Infringements of Rights and Responsibilities Around the World

Human Rights   Feb 21, 2015 by tony

Local/Global awareness is an important right to have but some countries such as North Korea isolates its people and prohibit any news from the outside world; Not only that the rest of the world is also mostly blind about what exactly is happening in North Korea also. Another example of the infringement of awareness is in Burma, Libya, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea where the censorship of their media is so intense that it basically eliminates awareness of the world from their citizens.

Equality is in my opinion the most important because it plays a part in everyone getting these rights; What is the point of having rights if not everyone has them? For example Russian citizens have rights but if your gay or lesbian your rights don't matter. If they found out your homosexual you will be arrested and tortured. Yemen is rated number one in the world for gender inequality by Slate(New America Foundation), 1,211,600 girls possess $2 or less. I know that people might say the men don't have much either but they do have significantly more money and possess all the power.

Social Justice is a word we use to describe the rightful punishment of those that commit a crime and the righting of a wrong but everyone's perspective of what social justice is different depending on how and where you were raised.   In places like the Ivory Coast and Mali children are tricked into working in heinous conditions (child labour) what makes it worst is that these children are told by their families to seek work thus making them more vulnerable to traffickers. A fact that you might not know is that teenagers and kids are trafficked every day from around the world to more developed countries such as Canada, they are tricked into prostitution. There are organizations that are trying to stop this but really people in our society live in our own worlds, we don't think much about injustices in the world unless we're prompt too. The fact is that their isn't enough people who care about social justices out of their own city or country let alone a place half around the world. Even the governments in the countries where it happens in turn a blind eye to it. Did you also know that probably half the chocolate companies in the world get their coco beans from child labour, they won't out right announce it but the truth is that they get their coco beans from a supplier that obtains the ingredients from farms that use child labour. They would say that it is ridiculous and grow stinking rich on it. It is not only governments in third world conditions that are turning a blind eye to social injustice, well developed countries such as Canada has situations where the government turns a blind eye such as the illegal use of aboriginal land and the breach of treaties made between the two parties.  

Activism and Desire for Change is an important responsibility/right because no one stood up against something that was wrong, then we would live in a world where the governments have all the power. In Saudi Arabia it is one of the country's laws that deem any type of activism or protest as treason or a terrorist act , despite this people still choose to protest; Just recently in December 2 women have been charged with terrorism for forcing their opinions on social media about their opinion about the law prohibiting women from driving. In Nigeria recently the police unofficially banned protests over the school girls who have been kidnapped by the Boko Haram (Al Jazeera) They stated that their is a dangerous element that infiltrated the protest groups and advise that people seize protesting until the threat is neutralized. This only made the protesters more rallied and their voices louder. 

Respect for Civil Liberties  extremely critical to the point of having those liberties because what is the point of having them if no one would respect them. One of the civil liberties everyone should possess is the right to be safe but recently in Bangladesh unsafe work conditions with a factory collapsing, killing thousands. People are placing the blame on gigantic multi-billion companies such as Wal-mart because of their lack of care for their employees and their safety just to lower the cost of expenses. In Burma it was uncovered that authorities refused to provide humanitarian aid to Rohingya Muslims and harassed them. Not only that they were killed and driven out of the country. There was even an actual law that denies Burma citizenship to people identified as Rohingya. Another thing that we need to think about is how to punish the people causing all these issues while respecting their civil liberties because we would be no better if we do not follow the expectations we have proposed for others. I believe our justice system in Canada is doing a great job of punishing those that cause crimes and up holding their civil liberties at the same time. But their is always room for improvement for example instead of shaming those that smoke illegal substances we could try to counsel them instead of just out right punishing them because we should always try to avoid imprisoning and harsher sentences for more heinous crimes. 

I consider myself a spec in the world, one small cog in the machine called society. For their to be a "machine" there has to be a bunch of cogs and parts that make up that machine; if something were to happen to any part it will affect all the other parts around it, it will leave a hole in the machine for awhile until a new piece replaces the missing one. You see as Humans we are very social species, we need the comfort of others and without each other we would seize to exist. Everyone has a job to do no matter how small or pointless it seems. But like history has shown us, people come in all types and sizes because of this their is discrimination which should not happen yet does. Everyone should be treated equally, well that is the ideal anyways yet in reality that is not the case. Our society is based on gender, race, belief and economic superiority complex. There will always be people who will believe they are better than others but we as Global citizens shall strive to make the world a better place no matter how pointless it seems because that is what we believe in and who we are.

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