Nigeria, Mexico Join Forces against Human Rights Violation

Nigeria and Mexico have joined forces to tackle human rights abuses in the two countries as a team of experts from the National Human Rights Commission in Mexico commenced a three-day training with selected staff of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on investigation of rights violations.

The training which held at the NHRC headquarters in Abuja is expected to enlighten Nigerian human rights officials on uses of different techniques in facts finding and investigations of human right issues. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the training, Executive Secretary of NHRC, Prof. Bem Angwe, noted that both Nigerian and Mexican Human Rights commissions share similar features as they both have administrative and financial autonomy.

He also said that both commissions had designed strategies to prevent regular occurrence of human right violations, hence the need for the training. “Both Nigerian and the Mexican Human Rights Commission share similar characteristics; we are found on the principles of Paris, and we have administrative and financial autonomy, similarly, our objectives to investigate human rights violations in our countries and assist human right victims.

Both commissions have designed strategies in order to prevent human right violations from occurring, which is why we bestow such importance to training, teaching and disseminating human rights,” he said.

Mexican Ambassador to Nigeria, Macro Antonio Garcia Blanco, in his remarks, stated that the main objective of the collaboration between both commissions was to strengthen protection and fulfillment of human rights.

According to Blanco, combining actions and resources as well as exchanging and sharing experiences would assist in shaping human rights in both countries.

“The bilateral collaboration activity is going on under the umbrella of the collaboration agreement between National human Rights Commission of Mexico and the National human Rights Commission of Nigeria signed in Mexico city in February during the work visit of Prof. Angwe leading the Nigerian delegation, combining actions and resources as well as exchanging and sharing experiences would assist in shaping Human Rights in both countries,” he said.

(2013-09-22/thisdaylive)