The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of humanity's greatest achievements in modern history. The Sustainable Development Goals seek to "realize the human rights of all", delivering the UDHR's promise of equal dignity and rights. In this session, we want to put human rights to the fore, and emphasize that they are indissociable from the realization of SDGs. The overriding message of the SDG Agenda is to leave no one behind. It puts the human rights promises of equality and non-discrimination for all at its core, and these are values we cherish and promote within the Wikimedia movement, including our 2030 mandate.
Many people in the world today don’t even know that they have rights. Moreover, on
Wikipedia, articles about certain human rights topics are limited, non-existent or of
questionable objectivity, in many major world languages. Examples include: women’s sexual
and reproductive health (SDG 5 – Gender Equality); discrimination against minorities (SDG
10 – Reduced inequalities), access to remedy & justice for violations (SDG 16 – Peace, Justice
& Strong Institutions). Empowerment through open knowledge maximes everyone's full potential to know and claim the rights. To reduce inequality we need empowered citizens who know their rights and those of others and who can engage in public processes necessary to achieve real change.
This session aims to showcase the importance of human rights in the Wikimedia context, and how we need partnerships to promote and disseminate information about human rights in our movement. Specifically, we want to present our new partnership between Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Argentina, and the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to the global Wikimedia community, providing an overview of projects we are going to work on together (Wiki loves human rights, edit-a-thon, making Human Rights Content available on the internet). In addition to the specific discussion on the partnership, we would like to connect the SDGs and human rights in the mind of the community, discussing ways to addressing & resolving the existing gaps about human rights content on Wikimedia projects, and motivate a conversation to brainstorm other ways in which this and other partnerships can promote human rights (in connection with the SDGs) in the Wikimedia movement.