Getting Engaged? YES – But Where And In Which Way?

Photography by Anna Rok

Where do we stand in Poland roughly twenty years after the fall of the iron curtain? Is everybody in the Polish society benefitting from the same rights? What is the situation of minority groups in Poland today? Is everybody's voice being heard, no matter which color, religion, origin or background? And if not, is it due to discrimination or maybe just ignorance? What are human rights challenges in present-day Poland? And most importantly: what can we in our group do about that?!

Today was a day of reflection, of taking a deep breath from the last ten eventful days and of thinking about what we have learned and experienced so far. But also a day to reconsider what initially led us to the participation in this program and what we want to achieve in the end. Although there are still seven days of lectures and discussions ahead of us, we are slowly beginning to move from the initial input phase of the program to the output phase in which we will develop a social campaign on a specific topic in small groups ourselves. 

Photography by Anna Rok

Taking the different discussions we have already had during the last days as a starting point, we tried to identify the most relevant human rights challenges in Polish society today and how we could address these issues in our campaigns. Apart from the discrimination of people with disabilities and poor medical care for prisoners we identified xenophobia, domestic violence, discrimination against immigrants and the promotion of womens' rights as important issues.

Photography by Maira Kusch

These initial ideas were immediately reaffirmed during the next site visit at the Human Rights Defender’s Office, where main human rights violations in Poland were pointed out to us. The Human Rights Defender, also called Polish Ombudsman, is an independent institution responsible for safeguarding the freedoms and rights of the Polish people. Since I got the chance to visit the Office of the European Ombudsman in Brussels two months ago, it was of particular interest to me to see how the national office of the Ombudsman in Poland is organised and operating. Every Polish citizen has the right to submit a motion to the Defender when his or her rights were violated. However, the Ombudsman can only become active when the rights were infringed by organs of a public Polish entity. On the basis of this motion the Ombudsman has the right to give advice and inform the applicant on available measures provided or refer the case to the competent authority. The Defender’s general motion can also include opinions and conclusions as to how the case could be resolved, which are sent to the government body in question, to request a legislative initiative or   to request the amendment of a right. Although the public entities are not required to comply with these recommendations they have the obligation to respond and this response is transfered to the media, thus building public pressure. In this sense, the Ombudsman possesses the power to really challenge existing nuisances and provoke change. 

Especially appealing to me as an EU citizen and student interested in human rights was also the idea of installing one free EU-wide hotline similar to a hotline in Poland, where victims can get legal advise and information about assistance.

Photography by Anna Rok

Since the Polish Ombudsman is appointed by the Sejm and the Senate of Poland, it was interesting to learn about the work and the experiences of a state office responsible for the protection of human rights in comparison to the position of a nongovernmental organisation, like the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, which we had encountered on Monday. Keeping both the experiences and the challenges they shared with us in mind might prove to be really helpful and valuable in conceptualising and designing our own social campains at the end of the program.
- Maira Kusch (German Fellow)