Let's talk about Human Rights

I’m pretty sore that all of us have heard about the human rights and the importance to respect all of them because unfortunately, nowadays, this is one of the most current topics in all political and social discourses, both authorities and civil society organizations and public opinion and I think that it’s a shame selling the idea of human rights in that way because, how many of us comprise the true meaning and the importance of human rights? Or does anybody know how many human rights are? Or when and why were they created? Celebrating human rights once a year is important, but living human rights every day is essential.

So let’s start for the beginning. What are human rights? Human rights are rights inherent to all human, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination.

Now, we can tackle the second question: when and why were they created? The idea that all human should enjoy some basic and common rights could be found in some of the oldest civilizations but it will not be until the 17th century that we would find the modern concept of Human Rights and it’s also in that moment when the firsts great statements of human rights were written in the English colonies of North America, driven by their conflict with the English crown and followed by the United States Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal and all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which there are the right to live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ... "  - Thomas Jefferson. And a decade later, in a Europe shook by the French Revolution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were proclaimed.

During the 18th century, Montesquieu and Rosseau ideas were fundamental and, in fact, we can say that that century and the next one, were an important ones for what human rights respects for the slow consolidation of the ideals proclaimed in the French Revolution but then, the 20th century comes accompanied by two world wars, countless regional wars, civil wars, bloody revolutions,… but we learn from our mistakes, or the say, and the WWI were followed by the creation of the Society of Nation, that although it was unable to prevent WWII, it had the merit of being the precedent of the creation of the United Nations, that followed the WWII.

Finally, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was approved with a list of thirty rights.

Now that we know a little more about human rights, I would like to deepen in one right in particular: the freedom from slavery, that said the next.

Article 4th, freedom from slavery:  “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms”.

Slavery is an event that has been going on for many years. This practice has appeared almost universally throughout history among peoples of every level of material culture; from Ancient Rome to the United States in the 19th century, however, in no other culture had slavery been exclusively associated with one race, so we can define slavery as ‘the involuntary servitude of one person to another or one group to another’. We have to be aware that the slavery has existed in each continent since ancient times, in all cultures, religions and historical periods.

In ancient, the slavery was completely assimilated and it was no questioned. In fact, Aristotle, like most thinkers of antiquity, defended his need. The slaves were considered "Chattels", "stuff" or "objects" so they could be bought and sold as commodities, they didn’t have any right and in the best of the cases, if they were treated minimally well, it wasn’t for the fact of being a human but for the necessity of the owners of having a worker in good conditions. In  women, the cases were a little different because their slavery was related to their sexual exploitation.

In the 20th century the traditional slavery was practically wipe out, but out of the blue in different places and moments, appears a new brutal way of slavery blind together to the German and Japanese expansionism and the dictatorship revolutions and giving place to Japanese reclusion camps, to Nazi and soviets concentrations camps,…

The abolition of slavery in Europe and America was the result of the tireless activity of some individuals and groups, but the truth is that with the freedom, it doesn’t come a life of quality and equality but the slavers continued suffering from their “condition”: they weren’t treated in the same way that the people who used to own slaves and, in fact and unfortunately, this “mentality”, somehow or other, continues present in our societies.

Despite the enactment in 1926 of the Slavery Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 in the 21th century,  still exist various forms of slavery: the traditional ones related to the slave trade, sexual exploitation,… and other ways of slavery related to forced labour, child labour,…

In fact, after thousands of years after this injusty appearance we can’t yet say that we have ended with the slavery in the world because, moreover, new ways of slavery continue to appear. We can say that it’s a crime difficult to identify and above, it provides great benefices to those who take advantage of this businesses: it’s in all countries around the world and it’s a sad reality of the 21th century.

This business makes children women and men, often motivated by their dreams and expectations of having a better live, be subjected to exploitations of all kind and directed by companies or individuals.

If we look at the datum, we can see that the numbers are frightening: 4, 5 millions of women and little girls are sexually exploited while more than a milion of people  are forced to work in activities related to the manufacturing and domestic jobs and in very poor conditions: working more than fifteen hours a day, in filthy places, without breaks, without any guarantee or security and with a very, very, very poor salary.

So as we can see, not all Human Right are respected for everyone and everywhere and this is something about we have to work because there is nothing more important for having a great life than the fulfilment of these.