Human Rights Centre Annual Report for 2019 published
May 7, 2020
The HRC is of the view that it has achieved the targets set up in the Action Plan 2019 satisfactorily. In addition to the tasks included in the Action Plan, work on promoting the rights of older persons began in March.
The HRC’s Action Plan for 2019 was approved in January 2019. The HRC is of the view that it has achieved these targets satisfactorily. In addition to the tasks included in the Action Plan, work on promoting the rights of older persons began at the HRC in March when Parliament granted additional resources for the activities.
The promotion of fundamental and human rights includes areas such as training and education, research, provision of information and general promotion. The HRC’s fundamental and human rights training projects progressed well, and training packages on new themes were prepared for the HRC’s website.
The structures for monitoring the implementation of human rights were actively developed during the year, and the work will continue in 2020. For the purposes of periodic reporting, the HRC issued statements to the UN on the fulfilment of the obligations of three human rights treaties. Statements and positions on several individual themes were also issued both to Finnish and to international parties.
Before the government negotiations, the HRC together with the Human Rights Delegation issued recommendations for the promotion of fundamental and human rights for the government term 2019-2023. The recommendations were based on an extensive background report entitled The fundamental and human rights situation in Finland, the Human Rights Delegation’ recommendations for the government term 2019-2023 (in Finnish), which was published by the HRC in spring 2019.
The promotion and monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and cooperation with authorities and organisations for persons with disabilities were developed, and up-to-date empirical evidence was obtained as a result of an online questionnaire for persons with disabilities.
In 2019, the HRC actively strove to strengthen its work on the rule of law in its networks as the principle of rule of law was being increasingly challenged in some European countries. Cooperation with FRA with regard to this theme also strengthened during the year. For example, the HRC was involved in the development of the EU Fundamental Rights Information System database (EFRIS).