With funding from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a total of 170 Staff, Interns and Volunteers of the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone (HRCSL) and the District Human Rights Committees (DHRCs) from the 16 Districts in the country on the 30th May, 2023 benefitted from a training programme focused on “Human Rights and Election Monitoring” held in the Conference Hall of the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone (CCSL) on Kingharman Road in Freetown in preparation for the forthcoming elections.
This medium was well informed that the rationale for conducting the training was to build advocacy and monitoring skills in the participants in order to monitor human rights issues during the elections, ensure that the staff of the Commission and DHRCs are able to identify their roles so that they can mitigate violence during elections and for the Commission to positively influence the entirety of the citizenry in the process.
Vice-Chairman of HRCSL, Victor Idrissa Lansana emphasized the role of the Commission in moments like these. He particularly highlighted some of the responsibilities of the Commission which includes the monitoring of human rights violations, documentation of same and taking the necessary measures to addressing those violations.
“We are three weeks away to the June 24th elections and it is very pertinent for us to be really central in the process. As an independent institution, we have the obligation to ensure that we put out very credible information about the elections. We had already started monitoring the electioneering process well before now,” he said.
The Vice Chairperson alluded to the fact that it was important for staff and DHRCs to understand the dos and don’ts of the electioneering process and the ethics to incorporate them when going out to the field to monitor so that the Commission can put out a credible report that will indicate the Commission’s informed position on the elections.
