APPENDIX A

WORKING GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS

Working group recommendations on the role of human rights and development in citizen security

The Working Group recommended the following:

 

1.     Contribute, as part of our duties as parliamentarians, to developing and implementing government policies on citizen security and public policy by focussing on human rights and on preventing and addressing violence and crime;

2.     Consider incorporating the directives established in the reports of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights on citizen security and human rights (2009) and on juvenile justice (2011) into the American States’ legal frameworks;

3.     Strengthen government officials’ respect at all times of human rights as an indispensible tool for improving citizen security. This implies that the State is responsible for preventing, investigating and, as needed, prosecuting all violence and offences and preventing any impunity in this regard;

4.     Establish rules that guarantee systems for selecting, training and upgrading officials working within government institutions involved in citizen security (judges, prosecutors, security forces personnel and correctional staff);

5.     Legislate with a view to overseeing and supervising private businesses in the security industry by requiring that their employees have university and/or vocational training and by requiring human rights guarantees;

6.     With government support, establish policies on early child care, children’s personal development at home or in a group setting with child care workers, with a special attention toward single-parent families;

7.     Together with interdisciplinary working groups, strengthen correctional systems for minors and adults through programs based on successful experiences with rehabilitation and recidivism prevention;

8.     With support, encourage civil society organizations specializing in citizen security to allow them to implement legislative programs as well as projects and programs that respect human rights;

9.     Encourage the operations of national and international crime and violence observatories that will produce and analyze well-documented information with a view to developing public policies on citizen security; and

10.  Give priority to development issues within legislative programs in order to help form more dignified, inclusive and just societies. Encourage and supervise the approval of budgets that reflect human rights development processes.

Working group recommendations on transnational aspects of citizen security

 

Whereas, as parliamentarians, we are to use the various prerogatives available to us such as:

 

·The legislative prerogatives themselves, in order to refine our legal frameworks;

·Prerogatives to oversee the work of senior managers to ensure that they apply legislation effectively and observe government objectives with a view to improving and protecting citizen security; and

·Organizational prerogatives by hosting or participating in analysis and discussion forums on the divergent and similar visions of social, academic and parliamentary organizations,

 

The Group recommends the following:

 

1.            Review our legal frameworks in order to account for the transnational aspects specific to criminal organizations (drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, cybercrime, etc.) and, in harmonizing our legislation, facilitate transnational operations to prosecute and punish crime;

2.            Demonstrate that fighting crime must obviously be combined with prevention efforts; and, through the necessary territorialization of prevention, consider the unique circumstances of each region and community;

3.            Review our legal frameworks to make crime prevention, particularly with respect to drug use, a local government responsibility;

4.            Ensure that adequate resources are allocated to local governments so they can effectively carry out their prevention responsibilities;

5.            When assigning budget resources to prevention programs, ensure that a percentage is earmarked for their evaluation;

6.            Lastly, aware of the need to pursue and enhance research, evaluation and dissemination of effective prevention practices, we recommend that the OAS establish an authority tasked with identifying and analyzing those factors that influence problem drug use in order to help develop, implement and evaluate local prevention programs.

 

 

Working group recommendations on multidimensional approaches to citizen security

 

The Working Group recommended the following:

 

1.      Incorporate all public policy on citizen security, disaster risk management and climate change in order to achieve synergy among normative, institutional and social matters;

2.      Strengthen co-operation between countries in sub-regions and regions to develop common instruments, horizontal cross-border cooperation and knowledge and information transfer on safety and security matters, disasters and climate change;

3.      Establish or strengthen the institutional framework for managing risks and disasters in order to ensure that human rights are respected, and contribute positively to entrenching the principles of personal security;

4.      Promote citizen participation by encouraging social conscience and a culture of prevention and protection in civil society based on solidarity, while still taking into account the State’s responsibility in this area;

5.      Take into account the elements that will strengthen social capital and human security when planning the recovery and rebuilding process after disasters;

6.      Promote statistical database systems and comparative indicators on crime and violence from a variety of sources that would allow for permanent monitoring and the evaluation of public policy by involving civil society;

7.      Reinforce special parliamentary committees by giving them more stability and encouraging working relationships with academics and with interdisciplinary specialists in violence prevention in order to ensure an integrated interventionist approach by reinforcing the institutions of family, education and public health through the teaching of values such as the moral and ethical dimensions of policies;

8.      Carefully consider the analysis of public budgets for violence prevention—both the quantitative and qualitative aspects—according to the various social causes by reinforcing the institutions of family, education and public health and by encouraging concrete action through the ethical pedagogy of political action;

9.      Promote legislation that introduces effective control and repression mechanisms regarding the flow of funds associated with organized crime;

10.   Encourage the reinforcement of institutions so that they fulfill their roles and carry out actions useful to social prevention and preparing countries to confront natural disasters by encouraging the use of science and technology and by maximizing the use of existing resources in our countries;

11.   Adapt, in a timely manner, national and regional legislation to address new forms of crime and violence;

12.   Take into consideration in public policy the matter of food security in the fight against hunger and malnutrition;

13.   Recommend a resolution to submit to the OAS and the UN about establishing an Environmental Compensation Fund that would be funded by countries that cause serious damage to the environment (e.g., climate change) to assist more vulnerable countries;

14.   Ensure that multinational corporations working in developing countries comply with the same environmental standards that they would in developed countries, while also ensuring that developing countries establish their own standards; and

15.   Promote the organization of multidisciplinary social workers who contribute to preventing the social causes that lead to violence.

 

 

Recommendations from the Group of Women Parliamentarians of the Americas

 

Whereas the Group of Women Parliamentarians, as an integral part of ParlAmericas, promotes respect for human rights as a cornerstone of human prosperity and conditions allowing all persons to live with dignity;

 

And whereas the Group of Women defends and advocates for effective governance, democracy and ethics in the performance of parliamentary duties, since these aspects form part of the work of legislators across the continent;

The Working Group recommended the following:

 

1.Pass legislation to achieve parity and equality and to ensure that these principles are entrenched in lawmaking in all countries. Gender mainstreaming must clearly appear in the drafting of all standards;

2.Create, within ParlAmericas, proposed framework legislation or proposed model legislation on citizen security that member States can share among themselves. The OAS and the UN have already used this work method to address certain issues;

3.[That] the Working Group on Gender Mainstreaming regarding citizen security promote and encourage the idea of creating, within ParlAmericas, framework legislation or specific model legislation to deal with human trafficking;

4.Draft a bill on victim and witness protection, in accordance with the Istanbul Declaration;

5.Encourage the creation of technical committees specialized in gender within each parliament, with the assistance of international cooperation;

6.Renew the commitment to draft a bill on victim and witness protection;

7.Encourage current and former parliamentarians to form partnerships so they can benefit from the experience of seasoned parliamentarians and that the experience and knowledge gained is not lost;

8.Create common work programs among parliamentarians, rising above ideological or partisan bents, to encourage an inclusive, diversified and respectful approach that provides the necessary conditions for gender mainstreaming in all standards;

9.Encourage our parliamentarians to form communication teams that are sensitive to gender issues and that will help provide visibility to the work of women and the work programs referred to in item 8;

10.  Advocate for political will to incorporate parity and alternating between men and women within parties, thereby encouraging equality within the political organizations we belong to, which will then be reflected in the public space;

11.  Encourage the imposition of sanctions against anyone who, through advertising, promotes the sex trade and sexual exploitation and against any advertising messages that demean women and girls. Along these lines, acknowledge and reward good practices that fight against human trafficking; and

12.  Fight slavery, sexual exploitation and human trafficking by incorporating the nature of the demand (clients) into our legislation.