Source: United Nations (Video News)
Human rights defenders are central to realizing the Sustainable Development Goals, a United Nations independent expert says. UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor speaks alongside two defenders who champion rights at great cost. Wellington Gabriel de Jesus dos Santos, from the Pitanga dos Palmares Quilombola community in Brazil, lost his father, who was shot dead outside in 2017, and his grandmother, who in 2023 was also brutally killed in response to her human rights work. Emily Donovan, a co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, a grassroots community action group in North Carolina, works to restore and protect air, soil, water and food supply from contamination from PFAS substances known as forever chemicals. Both took their causes to the United Nations, where the Special Rapporteur urged protections for human rights defenders around the world.