We, the participants of People’s SAARC Convergence met
in Kathmandu on 22-24 November 2014 to reaffirm our solemn commitments to
justice, peace, security, human rights, and democracy in the region for
equality for all and to eliminate all forms of discrimination.
We have come together to challenge the systematic and structural marginalisation
and exclusion of people through the dominant neo-liberal economic model that is
at play currently; which has
been violently restructuring the region’s economic policies and cultural life
of the people and undermining and devaluing both the
values and institutions of democracy directly or indirectly.
We have come together to resist this threat to democracy from chauvinism,
sectarianism, and communalism. Increased securitisation and militarisation of
states and society in the name of combating terrorism and defending national
security and increasing arbitrary detention, torture, custodial rape and
extra-judicial killings have reduced space for democratic dissent and freedoms.
We have come together to respond to
new challenges that have emerged in the form of
climate change and environmental degradation which are of transnational
dimensions; extraction of natural resources; food, water and energy crisis; and
resource grab by governments and corporates.
We have come together
to fight increasing violence against women and girls,
dalits, tribals, indigenous peoples; all minorities including religious,
sexual, linguistic, cultural and ethnic; persons with disabilities; migrants
and refugees; and socially oppressed groups. These systematic and structural processes and
practices further reinforce and reconstitute the traditional
forms of exploitative
and oppressive structures, like patriarchy and caste, in new forms, in the name
of progress, modernisation and reform.
Resistance has to come from civil society and mass upsurge of people as
contemporary experiences from around the world is showing that in fact it is
the people’s movements that can deepen the process of democracy; contend
ideologically, politically and organizationally with all forms of regressive
and chauvinistic regimes, viewpoints and ideologies; and build a secular framework
for peaceful co-existence.
This coming together became visible in Kathmandu with the
convergence of rallies across the city by a host of vibrant social movements,
trade unions, peasants, indigenous peoples, women, feminists, conflict affected
people, tribals and dalits, youths, elderly, academics, people with
disabilities; sexual, religious and ethnic minorities and human rights
activists from across South Asia and beyond with dialogues and deliberations by
over 2500 activists in plenaries and more than 70 thematic sessions.
P-SAARC notes the renewed focus on SAARC by member countries and
believes that ‘Deeper Integration for Peace and Prosperity’ is possible only
when this cooperation goes beyond the interests of regional elites and
corporates, allows socio-economic empowerment, and enables the people of South
Asia to build their regional identity, just development, and sustainable
livelihoods towards re-shaping the democratic institutions for peace, security,
equality, and prosperity for life with dignity.
P-SAARC welcomes the Government of Nepal’s initiative to form a Social
Committee to give voice to the people of South Asia in the SAARC process. We
hope this pathbreaking precedent becomes a regular mechanism of SAARC for
meaningful engagement with civil society and people’s movements of South Asia.
Reclaiming the region requires the
assertion of people’s movements with an alternative vision of a progressive
regionalism based on peoples’ needs and aspirations, universal human rights,
different degrees of democratization and development, and allowing the diversity,
including natural and environmental diversity, of the region to flourish. This
can be made possible only if alternative people centred economic cooperation challenges
the neoliberal model.
P-SAARC advocates the
people’s aspirations onto the SAARC agenda through people’s movements and where
there is shared interest with a South Asian State, possibly aligning with it.
We reaffirm ourselves to the alternative vision of
political, social, economic and cultural systems to enable ecological, social
and sustainable development of the region that eliminates all forms of discriminations based on class, gender,
sexuality, disabilities, caste, ethnicity, religion, language and geography; which
leads to a situation free from exploitation and oppression.
We commit to create a climate in which each individual
will have the opportunity to realize all human rights for all, including
collective rights, and full development of their human potentials; restore the
balance and harmony with nature; eliminate the artificial and human barriers
that divide lands, peoples and minds; and transcend all boundaries.
P-SAARC 2014 demands earnest attention and action from
the states and governments of the South Asian countries gathered here in
Kathmandu for participating in the 18th SAARC Summit to “walk the talk”
and act urgently with clear time bound response to the following:
1.
Devise
and implement effective strategies with time bound, result oriented plans to
eradicate poverty, hunger, all forms of discrimination, including
untouchability; address denial of human rights and all other forms of
socio-economic anomalies;
2.
Establish
high standards for respecting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of women,
children, migrant and informal sector workers, youths, elderly people,
families, dalits, minorities, agricultural workers and fisherfolks, indigenous peoples,
tribal peoples, slavery, LGBTIQ, people living with HIV/AIDS, trafficking
survivors, refugees, stateless, IDPs, peasants, persons with disabilities,
conflict and disaster affected people and all others who are discriminated,
excluded, marginalized and oppressed in different forms and manifestations;
3.
Ensure
democratic and inclusive participation through, periodic, transparent, free,
fair and credible elections, to uphold peoples’ right to political
participation and ensure access of all sections of society to all tiers of governance;
4.
Uphold
all human rights of all based on the principle of universality, interdependence
and indivisibility with equal respect and promotion of economic, social,
cultural, civil and political rights; including the right to development, right
to food and nutrition, right to work and livelihoods, right to social security,
right to information, right to assembly and freedom of expression, right to
shelter and housing, right to education, right to sexual and reproductive
health, right to water, food, nutrition and sanitation, and right to freedom of
association and collective bargaining as deliberated in different thematic
sessions;
5.
Uphold
environmental conservation and climate justice, stop plundering of natural
resources such as lands, forests, water, mines, minerals and fisheries, among
others;
6.
Protect
and promote indigenous as well as traditional knowledge systems ensuring community control over natural resources
especially for women, including socially excluded communities;
7.
Stop
immediately merely capital accumulating, monolithic neo-liberal development
models designed by corporations and operated through markets that favor unjust
profiteering over people’s sustainable development, promote peoples' collective
rights to commons;
8.
Recognize,
promote and implement people-centred South-South cooperation at all levels to
resolve issues and problems of the South;
9.
Stop
losses and damages caused by unsustainable development models dependent on
fossil fuels and imposed technologies; and, frame and implement policies and
functional mechanisms to provide just reparation measures for the losses and
damages with due consideration for the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility
(CBDR) and respective capabilities in global climate negotiations;
10.
Explore
and adopt durable solutions for asylum seekers, refugees, stateless, IDPs,
labour and forced migrants through appropriate legal, institutional and policy
measures in conformity with international frameworks;
11.
Adopt
standard contract and reference wage to ensure rights of migrant workers; and
create support mechanisms for stranded migrants and migrants in need;
12. Establish victim
centred, rights-based transitional justice mechanism to effectively address
past violations of human rights and humanitarian law, and end the culture of impunity in conformity with
international standards and practices;
13.
Find
comprehensive pro-people solutions through engagement with people and
communities on multiple use of water, forest and land;
14.
Formulate and enforce
human rights friendly legal mechanisms to end all forms of violence, including child
marriage, child labour, sexual abuse, corporal punishment, trafficking, dowry
system, caste- and ethnicity-based discrimination and other traditional harmful
practices;
15.
Ban the
production, use and transfer of landmines, cluster munitions and IEDs; destroy
all stockpiles; clear the affected land of explosive remnants of war; and support and rehabilitate the survivors and
families;
16.
Establish SAARC
forums on indigenous peoples; tribals; women; elderly people; persons with
disabilities; and dalits;
17.
Develop
a human rights charter and effective and participatory human rights mechanism as
an apex body to promote, protect and fulfill all rights of all people of the
region in conformity with international human rights law;
18.
Take
immediate steps to amend the SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating
Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution to broaden its mandate and scope;
19. Ensure Sexual
and Reproductive Rights and Health
(SRHR) for all people of the region in accordance with the Program of
Action (PoA) of the International Conference on Population and Development
(ICPD) and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPFA) and the outcome documents of their review
conferences reaffirming the commitment made towards the CEDAW;
20.
Stop
continuous militarisation and take adequate steps to restore peace and
prosperity in the region by acknowledging decision making role of women in
peacebuilding and post-conflict rebuilding;
21.
Put
in place comprehensive, legal policy, budgetary and programmatic measures in
each country in order to safeguard the social, economic and cultural and civil
and political rights of millions of dalits to fully enjoy their citizenship
rights at par with other citizens with special recognition of the rights and
entitlement of dalit women;
22.
Eliminate
all forms of manual scavenging and ensure dignity and equality for sanitation
workers; ensure disposal management of human waste in strict conformity to the
principles of human rights, health and environmental sustainability;
23.
Ensure
constitutional and legal recognition of indigenous peoples as a distinct group
with effective implementation of UNDRIP as agreed in the World Conference on
Indigenous Peoples' outcome document; and adopted by the General Assembly on 15
September 2014;
24.
Immediately
include Labour in the SAARC Areas of Cooperation;
P-SAARC finally demands
implementation of all charters, declarations and conventions adopted by SAARC
in the previous summits; and being partners of global civilisation all SAARC
member states should immediately ratify and enforce all core international
human rights instruments.
On behalf of
People's SAARC 2014,
Sharmila Karki Dr.
Sarbaraj Khadka
Convenor Coordinator
P-SAARC National Organizing Committee Declaration Drafting and Lobbying
Committee
24 November 2014
Kathmandu
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