And human rights for all
06-07-2021
After fleeing Sudan, Emmanuel Gore lived as a refugee in Syria and Lebanon and was imprisoned several times for living and working illegally in those countries. Today, he serves the world as a human rights advocacy officer for the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva.
To borrow the words of American author Langston Hughes, life for Emmanuel Gore “ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor – bare.” That reality, however, didn’t cause Dr. Emmanuel Gore, MATS ’10, to sit on the steps nor stop his climb. Today, his perseverance is paying off for the good of others.
A human rights advocacy officer for the Lutheran World Federation, LWF, Dr. Gore works to shed light on human rights abuses and offer ways for countries to bring about greater human rights protections for citizens and refugees. Dr. Gore can speak firsthand about the need for such life-changing work. “The fact that I was a refugee…a person without legal standing in a country, led to a barrage of abuses, including labor rights violations, physical assaults motivated by racial profiling…discrimination, and two years of intermittent imprisonment for living and working illegally in the countries that I had fled to,” said Dr. Gore.
While in prison, he recalled, “his faith sought understanding” and he found some answers while studying for a Bachelor of Theology degree from the Near East School of Theology in Beirut. In 2008, he received McCormick’s Global Scholarship and relocated to the U.S. to earn a master’s degree in theological studies. That was followed by a master’s degree in international peace studies from Notre Dame in 2012 and a PhD in transitional justice from England’s Coventry University in 2019.
Dr. Gore’s efforts focus primarily on countries that have undergone political transition from war to peace, yet he also acknowledges that the rights of ethnic minorities and other classes of people are often infringed upon within mature and stable democracies, even the United States.
For the past five years, he’s spent much of his advocacy efforts covering many countries around the world, including Eritrea, a nation of roughly 3.5 million people located in northeastern Africa, not far from his Sudanese birthplace. “There are four main human rights themes that have emerged as priorities in all the countries where I have worked,” said Dr. Gore. “They are: women’s rights, land rights, rights of refugees and internally displaced persons, and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. One of my responsibilities is to help LWF expand the capacity of its member churches and partners in civil society to advocate for human rights through United Nations’ human rights mechanisms.”
These mechanisms, he noted, include taking advantage of processes such as regular human rights council sessions, engaging with periodic reviews of human rights situations, and promoting the adherence to international human rights norms. Dr. Gore helps to train key stakeholders to carry out field research, identifying and collecting primary data on human rights issues in specific locales. “I then submit on their behalf reports and facilitate advocacy meetings at the international level between the diplomatic community in Geneva and relevant government bodies in the various countries,” he said. “All of this is done to ensure that government officials fulfill their international legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of their citizens.”
The result of Dr. Gore’s efforts has helped marginalized people in several countries to retain their lands from political powers and corporate forces, secure the right to clean drinking water, gain access to education for refugees, and mitigate gender-based violence.
“What I do today is built on work that started with my master’s studies at McCormick,” said Dr. Gore. “That work centered on ways that mutual peaceful co-existence can take place among diverse faith communities and the value of interfaith dialogue. Human rights work is founded on the theological, moral and spiritual values of all world religions…the values of justice, righteousness, sanctity of life, and human dignity. It’s gratifying to see communities benefitting and living conditions being improved, but there is still much that is to be done.”
Emmanuel Gore
“What I do today is built on the work that started with my master’s studies at McCormick.”