The human rights movement is a significant movement around the world and there are always snippets of human rights violation news stories we can catch a glimpse of when we watch the news or read the papers. But human rights is more than the snippets we see.
This year is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I think it behooves us to examine what this declaration of human rights states as to our entitlements as human beings on this earth, regardless of ethnic background, socioeconimic status, gender, age, religious beliefs, or any other "categorization".
View the declaration, and see what exactly it states. This is an overview, listing the preamble and the articles of the declaration.
Not too long ago, I attended Social Work Day at the UN, and the opening remarks were focused on human rights. Human rights permeates every corner of our society, and the human rights movement is not solely, as I thought, the work of lawyers. It is the work of everyone, and as someone studying social welfare, the remarks made that day reminded me of that.
Just because we live in the U.S. does not mean that there are no human rights violations here. There are human rights issues with virtually every country. We are not exempt from what goes on in other places nor do we live in a society where those violations do not affect us. So let us be cognizant of that and be involved in the human rights movement that belongs to us, not just lawyers or activists or "them".
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