Human Rights

Protecting Immigrant and Migrant Rights

In the Headlines

15 October 2010

Ford Grantee Wins 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award

Abel Barrera Hernàndez, founder and director of Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, has been honored with the 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. The anthropologist and human rights activist was recognized for his tireless and often times life-threatening efforts to promote and defend the rights of vulnerable migrant communities in southern Mexico, particularly in the state of Guerrero. A grantee of Ford's Protecting Immigrant and Migrant Rights initiative, Tlachinollan epitomizes the foundation's human rights efforts, providing countless indigenous people with legal, educational and health-related services, and with leadership training.

Published in Inter Press Service News Agency

Mexican Activist Wins Prestigious RFK Prize

September 23, 2010 By Jim Lobe and Emilio Godoy

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY, Sep 23, 2010 (IPS) — An anthropologist and human rights defender who has worked for years with the indigenous people in one of Mexico's poorest and most marginalised regions has been awarded one of the world's most important human rights prizes.

Abel Barrera Hernandez, the founder and director of the Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre of the Montana in the state of Guerrero, will receive this year's Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in recognition of his efforts to end abuses committed by the military and police against the local population, the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights announced here Thursday.

"Our friends at the Tlachinollah Centre represent true courage in their struggle to expose and confront ongoing human rights abuses," said Claudio Grossman, the dean of the Washington College of Law at American University and a member of the five-person jury that decided on this year's winner.

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