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From calling out climate injustice to calling for women’s rights, tackling homelessness to exposing police brutality, children and young people are a leading force for change.

At 3.1 billion, they account for 42% of the world’s population – many of them in the Global South. Too often, they are the worst affected by the world’s greatest injustices, experiencing first-hand their blistering effects. They see their own communities ripped apart by poverty, inequality, discrimination, corruption – and are compelled to stand up to these forces.

This year, Amnesty International’s largest human rights campaign, Write for Rights, throws its might behind these children and young people who are overcoming the odds – to support them, give them strength and make it possible for them to continue to dare where adults in authority are failing. 

>> Sign up for Write for Rights to support these young defenders on December 10th, Human Rights Day

Grassy Narrows Youth, Canada

Join activists around the world this Human Rights Day for a letter-writing marathon on Twitter and Instagram.

Write for Rights is the world’s largest human rights events and on Human Rights Day we want the world to see how far and wide the campaign reaches, and all the great work we do to change lives.

On or around December 10th, 2019 we will be using Twitter and Instagram to show that people all over the world are writing letters for young people around the world fighting for human rights. You can find more information on Write for Rights cases here.

Let’s show the world that human rights matter, by making the 2019 Write for Rights hashtags #Write4Rights and #W4R19 appear in conversations online throughout the day!

Here are some sample tweets for each 2019 case. Just click the link to tweet the text! Each will come with a link to the action.

The United Nations climate change negotiations start next week. It is vital that all governments make commitments to intensify their efforts to address the climate emergency, and that human rights are made central to this. Action taken to combat climate change must not come at the cost of human rights, including Indigenous rights, or deepen inequalities.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has raised the alarm that in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions must be halved by 2030. It is critical that rich countries, including Canada, which bear the greatest responsibility for causing the climate crisis and have the most resources, take swift and urgent action to: reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions in a fast and fair way that respects human rights; provide support to affected communities and individuals to address loss and damage caused by the climate crisis; and provide financial and technological resources to countries in the global south to facilitate their efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to the climate emergency.

The Kiobel v Shell case resumed at The Hague on 8 October and for the first time heard accounts from individuals who accuse Shell of offering them bribes to give fake testimonies that led to the ‘Ogoni Nine’ being sentenced to death and executed in Nigeria. Three men claimed that Nigerian government officials and Shell staff offered them money and promises of jobs and houses to testify against the Ogoni Nine. They said that, together with other prosecution witnesses, they were asked to sign statements that had been prepared for them and instructed to make specific statements during the Ogoni Nine court hearing aimed at incriminating the men. Ken Saro-Wiwa, Barinem Kiobel and the others had been accused of involvement in the murder of four traditional rulers, who were opposed to Ken Saro-Wiwa’s campaign against the oil industry.