Human Rights and
The Implementation of Social Justice
At Londa Lima, East Sumba, May 13 – 15, 2016



When we talk about Human Rights in a wide perspectives, the first thing to do is understanding the definition of human rights itself. One expert on Human Rights, Prof. Koentjoro Poerbo Pranoto said that human rights are fundamental rights, the rights that owned by every human being according to the nature of God.


According to Law, No. 39 / 1999 on Human Rights, refers to a set of rights attached to human existence as a creature of God Almighty and is a gift that must be respected, upheld and protected by the state, law, government and anyone as form of honor and protection of human being. Based on Christian faith in Genesis 1: 26-29, about man creation. Man was created in God's image, then human rights are fundamental rights which inherent in human beings as a gift of God.

Sumba, a region in East Nusa Tenggara province, most of society still have primordial system and tight social strata. Nothing wrong about it in this society, but it will go wrong if the practices cause an imbalance in the implementation of human rights for the lowest strata. This inequality should not happen, because the majority of the people of Sumba are Christians, and referring to Galatians 3:28, which reads, "In this case there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus ". So, the social strata between master and slave in Sumba is not a fault, but each should complement on and another, not to ignore human rights.

The implementation of human rights is the concern and responsibility of all stakeholders, the governments, NGOs, and community groups. Stube-HEMAT Sumba as an institution which has attention to social issues, especially the implementation of human rights is also called to find solution and respond the implementation of human rights for people in Sumba through a training on Human Rights, with a theme ‘Human Rights and The Implementation of Social Justice."

A training which oriented to young people especially students and church youth was held on Friday – Sunday, May 13–15, 2016 at Londa Lima, Waingapu, East Sumba. It was attended by 30 participants from Unkriswina, STT Terpadu, Waingapu, Academy Sandlewood of Sumba and several church youths in East Sumba.


As the opening of training, Dominggus Umbu Deta, S.Th, the coordinator of Stube-HEMAT Sumba, conveyed the importance of the implementation of human rights as God’s universal sovereignty. God is sovereign over human beings and human rights come from God. It means that violation against human rights is a violation to God’s provision. There is no institution or a person, including state authorities might cancel or reduce these rights, except God.

Next session, Matthew Remi Jawa, SH, conveyed that public should be observers on human rights issues, especially in Sumba. Public, especially participants were advised not to violate human rights, because if this happens, it brings legal consequences of such behavior.

The implementation of children rights was also discussed in this training. Masnauli Marbun, SE, MM, who shared about children rights shared that actually many regulations have been issued by the government and could be used as references to pay attention to children rights.

Stepanus Makabombu, Kom, M.Si, talked about human rights and public policy. This session highlighted the implementation of human rights done by government for the society, in which everyone has rights to get access of information from local government about their programs, as well as the funding.


The participants enthusiastically responded every training materials. Those can can be seen along the process, most of them were involved actively by responding, asking questions and exchanging ideas with the speakers. One follow-up activities of the training done by participant is having observation in his/her neighborhood related to human rights violations. This project will be presented in the next meeting. (DUD).





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