Since
its inception in February 1998, the ICBL’s Working Group on Victim
Assistance (WGVA) has had these general goals:
Advocate for, monitor, and provide guidance to the international community
as to where, what, and how victim assistance is needed;
Promote increased coverage, funding, and sustainability of victim assistance
programs;
Promote improvements in the quality of programs for landmine
victims/survivors and other persons with disability;
Facilitate inclusion of landmine victims in Mine Ban Treaty-related
processes.
The WGVAis chaired by theLandmine
Survivors Network, and has 98 members representing approximately 40
organizations and country campaigns. In 2001 and 2002, the WGVA’s main
efforts included collaboration with the Standing Committee on Victim Assistance
and Socio-Economic Reintegration on the content of the intersessional work,
publication and dissemination of the 2001 Portfolio of Victim Assistance
Programs, and implementation of the Raising the Voices program.
Collaboration between the WGVA and the Standing Committee
A main focus of the WGVA in 2001 and 2002, as in
past years, was participation in the Mine Ban Treaty’s intersessional work
program and the Third Meeting of States Parties. Continued collaboration with
the co-chairs and co-rapporteurs on the content of the agenda, on the selection
of expert speakers, and on the aims of the meetings proved extremely beneficial
in a number of ways. In particular, it allowed aspects of victim assistance
that were not made explicit in the treaty to become part of the general
discourse of the Standing Committee. Many issues were raised that would have
otherwise been neglected or avoided. The collaboration allowed governments,
NGOs and international organizations to become allies on some issues and to
better understand different positions on other issues. Finally, the
collaboration has allowed for more perspectives, ideas, strategies, and mutual
accountability among the various actors in victim assistance than would have
ever been possible in a more limited forum. For these reasons, the WGVA will
continue to make this collaboration an important part of its work.
The WGVA views the links between mine victim assistance and broader
disability issues and the international human rights framework as fundamental to
advancing the rights of landmine survivors and all persons with disability.
Following an intervention by Mexico on its initiative to establish a convention
on the rights of persons with disabilities, the WGVA endorsed this effort and
worked to ensure that disability and human rights was included in each session
of the Standing Committee. The WGVA has viewed the momentum for such a
Convention and the momentum created by the Standing Committee to improve victim
assistance as mutually reinforcing and beneficial.
Given that there the Mine Ban Treaty does not include any explicit deadlines
or other criteria for “success” in victim assistance, the Standing
Committee initiated a consultative process facilitated by UNMAS to focus and
clarify the Standing Committees targets for actions in the lead up to the 2004
Review Conference. The WGVA played a key role in this process. It is too early
for the process to have reached definitive conclusions, but four preliminary
trends did surface. These were the need for: national level planning for victim
assistance by States Parties; improved quality and coverage of prosthetics
services in mine-affected countries; emergency medical care that extends to
mine-affected areas; and a focus on economic reintegration programs for landmine
victims.
2001 Portfolio of Victim Assistance Programs
The fourth edition of the “Portfolio of
Victim Assistance Programs” was prepared for distribution to the Third
Meeting of States Parties in September 2001, and is available in hard copy and
on-line at www.landminevap.org. The
compilation consisted of 119 program descriptions from 79 organizations in 39
countries.
The VAWG members worked hard to encourage more organizations to submit
information to the Portfolio to provide a more comprehensive picture of
available services, especially those programs that build local capacity. A fifth
edition of the Portfolio is in preparation for release to the Fourth Meeting of
States Parties in September 2002.
Raising the Voices
“Raising the Voices” is a leadership
and advocacy training program for landmine survivors established in early 2001
to facilitate the inclusion of landmine survivors in Mine Ban Treaty-related
processes. Landmine Survivors Network facilitates the program on behalf of the
WGVA. Mine Ban Treaty processes have, from the beginning of the campaign,
included survivors. Several survivors are official ambassadors for the ICBL and
regularly travel around the world devoting their energies to the campaign.
“Raising the Voices” is, in part, a “second wave” of
this practice, and is intended to increase the number of landmine survivors who
have the vision, experience, confidence, tools, and opportunities to promote the
cause of all survivors.
The training prepares survivors to participate meaningfully in the
substantive work of the Standing Committees, especially the Standing Committee
on Victim Assistance. The survivors’ stories and their input to the
Committee serve two purposes. They enrich delegates’ appreciation of what
survivors experience, and provide a channel through which survivors’
voices are regularly taken into account within the workings of the committee.
The first cycle of “Raising the Voices” brought eight landmine
survivors from Latin America to the May 2001 intersessional meetings in Geneva
and to the Third Meeting of States Parties in September 2001 in Managua,
Nicaragua. Since their graduation from the program, these survivors have been
involved in various activities promoting victim assistance, the Mine Ban Treaty,
and the rights of people with disabilities. The Raising the Voices program
coordinator has maintained contact with these survivors and provides guidance
and feedback, and coordinates additional trainings for the group.
Fourteen survivors from Africa participated in the training program and
offered input into the second round of intersessional meetings in 2002. The
French/English speaking group of survivors from Chad, Eritrea, Rwanda, Senegal,
and Uganda highlighted the need for literacy training for survivors in the
January 2002 session of the Standing Committee. The Portuguese/English speaking
group included survivors from Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Africa, and
Sudan. The group chose to highlight economic integration at the Standing
Committee in May 2002 and advocated that all other forms of assistance should
ultimately lead to one goal, that survivors be able to earn a living, and to
sustain themselves and their families.
Three graduates of the program returned in May 2002 to discuss the work they
have done since the training. Nelson Castillo, a landmine survivor from
Ecuador, literally changed the law in Ecuador so that disabled military can now
continue in military service after their injury rather than be discharged
without a living pension or retraining. Danis Hernandez of Nicaragua spoke
about his work with the Organization of American States (OAS) in reaching out to
rural communities in the countries of Central America to bring mine risk
education to these populations. Margaret Arach of Uganda spoke about her
counseling work with women landmine survivors and economic reintegration for
persons with disabilities.
More details on ICBL Working Group (WG) activities are available on the ICBL
website at http://www.icbl.org/wg.
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