Human rights refers to the inherent rights which every human being is entitled to enjoy regardless of their age, social status, sex, race, place of residence, ethnic origin as well as religion. Human beings in equal measure are entitled to their human rights which are interrelated, indivisible and interdependent without any form of discrimination (Donnelly, 2013). Failure to recognize and respect human rights of individuals amounts to human rights abuse. Some of the rights of human beings which should be recognised and respected include the right to personal liberty, right to life, right to fair trial, freedom of movement, right to democracy among others (Steiner, et al. 2008).
Human rights violation has been an issue affecting human beings across the world for a long time. The commonly abused human rights range from slavery, discrimination, child abuse as well as denial of basic rights. The readings; Nineteen Eighty –Four by Eric Arthur Blair, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka both bring out the theme of human rights violations.
Eric Arthur Blair in his novel, Nineteen Eighty Four highlights various human rights which are abused. The book portrays a society in which the rights of its citizens are infringed by its leadership. The leadership of this society commonly referred to as “Big Brother,” through its institutions abuses various fundamental rights of its citizens such as the right to personal liberty, freedom of choice (Donnelly, 2010). For instance, the writer states that in this society, one was expected to act in a manner that would show love for the government because the government through the institution of “Big Brother,” compelled one to believe that whatever they did the “BIG BROTHER WAS WATCHING.”
The love for the government was therefore not based on what the government did for an individual but rather an individual was coerced to love the government hence denying persons the right to make personal choices. Moreover, by forcing one to view the government as part of the family and forcing them to love the government, an individual’s freedom of expression was denied (Cingranelli & Richards, 2010). Since Big Brother was always Watching, no one would dare criticize the government hence they were denied the freedom to personal expression. Through creation of the idea among the citizens that big brother was always watching, the citizens are made to believe that the government was always everywhere and could be able to monitor what each and every citizen was doing at all times without a single omission.
The creation of this feeling among the citizens was meant to create fear in the society hence making the citizens not to live a free life and to feel that they had no privacy (Hafner-Burton, 2008). Judging from the expression of Winston Smith against the government, it becomes clear that the citizens were tired with how they were treated by their government. According to Winston Smith, the citizens lived in fear as there was a general believe that the government was acting with some kind of conspiracy. Smith portrays the citizens as an opposing party that was acting in opposition with the government. They had no belief in the principles of the government (Caswell, 2014)t. However, it comes out clearly that the citizens had no freedom to express their feeling of dissatisfaction against their government. Moreover, according to Smith, the citizens lived hoping to join and work for the government. However, this choice to work for their government could never be granted as they were treated with suspicion and a kind of conspiracy hence denying them the right to realize their dreams.
The writer paints a society exposed to forced labour. The citizens were forced by the government to work under strict policies against their will and without the consideration of how they felt. One living in this society had no freedom to choose an occupation of their choice (Ife, 2012). The government had the prerogative to choose and determine the occupation of the citizens as well as the conditions under which the citizens were to work. Similarly, the citizens were subjected to unfair arrests and detention without fair hearing. The writer points out that one could be arrested by the government whenever suspected of having committed a crime without the need of any proof.
These mistreatments, the government manages to create fear among its citizens making them to hide their actions against the government. For instance, Winston wrote down in a diary his anti-government beliefs but could dare not make the beliefs known to the government as this could easily land him to heavy punishment such as hang or detention at a labour camp (Ruggie, 2011). Furthermore, the government as outlined in its slogan of, “WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY AND IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH,” advocates for war, enslavement of its citizens as well as denial of access to knowledge. Through the slogan, the government abuses fundamental human rights of its citizens.
Daniel Defoe in his novel, Robinson Crusoe highlights abuse of various fundamental human rights. To begin with, the parents of Robinson tried to impose a career on him which he was not comfortable with. The parents expected Robinson to study law despite the fact that his persona choice for a career was to be a seaman. In pursuit of the career of his choice, Robinson is forced to leave his parent’s house and ends up being a seaman against the expectations of his parents. The author also highlights the abuse of a fundamental human right to self- determination through enslavement (Simmons, 2009). Robinson is captured by pirates during his first trip to Africa and forced to become a slave to the group of pirates. Luckily, Robinson is rescued from enslavement by a Portuguese captain and flees to Brazil. While in Brazil, Robinson embraces the idea of slavery which he thinks would help him improve his income. He opts to travel to Africa to get slaves to work on his sugar plantation in Brazil and increase his productivity.
Robinson’s predicament illustrates the challenges of slavery to both the slave as well as the master (Lauren, 2011). He is involved in an accident while on his trip to Africa to capture slaves, an accident which claims the lives of all those on board expect himself. This predicament lands Robinson on a lonely island where he is forced to start life all over again by building a house for himself and making a canoe to help him move a round. While moving round, he discovers that there were cases of cannibals feeding on human prisoners.
The issue of human prisoners existing on a lonely island where they are eaten by cannibals raises a fundamental human right (Merry, 2009). Detaining human beings in a lonely place, without protection and exposing them to the danger of being eaten by cannibals is a serious abuse of the fundamental human right. Every human being regardless of their criminal record have a right to protection and to life. Similarly seclusion of human beings from the larger society on account of their criminal record is an abuse of human rights.
The prisoners are subjected to harsh living conditions on the island while at the same time they are rendered hopeless. For instance, Friday, a prisoner rescued by Robinson from beasts appears hopeless and ends up showing total servility with Robinson. Robinson reports that Friday ran to him and lay himself down upon the ground as a sign of humility and humble, grateful gesture towards Robinson for saving his life from the jaws of death (Steiner, et al. 2008). Friday’s gesture shows the extent to which human beings were made to suffer both mentally and physically in the hands of the English men. Capture and detention of persons of black origin at the Robinson island under harsh conditions was a serious abuse to fundamental human rights to life, liberty as well as the freedom of choice. Moreover, the black persons were arrested and detained unfairly since they had done no wrong. The arrest was for the sake of enslavement which in itself is an abuse of basic human rights.
Selection of the people of the black race was an act of racial segregation which is an abuse of human rights in itself (Wouters & Ryngaert, 2008). The people of the black race just like any other race have a right to life, personal liberty, freedom of movement and expression among other fundamental rights and freedoms. Furthermore, Robinson recalls that while still at the island, he was forced to fight with English men who had come to dump another group of prisoners at the island. Through the fight, Robinson manages to rescue the group of prisoners who he manages to free. The manner in which the prisoners are transported amounts to abuse of human rights (Merry, 2006). They are stacked in containers like goods and locked up not being able to breathe properly while at the same time they are not given food to eat nor water to drink during their transportation.
The author reports that a good number of the slaves who could not withstand the harsh tropical conditions, hunger and storms in the sea lost their lives and their bodies were dumped into the sea. Such actions amount to serious abuse of fundamental human rights. On going back to Brazil, Robinson realizes that slaves were still the main source of labour working on the sugar plantations. The slaves worked on the plantations under poor working conditions. Similarly, the mere fact that people were forcefully transported into a foreign land and forced to work against their own will is an abuse of fundamental human rights (Brownlie & Goodwin-Gill, 2010).
In his novel, The Metamorphosis, the author, Franz Kafka presents the theme of abuse of human rights. Gregor, a hardworking son finds life difficult after making a personal choice to transform himself into a different identity of his choosing. Despite his hardworking nature as well as the fact that he provides for his family, Gregor had a hard and distant relation not only with his father but with his mother too. The sister, who initially was the only person showing concern and consideration towards Gregor also ends up getting brainwashed to despise Gregor on the basis of his chosen identity (Coyle, 2009).
The author points out that Gregor worked tirelessly to bring money home to his family and helped his father to settle his debts. However, this did not change the hard and distant relationship which his father had with him. From the description of Gregor by the author, the only problem he had with his family was the decision to follow his heart and change his identity (Coyle, 2010). The family found it so hard to respect the right of Gregor to make a personal choice and to express himself in an identity he was comfortable with. Gregor’s difficulties began immediately he work up from a restless dream and discovered that he had transformed completely. The author points out that immediately he wakes up, he hears his Chief Clerk’s voice right in his house. The Chief Clerk began yelling at Gregor for his newly acquired identity.
To show how much the family despised his identity, the new identity is described as “horrible vermin.” Since, that moment of disclosing his new identity which he chose over the old identity, Gregor was treated with a lot of discrimination till the point of his death. The family did not respect his privacy. It is reported that the family left the flat and took a tram out to the open country outside of the town disclosing Gregor’s new identity to the entire public against his choice. Gregor gets helpless when he finds nobody supporting his identity. The sister, Greta, who had initially showed some support for Gregor turns against him and even recommends that he be thrown out to the street if he cannot conform and identify himself with the identity imposed on him by the family (Sikkink & Walling, 2007). All this was done despite the fact that Gregor was very hardworking and generous to the family including his sister Greta who he paid for her place at a conservatory where she played the violin. The family of Gregor subjects him to human rights abuse.
Due to the harsh treatment, Gregor is unable to communicate. Moreover, the father goes to the extent of attempting to kill Gregor and subjects him to physical abuse by throwing apples at him which hit him leaving him to stay embedded on his “armour-like back.” Gregor’s predicament as a result of identification with an identity he is comfortable with clearly demonstrates the gender dysphoria against people with gender identity disorders in the modern society. Identification with a gender disorder in the present society is met with a lot of rejection both from the family as well as from the entire society. Despite the fact that the gender identity disorder does not affect the performance of this group of people in the society, they are treated with a lot of marginalization. Many are the times that the members of this group have been expelled from their families, institutions of learning, social places as well as from their places of work.
Identification of one as a transgender brings with it a myriad of human rights abuses. As a result, this group of people gets affected both physically and psychologically. Many live in denial while others adopt a destructive lifestyle such as drug abuse among other unethical behaviours (McCrudden, 2008). Some even go the extent of contemplating and committing suicide.
In conclusion, human rights abuse is an issue that is affecting the current society. From men, women to children, human beings across the globe have from time immemorial been threatened by abuse of their rights. In the 18th and 19th Century, cases of human rights abuse were so high that it forced the international community to come up with the Declaration of Human Rights as a clause under the United Nations Charter. This period was characterised by events such as colonialism, slave trade as well as major wars like the First and the Second World Wars.
During these events, human beings both men, women and children were subjected to cases of human rights abuses such as denial of basic rights and freedoms, enslavement, forced labour, racial and sexual discrimination among other fundamental human rights abuses (Freeman, 2011). This led to the drafting of the Human Rights Charter with the intention of safeguarding the basic rights of human beings across the world. This attempt has worked to a great extent to reduce some of these cases of human rights abuses. For instance, slavery and colonialism were abolished. Similarly, many nations have adopted a diplomatic means of addressing issues hence reducing wars. Moreover, the introduction of democracy across the world has seen various rights of human beings respected. Nonetheless, there are still cases of human rights abuses in the modern society that still needs to be addressed.
Some of these include failure of society to grant the right to self-determination, identification and expression to persons with gender identity disorders. Despite the steps made by nations to address this issue, many nations especially in the African and Asian continent have still remained reluctant to accept transgender persons and grant them their rights.
References
Brownlie, I., & Goodwin-Gill, G. S. (2010). Brownlie’s documents on human rights. Oxford University Press.
Caswell, M. (2014). Toward a survivor-centered approach to records documenting human rights abuse: lessons from community archives. Archival Science, 14(3-4), 307-322.
Clark, A. M. (2010). Diplomacy of conscience: Amnesty International and changing human rights norms. Princeton University Press.
Cingranelli, D. L., & Richards, D. L. (2010). The Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) human rights data project. Human Rights Quarterly, 32(2), 401-424.
Coyle, A. (2009). A human rights approach to prison management: Handbook for prison staff. The Journal of the Scottish Association for the Study of Delinquency, 113.
Donnelly, J. (2010). International human rights. ReadHowYouWant. com.
Donnelly, J. (2013). Universal human rights in theory and practice. Cornell University Press.
Freeman, M. (2011). Human rights: an interdisciplinary approach. Polity.
Hafner-Burton, E. M. (2008). Sticks and stones: Naming and shaming the human rights enforcement problem. International Organization, 62(04), 689-716.
Ife, J. (2012). Human rights and social work: Towards rights-based practice. Cambridge University Press.
Lauren, P. G. (2011). The evolution of international human rights: Visions seen. University of Pennsylvania Press.
McCrudden, C. (2008). Human dignity and judicial interpretation of human rights. european Journal of international Law, 19(4), 655-724.
Merry, S. E. (2006). Transnational human rights and local activism: Mapping the middle. American anthropologist, 108(1), 38-51.
Merry, S. E. (2009). Human rights and gender violence: Translating international law into local justice. University of Chicago Press.
Ruggie, J. (2011). Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. Neth. Q. Hum. Rts., 29, 224.
Sikkink, K., & Walling, C. B. (2007). The impact of human rights trials in Latin America. Journal of peace research, 44(4), 427-445.
Simmons, B. A. (2009). Mobilizing for human rights: international law in domestic politics. Cambridge University Press.
Steiner, H. J., Alston, P., & Goodman, R. (2008). International human rights in context: law, politics, morals: text and materials. Oxford University Press, USA.
Steiner, H. J., Alston, P., & Goodman, R. (2008). International human rights in context: law, politics, morals: text and materials. Oxford University Press, USA.
Wouters, J., & Ryngaert, C. (2008). Litigation for Overseas Corporate Human Rights Abuse in the European Union: The Challenge of Jurisdiction. Geo. Wash. Int’l L. Rev., 40, 939.
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