The Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) has commenced the third HRCM-CSO Partnership Forum of this year. The forum is convening over the next two days and will center on the key topic “Voices for a Living Planet: Civil Society Conversations on Environment and Human Rights.”
In a post on social media, HRCM has stated that this Human Rights Forum will explore the vital link between environmental challenges and human rights in the Maldives, with a focus on strengthening community resilience, advancing environmental justice, and fostering collective responsibility.
The forum kicked off with a total of 63 participants, with HRCM and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representatives in attendance. A total of 26 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from Male’ and 14 organizations from the atolls also attended this forum.
HRCM has detailed that this forum aims to strengthen engagement between HRCM and CSOs, providing a vigorous system for consultation and collaborative action, while serving as a platform for dialogue and holding multifaceted discussions on human rights.
The second HRCM-CSO Partnership Forum was held in July this year, during which the Right to Defend Rights Toolkit was inaugrated. This monitoring tool was created collaboratively by the Asian Pacific Forum and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, and uses human rights-based indicators. This tool can be utilised to systematically monitor the enabling environment for human rights defenders in the Maldives.
According to HRCM, it hopes this forum can ensure sustained advocacy for human rights across the Maldives.