A/HRC/39/58 Federation of Ombudsman has played this role in the Americas, linking national, regional and United Nations systems. Another example is the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, one of the most effective forms of collaboration in the region. Established in 1996, the organization aims to support the establishment and efficient operation of national human rights institutions in Asia and currently has 24 members. The key roles of the Forum include building stronger national human rights institutions; providing advice and expertise; collaborating and sharing knowledge; promoting gender equality; contributing at the national, regional, and international level; and supporting effective leadership and governance. It thus opens up new avenues for strengthening human rights protections for the inhabitants of the region. Civil society 34. NGOs push reluctant Governments to step up their human rights protection efforts by pressuring them to ratify international human rights treaties. After ratification, they also help to evaluate compliance. NGO monitoring and reporting serves are invaluable sources of information for the enforcement authorities of regional regimes. In one example, the International Commission of Jurists complained to the European Committee of Social Rights that child labour incompatible with the European Social Charter was common in Portugal. That led to Portugal amending its Constitution to prohibit the employment of schoolchildren and increasing the minimum age for employment, which caused a dramatic drop in violations.40 35. The productive engagement of NGOs in other regional mechanisms is also visible. Although many NGOs are active, only a few examples can be cited. The Center for Justice and International Law has participated in over 300 cases before both the Inter-American Commission and Court on behalf of more than 13,000 victims. Its success has translated into, among other things, the payment of monetary reparations (more than $66 million to almost 2,500 victims); the reopening of investigations and cases that had earlier been met with impunity; public apologies by high-ranking government officials; and changes in the laws and practices of States.41 In Africa, the rules of procedure of the African Commission allow NGOs to sit in on public sessions of the Commission and of its subsidiary bodies. There are 515 NGOs with observer status with the Commission and the engagement of civil society has been further enhanced by the NGO forum, an advocacy platform coordinated by the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, which convenes in advance of sessions of the Commission.42 36. Although Asia does not yet have a regional human rights arrangement, civil society is working towards this goal. In 1993, building on earlier groundwork, more than 110 NGOs from 26 countries across Asia adopted the Bangkok NGO Declaration of Human Rights, a hopeful step towards cooperative transborder human rights activism. Continued efforts to build a comprehensive system of human rights norms led to the issuance of the Asian Human Rights Charter in 1998, an important demonstration of the existence of a normative consensus among representatives of Asian civil society. Although many countries in the region do not have strong domestic civil societies, Asian NGOs have compensated by creating transnational networks focusing on networking, coalition-building, capacity-building and advocacy across borders, while also putting effort into monitoring, documentation, campaigning, and training. For instance, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia), one of the most prominent transnational NGOs based in South-East Asia, has been implementing human rights advocacy programmes in ASEAN countries to ensure the effectiveness of ASEAN human rights institutions and is also making strenuous efforts to raise public awareness of and bring government attention to regional human rights cooperation in Asia. 37. As of now, however, many NGOs, especially those in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, suffer from a lack of legal protection and the resources to successfully carry out their 40 41 42 International Commission of Jurists v. Portugal, complaint No. 1/1998. See www.cejil.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/Report20_ENpdf.pdf. For more information, see www.acdhrs.org/ngo-forum/. 13