■ Human Rights:
From the very beginning Rights Jessore strongly holds the spirit of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).Rights Jessore is working for elimination of distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. We work for the right to life, liberty and security of person. We demand equal protection of the law. We are against torture, cruelty, inhuman or degrading treatment, or punishment. We are for freedom of thought, equal property rights, freedom of expression and opinion and all the issues covered by universal declaration.
■ Anti-trafficking
Human Trafficking is one of the brutal business and heinous crime. Rights Jessore is active against this crime from its inception. Rescue, recovery, repatriation, reintegration, legal aid, advocacy, community mobilization all are covered under this thematic area. This is the most focused and prioritized program area for the organization.
■ Safe Migration Promotion:
During the Course of Action Rights Jessore has identified “Unsafe Labor Migration” as a major area what should be dealt with separately as an independent issue. Although there is close link between human trafficking and unsafe migration but due to difference in definition and legal implication it is essential to deal the problem separately.
■ Women Rights & Women Empowerment
Women are half of the population but due to their social status and position they are subject to frequent abuse, torture and violations. Rights Jessore strongly believes in the equal opportunity of women; they should enjoy the freedom of life without the fear of being abused, tortured, trafficked or killed. Rights Jessore dedicated to make sure women’s participations in social programming so that they are empowered in the community and can defend their rights.
■ Child Rights
Children are the future leader of the nation. Rights Jessore is against any form of violation against children. We believe in the safe, secured and violence free environment for every child with adequate opportunity for their education and development.
■ Good Governance:
In principle Rights Jessore promotes good governance and the issue has been a part of organizational focus area. Till date Rights Jessore has been engaged with different sorts of activities and campaigns which promote good governance in public service delivery mechanism. Rights Jessore is one of the proponents to fight corruption at district level. It’s good governance promotional activities include advocacy for establishing citizen charter to enhance public access to information and to ensure social accountability of public service delivery, open budget at union Parishad, activating village court, civic and voter education, anti-corruption campaign and introducing social audit in Rights Jessore’s development project evaluation.
■ HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS is one of the major growing concerns. Rights Jessore worked to reduce the HIV vulnerability among the cross border mobile and promoting the rights of the people living with HIV /AIDS (PLWHA). Rights Jessore already established a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centre (VCT) within general government hospital in Satkhira. Rights Jessore wishes to work further to reduce HIV vulnerabilities among the at risk populations. A few numbers of HIV positive repatriated survivors has been reintegrated in their family too. Linkage and liaison has been made by Rights Jessore to other service provider Offices for their essential services.
■ Environment & Climate Change
As environmental degradation and climate change emerge as one of the major development challenges in our endangering human life and livelihood is contributing enormously towards the number of incidents of human rights violations. It is happening as floods, cyclones and draughts, water salinity, rise of sea level or crisis of underground water or so on coming up as matter of growing concern. Rights Jessore supports and advocates for environmental justice for safe habitat in Bangladesh and beyond.