HRDAG contributes to the project by helping to classify, filter, extract, and standardize the records so that they can be useful in the database.
Following a brutal 11-year civil war, the Parliament of Sierra Leone called for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to create "an impartial, historical record of the conflict", and "address impunity; respond to the needs of victims; promote healing and reconciliation; and prevent a repetition of the violations and abuses suffered." The full text of the TRC report is available on the Sierra Leone Web.
HRDAG assisted the TRC to build a systematic data coding system, electronic database, and secure data analysis process to manage the thousands of statements given to them in the course of their work. Dr. Ball visited Freetown twice, and HRDAG ...
Anita Gohdes and Megan Price (2013). Journal of Conflict Resolution, Volume 57 Issue 6 December 2013. © 2013 Journal of Conflict Resolution. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of SAGE. [online abstract]DOI: 10.1177/0022002712459708.
Today we’re very pleased to hear of the verdict finding Hissène Habré guilty of crimes against humanity. Habré, president of Chad from 1982 to 1990, has been sentenced to life in prison in Dakar, Senegal, where he was tried. He is the first former head of state to be tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity in one country (Chad) by the courts of another country (Senegal). Here’s more on the verdict from The Guardian.
The verdict resonates especially with HRDAG because of our role in the trial. In September 2015, director of research Patrick Ball testified as an expert witness about the very high rates of prison mortality in ...
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Are you interested in volunteering your time to the Human Rights Data Analysis Group? We’re very flattered—but at this time we’re ...
Donating to HRDAG
Thank you for your interest in making a donation to the Human Rights Data Analysis Group to help us use science to support our partners in the human rights world.
You can make a donation by credit card on the Community Partners® Network for Good page. HRDAG is a "project of Community Partners," and right below the section on payment information, you'll be able to select "Human Rights Data Analysis Group" from a drop-down menu. (On most browsers, if you use this link, HRDAG will be pre-selected on the drop-down menu.)
This transaction will appear on your credit card statement as "Network for Good."
If you donate by check, ...
“Revolution Analytics will allow HRDAG to handle bigger data sets and leverage the power of R to accomplish this goal and uncover the truth.” Director of Research Megan Price is quoted
The World According to Artificial Intelligence – The Bias in the Machine (Part 2)
Artificial intelligence might be a technological revolution unlike any other, transforming our homes, our work, our lives; but for many – the poor, minority groups, the people deemed to be expendable – their picture remains the same.
Patrick Ball is interviewed: “The question should be, Who bears the cost when a system is wrong?”
Inaccurate statistics can damage the credibility of human rights claims—and that's why we strive to ensure that statistics about human rights violations are generated with as much rigor and are as scientifically accurate as possible.
But, what are the pitfalls leading to inaccuracy—when, where, and how do data become compromised? How are patterns biased by having only partial data? And what are the best scientific methods for collecting, managing, processing and analyzing data?
Here are the data pitfalls that HRDAG has identified, as well as some of our approaches for meeting these challenges. We believe that human rights researchers must take ...
I spent last weekend in Istanbul at an excellent conference organized by the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies (SCPSS). The conference included numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from Syria as well as international human rights researchers and advocates. Families of victims told their stories, data collection groups discussed the challenges, and need, to document violations, transitional justice experts worried about infrastructure such as the police force and judicial system, and local leaders pledged to work together for peace.
I was invited to speak about HRDAG's recent report examining killings in Syria documented by ...
In 2001, President Alejandro Toledo, called for the establishment of the Comision de la Verdad y Reconciliacion (CVR) (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) to investigate human rights abuses in Perú between 1980 and 2000. Dr. Patrick Ball was invited to work with the Commission to evaluate the CVR technical work and make recommendations on the information management process and analytic strategies. HRDAG consultant Jana Asher worked with Dr. Ball and CVR staff members David Sulmont (Director Informations Systems) and Daniel Manrique (Database Expert) to present evidence of the violations in a report to the CVR.
The work included new estimates of ...
Patrick Ball, Ewa Tabeau, and Philip Verwimp (2007). “The Bosnian Book of the Dead: Assessment of the Database (Full Report).” Households in Conflict Network Research Design Note 5.
Patrick Ball and Miguel Cruz (2003). “Human freedom and free software: Why choices about technology matter to human rights advocates.”
Patrick Ball, estadístico norteamericano, colabora con el Programa de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Iberoamericana en una investigación sobre fosas clandestinas.
En ocasiones, las discusiones sobre ese fenómeno se centran más sobre cuál es la cifra real, mientras que el diagnóstico es el mismo: en las regiones la violencia no cede y no se avizoran políticas efectivas para ponerle fin. En medio de este complejo panorama, el Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad (Dejusticia) y el Human Rights Data Analysis Group, publicaron este miércoles la investigación Asesinatos de líderes sociales en Colombia en 2016–2017: una estimación del universo.
From the article: “Based on Ball’s calculations, using our data, nearly 3,000 people could have been killed in the three areas we analyzed in the first 18 months of the drug war. That is more than three times the official police count.”
From the article: “As we seek to advance the responsible use of data for racial injustice, we encourage individuals and organizations to support and build upon efforts already underway.” HRDAG is listed in the Data Driven Activism and Advocacy category.