Nonviolence In Practice
April 2005
Banner photo: ©SEKAI BUNKA PHOTO
Human Rights Education
On December 10, 2004, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the World Programme for Human Rights Education to start from January 2005, following the conclusion of the UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004). The Programme's first three years (2005-2007) focus on human rights education in primary and secondary school systems.
The SGI's efforts to support the UN Decade included "Toward a Century of Humanity--Human Rights in Today's World," an exhibition launched in 1993 that was seen by more than 500,000 people around the world.
From 1999 onwards, the SGI's UN Liaison Office in Geneva began lobbying for a further framework to follow the end of the Decade. SGI President Daisaku Ikeda put forward the idea of a new UN Decade for Human Rights Education for Peace, on the occasion of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, in August 2001. During 2002 and 2003, SGI worked with other NGOs to propose a further framework on human rights education, and when the World Programme for Human Rights Education was adopted, the ambassador of Costa Rica paid tribute to the input of NGOs in promoting this idea.
