Are you a human?

Author : Saudamini Deo
Country : India

Human Rights...what are they? There have been and will be many definitions but as we have reached the 70th anniversary of declaration of human rights, we don't need to define the rights---we need to define the term "human"!! What is a human? Is it just a creature evolved into a homo sapiens or a bit more than that...a person living with reasonable dignity and intelligence. As we see that 5th article of the charter of Human rights guarantees that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”, we also see that these rights are innate to human but the point here arises that the violation of human rights can be seen by two perspectives

1). If a human right is violated then the person has degraded from being a human! That is because these rights are necessary to live a life of human---so does that mean we can continue the violation?

2).Or, the people with poor background are not taken as humans!

It is very paradoxical but still as far as the logic goes the latter seems the reason.

As the history did and will hold, poverty and human rights cannot go together. Both are contradictory. While human rights make humans and humanity, poverty does exactly the opposite. But ironically, poverty is not an uncommon site, here we may also rethink on poverty, it is not just the lack of economic resources to fulfill your basic needs but also lack of means to achieve economic independence; it is made up of lesser quality of life. Today the picture of the world is very disturbing and turning a deaf ear isn’t going to help. A poor person, as the definition crudely puts, is a person sustaining on less than $1 a day. Less than a dollar a day!!!!! A poor person has to go through a lot of turmoil and, has to tolerate the degradation of his own personality---being humiliated and confronted.

As we have many instances here in the third world countries. How poor people are not aware of their rights, let alone the violation of those. There have been many reported cases of Human rights but the statistics just doesn't present the real picture. It is actually much worse than that. How about having come to be known of a case in Orissa where a woman was imprisoned for 20 years in a cage made for animals. And when she was released she couldn’t behave like humans? And the case of young men of Kashmir who are paid Rs 50 for throwing a hand-grenade and then labeled as terrorists just because they are poor??? This is what is happening...not just here but all over...people are violating human rights without any fear of consequences...they are exploiting poor people--it doesn't harm them---it harms the society, it harms the faith in humanity and it does harm the faith in human rights!

Poverty makes a person incapable of defending his/her rights and again, the world is very cruel; rights are violated of those who cannot defend it. It is a vicious circle! But then again, we, you and I and everyone else can make things better.

Losing faith in humanity and humans is an insult to human rights. Development cannot foster in isolation; education, awareness and the understanding the law of market--demand and supply--has to be there for removal of poverty. Why not we all take on the responsibility of making at least one person know their rights, the human rights and then handing over our duty to them?

One thing we all have to know that the causes that will remove poverty will be the ones that will implement human rights. Let us, as responsible people of a civilised society take it upon us to be a part of this implementation and see to it that our name goes down in history as those who made a difference, as those who aspired to bring a change for the better.