KARACHI:The Human Rights Information Management System (HRIMS) was established at the Human Rights Department, Government of Sindh, with support of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The system was handed over to the Human Rights Department today in Karachi. Surendar Valasai, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Human Rights was the chief guest at the ceremony and formally launched Sindh’s HRIMS housed at Directorate of Human Rights Department.
The system aims to address observed governance challenges linked to human rights data collection, strengthen the province’s human rights reporting and support evidence-based policy making and planning. The system accounts for Pakistan’s decentralized governance structure, under which provincial governments hold responsibility for implementing and monitoring the majority of human rights subjects, including health, education, social welfare and labour. Thus, the HRIMS is comprised of four provincial data servers and software interfaces housed in provincial focal, and it is consolidated under a national HRIMS, housed in the Ministry of Human Rights, Government of Pakistan (MoHR).
Government of Sindh and UNDP are working together to operationalize HRIMS in Sindh to report on Pakistan’s treaty body recommendations, SDG targets, UPR recommendations and human rights indicators digitally and efficiently. Data entered into the system reflects commitments made by duty-bearers through adoption of legal instruments/ rights-based institutional mechanisms, efforts by duty-bearers to implement human rights commitments, and attainment of rights by rights-holders.
Speaking at the event, the Special Assistant to Chief Minister Sindh on Human Rights, Mr Surendar Valasai said, “Sindh Government is a pioneer in legislations and initiatives to promote human rights in Sindh. However, reporting of this data and progress achieved by Sindh is a big challenge due to which Sindh cannot project its accomplishments. HRIMS a proactive solution to digitize the human rights-based data and we hope to overcome the province’s data and reporting challenges through this system.”
Jawed Sibghatullah Mahar, Secretary, Human Rights Department said, “It is very important for Sindh to improve its infrastructure around human rights-based data collection and match its federal and provincial counterparts, so the province can produce quality reports for international treaty obligations including core Human Rights Conventions, GSP+ and Sustainable Development Goals. HRIMS is the first step to improve the data ecosystem in Sindh and contribute towards reporting on Pakistan’s International Treaty obligations as well as making evidence-based and data-backed policies in Sindh.”
The UNDP team reiterated its commitment to support the Human Rights Department, Government of Sindh in its effort to strengthen human rights data collection in Sindh by providing technical training on the HRIMS and human rights normative training to the department as well as the relevant line departments in Sindh Government.