Geneva Call visits Thailand’s deep south to mobilize support for the public campaign on humanitarian norms
6 July 2016
From 27 June-1 July, Katherine Kramer, Asia Programme Director, visited Thailand ’s southern border provinces, which have been experiencing significant levels of armed violence since 2004. According to Deep South Watch, in the period of 2004-2015 this unrest has resulted in over 15,000 attacks killing over 6,500 persons and wounding nearly 12,000 others, mainly civilians.
Geneva Call’s visit was to brief the Government’s Southern Border Provinces Administration Center (SBPAC), the Thai army’s Internal Security Operational Command 4 (ISOC4), local civil society and other stakeholders of its mission and to mobilize support for the dissemination of humanitarian norms to communities affected by armed violence through a public campaign.
SBPAC, ISOC4, civil society actors and other stakeholders were supportive of Geneva Call’s initiative and provided useful insight and suggestions on how to move forward with its work to further enhance the protection of civilians in the southern border provinces.
In late 2015, Geneva Call began supporting this campaign with civil society actors by adapting educational material to the local context. The next step is to organize a workshop for potential civil society partners on humanitarian norms applicable to armed actors and develop a strategy for the campaign in the coming months.
