Statement by Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

20 August 2021

Welcome to this Training of Trainers course in human rights education for young people. I'm so glad that more than 40 of you have come together from over 30 countries to develop new human rights education activities with young people in your communities.

Young people the world over are agents of change – a driving force for human rights. In every country and every era, countless young people have risen up to demand freedom, greater equality, and structures and systems in economies, politics and societies that uphold fundamental human rights.

Today, we see young people all over the world marching for racial justice; combating hatred and intolerance; calling for development that is more sustainable for people and planet; and breaking down barriers to freedom.

These powerful movements are the source of many positive changes, which benefit not only the activists themselves, but more broadly, all of society.

Human rights education equips young people with knowledge, skills and attitudes that support their positive contributions, based on respect, equality, justice and solidarity.

It empowers individuals to identify their – and others’ – human rights, and to claim and defend those rights.  

Effective human rights education engages all of us in a dialogue about how human rights laws and principles can be translated into our own social, economic, cultural and political reality, using participatory learning methods that aim to sharpen critical analysis. The aim is to develop rights-based, concrete solutions to the challenges that people face on the ground, and to encourage everyone to participate in the collective realization of human rights.

By fostering inclusion and participation, promoting solidarity and preventing violence and conflict, human rights education constitutes a powerful investment in building a just, peaceful and equitable future for everyone. I want to  emphasise this point: your work, as trainers, will be important to assisting people to construct real solutions to our climate emergency, which threatens all human rights, and to build better systems in recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, which has so profoundly set back progress on many vital issues. 

To address these and other major challenges, which undermine the basic fabric and social cohesion of our societies, we need solutions grounded in the basic understanding that all of us are equally deserving of dignity, respect and justice. This is the task of human rights education: to foster a sense of our common humanity while embracing and valuing our diversities.

Youth is a crucial period of any individual’s personal development. It is largely at this time that people develop their personal values and begin to grasp what being part of a community and society entail. But at the same time, during their transition from childhood to adulthood, from dependency to autonomy, many young people experience violations of their fundamental rights.

Some examples of the discrimination and challenges young people face include those in the area of participation. Youth are under-represented in political institutions, with less than 2% of parliamentarians worldwide aged under 30. Young people worldwide are also three times more likely than adults to be unemployed – and when they are employed, they often face more precarious working conditions.

In terms of access to health, some countries require parental notification for young people to access sexual and reproductive health services, such as contraceptives. And across a range of issues involving personal autonomy, many girls and LGBTIQ young people experience unjustifiable obstacles to their rights. There are also specific challenges for youth in vulnerable situations such as young migrants, young people in conflict with the law, and those with disabilities.¹

These challenges have been  exacerbated by COVID-19, across Europe and in every other region of the world. A Global Survey on Youth and COVID-19 we conducted with ILO last year, with over 12,000 respondents, found systematic, deep and disproportionate  impacts of the pandemic on young people, particularly women, the youngest people in our cohort, and those in lower income countries. They ranged from the right to decent work to the right to education and a series of challenges to the right to health, including mental health. One in three young people in the survey noted marked impact on their right to participate in public affairs.

In spite of this, young people remain determined to step up and actively contribute to efforts to prevent and address the damage done by the pandemic, and to respond to the needs of others. Over 1 in 4 young people reported actively engaging in volunteer work or donations towards the COVID-19 response. We have seen many indigenous youth leading  information campaigns about the pandemic in indigenous languages, and working to keep their peoples safe from harm. Young people are also connecting communities together at a time of separation, checking in on and supporting community spirit.

Let me be clear: the pandemic, like climate change, is doing terrible harm. But it is also an opportunity. The work of devising and financing programmes to recover from the pandemic gives all policy-makers an opening to implement transformative changes towards a more fair, inclusive and sustainable world, free of all forms of discrimination.

We need to create a groundswell of support for this kind of reform. My Office is eager to support initiatives that can help generate such changes.

Our contribution to human rights education takes various forms. At the national and regional levels, human rights education and training are a regular part of the work of all of our field presences and country offices.

At the global  level, we coordinate the World Programme for Human Rights Education, which is currently focusing on  human rights education for youth. Our Office also supports the human rights education and training programmes of other bodies, such as the Council of Europe, by providing advice, developing and disseminating methodological tools based on good practice, and sharing resources.

I hope this course will be beneficial for you and for the important work you are doing in your communities. Thank you for standing up for human rights.

1. Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Youth and human rights, A/HRC/39/33 (2018)