By: Hamza Razaq
Human rights reflect the minimum standard necessary for people to live with dignity. Human rights give the people the freedom to choose how they live, how they express themselves, and what kind of government they want to support, and guarantee people the means necessary to satisfy their basic needs, such as food, housing, education and so on. According to the philosophy Human rights are intrinsic and cannot be endowed or taken away. They are meant to give us protection and especially those who are vulnerable to abuse, neglect and isolation.
Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December — the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Rights embodied in UDHR forms the heart of most of the democracies globally and States recognize them, at least principally. Yet the actual situation is far distant from the ideals envisioned in the declaration.
Unfortunately, after seven decades of declaration of human rights at the UN, the World is witnessing violations of human rights more than ever.
Global inequities, the proliferation of armed conflicts and violence, democracy deficits and weak institutions are the major hurdles in its way. Along with that, Economic inequality and especially climate change are also exacerbating the violations.
From the State’s point of view, Rulers lack the political will and the courage of to implement the key principles of UDHR.
Discrimination is rampant, and curbs on free speech is getting normal. The power to question public authority for poor treatment is violated under the disguise of national interests. Torture and political imprisonments, often without trials, are commonplace in authoritarian regimes, weak democracies even in developed ones across the globe.
By doing so, humans are being stripped off from key values of society such as fairness, dignity, equality and respect.
The Human rights and rule of law indicator considers the relationship between the state and its population insofar as fundamental human rights are protected and freedoms are observed and respected. According to the human rights index, The average for 2021 based on 173 countries was 5.42 index points. The highest value was in Egypt: 9.8 index points and the lowest value was in Austria: 0.5 index points.
Seeing the complexity of a problem, individuals, civil society, HR organizations and watchdogs need an effective multilateral approach to raise awareness through public seminars, debates, campaigns and advertisement. Since the erosion of democracies’ authoritarian regimes are on the rise, it is one of the major cause of human rights violations. Building pressure on those in power will be highly effective in this regard. Eleanor Roosevelt sums up the importance of Human Rights in a quote, “Where, After all, human rights begin? In small places, so close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.”
The writer is a graduate of Politics and International Relations from Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad. He can be reached at [email protected]
