Human Rights at Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq - Term Paper Example

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. " -United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education. Considering all of this to be included in human rights, one can safely assume that Human rights is a Western concept that has started to apply only recently to some of the Asian countries while it still does not apply to the others. If we have a look at the broader economy of Asia, most of the countries are either underdeveloped or developing nations. If we have a look at the developing countries like India and China from the region, the problem of human rights were really very severe some time back, but, with the influence of education and westernization of these huge economies, some of the problems have really been resolved. If we have a look at some other nations like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, etc. the problem is still very acute in these countries. We will take some of the key points that are cardinal to principle of human rights. Labor Laws: Manufacturing sector in most of the countries in Asia has always been accused of inhuman practices in the field. People have blamed that the labors in these nations have to work more than 12 hours a day and seven days a week for wages not even good to earn two meals a day for them, leave alone their families. Government has been a total failure in implementing the minimum wages in most of the Asian countries. Because of the excess population, the supply of man power in countries like India and China is much more than its demand and the low skilled workers therefore have to survive for their entire life in utmost penury and destitution. No wonder that South India reports highest number of suicide cases in the entire world, as per the report by the British Journal 'Lancet' in 2004. The total number of suicide cases reported in 2002, just in India was a massive figure of 154,000. To add to this, Child labor, although is punishable in most of the countries in Asia, including India and China, but it is not hard to find them working in industries, hotels, resorts and recreational centers. Such labors are available at a very cheap rate and work for extra hours. Child labor, while working, does not go for any education and all such uneducated children in turn produce a score of babies who also remain uneducated after starting to work at an early age. This number therefore keeps on growing exponentially and is therefore a grave problem for the government of these developing economies of China and India. In Asian countries innocent victims of terrorism suffer an attack on their most basic right to live in peace and security. Another area that demands attention is the abuse of child rights. The situation of child labor in India is an alarming one about 20 million child laborers in India is working in unorganized sector in miserable condition and unhealthy environment. Child rape and child prostitution is another dimension of human rights violation. Right to equality: Right to equality is one more thing that hardly exists in most of the countries in Asia. There is distinction on the basis of everything including gender, caste, color, race, religion, ethnicity etc. An acute discrimination is faced by the female in most of the countries of Asia especially Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia. This mainly can be attributed to the lack of education and some of the orthodox principles of the religion that is followed in these countries. The problem faced by a girl child in these countries will be touched in the section Gender inequality in detail. Untouchability stands abolished officially, but it exists in different forms, like social and cultural discriminations. In interior and backward areas of rural India, the people belonging to the traditionally lower and oppressed castes are deprived of easy accessibility to the temples, wells, public places and schools, situated in the localities of higher castes. Students of lower castes or dalits untouchables) are discouraged to continue their studies at the primary and middle level schools in the villages. Various surveys on bonded labor and child labor reveal that about 95% bonded laborers and child laborers come from the sections of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and backward castes of rural India. The wages are paid in a manner which reduces the mobility of labor. The restricted mobility certainly affects the purchasing power of rural laborers and kills their desires to join the mainstream of change. Gender Inequality: Human rights are the rights which every human being is entitled to enjoy and need to be protected. The underlying idea of such rights, which are fundamental to human dignity, is that these rights be respected in treatment of all men, women and children. A girl born in South Asia faces a cruel double burden. She will grow up in a region beset by poverty, disease, war or famine. She will also confront these challenges with the added so called disadvantage of being a female. Pregnancy is one of the most vulnerable time for a poor female; 99% of the 5,29,000 women who die annually from pregnancy related complications and due to malnutrition live in developing countries. There are some social, economic or political issues operating against women and girl child - as a human being in Asia which need a serious thought: Son Preference Female feticide Female Infanticide Selling of a Girl Child Girl Child Labor Girl Child Prostitution Girl Child Sexual Abuse Child Marriages Harassment at Work Places Widowed, Deserted and Childless Women. Women in Aceh, and particularly displaced women living in camps and barracks, face numerous problems in their daily lives. Most violence actions toward women in Aceh were never exposed in any media. It is due to the following reasons. They are: 1. Most victims of rape are shy to tell their problems, because these kinds of tragedy are really embarrassing. Therefore they always keep them as secrets 2. The intimidation of the doers for not telling the cases to other people, because the doers were the armies. 3. The traumatic experience of violence which experienced by them seems too hard to inform to other people. 4. There was an intimidation of certain people or institution toward NGO who accompany the victims. Right to food: "969 Million People live on less than US $1 per day; 17% of those live on less than US $0.5 per day". - Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Number of undernourished people (million) in 2001-2003, according to the FAO, the following countries had 5 million or more undernourished people. Country Number of Undernourished (million) India 217.05 China 154.0 Bangladesh 43.45 Democratic Republic of Congo 37.0 Pakistan 35.2 Ethiopia 31.5 Tanzania 16.1 Philippines 15.2 Brazil 14.4 Indonesia 13.8 Vietnam 13.8 Thailand 13.4 Nigeria 11.5 Kenya 9.7 Sudan 8.8 Mozambique 8.3 North Korea 7.9 Yemen 7.1 Madagascar 7.1 Colombia 5.9 Zimbabwe 5.7 Mexico 5.1 Zambia 5.1 Angola 5.0 Three out of the top four nations suffering from undernourishment belong to Asia. The data provided by FAO clearly suggests that Asia cannot provide its citizens with the basic right to food and more people than any other continent are being starved of their right to good food. Right to education:- There is an economic pressure prevailing in most parts of the Asia from those parents, who prefer their children making money in the short term over any long-term benefits of education and thus children are deprived of getting a primary education leading to increase child labor. The ILO International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor estimates that of the 166 million working children between 5 and 14, 122 million are in Asia-Pacific. Millions are either denied educational opportunities that would give them a better future or must balance work with education. In Asia and the Pacific, more than 27 million children of primary school age are not enrolled in school, out of a global total of 75 million. "The Asia-Pacific region enjoys a reputation as a vibrant economic region, but it is also home to more working children than any other region in the world," states Mr. Guy Thijs, Deputy Regional Director, ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. "Without access to free quality education, child laborers become youth with poor employment prospects who cannot lift their families out of a poverty trap, become parents who cannot give their children a better life, and cannot contribute effectively to national development." Right to vote:- Democracy is generally confined to the polling booths. In many parts of Asia, including India, voters belonging to the weaker sections and lower castes are sometimes prevented from casting their votes. In Saudi Arabia and many other Muslim countries, women are deprived of giving votes because it is considered that the brain of a woman is dominated by her emotion and she is not intelligent enough to make a good decision which clearly is a disgrace and a gender bias to its extreme. Treatment with HIV Patients HIV/AIDS is a fatal illness and a source of shame in conservative societies across Asia. Millions of sufferers are reluctant to disclose their condition. Some governments are even in denial about the extent of the problem. Even where treatment is available, it is often limited and ineffective. A 2006 study found that 25% of people living with HIV in India had been refused medical treatment on the basis of their HIV-positive status. It is perceived as stigma in the workplace, with 74% of employees not disclosing their status to their employees for fear of discrimination. Of the 26% who did disclose their status, 10% reported having faced prejudice as a result. Also, People in marginalized groups - female sex workers, hijras (transgender) and gay men - are often stigmatized not only because of their HIV status, but also because they belong to socially excluded groups. In all, there are various issues on human rights which still need to be eradicated especially in Asian countries. But apart from this, Asian countries have seen tremendous growth and development throughout the decade; so there is a hope and we can see the changes in the coming days and years. But until the situation gets better on human rights, equality and justice, I would agree to the statement that "Human rights are a western concept that does not apply to Asian countries." Works Cited: Dr. Prabhakar, Manohar & Dr. Bhanawat, Sanjeev. Human Rights and Media. Jaipur: University Book House, 2004. Fisher, Sophy. "Asia-Pacific marks World Day Against Child Labour with focus on Education", 10 June 2008. International Labour Organization. 15 January 2009 Kamaruzzaman, Suraiya. "Country Report - Violence action toward Women in Aceh" October 24, 2001. Asian Human Rights Commission. January 17,2009. < http://www.ahrchk.net/pub/mainfile.php/torture2/60/> King, Elizabeth & Lomborg, Bjorn, "Women and Development PDF" 2008. Copenhagen Consensus Center.16th January 2009. Pembrey, Graham. Avert Charity, Overview of HIV and AIDS in India, Stigma and discrimination in India< http://www.avert.org/aidsindia.htm> last updated November 04, 2008. Sasson, Jean. Princess. Bantam Books. London: Transworld Publishers, 2004. Sen, Amartya. "Human Rights and Asian Values," The New Republic, July 14-July 21, 1997 Vincent Ferraro. 16 January 2009 < http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/sen.htm>. "Malnutrition." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 7 Jan 2009, 17:16 UTC. 15 Jan 2009 . Read More