2. Press general human rights violations. This database contains general
human rights violations from the press as mentioned above.
3. Unreported politically motivated violations of human rights. This database
contains information that has not been reported in the public domain or
information that has been reported in the public domain but is also
gathered from primary sources of information. This involves victims
coming to report to the forum in order to get free legal assistance and also
victims reporting to partner and member organizations in order to get
some free assistance including counselling, medical assistance etc
4. The last database is one for unreported general human rights violations.
This database contains all the other human rights violations as mentioned
in 3 above but violations that are not politically motivated.
The information in the databases is used for compiling the Monthly Political
Violence Report (MPVR), which will be discussed below. The information is also
used to furnish international lawyers with information on asylum cases as well as
for donors, diplomats, partner and member organizations as well as interested
individuals as and when sought. It is also hoped that the same databases would
be used in the event of a transition for transitional justice purposes in terms of
truth seeking, Truth Commission and possible prosecutions. The information has
also been used for other special and ad hoc reports as well as for litigation
purposes.
Even though this system should be both an effective and efficient way of
gathering data and utilizing the data, there have been problems on the
implementation of the system. There have been problems in 2006, in data
collection due to misunderstandings and outright territoriality on the parts of
some partner and member organizations. The problems have led to the
information being collected not being as far reaching as was hoped and also in
the delay in publishing the MPVRs. The Research Unit, with the help of the
Executive Director has on countless occasions in the year tried to resolve these
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