for the translation of the various human rights laws into local languages for ease of understanding by the public.

He urged rape victims not to shy away from reporting their cases no matter how long it has lasted but should ensure that they are telling the truth not blackmailing.