Human rights
We invite you to join us in the exploration of intractable human rights issues. Our distinctive focus in this project is delving into the critical questions of why despite decades of resourcing and the establishment of extensive legal frameworks across Africa, some human rights violations persist with little or no change. Why is there such a huge disparity between the legal framework and the incidence of human rights violations? What can be done to close the gap between formal protections or the absence thereof and the lived reality of citizens? This project examines these questions by focusing on three intractable problems of human rights, because of the seeming impossibility to resolve them. These include child labour, human trafficking, and the protection of LGBTIQ rights. Centring lived experience and the nuances of context we explore multi-disciplinary methods of understanding these complex issues. We additionally, reach into cultures, religion, familial relations, art, music, poetry and social spaces to enrich our understanding and enable space for reflexive and relational discourse.
Our project is a space for academic curiosity, exploration, and discovery. We conduct research nuanced by a feminist lens and decolonial praxis using grounded tools from multiple disciplines.
Research within this project focuses on an examination of three comparative case studies namely child labour, human trafficking and LGBTIQ rights in six selected countries. The programme of work and the project’s key structures and activities are built around these three case studies as follows:
1. Child labour – Ghana & Malawi
2. Human trafficking – Nigeria & South Africa
3. LGBTIQ rights – Ethiopia & Zimbabwe
The project relies on methodological tools that reflect the multiplicity of the determinants of the intractable problems in their fullest scope. It ensures interdisciplinary analysis that provides a grounded understanding of the problems alongside multifocal solutions. This allows a nuanced exploration of the problems not only as legal artefacts but also in their social, cultural, political and economic context.