Gov’t yet to submit regular human rights reports

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The government is yet to submit periodic regional and international human rights reports to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights-OHCHR.

The OHCHR country representative Richard Kotchani noted that since 2016 when the Human Rights Recommendations Database was launched, various gaps have been observed as regards to the submission of reports.

Kotchani was speaking on Tuesday at a training for the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Human Rights at Imperial Resort Beach Hotel.

Kotchani says that Uganda has delayed submitting reports at the African level mainly due to lack of technical capacity, limited human resources, and also poor coordination among government ministries, departments, and agencies.

Some of the reports that Uganda is yet to submit include reports under the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, Rights of Women in Africa, and periodic reports to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

Kotchani says that the government will be supported to ensure that the outstanding reports under the African Human Rights System are compiled and submitted.”

Ruth Ssekindi, Director (Complaints and Investigations) at Uganda Human Rights Commission-UHRC, said that the government has to report regularly to the ten international human rights treaty bodies for accountability, compliance, and self-assessment among others. These bodies monitor the implementation of the core international human rights treaties and state parties have to respond to the general comments, lists of issues, and questions of these bodies.

She says that the state parties report every four years for international treaty bodies and every two years for African treaty committees.

Ssekindi is hopeful that the training will result in regular updates on the database on the recommendations by human rights bodies and timely responses from relevant government agencies.

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