Now
three years old, the Working Group on Victim Assistance (WGVA) has 98 members on
the books, representing approximately 40 organizations and country campaigns.
Landmine Survivors Network continues to facilitate the group. This past year,
during the process of elaborating the ICBL 2004 Action Plan, the Working Group
on Victim Assistance refined its goals to the following four points:
To
advocate for, monitor, and provide guidance to the international community as to
where, what, and how Victim Assistance is needed;
To promote increased
coverage, funding, and sustainability of victim assistance programs;
To
promote improvements in the quality of programs for landmine victims/survivors
and other persons with disability; and
To facilitate inclusion of landmine
victims in the substance work of the Standing Committees, Meetings of States
Parties, national and international landmine campaigns.
Activities of the working group include the following:
Participation in Intersessional Work: The
WGVA continues to play an important role in working with the Standing Committee
on Victim Assistance Co-Chairs and Rapporteurs to develop the agendas and
speakers lists for meetings of the intersessional process as well as for the
annual Meeting of States Parties. Accomplishments from these events include the
following:
“Form J” was accepted as a voluntary amendment so that
Victim Assistance (and other activities) may now be reported on within the
Treaty reporting format. Some 18 landmine survivors from 13 countries
participated in a very moving opening ceremony of the Second Meeting of States
Parties alongside Paul McCartney and model activist Heather Mills.
The WGVA
developed an inventory of the tools to better track Victim Assistance needs and
resources. States parties continue to ask the WGVA for analyses of these tools
and the resulting data in order to be able to direct donor agencies and
governments toward victim assistance needs and measure progress toward meeting
the victim assistance provision of the Mine Ban Treaty.
The third version of
the Portfolio of Victim Assistance Programs was distributed in hard copy and
made available on-line at
www.landminevap.org.
It is a compilation of 91 one-page program descriptions from 47 organizations in
34 countries. The goals of the Portfolio are: to demonstrate the broad range
of activities that constitute Victim Assistance in order to dispel the idea that
medical and prosthetics programs alone are sufficient; to promote transparency
among all actors in Victim Assistance; to present a snapshot of the current
state of Victim Assistance to help guide the allocation of additional resources;
and to provide a tool to facilitate contact and information sharing among actors
in Victim Assistance.
A
new sub-group of the WGVA, also open to the general public, was developed to
provide a forum for discussions on psychological interventions, including peer
support, for landmine survivors. The group produced a draft paper that is
available on the WGVA section of the ICBL website and discussions on these
topics continue. To join the group, write to becky@landminesurvivors.org
To increase the depth of the participation of landmine survivors in
processes related to the Mine Ban Treaty and in landmine related advocacy
efforts in their home countries, the WGVA initiated a project called
“Raising the Voices” with direct input from the Co-chairs and
Rapporteurs of the Standing Committee on Victim Assistance and funding from
Canada’s DFAIT.
Raising the Voices: Survivors Advocates
Leadership Training: Eight landmine survivors from Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile attended a Raising the Voices survivor advocate
training in Geneva from May 5-1 2. The training focused on the Human Rights
framework, the UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for
Persons with Disabilities, the Mine Ban Treaty, and on what interventions they
would make during the meetings from the podium and from the floor. The
survivors, chosen from Central and South America to reflect the focus on the
region for the Third Meeting of States Parties, were very well received. They
participated as more than tellers of their own stories, and were actively
engaged in the proceedings and ready with contributions of their
own.
Conferences: In addition to intersessional meetings and the
meeting of States Parties, the WGVA participated directly in these conferences
and workshops: Measured Steps: Implementing the Ottawa Convention, Meech Lake,
Canada, May 2000; World Vision Landmine Seminar in Melbourne, Australia,
November 2000; Mines Action Canada Capacity Building Workshop, Ottawa, Canada,
February 2001; GICHD/UNMAS annual meeting for Mine Action Center Directors in
Geneva, February 2001; and Ban Landmines Week, Washington DC, March
2001.
Studies: The WGVA participated in the steering group that
developed terms of reference for “A Study of Socio-Economic Approaches to
Mine Action,”conducted by the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian
Demining (GICHD). Given the ambitious scope of the study with regard to mine
clearance and related actions, the WGVA contribution was to advise the group not
to include victim assistance as a major part of the study.
“An
Operational Review of the Role of Mine Action in Assistance to Mine and UXO
Victims” is a second study being conducted by the GICHD, which will focus
on “all actors involved, or wishing to become involved, in providing
assistance to mine and UXO survivors...” Due to the Victim Assistance
focus of this study, the WGVA will also participate in this steering group, even
though it has already submitted a one-page suggestion to UNMAS and the GICHD
clarifying its perspective on the roles of Mine Action Centers and Victim
Assistance implementers.
In “Mine Action Centers and Victim
Assistance: Clarification of Roles,” the WGVA noted that significant
aspects of Mine Clearance and Victim Assistance overlap, such as information
exchange, referrals to services, and emergency and pre-hospital care. The WGVA
made the following recommendations: that the existing areas of overlap between
Mine Clearance and Victim Assistance be maintained, specifically, that MACs and
Victim Assistance actors share information on landmine victims with each other;
that mine clearance personnel be trained to handle first aid, emergency medical
care and evacuation procedures; and that mine action centers be equipped to make
informal referrals of landmine survivors to existing services. It further
recommended that the implementation of Victim Assistance services and programs
remain the purview of health, education, labor, and social welfare authorities;
and that mine action centers institute policies to proactively recruit and hire
landmine survivors for employment in mine related activities.
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