More than 25 officials including officials of Human Rights department received training during two-day training workshop on the topic of "Introduction to Pakistan's international human rights reporting obligations" organized by Punjab HR&MA department in collaboration with Huqooq-e-Pakistan here on Thursday.
Punjab Human Rights Secretary Nadeem ur Rehman opened the training session aimed at enhancing the technical and operational capacities of the officials of the Punjab HR&MA Department and the Punjab Treaty Implementation Cell in reporting and implementation of international human rights commitments of Pakistan.
Senior Key Expert, HeP program, Ali Dayan Hasan gave an overview of training objectives and briefed that the training program was designed in consultation with human rights stakeholders to ensure that the trainings reflected Pakistan's realities and perspectives. "Huqooq-e-Pakistan was the only human rights capacity-building project on this scale undertaken by the EU anywhere in the world which aims to foster relations between the EU and Pakistan by aiding Pakistan in meeting its human rights reporting obligations.
Addressing the concluding session, Punjab Minister for HR&MA Ijaz Alam Augustine said that respect of human rights and rule of law is at the core of all EU activities, including trade agreements. He further stated that these training facilitate stakeholders in understanding the reportingprocess, provides effective tools for reporting aiding in fulfilling thestate's treaty body obligations under the UN system.
The minister said hopefully the training will help in equipping the department with the pre-requisite information required in fulfilling their mandates with respect to international human rights reporting. In his concluding remarks, the minister thanked Huqooq-e-Pakistan, the EU and participating institutions. At the end of the training workshop, Minister Ijaz Alam Augustine awarded certificates to qualifying participants.
Regional Director for South Asia Amnesty International Omer Warraich, Executive Director Justice Project Pakistan Sarah Belal, DS HR&MA M. Yousaf, Regional Director HR Lubna Mansoor and officials of the various departments including Law, Labour, Social Welfare, Home, Treaty cell, Human Rights etc were also present in the workshop.