For the past month, 6 students from Parramatta Marist High School have been researching and preparing recommendations to delegates at the United Nations Permanent Mission in Geneva through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
James Chaaya, Zain Chaudry, Chris ElHachem, Diederik Lubbers, Brendan Pospicshil and Alexander Walker have identified three key issues in Australia they feel are important and wish to communicate their perspectives and resolutions. These issues are:
- Protection of the rights of asylum seekers;
- Impact of climate change on human rights and;
- Domestic violence.
The UPR is a unique process which involves a review every 5 years of the human rights records of the 193 UN Member States. Australia is due to appear for its third review before the UPR Working Group for an interactive dialogue with other Member States on 25 January 2021. The ultimate aim of this mechanism is to improve the human rights situation in all countries and address human rights violations wherever they occur.
This week, the students have spent their evenings lobbying delegates in Geneva from 12 countries: Iran, Haiti, Portugal, Finland, United States, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Uruguay, France, Fiji & Peru. The students have been able to link with these countries through the Marist Brothers NGO (FMSI) at the UN which has consultative status on the Human Rights Council.
The students’ advocacy involved providing: background information to the delegates; how they relate to the human rights of Australians and; what recommendations they wish to achieve. This was followed by questions and clarification from the delegates who will then take this information to their respective countries for consideration.
In these dialogues, the boys were articulate, eloquent and sensitive in their responses, respecting the culture of the countries they spoke with. Given the boys also researched these countries to understand how they needed to bring their message forward, also showed how well prepared our boys are to take on the challenges in being leaders among our youth. A special mention to Sebastian Sammut who has attended every evening's lobbying to support his peers.
We look forward to seeing the results of Australia’s review in 2021.
