The III World Forum on Human Rights (2023) took place between 20th and 24th March, in Buenos Aires (Argentina). This event, given its dimension, took place simultaneously in four spaces in the City of Buenos Aires: Memory and Human Rights Space, National Atomic Energy Commission, Faculty of Architecture and at Centro Cultural Kirchner.

According to data made available by the organization, over the four days of the meeting, more than 21,000 people from 98 countries participated. More than 950 organizations were directly involved and more than 1100 activities were developed. There were also 206 cultural activities. Around 200 leading specialists in Human Rights were present, who participated in various panels, which had a total of 2300 participants. Around 390 journalists were also accredited.

The Memory and Human Rights Space, where most of the activities of this Forum took place, is located in the former ESMA – Armada Mechanics School, which remained in the collective memory of the city of Buenos Aires as a place of political imprisonment and torture during the military dictatorship (between 1976 and 1983). It is believed that during those seven obscure years more than 30,000 people were murdered and disappeared for political reasons. A reality and memory that remains very much alive in Argentina through, above all, the “Mães de la Plaza de Mayo”, a social movement of mothers who began to demonstrate in front of the presidential palace, asking about their missing children, even during the period of dictatorship. The “Mães de la Plaza de Mayo” became an inspiration and a symbolic force for all Argentine men and women who fight for Human Rights and against the dictatorship: Ditactorship “Never again!”.

This strong memory was felt intensely throughout the Forum and in all kinds of activities.

The artistic interventions were essential to transform a space of prison, torture and death, into a luminous space of both Life and welcome.

This event took place in the year that celebrates 40 years of uninterrupted democracy in Argentina.

The panels took place around the various thematic axes, which covered all areas of collective life: access to Justice; Education for Human Rights; Health and Human Rights; Children, adolescents and young people and Human Rights; Women’s Rights; gender issues, diversity and the right to identity; Right to Peace and non-violence; Environment and sustainable development; Economy and Human Rights; Communication and Human Rights; Indigenous communities and peoples; Right to Land; Right to the city and urban conflicts; Cultural Policies and Human Rights; Inclusive social development and social cohesion; Memory, truth, justice and non-repetition policies; Disability and Human Rights; Discrimination, xenophobia and racism.

All these tematic axes show us the relevance and scope of Human Rights in actuallity.

The panel of the thematic axis “Right to Peace and non-violence” had an absolutely outstanding intervention by the Argentinean Nobel Peace Prize winner (1980), Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Honorary President of the Human Rights Forum. He started by proposing us a small exercise, that we introduce ourselves to those sitting next to us, as a way of connecting with each other, of getting to know each other, essential for respecting each other in diversity and for there to be Peace.

Then he recalled how Peace is much more than the absence of war, because in the capitalist world we live in there are very subtle forms of violence. He stated that Peace is a daily construction, which does not exist without Human Rights, a construction that requires a cultural revolution that must start with the youngest, at school. It ended with a story of an intervention by Eduardo Galeano, to underline the importance of participatory democracy and of coming together to face adversity, respecting all our differences, dialoguing, facing and resisting: One day a very democratic cook enters his kitchen and he goes to the animals that were there, the turkey, the piglet, the chicken, the turtledove, the partridge, the lamb, …, and starts asking, one by one, what sauce he would like to be cooked with. The animals look around, none of them want to be cooked, and suddenly they realize that if they unite against the cook, he won’t get what he wants.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel did not end his speech without asking the following questions: what does salt taste like? The audience responded: Salgado. And Peace, what do you know?

Immediately, her table companion retorted: Peace has all the flavors and all the colors. It is with our differences, but in dialogue with each other, that we have to build a better world.

Professor Margarida Belchior, researcher at CeiED and member of ReLeCo NEISE, participated in the III World Forum on Human Rights – 2023, who, in addition to getting to know a new socio-historical reality, also took the opportunity to establish contacts in her research areas.

Forum page: fmdh23.org