The Foundation for Human Rights
A USAID advocate’s testament to forgiveness, resilience, and reconciliation
Seventy two years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was established by the UN General Assembly in 1948, following the Second World War, driven by the resolution of the international community to prevent human rights atrocities from happening again.
Women played a major role, including: Eleanor Roosevelt of the United States; Hansa Mehta of India; Minerva Bernardino of Dominican Republic; Begum Shaista Ikramullah of Pakistan; Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux of France; and Evdokia Uralova of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Collectively, they inserted statements in support of equality, nondiscrimination, and recognizing human beings as born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Today, on Human Rights Day 2020, we celebrate USAID’s efforts to not only protect and promote human rights, but we also live it through our actions and use that experience to inform our work. An example is Patty Mira-Hunter, an international human rights lawyer who has spent 20 years fighting to prevent, protect, and respond to human rights abuses in Colombia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Inspired by heroes who forgave and reconciled with their aggressors
Throughout her youth, Patty lived in Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Guatemala, where she learned firsthand from her father, lawyer Jose Mira, about human dignity and the importance of empathy, respect, and humanity. When her brother Alejandro tragically died in an accident at age 5, his school quoted him on their yearbook’s first page: “it does not matter to be pretty or ugly, rich or poor, fat or thin, the most important thing in life is to be pretty inside and see God inside.”
Through her family, Patty came to believe that human dignity is the foundation for human rights, which in turn, is a precursor for democracy, peace, and stability, and she chose to study constitutional and international human rights law — then put it into practice.
Moved by the severity and number of human rights violations, caused by the 50-year conflict in her native Colombia, as USAID/Colombia Mission staff, Patty designed and launched the first flagship USAID human rights program for the Mission in 2001. It focused on preventing human rights violations, protecting human rights defenders, and responding to human rights abuses when they occur. The Mission continues to support human rights programming 20 years later.
Through her work with USAID in the West Bank and Gaza, Patty was moved by the courage and humanity of parents who lost their children in the Israel-Palestine conflict. She witnessed firsthand how reconciliation happens when individuals are able to transform pain and hate into love and acceptance through forgiveness.
In 2016, Patty returned to Colombia with renewed determination to support the reconciliation process. Shortly after arriving, she met three individuals who found resolution through forgiveness.
Among those people included: Teresita Gaviria, a woman who led a group of mothers, whose children went missing at the hands of the FARC, and other illegal armed groups, to transform their suffering into forgiveness, courage, and solidarity. Leyner Palacios Asprilla, survived one of the worst massacres in Colombian history — the 2002 bombing of a church in Bojaya, Choco, where 79 civilians died, including 32 of his family members — and went on to become a commissioner of the Colombian Truth Commission. And Natalia Ponce de Leon, who is the survivor of a 2014 acid attack that destroyed her face and parts of her body and required 36 surgeries. She developed a platform that led to the passage of the 2016 Natalia Ponce Law, which acknowledges the seriousness of such crimes and sets commensurate penalties. Later Natalia wrote a book about her experience, which led her to forgiving the perpetrator, noting that “perdonar es sanar” — forgiving is healing.
Through these stories of courage, Patty became firmly convinced of the importance of creating and fostering a cycle of peace, starting with forgiving oneself and then forgiving the aggressor.
Lessons for life and work
Now a mother of five, Patty is advocating for the rights and life of her youngest child and only daughter, Isabella, who at age 2 began a brave battle with Pancreatic Ewing’s Sarcoma. Due to the rarity of the disease, the doctor initially provided a misdiagnosis and asked Patty’s forgiveness after it was determined to be cancer.
“That experience was a full circle moment for me, as it represented the lessons from my youth and global human rights work — that forgiveness and human dignity are the foundation for reconciliation and human rights,” said Patty.
USAID also shares these beliefs. We believe that human rights are critical to national security, and that they serve as the foundation for countries’ journeys toward self-reliance and citizen-responsive governance. We also continue to be inspired by human rights defenders such as Teresita, Leyner, and Natalia, as their success is essential to advancing freedom, liberty, and self-reliance across the globe.
Despite what has been a challenging 2020 for many people globally, Patty sees hope, possibility, and a renewed commitment globally to democratic ideals from ordinary people everywhere. She sees citizens around the world committed to asserting their dignity, advocating for respect, protection, and promotion of human rights, even if that means putting their own lives at risk.
She advises us to remember that happiness begins when we step out of our comfort zone, and fully dedicate ourselves to something much greater. For Patty, it is public service and solidarity with those who advocate for human rights around the world. Tapping into our own power to forgive — starting with ourselves, despite a broken heart — we can heal and build a foundation for human rights for all.
About the Author
Ajit V. Joshi is the Senior Human Rights and Inclusion Advisor at USAID.
