Better protection
Success stories
Protection through recognition
As a part of its protection work, Human Rights House Foundation utilises human rights awards as tools to support human rights defenders, and to increase the visibility of the work and the situations in which they operate.
Several defenders nominated or co-nominated by HRHF were award human rights prizes in 2017. Mamikon Hovsepyan, founder and director of Pink Armenia, member of Human Rights House Yerevan, won the Bob Hepple Equality Award for his work promoting equality, combatting discrimination, and protecting the rights of the LGBTQI community and other vulnerable groups in Armenia, despite facing regular threats and harassment.
Read more about how HRHF achieved protection through recognition.
Protection of human rights lawyers
The Houses and Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF) identified growing intimidation and persecution of human rights lawyers in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, and began promoting the establishment of strong international standards for the protection of human rights lawyers and their independence.
Following two years of work from across HRHF’s programmes and the Houses, these strong international standards and protections for lawyers were established in 2017 at the United Nations.
Read more about HRHF’s work advocating for strong international standards to protect human rights lawyers.
Impact by year
Better protection in 2018
In 2018, HRHF together with Human Rights Houses Chernihiv, Tbilisi, and the Belarusian Human Rights House finalised guidelines for protection work within the network. The guidelines capture years of experience within the network and are now available to all Houses.
Read more about how we achived better protection in 2018.
The protection programme for the network and its members was solidified in 2017, as HRHF and Human Rights Houses Chernihiv, Tbilisi, and the Belarusian Human Rights House prepared guidelines for everyone within the network undertaking protection work.
HRHF and the Houses have proven to be among the fastest in responding to urgent protection cases in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. This is due to the fact that we have the infrastructure – Human Rights Houses – and mechanisms in place to be able to react and provide help within hours.
Read more about how we achieved better protection in 2017.
Against a backdrop of increasing threats to human rights defenders, Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF) continued to strengthen its protection program with the Houses.
Developing common standards and response procedures, the Houses and HRHF improved their ability to provide prompt protection to network members and partners whose life or wellbeing is under threat due to their human rights work.