The People's Movement for Human Rights Learning at the United Nations

by Meriam Sabih 

One of the side panels of this year's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) Conference at the United Nations was sponsored by the People's Movement for Human Rights Learning. It was called "Women and Girls: Sharing the Ongoing Process of Learning Human Rights As A Way of Life." The session stressed the importance of incorporating human rights values into our daily lives.

When we speak of human rights, do we practice those values in our homes and work places? Or are we living in small monarchies at home? Often it is harder to speak up about human rights in the home, school, or office rather than to speak about it generally within society where one may not have to face personal consequences. Even in our interactions with collegues or children, human rights values need to be practiced.

Speakers from the organization said it is important to study the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" to know what those rights are. And in particular Article 30 reads, "Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein." This stresses the importance of not transgressing another's rights as a priority in seeking one's own. 

The panel stressed that the learning of human rights is important because if we do not know what our human rights are, we in essense don't have them. And in most places around the world there is a deficit. A state cannot "violate" something if a law protecting it simply does not exist. In the same way we must know that we have the right to privacy and the right to live free from violence. We should know that even our children have the right to give an opinion and be heard and that they should not be punished simply for being children. Workers have the rights to not be overworked. Prisoners have rights to not be tortured, and so on. 

We should all aim to also see ourselves as human rights workers working to ensure human rights each day was their message. Doctors, Firefighters, Writers, and so on are human rights workers trying to make a difference in their various spheres of influence. And the world is slowly changing for the better. 30 years ago there were not laws present to protect women and children such as we have now.

And yet a lot more needs to be done. There is still not one country in the world that fully incorporates all 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Even at the United Nations, the UN is said to have three pillars, one of which is human rights. That gives the impression that we can have security and development, the other two pillars, even if human rights is lacking. Kreston instead suggested perhaps there should be two pillars: security and development, but under a foundation of human rights. This relays the message that human rights must be our foundation for both development and security.  

Essentially human rights is based on how we treat other people with respect. We train each other by how we treat each other. It is increasingly important now to be able to empathize and story-tell. Once qualities that were considered feminine traits are now being seen as a means of being a successful, well rounded person. It is also important that we raise boys to be compassionate, said the speaker, Robert Kreston.