International Violations of Human Rights

Violation of Human Rights

Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms inherent to all human beings. The entitled rights for humans include the rights to liberty, equality, life, work, education and the rights to freedom include freedom of speech, thought, expression and freedom from slavery and torture. All humans are entitled to these rights regardless of gender, sexuality, religion, language, ethnicity, nationality or racial status therefore everyone is supposed to be provided and treated with these rights and freedoms without discrimination or prejudice.

The rate of human rights being violated varies around the world as seen on Figure 1. The human rights violations are referenced on a rating system from 0 to 10 (10 being the worst) as seen on Figure 1. The aggregated metric is based on multiple variables including; freedom, civil rights, human trafficking occurrence, political status, incarceration, religious persecution, executions and torture. Regions with a human rights violation number of six and over would be considered a high rate of occurrence. There is a high concentration rate of the violation of human rights in Africa (as seen on figure 1), this includes countries like Democratic Republic of the Congo (10), Libya (8.7) and Sudan (9.3). Another region with a high concentration is Asia including countries such as Kazakhstan (7.2), China (9.2) and Iran (9.3). There is a cluster of countries located in Central America as seen on figure 1. These countries include Guatemala (6.7), Cuba (7) and Haiti (7.5). There are a few outlier countries located South and West of Africa. Most of Africa is a highly rated continent for violation occurrences but the countries including South Africa (4.3), Botswana (4.6), Namibia (4.6) and Ghana (4.9).

Government corruption is the use of power by government leaders for illegitimate private individual beneficial gain. It is considered an illegal act made by a political official that constitutes political corruption. The act would have to be directly related to their official duties, involves trading in influence or done by the misuse of public entrusted power. Government corruption is a factor that can explain the high concentration of the violation of human rights in Africa including countries such as Sudan and Somalia as seen in figure 1 and 2.

Political Corruption is a very high risk in Sudan, which is considered to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Government officials are known to be frequently involved in partaking in corrupt practices with impunity. The lack of exposure within Sudan has a weak administrative set up, this allows lax budget handling and poor record keeping. The absence of legislation also contributed to the lack of public access to government information essentially making it easier for the government leaders to succeed in corruption without rightful prosecution. The lack of the right to liberty, freedom of speech in Sudan is significantly due to the government corruption. Freedom of expression are given by law in respect to human rights but in reality, these are not upheld. The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) in 2012 routinely raided any printing factories and confiscated newspapers meant for the public if publishing contents went against the press and publishing act. The press and publishing act were a controversial law that stated all printing presses intended for public viewing must first require a licence granted by the home affairs minister, renewed every year. This law would have been controversial because if the country was corrupted, the home affairs minister could purposefully deny the public access to distributed contemporary news for their own personal gain. An example of this would be the daily newspaper El Jareeda which was a cancelled publication company indefinitely after several print outs stating security services were purposefully trying to exhaust the newspaper industry, implying the government was attempting to keep the public unaware of urgent situations and limit publication companies from their freedom of speech which is a basic human right. Somalia ranks among the world’s most corrupt counties. Government officials are considered corrupt due to them being able to tolerate illegal activities in return for bribe contributing to personal gain. Somalia’s provisional constitution criminalizes several types of corruption including embezzlement, bribery and abuse of official power. The government of Somalia is constantly involved in allegations of embezzlement of public funds. Somalian businesses face a high corruption risk when dealing with courts. The group is suffering from high levels of corruption due to being subject to political interference. Civil courts in Somalia are practically non-functional leaving many Somalians experiencing the lack of the right to work as a human right. Corruption is very apparent within Somalia’s security. Impunity is a common feature as authorities do not enforce or plan effective control over the police forces actions. The Somali National Army is the countries most important security institution suffers unchecked corruption; Army leaders have methodically maximized the number of troops in order to obtain greater funding. Somalians have resorted to cooperating with violent group members like gangs or arm themselves with firearms for protection against any potential threat. Due to the institutions being corrupted, instead of the country’s security protect them, Somalians are having to protect themselves. The right to life means nobody, including the government, can attempt to end anyone’s life. Since Somalian government is not taking appropriate measures to make life safe for citizens by making laws to protect them, they are not providing the people with an efficient way to experience the right of life therefore violating the basic human right.

Conflict is when a serious disagreement or argument occurs. Conflict between or within (a) country refers to when nations or states are not in good terms, most likely because of a disagreement. Conflict war is a state of armed conflict between states, governments and/or societies that is normally characterized by the extreme amount of violence, destruction, aggression and mortality rate. Conflict is a factor that can explain the high concentration of the violation of human rights in the Middle East including countries such as Syria and Iraq as seen in figure 1 and 3.

Protests began against President Assad’s regime in 2011 which quickly escalated to a nation wide war between the Syrian government and anti-government rebel groups. Three different campaigns drive the conflict; violence between the Syrian government and opposing forces, military operations against Syrian Kurds and coalition efforts to beat the Islamic state. Indiscriminate attacks on civilians by the Syrian-Russian military alliance carried on in 2018. In March 2017, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 465.000 people had died in conflict, the mortality rate is because of both Syrian Government and Anti-government rebel groups.

Conflict is also a factor as to why Iraq is another country that has a high rate of human rights violations as seen in figure 1 and 3. The battlefronts between the Iraqi forces and Islamic State (ISIS) had calmed down by 2018. ISIS continued to capture and extrajudicially kill armed Iraqi forces and many civilians throughout the year. Iraqi forces were arbitrarily detained, tortured and mis-treated; the years of constant conflict resulted in at least 1.8 million Iraqis still displaced in 2018. Iraqi judges started prosecuting ISIS suspects with only a single charge of ISIS affiliation, under the Iraqi counterterrorism legislation. Authorities did the minimum to gather, use and protect criminal prosecutions. The right to life means nobody, including the government, can attempt to end anyone’s life. Since Iraqi government is participating in the mortality of their civilians clearly means the government is not taking appropriate measures to make life safe for citizens by making laws to protect them, they are not providing the people with an efficient way to experience the right of life therefore violating the basic human right.

Human rights violations effects people significantly, both have negative impacts economically and socially. Syria is a country located in the Middle East which hosted a catastrophic civil war. According to US news the war has economically costed them $388 billion in damage The Iraq war costs the United States more that 2 trillion dollars. The total added up by the cost of 1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion owed to the United States soldiers.  There is a pattern along the Brandt line which shows the more economically developed country and the less economically developed countries as seen in figure 1 and 4. The Brandt line proves the economic connection because  the significant amount of more ecomically developed countries that are not countries with a high rate of human rights violations. Most likely due to the countries not having to spend a large sum of money on damage repair, armed forces and possibly reparations.

Humans rights violation negatively effects people socially by affecting someone’s psychological health due to the traumatic impacts. According to ptsd veterans website the number of veterans with ptsd varies depending on service error. Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring freedom (OEF) are the service errors, about 11-20% veterans who served in OIF or OEF are diagnosed with ptsd in a given year. People with ptsd tend to feel an intense fear following them around while their world is falling apart. Children may be more vulnerable to PTSD than adults because they may interpret the experience different. PTSD can affect people of any age, gender or culture. When someone has PTSD it may be very difficult to get back to their daily routine from before the trauma. For example if someone were to have their human rights stripped away from them, they may associate that degrading, torturous feeling with the area it occurred in or the people who were there.

Bibliography

• https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/syria
• https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/iraq
• https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/political_corruption.htm
• https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/a-z/resource/45/post-traumatic-stress-disorder
• https://www.ganintegrity.com/portal/country-profiles/sudan/
• https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_veterans.asp
• http://sn4hr.org/blog/2019/02/03/53309/ 
• https://denzil2016.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/brandt-line/
• https://www.ganintegrity.com/portal/country-profiles/somalia/
• https://www.cfr.org/interactive/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/civil-war-syria
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2649030/
• https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/23/amnesty-ten-global-hotspots-for-major-human-rights-violations-in-2017.html
• https://reliefweb.int/map/world/conflict-and-political-violence-index-2014
• https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-08-09/the-latest-un-says-civil-war-has-cost-syria-388b-in-damage

Figure 1: Human Rights Index (2014)

Figure 2: Corruption Perception Index (2017)

Figure 3: Conflict and Political Violence Index (2014)

Figure 4: Brandt Line