Humanists International releases new training tool on FoRB

Humanists International has launched a new training tool on the right to freedom of religion or belief: the FoRB Good Practice Guide.

Drawing on Humanists International’s experience of working on FoRB issues internationally, the Guide unpacks the right to FoRB, exploring in detail what the right means, and why it matters that humanists and human rights advocates everywhere engage in and advocate for a universal, intersectional and human-rights based understanding of FoRB.

The FoRB Good Practice Guide can be downloaded for free via a new page on Humanists International’s website.

To celebrate the launch of the Guide, humanists from different regions of the world, including Morocco, Italy, Ghana, the Philippines and India, recorded a series of videos in which they spoke about the relevance of FoRB to their diverse areas of work, and why it is important it is done the right way.

Humanists International is grateful to its Member, Human-Etisk Forbund (the Norwegian Humanist Association), for its support in producing the FoRB Good Practice Guide.

Elizabeth O’Casey, Humanists International’s Director of Advocacy, commented on the launch of the Guide:

“The Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief is a human right important to all those who wish to believe whatever they want, to dissent, to think freely, critically and for themselves. However, it is also a right that is too often misrepresented and misused by dominant conservative religious actors to undermine equality and non-discrimination – particularly on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation – as well as a right too often monopolized to the exclusion of minority belief groups.

“We were keen therefore, to provide member and associate organisations with a Guide to help train and inform their own members on this important right. So that they might have the appropriate tools to respond when they see the right to FoRB being politicised or misrepresented by those in power or those with an anti-rights agenda; and so that they understand their humanist and non-religious beliefs are fully protected by the right and can champion it, as such.”