Upholding Human Rights with Low-Tech Innovation – TheNigerialawyer

On December 10, 1948, at the United Nations General Assembly in
Paris, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, was drafted. ^[1]

The 30-point document has become a guide for humanity to treat
each other with dignity and as deserving of the best quality of
life possible regardless of nationality, race, religious leanings,
political ideologies, and every other dividing line that humanity
has constructed for itself. Today, much of the context which set
the premise for the formation of this declaration is still the
same.

Threats to life, freedom, security of person, arbitrary arrests
or exile are not only still infamously popular, but now, fueled by
man-made advancements in science and technology, present in forms
that did not exist in 1948. Nonetheless, nongovernmental
organisations championing human rights in various parts of the
globe are looking to technology and innovation to increase the
scope and impact of their activities in areas where these NGOs are
present.

Founded in 1961 by British lawyer Peter Benenson, global human
rights organisation, Amnesty International employed^[2] the power and reach
of the print media and letter writing in its earlier days to
campaign and drum up support against human rights abuses. Also part
of its modus operandi was producing research
reports and legal documentation that supported its campaigns around
the world. As it grew and began to take on more cases, driving
campaigns through these traditional means became more cumbersome.
Until the 1990s, when the invention of the web revolutionised the
spread of information.

“External communication, documentation and transparency in
procurement are very important areas where innovation has helped
non-government organisations improve their impact,” says Saratu
Abiola, who works with an international development
organisation.

“You want to automate as much of your work as possible,” she
stresses.

Technology adoption in Nigeria has been generally slow^[3] over the years.
However, the adoption and penetration of social media have scaled
significantly with the dip in smartphone prices and competitive
data pricing. According to Statista.com reports^[4], there were 29.3 million
social media users in Nigeria in 2018 and this is projected to rise
to 36.8 million in 2023. NGOs are now relying on these social
communities online to spread their campaigns faster and wider.

“Amnesty International Nigeria has an urgent appeal mechanism
that uses online petitions hosted on our website to raise advocacy
on individuals at risk, human rights defenders and specific
issues,” says Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International
Nigeria^[5].

“We then promote the action using our social media accounts on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.”

Take the recent arrest of one of the conveners of the #ArewaMeToo^[6] movement in
Nigeria. Or the disappearance of journalist, Jones Abiri, who was
detained incommunicado by the Department of
State Service for more than 2 years.

“Our petition^[7] received over
25,000 actions and eventually led to his release^[8],” Ojigho says.

For Stand to
End Rape^[9] (STER), a Nigerian
initiative against sexual abuse and gender-based violence, social
media has been instrumental in amplifying its messaging and
capturing data, two key tools in the fight against sexual
abuse.

“We started off on social media as just a hashtag, #StandToEndRape^[10]. As it grew, it became
a platform and an instrument for victims to report abuse cases,”
says Founder, Ayodeji Osowobi.

“In 2016, we partnered with Google Map UK to map hospitals,
police stations and primary health care centers in Lagos State,”
Osowobi says.

“What usually happens is that most victims only know about a
certain center and so if the site of a crime is a distance away,
it’ll take longer to travel all the way down.”

It is interesting to see how simple technology like cloud-based
storage, data management tools like Microsoft’s Excel, and social
media are driving very critical campaigns that protect the basic
rights of human beings around the globe.

According to Amnesty International Nigeria’s Director, the
campaign activities of the organisation isn’t solely executed on
social media as they are also looking at how mobile applications
can be used impactfully to protect human rights.

“This is a new area for Amnesty,” says Ojigho.

“We are interested in apps that help protect human rights
defenders (HRDs) so that they can carry out their work safely.
Surveillance is a real threat that puts HRDs at risk. A reporting
app for documenting abuses would be welcome. However, it would also
need to protect the rights to privacy and provide options to share
information anonymously.”

In 2014, Amnesty International launched a mobile app
called Panic
Button^[11] which they started
building in 2012 with technology companies iilab^[12], Frontline^[13] and The Engine Room^[14]. The SOS tool enabled
activists especially those who receive threats in the course of
their work, send alerts to three people in their network and update
the recipients on their whereabouts every five minutes. In 2017,
The Engine Room announced that the app was going to be retired^[15] largely due to a
lack of funding for further development and technical issues that
generated false alarms.

As a furtherance of its drive to incorporate innovation and
technology into its activities, Ojigho says Amnesty plans to keep
exploring the ethical use of artificial intelligence and the
delicate balance between this prospect and its ability to become a
tool for abuse by way of its impact on the future of work,
profiling of minority groups and discrimination.

But with a more determined drive towards advanced technology
like robotics and artificial intelligence, Osowobi says it is
important to never lose sight of the target audience.

“You can have the best innovation but if it doesn’t suit the
needs of the target audience then it is just a project.”

Culled from techcabal.com

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