This course will help you develop the skills of conducting and reporting impartial and accurate research into human rights abuses. It will be of benefit to anybody in NGOs and other groups promoting rights-based advocacy or seeking to defend human rights.
It is part of Learning for Change, an integrated collection of courses developed by Fahamu in conjunction with the University of Oxford.
Learning for Change pioneers a unique and innovative approach to learning. Using CDROMs, workshops and a learning community mediated by email, these courses will help you build capacity with minimum disruption to your own work. Each course includes practical projects that will benefit your organisation directly.
Every participant who successfully completes a course will be awarded a certificate from the University of Oxford.
The course comprises two modules.
The foundation module aims to develop your abilities to plan and conduct impartial and accurate research and investigations of human rights violations or abuses.
The advanced module deals in greater depth with the monitoring and reporting skills required to track, observe and report on important human rights events.
Objectives of foundation module
The objective of the course is to help you develop the skills of researching and reporting human rights violations or abuses. As a result of your work on this course, your organisation will benefit from higher quality research and investigation.
When you have completed this course you will be able to:
- Gather and evaluate research materials
- Know what sort of evidence to look for on different human rights issues
- Design simple standard formats for recording human rights information
- Conduct interviews with victims of human rights violations and other informants
- Plan research missions and other on-site investigations.
INVESTIGATING, MONITORING AND REPORTING HUMAN RIGHTS
This course will help you develop the skills of conducting and reporting impartial and accurate research into human rights abuses.
Structure and outline
The first three chapters explain what human rights factfinding is and why we do it. You will also learn about the standards used to measure human rights issues and where to find the information you need.
Week one: Factfinding and investigations defines human rights factfinding, and looks at what it's for, how we do it and who else does it - other than human rights organisations.
Week two: Standards in factfinding largely recaps concepts introduced in the introductory course, An introduction to human rights. It looks at what human standards are, what is a human rights violation and who might commit one. Sources of information is about where we are likely to find information on human rights issues. In particular, it encourages you to prepare for investigations by doing background research and assembling relevant materials.
Week three: In the chapter Evidence and its use we look at the types of evidence used in human rights investigations. We look at a number of examples of human rights reports and ask where researchers found their information. The chapter also deals with how to evaluate and corroborate evidence.
Week four: In Collecting information we look at how to gather information on:
- Torture and ill-treatment
- Sexual violence
- Political killings
- Refugees
- Social and economic rights.
We then turn to looking at the process of gathering facts.
Week five: The chapter on using Standard formats teaches you how to prepare simple incident sheets and standard reporting forms to record information consistently. It also introduces you to computer databases and explores how to use them.
Week six: The chapter on Interviewing introduces the basic skills for preparing, conducting and recording an interview with a witness or victim of a human rights violation. It deals also with some of the particular issues involved with different types of interviewees.
Week seven: In Missions and on-site investigations, we look at how you plan and prepare a fact-finding team to investigate the scene of an important human rights issue – or in an institution, such as a prison. We also look at how to prepare and conduct factfinding missions.
Week eight: At this point, you have the opportunity to think about how to work with other institutions. These include human rights commissions and other NGOs, as well as the police. The chapter also looks at the important question of involving communities in factfinding. Human rights factfinders are so often concerned about the welfare of others that they forget about their own welfare. We include a brief chapter on taking care of yourself and offer some advice on two important issues for human rights factfinders: how to deal with stress; and security and confidentiality.
The workshop is mainly devoted to practising some of the skills you have learned – especially interviewing skills, one of the core skills for a factfinder. You will also have a chance to review the first part of the course. You will discuss with your tutor the subject of your main assignment.
Assignments
There are four assignments for you to complete in the foundation module. There are no tricks in the assignments; they simply aim to check that you have acquired the skills outlined in the module. The assignments tend to get longer as the course goes on. If you are unsure about how to tackle an assignment, contact your tutor. You will not lose marks for this – checking is the sign of a conscientious factfinder!
After the end of the course, you will undertake a major piece of (real) research or investigation with your organisation, which will constitute half of the total assessment. At the final workshop you will conduct an assessed simulated interview.
Email group
You are not doing this course on your own, though it may sometimes feel like it. You are encouraged to communicate by email with the rest of the group doing this course. Some activities are specially marked for email discussion. There is at least one discussion topic each week. You should also feel free to communicate with the group on any other exercises.
You can choose not to participate in a discussion if you feel it is becoming too time-consuming. However, we strongly recommend that you participate as actively as possible in email discussions to get the most out of this course.
Email discussions will be copied to the tutor but not assessed or moderated. Your tutor will not give automatic feedback unless you specifically ask for it. However, they will give you feedback or advice on the planning and execution of assignments.
When you have successfully completed the course, you will be awarded a certificate from the University of Oxford and Fahamu.
Advanced course
The objective of the advanced course is to develop human rights monitors with the skills to track the development of important human rights issues, to observe important events and to report on them. As a result of your work on this course, your organisation will benefit from higher quality documentation and campaigning work.
When you have completed this course you should be able to:
- Plan and write simple human rights reports
- Organise and conduct monitoring of public events
- Organise and conduct basic media monitoring
- Monitor government adherence to international human rights treaty obligations
- Plan to monitor elections.
Structure and outline
During the first two weeks of the advanced course, Reporting will help you to plan, prepare and write human rights reports. In the resource centre, you will find a copy of Writing for change, produced by Fahamu and the Canadian International Development Research Centre. If you have time to work through this, it will give you much extra practice on the writing skills involved in reporting.
This chapter also considers how to monitor a government’s compliance with its international treaty obligations. By way of example, it focuses on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Your first assignment is due at the end of the second week, when you have completed the reporting chapter.
In the third week, we will introduce you to specialised investigative techniques such as forensic medicine, forensic anthropology and trial observations. You will also be introduced to quantitative and qualitative social science research methods and you will learn to design a simple survey and focus group discussion. Your second assignment is due at the end of this week.
The next chapter in week four deals with Monitoring public events: events such as demonstrations and political rallies. This chapter will help you prepare for event monitoring and guide you on what to look for and how to monitor. Your third assignment is due at the end of this week.
The next chapter will take you two weeks: weeks five and six. Media monitoring looks at how to see whether the media are adhering to ethical and professional standards and promoting freedom of expression. You will develop your understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methods and using standard formats. Your fourth assignment should be submitted at the end of the sixth week.
Election monitoring deals with the most complex type of monitoring exercise that you are ever likely to undertake. It pulls together much of what you have previously learned about monitoring violence, events and the media and about using standard formats. It also introduces you to a number of issues that are specific to elections. This chapter will take you two weeks (weeks seven and eight). At the end of it you will have to submit the fifth assignment.
After the end of the course, you will undertake a major piece of (real) research or monitoring with your organisation, which will constitute half of the total assessment.
This course was originally developed with the financial support of the European Union, the British Department for International Development, and the Canadian International Development Research Centre.
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