International Human Rights Day is celebrated every year on December 10th. The date was established in 1950, two years after the United Nations (UN) adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a legal framework regulating relations between peoples of different nations and territories.
Rather than celebrate it, this date wishes to emphasize the long road yet to be travelled for implementing the precepts of the declaration, which recognizes the dignity inherent in all human beings, and that equal and inalienable rights are the foundation for freedom, justice and peace in the world, regardless of nationality, colour, gender, and sexual, political and religious orientation.
Main points of human rights:
- Human rights are founded on respect for the dignity and worth of each person;
- Human rights are universal, which is to say, they must be equally applied, without discrimination, to all people;
- Human rights are indivisible and interdependent, since it is not enough to respect some human rights and not others. In practice, the violation of one right will affect the respect for many others;
- All human rights should be considered equally important, and it is equally essential to respect the dignity and worth of each person.
Migration and Refuge, a challenge to the realization of human rights
In these last years, the worsening of armed conflicts, economic crises, persecutions, the effects of climate change, and humanitarian crises have caused 89.3 million people to experience forced displacement all over the planet, according to data from the UN Agency for Refugees (UNHCR).
The condition these people are in underlines the need for ensuring the rights of those who had to leave their homes in search of dignified conditions for rebuilding their lives. This is the case for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan people who arrived in Brazil due to the worsening migration crisis of that country in 2015.
According to the regional coordinator of the RoraimaHumanitarian Mission, Aldenize Moreira Fin, “In an extended migratory crisis, the international protocols of International Humanitarian Law dialogue with Human Rights to the extent there is a local promotion and development of programs and actions which, besides the initial taking in of the forced migration population, make it possible to ensure the fundamental rights, access to food and nutritional safety, education, health, housing, jobs and income through networks of cooperation and development.”
The Roraima Humanitarian Mission, created in 2016 by the Fraternity – International Humanitarian Federation (FIHF), develops alternatives for the reception and socioeconomic insertion of Venezuelan immigrants and refugees in Roraima, Brazil. This scenario led to the creation of the Livelihoods and Lasting Solutions Sector, through which various courses are offered at the Indigenous Cultural and Training Centre (CCFI) so that those in the shelters can gain access to the job market and are able to continue their lives independently.
To find out more about the Roraima Humanitarian Mission, watch the documentary Trajectory of a Mission.
Human rights and education
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), education is not only cited as a right, but also as a means to gain the objectives proposed in the document.
In its introduction, the UDHR calls for “every individual and every organ of society keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, to strive, through teaching and education, to promote respect for these rights and freedoms.”
And it is also a widely debated topic focused on humanitarian responses in the different regions of the world where they are needed.
According to the Interinstitutional Network for Education in Emergency Situations (INEE), “education in emergency situations ensures the physical, psychosocial and cognitive protection that can support and save lives.”
The Fraternity – International Humanitarian Missions (FIHM), active since 2011 in humanitarian missions, has continued to expand educational forms through art-education projects with the children and young people of the Santa Isabel House of the Child, in Rwanda, Angola, as well as professionaltraining for youths and adults taken care of by the Indigenous Cultural andTraining Centre (CCFI), in Roraima, Brazil.
The Education in Emergency administrator of the Fraternity –Humanitarian Missions (FIHM), Anderson Santiago, affirms that “when populations are most in need of the support to provide them with needs, when children and young people are most in need of an incentive to continue to learn and develop, regardless of context, on all these occasions we count on human rights. They continue to guide us and promoting actions on behalf of the Common Good.”
International Human Rights Day is therefore much more than a commemorative date; it is a day for the community to accept this normative framework as a guide for conduct that guarantees a dignified life for all peoples and nations.
