TRUTH BE TOLD

WHY ARE SOME MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS?

The Global Rights Project (GRIP) found that 60 per cent of the world’s countries earn a failing grade when it comes to how they treat people. Image credit: LARM RMAH on Unsplash.

By DR VICKI BISMILLA

As a life-long educator I am interested in how human rights are respected around the world. But in writing about thorny political issues I keep thinking about how teachers might educate students about those issues.

They would need to teach students about how to be careful when talking or writing about the violations and staying within the shifting sands of freedom of speech.

Regardless of how our personal ethical standards, morals and compassion are ignited when we see violations of human rights, we need to always be wary about what we say and how we say it.

There are some overtly researched facts published by universities in peer-reviewed articles that are okay for students to cite and use in their essays.

The Global Rights Project (GRIP), a research team based at the University of Rhode Island’s Centre for Peace Studies, for example. This team used their comprehensive data sets to grade countries on their human rights records. GRIP found that 60 per cent of the world’s countries earn a failing grade when it comes to how they treat people.

The rights that they examined ranged from freedom from torture, political imprisonment, freedom of speech and assembly, worker rights, justice rights and fair trial. They found that labour conditions, the right to unionize, reasonable work hours, safe working conditions and freedom from human trafficking are the least protected rights.

The top five countries that earned the best scores of 90 per cent or over were Finland, Australia, Estonia, Sweden and Austria.

Canada, at 88 per cent, had the highest grade in the Americas. Students can look at the bottom grade earners in their report at www.uri.edu and use that information to support their premises and their thesis statements.

On the other hand, Tiranna Hassan, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (World Report 2023, Human Rights Watch, hrw.org) in her 2023 world report, discusses human rights crises ranging from Putin’s attacks on civilians in Ukraine, Xi Ping’s open air prison for Uyghurs in China, and the Taliban putting millions of Afghans at risk of starvation and their authoritarian power causing unchecked human suffering.

She talks about how world leaders might trade away their human rights obligations in exchange for short term political wins.

She points out differences in the way different countries are treated on the world stage.

She says that when Putin attacked Ukraine, European countries welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees, a commendable response. But she points out that their quick response exposed a double standard when compared to their treatment of countless refugees from other parts of the world.

The armed conflict in northern Ethiopia has received only a tiny fraction of the global attention focused on Ukraine, despite two years of atrocities, including a number of massacres, by the warring parties,” she says.

So how do students use this kind of controversial yet documented facts in their own writing, especially if that writing becomes public if they choose to express their opinions on public media?

They need to be careful because freedom of speech legislation can be interpreted differently at different times. Educators will need to apprise students about their personal safety when expressing their ethical objections, especially in political scenarios.

Hassan’s World Report covers the calendar year 2022 so, much of the recent atrocities committed in 2023 are not included. She touches on new coalitions and new voices that have stepped in, pushing the human rights agenda forward on the world stage.

In her words:

“New coalitions and new voices of leadership have emerged that can shape and further this trend. South Africa, Namibia and Indonesia have paved the way for more governments to recognize crimes against humanity.”

Journalists who have written about human rights violations have received threats, be it women’s rights or world human rights violations. So students need to learn about how to write using their ethical lens without compromising their safety.

Even though human rights are basic rights that all humans should understand and respect, it cannot be taken for granted that your human rights will always be protected. Millions of people around the world are denied their basic rights of food, water, shelter, and the right to life. And in most cases, these rights are being violated by governments. And not all these governments are repressive, despotic regimes – in many cases these governments are democracies.

In the minefield of the shifting rules of freedom of speech, educators struggle with how to teach youth that they have a right to speak their minds when they see ethical violations but to do so in a safe way.

So how do you as readers do something about the violations you see?    

Dr Vicki Bismilla is a retired Superintendent of Schools and retired college Vice-President, Academic, and Chief Learning Officer. She has authored two books.