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About Us

Rights 4 Time

Rights for Time is a research network comprised of interdisciplinary research taking place in multiple countries that is bringing the hidden legacies of conflict directly into humanitarian protection, human rights policy and practice. Our ambition is to get policy makers, law workers and local and national governments to take the long times of atrocity and protection seriously. Too often, the invisible injuries of memory and trauma are consigned the role of extra or collateral abuse and atrocity. The extent to which the deep times of injury hinder protection, and reproduce harm, are not well understood. We aim to produce a sea-change by providing a new knowledge and evidence base that will allow local, national and international policy models to respond more effectively, deeply, and enduringly to the deep times of conflict.

The network is a collaborative between academic researchers, policy makers, local community groups and activists, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and is working for the benefit particularly vulnerable groups, such as refugees, women, children, and other marginalised communities. We bring academic and creative work into dialogue with the expertise of those who are directly subject to the long-term effects of protracted conflict and violence.

Description

We have drawn together in-country partners and academic experts from the arts and humanities, psychology, medical anthropology, refugee studies, gender studies, human rights, transitional justice, humanitarian law, and protection policy, to develop interdisciplinary, peer-peer, case-based research bringing a temporal perspective to protection challenges. The Rights for Time Network Plus research objectives we have achieved so far have included:

1. Convene and develop a sustainable research network that will become a major transnational hub for developing new knowledge and practices for transforming the understanding of past, present, and future times of human rights;

2. We have started to create new evidence bases to demonstrate the impact of the long-times of violence and trauma by launching case study projects on humanitarian protection initiatives led by our partners. These case studies are gathering evidence regarding the frequently hidden and, urgently, intersectional histories, pose unique and complex challenges to protection. New methodologies and measures are being developed to make hidden damage visible to law and policy.

Exploitation Route

Our ambition is to get policy makers, law workers and local and national governments to take the long times of atrocity and protection seriously in our DAC-list countries of focus, which currently are Kenya, Rwanda, Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon. We are work with researchers, policy makers, local community groups and activists, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for the benefit particularly vulnerable groups, such as refugees, women, children, and other marginalised communities, bringing academic and creative work into dialogue with the expertise of those who are directly subject to the long-term effects of protracted conflict and violence. Three pathways to impact are in progress:

1. The generation of new evidence bases will be showcased in our Times for Rights Pamphlets and launched with Policy and Citizen Seminars in each LMIC, and disseminating these findings to FCDO, and our Advisory Board, which includes international stakeholders in humanitarian protection.

2. The development of new policy, practice, and law in action will be realised through our Policy Briefing, Policy and Citizen Seminars, and our Rights for Time Manifesto and our education programmes.

3. Making forms of injury of protracted violence culturally visible at local, national, and international levels via our partners local networks.