By Clara Kawimbe –
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique process which involves reviewing the human rights records of all the 193 United Nations (UN) member states of which Zambia is part.
The UPR is a significant innovation of the UN Human Rights Council UN-HRC which is based on equal treatment for all countries. It is a human rights monitoring mechanism created by the UN-HRC of the United Nations General Assembly on March 15, 2006 under resolution 60/251.
The purpose of the UPR is to assess the performance of member states on human rights. It is against this background that the Human Rights Commission established by article 125 of the Zambian Constitution and mandated by chapter 48 of the laws of Zambia in its accordance with its mandate,  conducted a sensitisation workshop in Ndola on the UPR recommendation implementation monitoring framework.
The workshop was held with a view of sensitising various stakeholders on the importance of the UPR document whose main objectives included enlightening  stakeholders on the importance of the framework and how to enhance achievements of the UPR process in Zambia.
The workshop which attracted more than 20 participants discussed on how best the UPR is going to help improve the human rights situation in the country. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) were also challenged to monitor what government is doing to implement the issues of economic social rights in Zambia.
Human Rights Commission Chief Research and Planning officer, Mulilwa Hamuyube noted that CSOs focuses more on political civil social rights than they do on civil social cultural rights and economic social rights that affect all the people no matter their social standing in society.
Mr. Hamuyube urged CSOs who were in attendance to ensure that the government focused on the UPR by ensuring that government contributed to UPR process.
Mr. Hamuyube explained that this is the reason that the human Rights Commission is working on the anti-torture strategy to ensure that torture is criminalised as every citizen was a potential offender of the law and that it is not only those that are arrested that are subjected to torture but that even children in homes are tortured in a number of ways.
Torture is a grave human rights violation. There is no moral or legal basis for anyone to torture or treat another person in a cruel, inhuman or degrading manner. Torture is dehumanising and seriously harms the integrity of a person, both emotionally and physically.
Convicted children   are detained with hard core criminal adults because  orders are not prepared on time by the high court to have them (convicted children) committed to juvenile prisons.
Thiese  are just some of the forms of torture that we can talk about in Zambia.
Generally, the responsibility to prevent and eradicate torture falls on the State. The UN Convention obliges each State to make torture a crime and punish those who are found guilty of it, and to provide adequate support to the victims.
“As National Human Rights Commission we want to focus on the questions coming from the UPR process. Human Rights Commission has the responsibility to provide advice to government which are key in order for them to respond to the UPR process,” Mr. Hamuyube explained.
According to the 2014, 2nd UPR- Zambia, there are three main key players in the UPR process and these are the State, the National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI) and Civil Society Organisations(CSOs).
Lisban Chaabwe a representative from HRC Zambia who gave a presentation during the workshop explained that the State has an important role to play in the UPR process both at national and international level. At international level, the role of the state is to provide information required to effectively and objectively review the country’s human rights situation and to actively participate in the review of other countries’ human rights situation.
Mr. Chaabwe said among the roles that the State has includes providing answers to advance questions from other member State and submitting a national report to the UN-HRC on the country’s human rights situation by providing a country’s position on every recommendation made on the State.
“While at national level, the State’s role among others is to ensure that the report to the UN-HRP process is a result of a thorough consultative process of various stakeholders at various levels of governance and to prepare an action plan on how it will implement recommendations accepted from the UPR session,” Mr. Chaabwe said.
He said the NHRI is an independent body with constitutional and legislative mandate to promote the respect and protection of human rights in a country and has a significant role to play in the entire UPR process.
He added that NHRI include providing independent and authoritative information on the country’s human rights situation and acts as a bridge between the national and international human rights systems.
“The other roles for NHRI are to share best practices and lessons learnt in the UPR processes, sustaining post UPR discussions with government and CSOs on the implementation of UPR recommendations and reporting to UN-HRC on the progress of the UPR recommendations implementations,” he said.
He went on to explain that CSOs also play an important role in the UPR process as they influence discussions around key issues surrounding the country’s review and ensuring that the country’s leadership is held accountable on the implementation of recommendations that they accepted.
Mr Chaabwe said CSOs ensures that national consultations leading up to the review are as effectively consultative as possible and sufficient information is provided to ensure the review process effectively deals with key human rights issues that address and improve the human rights situation in the country.
The workshop, which attracted participant from both CSOs and government departments had participants resolve to ensure that government was assisted in areas that it was not doing well in responding to the UPR process as they were enlightened about the UPR process I n Zambia.
The participants including CSOs,  will  hold government accountable in the UPR process to ensure  that, coordination and cooperation with international human rights mechanisms in the country are adhered to.
Therefore, the implementation of the UPR process, recommendations and implementation monitoring framework is achievable if Zambia’s laws governing  functions of the private sector in regard to human rights,  are reviewed and strengthened.
In addition, special  consideration must be  given to the promotion of human rights as well as, the  environment.-ZANIS