The Human Rights Sector Has a Communication Problem
Stubborn veterans, stagnant messaging, and exclusionary language plague the sector. Why are they not correcting it?
In 2013, a report by the Asian Development Bank said that if civil society contributed to a country’s democratization anywhere, it was in the Philippines. We had some of the most advanced civil society organizations, the largest NGOs per capita proportion in Asia, and practically an organization catering to every sector in each geographical region in the country. From peasant farmers, laborers, women, and LGBTQIA+ individuals, to political prisoners, fisherfolk, persons with disabilities, and other disenfranchised minorities — a nongovernmental organization was available to advance their issues and campaign for their welfare.
But the health of civil society organizations, such as people’s organizations, cooperatives, and development nongovernmental organizations, took a hit when Pres. Rodrigo Duterte came to power, as he continually launched attacks on the sector as part of his campaign against illegal drugs and militaristic counterinsurgency measures. Many of these civil society organizations had to pivot their focus to include human rights at the core of their campaigns. This involved extending their scope to spotlight the victims of extrajudicial killings, as well as the impact of such an extensive violation of human rights on their respective sectors. As a result, the term “human rights” — once a highly regarded ideal for democracies around the world — has earned a negative reputation in public, with even human rights workers themselves testifying to how badly the phrase is being received. After doing decades of work that directly served the people, they now feel unwelcome in and are even shunned away by the very communities they catered to.
Aside from Duterte’s impact on civil society, however, the sector has its own weaknesses in countering the information warfare waged by the current administration, especially with how little importance communication teams are given in these organizations. Part of the crucial role of these teams are to handle relationships with the media; craft messages to the public and assign how, where, and when these messages ought to be disseminated; and maintain the positive reputation of their respective groups. These are especially necessary for human rights organizations in the crosshairs of the ongoing disinformation campaigns.
However, a study titled Human Rights in Survival Mode: Rebuilding Trust and Supporting Digital Workers in the Philippines by Filipino researchers Jonathan Corpus Ong, Jeremy Tintiangko, and Rossine Fallorina found that almost half of 30 organizations surveyed had no team dedicated to these tasks. Those who did already had them prior to the drastic shift in the sector, but only two expanded their teams to adapt to the changes in the political realm. And only seven had the key qualities of fully developed strategic communication, such as having workers in empowered leadership positions, creative and multimodal communication campaigns, strategic organizational branding, and established linkages to allies in advertising, public relations, and the academe.
The lack of investment for communication teams and technological infrastructures has pushed human rights organizations to go on “survival mode.” They have had to split personnel into those who take the frontlines and those dedicated to working on back channels — both of which face inevitable risks. For one, workers who call out government abuses and lobby for policies with legislators are in constant danger of being harassed, attacked online, or targeted for character assassination. Meanwhile, those who take the back channels by immersing in communities may be able to attract donors and ensure the involvement of their communities, but, as a trade-off, would have to minimize their focus on political issues and drop the “human rights” concept of their work. And while the divide between two pathways may work for the time being, this may prove to be consequential in the long run as the public also cannot clearly see the connection between the work in the frontlines and the back channels. Such a disconnect, according to the study, could be addressed by strategic solutions crafted by communication teams.
Human rights workers are well aware of this lapse in their system, attributing it to a lack of labor and financial firepower to properly fund a communications team.
“We are very much lacking in labor,” says an advocacy staff of a legislative advocacy–focused NGO. “Kasi ako nagla-lobby ako, hindi naman pwedeng habang nagla-lobby ako, nagla-launch [din] ako ng social media campaign sabay-sabay. Magpapa-forum ako rito tapos sa hapon may meeting ako with [members of the Congress] or mayors, tapos sa susunod na morning pupunta ako sa isang eskuwelahan. Tapos a few hours later may radio interview. (Like myself — I can’t do lobbying work while also launching a social media campaign at the same time. I’d be holding a forum and then in the afternoon would have to go straight to a meeting with members of the Congress or mayors, and then the next morning go visit a school. And then a few hours later join a radio interview.)”
Human rights organizations are likewise hindered from building a communications team by the reluctance of donors to fund communication initiatives or the purchase of equipment and software for capacity-building purposes. The focus of NGOs on measurable outcomes over the qualitative results that can be derived from communication-related initiatives such as civil education, image-building, or countering disinformation narratives is a large hurdle. After all, what human rights workers want to fund first and foremost are programs that bridge inequalities, such as those that address food insecurity, legal assistance projects, and other essential services. Such programs have immediate results, and are much easier to measure compared to the goals produced by communication campaigns.
“That’s the reality. There’s a lot of issues, but a lack of human and material resources is always a given,” says an executive of a legal resource human rights organization. “But because there are too many issues, communication isn’t prioritized.”
Any initiatives geared toward communicating with the public tend to rely on negative emotions and events, resulting in short-term outbursts with no long-lasting effects that can result in alliances. Such deference to stoking anger and indignation meets resistance in those who are in the political center, and the age-old messaging reminiscent of the martial law era is not creating bridges necessary for wide-scale action. Even the sector’s allies in journalism, advertising, and public relations find the pervading communications strategies of human rights organizations in crafting big messages and in utilizing new media channels ineffective.
The stark generational divide in some organizations further strains attempts to revisit communications initiatives in organizations. While younger human rights workers push for campaigns that bank on positive emotions, veterans in the field still rely on doom-and-gloom narratives that can be desensitizing for the public.
Case in point, a campaign by Melo Esguerra, a transgender media producer, called “Love Is All We Need, that aims to promote the passage of the SOGIE Equality Bill has been met with resistance from veterans in the sector as it works “with the enemy” and lacks the “language of protest and accountability” — the same language that tends to alienate potential allies.
What Ong, Tintiangko, and Fallorina found as solutions are a combination of various structural, strategic, and cooperative maneuvers to counter attacks and disinformation, and effectively take over political narratives and engage the mainstream public.
Human rights organizations should first and foremost invest in communication infrastructures, including material and human resources, for their communication teams. Donors should be engaged in helping fund communication into programs. Having communication specialists in leadership positions to manage the direction of campaigns and key messages around priority issues can likewise benefit the reputation and outcomes of an organization’s programs.
Investing in communication also means that human rights organizations should do social listening projects, gather insights through audience research, and test campaigns in select focus groups. This can aid in the formation of branding, public relations tactics, and campaigns. This can also help organizations reform intrinsic biases against positive messages that prevent them from involving other critical sectors of society.
Given the political realities the country is currently facing, human rights organizations are especially challenged to showcase a united front together with sectorial allies. Knowledge-sharing should be a common practice in order to develop every organization’s capacity to perform their duties and ward off threats coming from the state and certain actors.
As the country approaches another changing of guards in the upcoming 2022 elections, it would be beneficial for the human rights sector to heed the recommendations of Ong, Tintiangko, and Fallorina, which can help them thrive in a highly polarized political environment.
This report is based on the report titled “Human Rights in Survival Mode: Rebuilding Trust and Supporting Digital Workers in the Philippines.” It was published by the Harvard Kennedy School and funded by The Asia Foundation. The authors of the report did not divulge any other conflicts of interest.
JP Campos is the founder and editor of COMMONER. He writes explanatory essays about policies, governance, economics, and democracy. Previously, he has worked as an advertising and communications consultant for various nongovernmental organizations.
