Creating a Humane Culture in Mongolia

With nearly 5,000 Mongolian students trained on the Youth for Human Rights curriculum, Mongolia’s National Human Rights Commission plans countrywide implementation.

Although the Mongolia constitution guarantees many fundamental rights, and has as its goal a humane and civil society, according to the U.S. State Department Human Rights Report, the country suffers from human rights abuse including corruption, widespread domestic violence, police abuse of prisoners and detainees, arbitrary arrests, and human trafficking.

 

A young democracy, many Mongolians remain ignorant of their human rights a legacy of the country’s six decades as a satellite of the Soviet Union.  

Students in Ulaanbaatar study the Youth for Human Rights curriculum, translated into Mongolian by the National Mongolian Human Rights Commission.   

Scientologist and Youth for Human Rights International Ambassador Sandra Lucas became aware of these situations when she traveled to the country on business. But she learned that the government was committed to human rights education and bringing the culture closer to the vision of its constitution.

Lucas presented the Youth for Human Rights (YHR) educational initiative to the Program Director of the National Mongolian Human Rights Commission (NMHRC) who agreed that the program is vital to his country.

Youth under 18 comprise 45 percent of the Mongolian population, making schools the obvious starting point for the initiative. A memorandum of understanding was signed, and the NMHRC Director organized human rights training for 40 teachers and translated all YHR materials into Mongolian. A pilot program provided this human rights education to the students of 20 secondary schools in the capital of Ulaanbaatar.

Teachers incorporated the 30 human rights lessons into their history curricula. And the results were striking. In Secondary School No. 18, students decided to deliver human rights lessons to elementary school pupils and they educated families through door-to-door visits near Sükhbaatar Square. A private school started a human rights club and appointed ten young human advocates to train their peers.

All told, with 4,940 Mongolian students receiving YHR training through the three-year pilot, the program will soon be implemented in all Mongolian schools.

The Church of Scientology and Scientologists support United for Human Rights and its program for young people Youth for Human Rights, inspired by the principles expressed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, who observed, “It is vital that all thinking men urge upon their governments sweeping reforms in the field of human rights.”