Human rights: the Netherlands and South Sudan

Human Rights Tulip

The Netherlands supports human rights defenders. Every year the Dutch government presents an award called the Human Rights Tulip.

Equal rights

The Netherlands works for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. It also promotes equal rights for women.

Freedom

The Netherlands combats human rights violations and promotes freedom of expression, freedom of religion and belief, and internet freedom. Discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race or sex or on any other grounds is not permitted.

Trade and development cooperation

The Netherlands also addresses human rights in its trade and development relationships.

Human Rights Ambassador

The Netherlands has a Human Rights Ambassador and a Human Rights Fund.

Human rights: the Netherlands and your country or region

The human rights situation in South Sudan remains very serious, due to a large extent to ongoing atrocities.  Sexual violence is widespread. Since the independence of South Sudan and particularly since the internal conflict erupted in South Sudan in mid-December 2013, the operating environment for human rights work has shrunk severely. Freedom of expression through media and other channels is severely curtailed. Consequently, many activists, lawyers, journalists, academics, etc advocating for human rights live in fear and many have left South Sudan or have stopped their human rights work.

The Netherlands aims to contribute to respect for human rights in South Sudan, for instance by giving support to human rights defenders. A better enabling environment for human rights defenders through increased protection, quantity and quality of human rights work in South Sudan contributes to the Netherlands’ overall objective of strengthening accountability and transparency in South Sudan.

Also, the Netherlands supports independent media in South Sudan, including Radio Tamazuj. Radio Tamazuj continues its operations without major obstacles, and increased its radio coverage to two hours per day. Moreover, it offers news via its websie and other online services.

Through the creation, with other donors, of the Civil Society Fund the Netherlands in collaboration with Ecorys helps to build a strong civil society in South Sudan. The fund operates as of the spring of 2017.