Risk analysis and protection needs
Human rights defenders’ work can have a negative impact on specific actors’ interests, and this can in turn put defenders at risk. It is therefore important to stress that risk is an inherent part of defenders’ lives in certain countries.
The issue of risk can be broken down in the following way:
- Analyse main stakeholders´ interests and strategies -> Assess impact of defenders´ work :on those interests and strategies -> Assess threat against defenders -> Assess :vulnerabilities and capacities of defenders -> Establish Risk
In other words, the work you do as a defender may increase the risk you face.
- What you do can lead to threats
- How, where, and when you work raises issues about your vulnerabilities and capacities.
There is no widely accepted definition of risk, but we can say that risk refers to possible events, however uncertain, that result in harm.
In any given situation, everyone working on human rights may face a common level of danger, but not everyone is equally vulnerable to that general risk just by being in the same place. Vulnerability - the possibility that a defender or a group will suffer an attack or harm - varies according to several factors, as we will see now.
An example:
- There may be a country where the Government poses a general threat against all kinds of ::human rights work. This means that all defenders could be at risk. But we also know ::that some defenders are more at risk than others; for instance, a large, well ::established NGO based in the capital will probably not be as vulnerable as a small, ::local NGO. We might say that this is common sense, but it can be interesting to analyse ::why this happens in order to better understand and address the security problems of ::defenders.
The level of risk facing a group of defenders increases in accordance with threats that have been received and their vulnerability to those threats, as presented in this equation :
RISK = THREATS x VULNERABILITIES
Threats represent the possibility that someone will harm somebody else‘s physical or moral integrity or property through purposeful and often violent action . Making a threat assessment means analysing the likelihood of a threat being put into action.
Defenders can face many different threats in a conflict scenario, including targeting, common crime and indirect threats.
The most common type of threat – targeting - aims to hinder or change a group's work, or to influence the behaviour of the people involved. Targeting is usually closely related to the work done by the defenders in question, as well as to the interests and needs of the people who are opposed to the defenders´ work.
Defenders may face the threat of common criminal attacks, especially if their work brings them to risky areas. Many cases of targeting are carried out under the guise of being ‘ordinary’ criminal incidents.
Indirect threats arise from the potential harm caused by fighting in armed conflicts, such as ‘being in the wrong place at the wrong time’. This applies specially to defenders working in areas with armed conflict.
Targeting (targeted threats) can also be seen in a complementary way: Human rights defenders may come across declared threats, for example by receiving a death threat (see Chapter 3, for how to assess declared threats). There are also cases of possible threats, when a defender close to your work is threatened and there are reasons to believe that you might be threatened next.
A summary of kinds of threats:
-Targeting (declared threats, possible threats): threats due to your work -Threats of common criminal attacks -Indirect threats: Threats due to fighting in armed conflicts.