Summary: Advancing the protection of aid workers Side Event
Advancing the protection of aid workers
Side event – Protection of Civilians Week
20 May 2024
Summary
On 20 May 2024, LAW co-hosted a side event to Protection of Civilians Week in New York, titled “Advancing the protection of aid workers”. The event was organised in partnership with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Permanent Representation of France to the UN in New York, the Permanent Representation of Switzerland to the UN in New York, the Permanent Representation of Canada to the UN in New York, the Permanent Representation of Brazil to the UN in New York, the United Nations Department for Safety and Security (UNDSS), Action Against Hunger International (AAH/ACF) and Nonviolent Peaceforce.
Thomas Gürber, State Secretary and Head of UN Division of Switzerland, and Diarra Dime-Labille, Legal Counsellor, Head of the Human Rights, Humanitarian and Influence Affairs division at the Permanent Mission of France, gave opening remarks. The distinguished panel, composed of Edem Wosornu, Director of the Operations and Advocacy Division at OCHA, Chibuzo Okonta, Executive Director of ACF France, Hanin Ahmed, a women and youths rights activist and founder of Omdurman (Sudan) Emergency Response Room and Marc Jacquand, Chief of the Strategic Planning Service at UNDSS, then discussed the challenges faced by humanitarian organisations and their staff members, in particular national staff members.
Thomas Gürber set the scene for the conversation by reminding the participants that “aid workers are civilians protected under International Humanitarian Law”. Diarra Dime-Labille also confirmed France’s engagement in collective action to protect aid workers better, as “aid workers are giving assistance, but are also victims”. The panel was unanimous that aid workers, and in particular national staff, are under increased threats and pressure, in an increased number of high-risk contexts, and that respect for International Humanitarian Law (IHL) has decreased. Chibuzo Okonta commented that since he joined ACF as Director, “there is an incident every other week”. The challenges were summarized by Edem Wosornu who cited Martin Griffiths declaration of July 2023 with regards to the situation in Sudan: “We cannot work under the barrel of a gun”. But panellists highlighted that humanitarians must stay and deliver, must continue to protect by presence. Even when the international staff members leave, like in Sudan and areas of Ukraine, national staff and national organisations remain and are the first responders. For Hanin Ahmed, local aid workers are in theory recognised as aid workers whatever their status, but still suffer massive challenges, such as arrest, harassment, sexual violence, without sufficient support to improve their security. She said “We are trying but no-one listens”.
Turning to solutions, Marc Jacquand highlighted that there are people in the NGO community working 24/7 on security risk management, and yet the situation is not improving. He added “There is only so much we can do. It all boils down to legal accountability now.” LAW launched its report “Justice and accountability for attacks on aid workers: What are the barriers and how to overcome them?” and presented the findings and recommendations of its research. The report is available here. Panellists agreed that access to legal aid is critical, as well as strengthening the capacity of local institutions. Humanitarians are there to deliver and will continue their work under extreme circumstances, but they need to know that States and others are playing their role on supporting accountability while they do so. Prevention of conflict is key, but if conflict is going to happen anyway without respect to IHL, accountability of the perpetrators and justice for the victims is crucial, as the panellists unanimously agreed. This support needs to be built in funding, including flexibility to cover for aid workers on the ground, who are doing the work and cannot access the funding.
The panellists and the closing remarks given by Ambassador Norberto Moretti, Deputy Permanent Representative of Brazil to the UN in New York gave complementary conclusions. Member States must act, and Marc Jacquand said, “It is only when Member States show the same courage as humanitarians on the ground that we will see progress with regards to accountability.” But humanitarians must help them do so, through the provision of data, evidence and analysis from the ground, strict adherence to humanitarian principles. As Ambassador Moretti concluded, “We know the problems and we know what needs to be done”, what is lacking is implementation and operationalisation of the solutions.
