Protection International provides tools and strategies to people who defend human rights, in order to protect themselves. One such strategy is the development of training manuals and other publications related to the protection of human rights defenders. These manuals apply to all human rights defenders, including environmental human rights defenders. To list a few examples, Protection International has published protection manuals for human rights defenders (2009), community-based human rights defenders in Thailand (September 2013), female human rights defenders in Guatemala (September 2013), and human rights defenders in rural areas (December 2012), as well as a manual on best practices and lessons learned related to the protection of human rights defenders.
The Protection Manual for Human Rights Defenders (2009) states that its purpose “is to provide human rights defenders with additional knowledge and some tools that may be useful for improving their understanding of security and protection. It is hoped that the manual will support training on security and protection and will help defenders to undertake their own risk assessments and define security rules and procedures which suit their particular situation.”
According to Protection International, it has disseminated the information in the protection manuals to hundreds of human rights defenders through training sessions. For example, the 2009 manual states that from 2004 through 2007, a total of 1,747 defenders participated in capacity building and security workshops in South and Central America, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Protection International’s website is: http://protectioninternational.org/; the manuals can be found at: http://protectioninternational.org/publication-page/manuals/.