Commissioner Jamesina King said in order for the commission to achieve their mandate of supporting government in its treaty body obligations, the office of the HCHR contracted the services of a consultant, Monica Nascimento Silva, to conduct the training on 23-24 November 2016.
She further stated that in November 2015 the HRSL established the treaty body unit in the directorate of monitoring and research.
“Among others roles, the treaty body unit is responsible for directly interfacing with the international human rights system, both regionally and internationally, as well as prepare and produce all alternative reports on behalf of HRCSL in compliance with regional and international reporting obligations and in resonance with human rights law”, she explained.
She said it had, however, been reported that state parties were rarely in full compliance with their reporting requirement under their various treaty obligations. States were required to periodically submit report on their compliance with international human rights treaties to which they were a party to and had a reporting requirement.
She observed that building the capacity of the staff of HRCSL, ministries, departments and agencies and civil society in terms of treaty body reporting would capacitate them in preparing their alternative reports as well as enable them to meet their reporting obligations on all regional and international treaties.
Commissioner King stated that the training would enable HRCSL and partners to develop new ways of interacting and interfacing with international reporting mechanism as well as understanding clearly the structural template required in the production of alternative report in compliance with international reporting obligations she said one of the mandate of HRCSL as stated in section 7(e) of its Act is to ’advice government concerning preparation of periodic report required by international human right treaties or agreement to witch Sierra Leone is a party’
