OCDH win human rights award!

OCDH, (the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights), the Rainforest Foundation’s main partner in the Republic of Congo, has been named French Human Rights Laureate for 2006. The prize, awarded by the French National Human Rights Committee, is in recognition of the work that OCDH did to support families of disappeared people in Congo Brazzaville. We are thrilled that our partners, who are painstaking, persistent and courageous in their defence of human rights, have received such an award, which is richly deserved.

OCDH’s work covers many aspects of human rights: following cases of disappeared people; following cases of detention without trial and abuses in prison; and, in partnership with the Rainforest Foundation, promoting the rights of indigenous people in Congo. Together with a coalition of Congolese NGOs and indigenous peoples’ organisations, they have been instrumental in the development of a new law, the first of its kind in Africa, which will recognise and protect the rights of forest peoples.