Con­tact:
Veerle Opgen­haf­fen, CHRGJ
212–992-8186/917–526-1972 (cell)

Groups Call for Respect for Human Rights, Account­abil­ity at Haiti Donors’ Con­fer­ence
More than 300 NGOs Urge that Human Rights Drive Haiti Aid Efforts

(Boston, New York, Port-au-Prince, Wash­ing­ton DC, March 18, 2010)—The human rights and dig­nity of all Haitians should be the dri­ving force behind inter­na­tional assis­tance in rebuild­ing Haiti, said more than 300 non-governmental orga­ni­za­tions in a let­ter sent to donors today.  A coali­tion work­ing for human rights in Haiti—the Cen­ter for Human Rights and Global Jus­tice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law, Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux (BAI), the Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH), Part­ners In Health (PIH)/Zanmi Las­ante (ZL), and the Robert F. Kennedy Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Human Rights (RFK Center)—joined col­leagues from every region of the world in call­ing for a rights-based approach to inter­na­tional assis­tance, in advance of the Haiti Donors’ Con­fer­ence, to be held at UN head­quar­ters in New York on March 31^st.

The much-anticipated Con­fer­ence will bring together an array of major donors to dis­cuss the future of aid to Haiti. The six rights groups that spear­headed the let­ter drive also issued a list of con­crete rec­om­men­da­tions out­lin­ing a rights-based approach to aid deliv­ery in advance of the con­fer­ence, and have a long his­tory of work­ing on aid and human rights issues in Haiti.  Both the let­ter and the rec­om­men­da­tions high­light the need to empower the Hait­ian peo­ple; strengthen the Hait­ian government’s capac­ity to guar­an­tee human rights; and make assis­tance trans­par­ent and account­able to the Hait­ian people.

For more infor­ma­tion about these orga­ni­za­tions, please visit their web­sites: www.chrgj.org, www.pih.org, www.ijdh.org, www.rfkcenter.org

Read let­ter in Eng­lish, Kreyol, French and Span­ish here.

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