Economic Impact

It is happening everyday all over the world. The rights of human beings are violated in one way or the other. Even after the abolishment of slavery and the advent of equal rights, we still witness hate crimes in this country and the blatant disregard for human rights. That being said, the United States is by far the most diverse nation in the world. With ethnicities from all corners of the world represented in the United States we have come very far in our struggle for fair and equality amongst all but have a long way to go. However, the crimes against humankind are not restricted to the boarders of our great nation. One can find human rights violation of the most severe kind in the Middle East where women are beaten to near death just for attempting an education.

One can find numerous violations in Africa. A continuing example of this is when donated food is stolen by the military from starving children just to be sold by the government. Another grotesque distortion could be what occurs to female babies in China upon birth. The cases are endless, but normally the root cause can be normally attributed to leadership failures. The lack of leadership or leadership failures both in government and more importantly parenting to be specific is not an easy thing to fix. However, the end result is the children grow up in the mirror image of their leadership, their parents.

This paper will address the human rights issues by covering Political Rights, Social Rights, and the Economic Aspects. Yet, to get a good idea one has to understand the Demographics of Human Rights Abuses.

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Demographics of Human Rights Abuses

Although human rights abuses occur all over the world, they are most common in poor countries with instable governments and great ethnic diversity. The most well known areas where human rights abuses occur are Central and South America (i.e.- Guatemala, Columbia, Bolivia, Brazil), the Middle East (i.e.- Iraq, Israel, Palestine), Africa, (i.e.- Congo, Ivory Coast, , Sudan, Somalia) and Southeast Asia (i.e.- Indonesia, Philippines). In those places, the people generally have no power over the government, guerrillas, and/or ruling factions and are frequently caught in the crossfire or used as pawns for the perpetrator's own agenda.

Typically, the situation is worsened when struggles over politics, religion, or culture have been the mainstay for generations. In this case, the people can become numb to violence and the value of life diminishes greatly, leading to further abuses.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) plays a major role in trying to help address these issues with the people located in these countries. The ICRC currently exits in over 60 countries to provide their services. The following map shows the locations of the ICRC.

Political Rights

Human rights are a popular subject among people in politics. When a local official, state representative and even the president of the United States campaigns for a term in office, they want their constituents to know they are there for them. A very prominent way to do this is to promise aspects of human rights. "I vow to protect every person's rights to abortion" or "In my term of service I promise to make everyone's lives better." Unfortunately, there are politicians who just use this to make themselves look good and never follow through the way they said they would. Either way though, people have a God given right to live in this world and have certain rights that protect them as habitants of this nation and this world.

Many of these human rights can be seen from a religious view that started from the beginning of religion. In our modern Christianity, there are the Ten Commandments; "Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not murder, and thou shall not steal" are a few of the more prominent ones in human rights.

When our nation became independent, a bill of rights was formed to add on to the commandments and by judicial law, protect even more rights of its citizens. Now people have the right to bear arms, and have a court before being convicted of a crime. In 1865, slavery was abolished giving birth to the rights of black citizens. In 1920 women were given the right to vote, again starting a path for more rights for women. As we move forward in our own day and age, human rights is still a huge issue.

Whether it is for more or better rights, of for circumstances where human rights are deprived, the topic is one that is very important to us all. When a decision involving human rights is made by our congress, it affects everyone. Right now, we are facing issues like gay and lesbian marriages, abortion and privacy. A ruling by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts, right now, is causing uproar by both gay and lesbians fighting to keep the ruling in place and all of the other Americans who find it detrimental to the moral fiber in which a holy marriage stands for.

We are also seeing the outcome of the situation of the prisoners of Iraq being treated poorly. As we fight and complain over how terrible it was to embarrass the prisoner's of war by putting underwear on their head, we also see radical groups in Middle Eastern countries executing civilian Americans on camera. Despite my strong opinion on this subject, either case is a violation of the human rights we stand for.

Social Rights

We are born into this world not knowing anything about who we are or life, but are taught by our families of how to interact within the world. Each of us should be taught to respect and not violate the rights of others. This tends to sometimes