Human Rights Essay Many people and nations around the world are deprived of human rights. The government in the countries or nations usually can not help the people being deprived. Either because the government is too poor to, it is not one of the things the government is looking into, or the government does not know or care. Because of this certain people, or even whole populations are denied human rights and their living conditions and way of life are usually not on the positive side of things.
There are many wealthier countries trying to help but sometimes that is not enough. To what extent should Canada have a role in working to increase human rights protection in other nations? Many countries around the world experience great poverty, maybe because the country has little amounts of natural resources or it has never gotten out of a slump that dragged down the economy. The people of the country are affected greatly by this, almost directly, if there are no resources available, people can’t work to refine the resources, make or use them. So instead of using the resources available, the country buys the materials needed. This puts the country in debt, along with the people. In order to get out of debt, taxes are raised and people slowly lose their jobs and their money.
The affect of that is turmoil, some people blame their misfortune on a certain race or culture, some on a religion. In the case of Germany in 1938, the Jewish race was blamed for the depression. Adolph Hitler agreed with them, and was voted as the ruler of the country. Not even a year later nearly every right of the Jewish people was eliminated, and hundreds of thousands of Jewish people were killed or tortured. Thankfully, the Jewish people and the country of Germany were liberated, and most rights were brought back to affect, because of other countries helping. After the event of WWII the United Nations was created, including Canada, England, France and others, it was created to make and maintain human rights throughout the world.
Sometimes the only thing that needs fixing is a new government. But war is not needed to improve and increase human rights in other nations. Even with out war there are still nations and people without human rights; it just needs to be noticed. There are many charities to help towards human rights that Canada contributes to greatly. Including UNICEF Canada, Salvation Army Canada and Red Cross.
These charities focus on mainly living rights. The charities contribute mainly food, clothing and medicine. Those are only two given rights. Although it is help for people to live their lives, it does not give them more rights, it is not a solution to increase their human rights and protect them.
Lately Canada has done a lot with the United Nations in protecting human rights, including communicating with countries and organizations to increase the rights of women and children. There have been many improvements to their rights and conditions; political prisoners have been freed from the trap they have been trying to get out of for their whole lives, beginning with even their grandparents. There are many de-mining programs also created by Canada, so people that lived in war stricken land can live their lives normally. Canada is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It has been ranked as the best country to live on four two years in a row. So obviously some things are right with our human rights in Canada; the things that are being done right in Canada should be dittoed in other nations.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission (which is operated independently of the government) is making sure that human rights are understood, respected and maintained in Canada. The commission shares human rights expertise with organizations that directly want to create or strengthen human rights commissions in other countries, instead of going directly to the government. Over the past two years Canada has made agreements with Cuba, Indonesia and China on human rights issues, and there is much co-operation and improvements. Cuba has released several hundred political prisoners, one step in helping Cuba to be a more free, open country.
So what can Canada do to directly help? There have been many Canadian troops sent to Afghanistan to liberate the people from the Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist organization. Along with the liberation of the people, food, shelter, clothes and disease free water was given to them, so they could re-establish permanent living and get out of poverty. Canada also donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to eliminate the use of child soldiers, the sexual exploitation of children, and child labor in countries such as Honduras, Brazil, Peru, Chili and Uganda. Much of the money put into these projects gets children off the streets and into schools. Rehabilitation, reintegration and education are all a part of it. Even with all the problems that Canada is facing, including SARS, mad cow disease and the Toronto blackout; it is still managing to put effort into protecting human rights in other countries and nations all over the world..