The Advocates for Human Rights

Our strategic plan, adopted in 2020, posits the following strategic goals:

1. Raising the profile of The Advocates for Human Rights and its priority issues

2. Maximizing volunteer effectiveness to strengthen The Advocates' capacity to respond to existing and emerging human rights priorities

3. Strengthening relationships with stakeholders to maximize the impact of our work

4. Expanding operational capacity

5. Assuring program quality

Our programmatic goals include:

1. Changing Systems and Conditions that Cause Human Rights Abuses
1.1.Hold Governments Accountable for Human Rights Abuses
1.2 Abolish the Death Penalty Worldwide

2. Improving Laws and Lives Throughout the World
2.1 Stop Violence Against Women and Girls
2.2. Protect LGBTQ+ Individuals from Violence and Discrimination
2.3 Fulfill the Right to Education

3. Representing Individual Victims of Human Rights Violations
3.1 Provide Access to Legal Representation to Asylum Seekers in the Upper Midwest
3.2 Build a Human Rights-based Approach to Human Trafficking
3.3. End Arbitrary Detention of Migrants and Asylum Seekers

4. Fighting Injustice
4.1 Advocate for Immigration Policy that Reflects International Human Rights Standards 
4.2 Incorporate International Human Rights Standards in all Legislation and Practices
4.3 Monitor Immigration and State District Court Practices

Achieve strategic goals by implementing the following:
1.1 Increase participation in conferences and events that can feature our resources, methodologies and work
1.2 Use publications, op-eds, letters to the editor, press conferences, new media, and technology
1.3 Increase cross-sector involvement with literary, arts, academic, technology, faith and other communities

2.1 Promote involvement of volunteers beyond the legal community
2.2 Improve capacity for recruiting, training, supporting and utilizing volunteers
2.3 Increase recognition of volunteer contributions

3.1 Effectively communicate with stakeholders
3.2 Increase the recognition of all forms of support
3.3 Provide opportunities for increased engagement
3.4 Increase board member involvement

4.1 Ensure adequate staffing and a supportive environment for staff to perform and grow in their jobs
4.2 Strengthen administrative and operational systems and infrastructure to meet growing needs

5.1 Ensure consistent standards in program development, implementation and evaluation
5.2 Strengthen evaluation methods
5.3 better define what constitutes success

Achieve programmatic goals by:
1.1 Monitoring, documenting, and reporting human rights abuses to the UN through oral and written statements and participation in the UN's review of compliance with human rights treaties
1.2 Serving on the steering committee of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, an alliance of more than 150 organizations from around the globe

2.1 Documenting human rights violations, working to improve laws and policies with partner organizations, and providing up-to-date information on our website StopViolenceAgainstWomen.org
2.2 Conducting fact-finding related to the human rights of LGBTQ+ individuals, advocating at international treaty bodies, raising awareness, providing training and education, and representing LGBTQ+ asylum seekers
2.3 Providing access to free year-round education to some of Nepal’s most marginalized children at The Advocates’ Sankhu-Palubari Community School

3.1 Providing free legal services to low-income people seeking asylum and connecting families released from U.S. immigration detention centers with free legal services through our National Asylum Help Line
3.2 Monitoring government compliance with international obligations, documenting violations, advocating for human rights-based public policy responses, and providing free legal assistance to victims
3.3 Providing free legal representation to people detained by ICE

4.1 Advocating for a more humane immigration policy informed by our legal services experience at the national and international level
4.2 Working with the state of Minnesota to protect human rights and advising local governments on human rights standards
4.3 Bringing a public eye to justice, monitoring immigration court proceedings and their impact on asylum seekers, and monitoring state district courts proceedings related to violence against women and girls

The Advocates for Human Rights leverages the expertise of its staff, an engaged and energized board, and hundreds of volunteers to deliver millions of dollars in human rights monitoring, documenting and reporting of violations, training, as well as policy and legal advocacy annually. Using a unique model of pro bono engagement that views volunteers as an essential part of the human rights movement, The Advocates engages hundreds of professionals each year in research, education, and advocacy around our priority issues.

The Advocates program staff is made up of experienced human rights practitioners with expertise in women's human rights, refugee and immigration law, human rights education, and international human rights law. The Advocates' professional staff hold advanced degrees in law, law and diplomacy, international politics, and education, in addition to years of field experience.

The Advocates' administrative staff has been recruited from the for-profit, non-profit, and academic sector and brings advanced skills to supporting the mission and programmatic efforts.

The Advocates has helped nearly 1000 victims of persecution to rebuild their lives, find work, and reunite with their families after being granted asylum, and provided essential legal advice to thousands more through innovative collaborative projects to ensure access to counsel. In 2015, The Advocates launched its National Asylum Help Line to assist women and children released from detention, serving hundreds of families in its first months of operation.

The Advocates has transformed legal systems' response to violence against women in over a dozen countries, impacting the lives of millions of women and creating models for future change. Through sustained partnerships with women's human rights defenders, careful monitoring and documentation of systemic failures to protect women, advocacy to adopt effective policies, and training of systems personnel and advocates to ensure effective implementation, The Advocates has helped reduce the prevalence of and impunity for violence against women.

Using international human rights mechanisms at the UN, The Advocates holds governments accountable for human rights violations. The Advocates' work has resulted in the restoration of essential legal protections for victims of domestic violence in Croatia, helped advocates fight against forced child marriage in Morocco, and given voice to on-the-ground human rights defenders at the international level. The Advocates' work with transitional justice mechanisms has helped create an accurate historical record of atrocities in Cambodia, Peru, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

Through its Nepal School Project, The Advocates has transformed lives of its students and the Sankhu-Palubari community in the Kathmandu Valley. Beginning its first year with 50 students, the Sankhu-Palubari Community School now has 375 students enrolled, more than half of whom are girls. In 2014, the third class of students that began kindergarten at the school graduated from 12th grade. All graduates have continued on to study at a university in Nepal.

The first cohorts of graduates now work as ICU nurses, hotel managers, engineers, and teachers, a future that they couldn't even imagine when they first started school.