On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This document proclaims the rights everyone is entitled to regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Available in more than 500 languages, it is the most translated document in the world. The theme for 2021 is Equality: Reducing inequalities, advancing human rights. Let’s look at some of the issues that we face today.
Right to life, liberty and security of person
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there have been several reports of attacks on people of Chinese origin in the U.S. The case of Justin Tsui in New York is just one of them. At a train station, he was threatened and asked to go back to where he came from.
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In Ethiopia, millions of people lived under a months-long government-imposed shutdown of Internet and phone services. They were denied information, and international and local aid groups were unable to monitor disease outbreaks or provide help.
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The Taliban victory in Afghanistan has been followed by deprivation and famine stalking the land. There have been accounts of orphaned children starving to death, families selling their meagre possessions and sometimes even their daughters to get money for food. There is a gradual collapse of the social fibre.
Impacting basic human rights
Climate change is depriving people of the right to life. As in the case of Ioane Teitota. A native of Kiribati, he sought asylum in New Zealand as his home country was becoming uninhabitable due to scarcity of land and the rise in sea level rendering the land unfit for agriculture. However, he was turned down. When he approached the UN Human Rights Committee they said New Zealand could not deport him as they were violating his right to life. This was the first-ever ruling on a complaint by an individual seeking asylum from the effects of climate change.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
In 2015, Guatemala’s Congress voted to raise the country’s minimum legal age for marriage to 18! While this was exciting news for the people of Guatemala, this is the legal age of marriage in every other country. However, all over the world, girls are forced into marriage every two seconds. Child marriage is harmful to girls. They are not allowed to go to school, limiting their chances of employment and it is dangerous to their physical and mental health too.
Source: UN News