About Amnesty International Moldova

Amnesty International Moldova was born on Human Rights Day, 10 December 1993, when a group of Moldovan law students received a letter from the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, which recognized them as the first initiative group of Amnesty International in Moldova.
 
More people joined the group, and 10 years later, in 2003, Amnesty International Moldova became a fully-fledged non-governmental organization. At first, its primary mission was to explain what human rights are to students of Law Departments at universities. The post-soviet culture gave little room for human rights concepts, whereas violations of personal freedom and integrity were widespread and commonly regarded as no big deal. Since then, Human Rights Education (HRE) has been one of the core activities of Amnesty International Moldova.

Amnesty International Moldova engaged in a number of global campaigns, most successful of them being ‘Stop Torture’ and ‘Stop Violence against Women’. Today organization’s key activities also include the fight against discrimination and promotion of social, economic, and cultural rights under the ‘Demand Dignity’ campaign. Amnesty International Moldova was one of the advocates of a more liberal law on assemblies, passed in 2008. Today the organization pledges for adoption of a comprehensive anti-discrimination legal framework, so that vulnerable minorities become better equipped for the defense of their rights. Besides, Amnesty International Moldova keeps lobbying for international justice, following a broad campaign for ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which pushed Moldovan authorities to eventually ratify the document in 2010.

Taking into account Moldova’s eligibility for submission of complaints to the European Court of Human Rights, Amnesty International Moldova has been organizing capacity building trainings for practicing defense lawyers, who then use their newly-acquired skills to defend the rights of many people internationally as the domestic justice system often fails them. The project now expands to include other legal professionals involved in law-enforcement and the judiciary.

For several years Amnesty International Moldova has implemented the ‘I Have the Right to Know My Rights’ project, which aims at raising awareness of Human Rights among school students, as well as among their teachers. Human Rights basics have been recently introduced in the school curricula as an optional subject. Amnesty International Moldova is now busy with editing course materials and organizing HRE trainings for school teachers. Moreover, the organization intends to promote creation of Amnesty groups in schools for extracurricular activities for Human Rights.

In past few years the membership of Amnesty International Moldova grew to a diverse group of around 500 people; the number is expected to rise. The organization is governed democratically: the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of members elects five its representatives to sit on the Board; in turn, they designate an Executive Director, and the latter hires staff members.

Being a movement of people, Amnesty International Moldova always welcomes voluntary work and initiative. Local groups of Amnesty International Moldova exist in many locations - anyone can become a member of the organization, as well as join any given local group.