Shelter City - Support Centres

Shelter City is a nationwide initiative of Justice and Peace Netherlands to protect human rights defenders, in cooperation with a growing number of Dutch cities and local organizations.

Human rights defenders defend the rights of themselves and of others. Through their work they play an important role in the promotion of democratic values, political freedoms, and civil rights. This is a challenging and dangerous fight: they are often silenced, threatened, arrested, tortured and sometimes they disappear.

Justice and Peace established Shelter City in 2012 on the request of their network of international human rights defenders. After the first Shelter City in The Hague, Middelburg joined in 2014, followed by Nijmegen, Maastricht, Utrecht, and Amsterdam in 2015, Tilburg and Groningen in 2016 and Zwolle and Haarlem in 2017. In 2018 Deventer also joined the Shelter City network. Rotterdam followed in 2020. Tbilisi & Batumi (Georgia), Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), Cotonou (Benin) and San José (Costa Rica) have joined the network as International Shelter City Hubs. The expectation is that other cities (in or outside the Netherlands) will join in the future as well. The growing number of applications from Human Rights Defenders under threat shows that new Shelter Cities are strongly needed.

In every Shelter City the municipality, local organizations, universities, and Justice and Peace provide the shelter and take care of the program for the human rights defender. Together with the human rights defenders they organize meetings and workshops that contribute to the raising of awareness about human rights issues among the inhabitants of the Shelter Cities.

Shelter City is affiliated with the EU Human Rights Defenders Relocation Platform

Civil Rights Defenders - Support Centres

A support centre that partners with and supports human rights defenders who work in some of the world’s most repressive regions on four continents.

Through advocacy, litigation, and public campaigns, CRD advance people’s rights globally and also act as Sweden’s watchdog civil rights group.

Among the support activities, there are security training, emergency support, expertise, organisational development, and long-term financial support.

Civil Rights Defenders - Stakeholders

An Expert Organisation for Human Rights. CRD partners with and supports human rights defenders who work in some of the world’s most repressive regions on four continents.

Through advocacy, litigation, and public campaigns, CRD advances people’s rights globally. The organisation also acts as Sweden’s watchdog civil rights group.

Every year, CRD has The Civil Rights Defender of the Year Award, an award for outstanding work in defence of civil and political rights, to recognise a prominent human rights defender who, despite the risk to their own safety, continues the struggle for civil and political rights.
The award highlights the situation of human rights defenders at risk. It enhances their human rights work by providing international recognition and support to the organisation represented by the award recipient. The award recipient is a person who carries out their work without the use of violence and within an independent human rights organisation or network.

Among the support activities, there are security training, emergency support, expertise, organisational development, and long-term financial support.

CRD also brings together its partners so they can exchange experiences, as well as learn from and inspire each other.

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