The National Human Rights Commission has observed with great concern the manner in which discrimination of key populations has adversely affected their lives.
This observation was made at a two-day Strategic Capacity Building and Planning Workshop on the Protection of the Rights of Key Populations in Nigeria.
At the workshop which was put together by the Commission in collaboration with EU-UN Spotlight Initiative, UNDP and UNAIDS, the Senior Human Rights Advisor to the Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Mr. Hillary Ogbonna lamented that the key populations have found themselves in miserable situations following series of discrimination they suffer, leading to deprivation of basic necessities of life especially life-saving drugs, etc.
Mr Ogbonna also noted that some existing legal provisions prohibit the enjoyment of certain human rights, adding that the Commission has on several occasions intervened in seeking redress on behalf of several victims of human rights violations who were erroneously identified as what they are not.
He cited an example where several young men were arrested in Enugu for being erroneously identified as gays and homosexuals, and detained for a long time only to be released having found not guilty of the offence they were arrested for.
The workshop which aims at identifying human rights challenges confronting the Key Populations and ways of mitigating them had in attendance participants from all the Commission’s State offices in the North.
Resource persons were drawn from within and outside the country including the Executive Director Women’s Health and Equal Rights Initiative.
The second phase of the workshop which will involve highly placed personalities will occur before the end of the week.
