The Universality Of The Congo Human Rights Movement

Imagine for a moment what it would be like if the entire population of Sonoma County, California was killed, and twenty years later not many people knew a great deal about it. When over 500,000 people, primarily Tutsis, were killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, it was a great tragedy. However, no one rushed to the country’s aid. Now it is vital that the horrors of the instance that violated the human rights of so many, is not forgotten. Human rights are the universal actions and objects that all people are entitled to because they are human. Human rights have been violated in numerous ways over time, typically as a result of a person in power having their own best interests in mind rather than the peoples´. Various groups, such as Amnesty

“Ideas about human rights have evolved over many centuries. But they achieved strong international support following the Holocaust and World War II. To protect future generations from a repeat of these horrors, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 and invited states to sign and ratify it”

With less than a century having passed since a standard of international human rights has been recognised globally, it can be suggested that the implementation of civil and political rights has had to overcome limitations and have faced ongoing threats, and that this is still a problem in contemporary times.

1909, over one hundred years ago, was the death of King Leopold of Belgium the sole owner of the Congo. Even years after he has left this earth and is no longer in the reign, the long-lasting effects he has had on the people and the land has forever changed the Congo. The memories left behind from the atrocities that occurred and the diminished resources due to extreme exploitation has prompted the author Adam Hochschild to write the novel, King Leopold’s Ghost. Using an Afrocentric point of view Hochschild describes how the events that took place under Leopold’s orders were acts of true terror and inhumanity.

The Rwandan Genocide also is still an existing issue which killed one million people, mostly Tutis and some Hutu’s, continues to be one of the most tragic and memorable events in the contemporary society of Africa. Specifically for those who were involved. Lucie Niyigena, a 70 year old woman who managed to survive the genocide, is still forced to face her fear everyday living beside someone who could have potentially killed a member of her family. This is just one of the still existing hardships for those forced to live it. This problem has not been changed since historical times partly because modern society has chosen not to make the change.

William Sheppard was a black man who called out Leopold's injustice in the Congo. Interestingly enough, he was supported by white supremacists who help in the idea of getting African Americans back to Africa. He was one of the first missionary black american missionary in the Congo. He worked there for about 20 years writing articles, speeches, and a book. He worked with the Kuba people who were artists. But unfortunately, the was ransacked when King Leopold discovered the profits he could make with rubber. Leopold used forced labor and made villages meet a certain quota before letting go of hostages/food. It was pretty terrible. William Shepard came to investigate to what had happened and found destroyed villages and corpses. He then went

Women played an important role in the campaign for public support for reform of King Leopold II’s Congo Free State and the forced labor that took place there. Both in the Congo and in Europe women influenced the perception and reaction to the État Indépendant du Congo and the Congolese people. The treatment of Congolese women by the Force Publique and white colonial officials such as Léon Rom inspired both sympathy from European missionaries and rebellion from the Congolese. While in Europe and America reformers like Englishwomen Alice Harris and Mary Morel campaigned for reform in the Congo Free State. Through newspaper articles, organizations and photographs they swayed many influential members of English and American society — church and government officials, businessmen, and authors — to their side. The Congo Reform Association(CRA) also had two women on its executive council. Through their treatment at the hands of the regime, involvement in public campaigns against Leopold, and a sex scandal, women in the both the Congo and in Europe encouraged opposition to King Leopold II’s draconian rule of the État Indépendant du Congo.

Some critics estimate that the territories population was reduced by 10 million people over a period of twenty years. The Congo regime was able to keep information of its crimes from

As the levels of violence escalated, so have the casualties. The exact numbers of these casualties are in dispute. A report conducted by the International Rescue Committee in 2008 estimates that 5.4 million Congolese have died in the conflict between 1998 and 2007, while The Human Security Report from Simon Frasier University in Canada’s British Columbia endorses a Belgian report that places casualties at 200,000 between 1998 and 2004. Therefore, it is no wonder that researchers and organizations are having difficulties in obtaining accurate numbers since the combatants fight as groups of irregulars. Whatever the numbers are, it is clear that men, women, and children are dying, and those most affected by the violence are those most vulnerable.

“Human rights” is a fairly modern concept, and it is one that has been getting a great deal of attention here in the early years of the twenty-first century. While opinions differ wildly about what constitutes human rights, most modern world citizens believe that all people should have at least the most basic rights. Human Rights plays a role in everyone’s life, but not everyone realizes it. It’s involved in every comment you make that includes someone different. Every near discriminatory “joke” you say. It affects people, even if it doesn’t affect you. Human rights means being able to hold hands with the person you love, work where you’re qualified to work without your skin color or sexual orientation being the reason you can’t; it means having the right to be human, making choices and mistakes. The doctrine of human rights was created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. The international community established international human rights laws that lay down the obligations of governments to respect, protect and fulfill human rights. Throughout this essay I will correlate current news that have an emphasis on human rights to the ancient past.

The foundational international charter for human rights is the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration adopted in 1948, contains thirty articles, listing the UN’s defined entitlements and rights of human beings. During the 1993 World Human Rights Conference, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, stressed that “the universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question.”[1] Though it is lauded by many in the UN as universal, opposition is also widespread. The consensus of “Western” nations that human rights are universal has been heavily scrutinised by critics around the world. Such critics often pose the question of whether human rights can be surmised as

In the present day global atmosphere it is understood that human rights are a source of conflict. It is understood that the policy of non- intervention in states causes problems in retrospect to colonialism, and in addition to understanding that human rights are a source of conflict as they impede upon the rights of women and undermine a large proportion of the worlds population causing conflict between genders and in the state itself. In supplementation to this, human rights and state security come to conflict in accordance to recognizing that a government is prioritizing the state over the people and impeding on human rights and security. Human rights shine in the spotlight when it comes to causing conflict on an inclusive and

While the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” was undoubtedly crafted with good intentions, many contradictions exist within it’s written word. A dilemma occurs when one realizes civil and political rights (including protection from the state) of the individual guaranteed in the Declaration and the subsequent International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ Articles 1, 3, 4, 18 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and Article 9 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are examples of natural rights individuals should possess] are infringed upon by perceived social and cultural rights [ Article 25 in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the UN International Covenant on

HUMAN RIGHTS ARE THE BIRTHRIGHTS OF EVERY HUMAN BEING AND THEY FORM AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE SOCIO-CULTURAL FABRIC OF HUMANITY ALL OVER THE WORLD. HOWEVER, THEY ARE VULNERABLE TO ABUSE AND VIOLATION.

Human rights can be conceptualised in diverse ways mostly attained through various experiences to one person human rights may simply be unjustified demands while to another are entitlements held by a human being. Morality played a big role in the formation and development of human rights hence. The United Nations Universal Declaration of 1948 celebrated human rights as a great moral value. There are various theories of human rights including the moral perspective defining what human rights are and their justification, but these cannot be an alternative of the human rights but foundations from which human rights emerge.