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Full-Text Articles in Social Justice
A Little Respect, Please, Christina Cerna
A Little Respect, Please, Christina Cerna
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Simon Tisdall suggests that last month, when Mohammed Bouazizi (twenty-six years old), “an unemployed graduate, set himself on fire outside a government building in protest at police harassment,” his act became the “rallying cause for Tunisia’s disaffected legions of unemployed students, impoverished workers, trade unionists, lawyers and human rights activists.” The reaction to his act of self-immolation and death on January 4th led to the flight of President Ben Ali ten days later to Saudi Arabia and to the end of Ali's twenty-three-year rule of Tunisia. Time reported the event as follows: “When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight on Dec. …
Human Trafficking And Minorities: Vulnerability Compounded By Discrimination, Heidi Box
Human Trafficking And Minorities: Vulnerability Compounded By Discrimination, Heidi Box
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Human trafficking is an extreme human rights violation that impacts all populations across the globe and is characterized by force, fraud, and coercion intended for exploitation (Palermo Protocol 2000). Currently, human trafficking research is particularly limited by non-standard terminology and a clandestine research population. While estimates of the number of trafficked persons vary widely and are notoriously unsubstantiated, we can still arrive at some conclusions regarding the overall number of trafficked persons. One low estimate suggests that in 2005, at least 2.4 million people had been trafficked into forced labor situations and approximately 12.3 million people were victims of forced …
Indigenous Political Participation: The Key To Rights Realization In The Andes, Stephanie Selekman
Indigenous Political Participation: The Key To Rights Realization In The Andes, Stephanie Selekman
Human Rights & Human Welfare
"There is no way back, this is our time, the awakening of the indigenous people. We'll keep fighting till the end. Brother Evo Morales still has lots to do, one cannot think that four years are enough after 500 years of submission and oppression,” said Fidel Surco, a prominent indigenous leader, reflecting on Bolivia’s first indigenous president entering his second term (Carroll & Schipani 2009).
The Andean region is particularly appropriate for examining indigenous political rights because 34-40 million indigenous people reside mostly in this region. The actualization of human rights for Andean indigenous groups is an inherently complex issue, …
Latin America’S Indigenous Women, Courtney Hall
Latin America’S Indigenous Women, Courtney Hall
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Latin America’s indigenous women are as diverse as the land they inhabit. Their uniqueness is shaped by belonging to groups that have their own distinct history, traditions, and identity. Yet despite this diversity, indigenous women confront the same human rights challenges: racial, gender, and socio-economic discrimination. Without ignoring the diversity of indigenous women, a better understanding of their fundamental struggles can be gained by weaving these issues together in a comprehensive narrative.
Untouchability Today: The Rise Of Dalit Activism, Christine Hart
Untouchability Today: The Rise Of Dalit Activism, Christine Hart
Human Rights & Human Welfare
On July 19, 2010, the Hindustan Times reported that a Dalit (“untouchable”) woman was gang-raped and murdered in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The crime was an act of revenge perpetrated by members of the Sharma family, incensed over the recent elopement of their daughter with a man from the lower-caste Singh family. Seeking retributive justice for the disgrace of the marriage, men from the Sharma family targeted a Dalit woman who, with her husband, worked in the Singh family fields. Her death was the result of her sub-caste status; while the crime cost the Singh family a valuable …
Combating Discrimination Against The Roma In Europe: Why Current Strategies Aren’T Working And What Can Be Done, Erica Rosenfield
Combating Discrimination Against The Roma In Europe: Why Current Strategies Aren’T Working And What Can Be Done, Erica Rosenfield
Human Rights & Human Welfare
In the summer of 2010, the forced expulsion of many Roma from Western to Eastern Europe captured headlines and world attention, yet this practice simply represented the latest manifestation of anti-Roma sentiment in Europe. Indeed, the Roma—numbering over ten million across Europe, making them the continent’s largest minority—face discrimination in housing, education, healthcare, employment, and law enforcement; widespread prejudice against this group shows no evidence of receding. There is, however, certainly no shortage of national and supranational policies aiming to promote inclusion and equality for the Roma.
The Loss Of Egypt’S Children, Cindy Ragab
The Loss Of Egypt’S Children, Cindy Ragab
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Under the fierce rays of the desert sun, in the heat of the summer, young children are forced to remove pests from cotton crops for eleven hours per day, search for recyclable goods among animals and the pungent stench of city dumps, and are sold to elderly male tourists through temporary marriages by their parents. This is the hideous reality for millions of child laborers in Egypt. Child labor is a manifestation of the pains of extreme poverty on the world’s most vulnerable population. Childhood is lost. Children are forced to take on responsibilities that in normal circumstances push adults …
The Materialization Of Human Trafficking In The Middle East And Impediments To Its Eradication, Mindy Mann
The Materialization Of Human Trafficking In The Middle East And Impediments To Its Eradication, Mindy Mann
Human Rights & Human Welfare
As a continental hub that connects Asia, Africa, and Europe, the Middle East offers a strategic location for the trafficking of persons from poor to richer states. Extreme poverty, coupled with the corporate and royal wealth of the Gulf States, creates a regional dichotomy in which Middle Eastern states serve as ‘source,’ ‘transit,’ and ‘destination’ countries for human trafficking. Discrepancies in defining human trafficking within the region, as well as the controversial and illicit nature of the practice, cause research to be sparse and with very few first-hand sources. Nevertheless, this paper examines available literature on the subject and addresses …
Dying For Love: Homosexuality In The Middle East, Heather Simmons
Dying For Love: Homosexuality In The Middle East, Heather Simmons
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Today in the United States, the most frequent references to the Middle East are concerned with the War on Terrorism. However, there is another, hidden battle being waged: the war for human rights on the basis of sexuality. Homosexuality is a crime in many of the Middle Eastern states and is punishable by death in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iran (Ungar 2002). Chronic abuses and horrific incidences such as the 2009 systematic murders of hundreds of “gay” men in Iraq are seldom reported in the international media. Speculation as to why this population is hidden includes the …
Richard Burchill On Synergies In Minority Protection: European And International Law Perspectives. Edited By Kristin Henrard And Robert Dunbar. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 462pp., Richard Burchill
Human Rights & Human Welfare
A review of:
Synergies in Minority Protection: European and International Law Perspectives. Edited by Kristin Henrard and Robert Dunbar. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 462pp.
Seductions Of Imperialism: Incapacitating Life, Fetishizing Death And Catastrophizing Ecologies, Anna M. Agathangelou
Seductions Of Imperialism: Incapacitating Life, Fetishizing Death And Catastrophizing Ecologies, Anna M. Agathangelou
Human Rights & Human Welfare
“China’s Olympic Delusion” is a great piece which gestures to the ironies and/or contradictions of political systems in bed with imperialist-capitalism as we know it at this time: the tensions between a dominant idea that liberal democracy is the best political system to pay attention to and address human rights, and capitalism with no limits, can go hand-in-hand. This is merely the delusion, and also the fantasy, that keeps “us” (i.e., citizens, intellectuals etc) put, and from thinking critically.
Beijing's Olympics: Pride, Appearance And Human Rights, Thomas Beal
Beijing's Olympics: Pride, Appearance And Human Rights, Thomas Beal
Human Rights & Human Welfare
One lazy summer evening in Beijing, about fifteen years ago, my wife and I were strolling down Jianguomenwai, the bustling street adjacent to our flat in the Qijiayuan Diplomatic Compound. The day had been sweltering, and as the sun began to set the sidewalks filled with pedestrians who, like us, had escaped their stuffy apartments to take in a cool, soothing breeze.
Slavery And "Abuse Regeneration", Christine Bell
Slavery And "Abuse Regeneration", Christine Bell
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Skinner’s depiction of modern day slavery is graphic and challenging. Anyone viewing prohibitions on slavery, or abolition, as historical anachronism, or requiring reinterpretation for modern-day practices, must think again. Skinner persuades us that slavery in its most old fashioned sense is alive and well and, worse than that–on the rise.
Slavery: From Public Crime To Private Wrong, Alison Brysk
Slavery: From Public Crime To Private Wrong, Alison Brysk
Human Rights & Human Welfare
The fight against slavery was the first international human rights movement, and the elimination of legalized bondage represented a hallmark of Western civilization. But the persistence and revival of this ancient evil shows that in an era of globalization, a prohibited public crime has morphed into a massive private wrong.
April Roundtable: Introduction
April Roundtable: Introduction
Human Rights & Human Welfare
An annotation of:
“A World Enslaved" by E. Benjamin Skinner. Foreign Policy (March/April) 2008.
Forget Me Not: Bodies As Last Colonies Of Capitalism?, Anna M. Agathangelou
Forget Me Not: Bodies As Last Colonies Of Capitalism?, Anna M. Agathangelou
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Slavery is one technology of imperialism that serves to generate more profits worldwide. Skinner brings this issue to our attention, arguing that many people think that slavery ended in the 19th century, but the current turning of peoples into slaves proves otherwise. Skinner points out that since 1817, there have been more than a dozen international conventions signed banning the slave trade and yet, the number of people sold as slaves is in the millions. He calls modern day slavery a “monstrous crime” and proceeds to provide us with insights from his research. He begins making his point through what …
Combating The Slave Trade: Why Governments Are Not Good At Governing, Eric A. Heinze
Combating The Slave Trade: Why Governments Are Not Good At Governing, Eric A. Heinze
Human Rights & Human Welfare
It is difficult to read Benjamin Skinner’s revealing piece on the international slave trade and not feel revolted that we still live in a world where so many people live in bondage. What is particularly disturbing is that much of the modern-day slave trade takes place with the full knowledge, and even acquiescence of, state governments.
Moving Beyond Markets And Minimalism: Democracy In The Era Of Globalization, Richard Burchill
Moving Beyond Markets And Minimalism: Democracy In The Era Of Globalization, Richard Burchill
Human Rights & Human Welfare
A review of:
Democracy as Human Rights: Freedom and Equality in the Age of Globalization by Michael Goodhart. London: Routledge, 2005.
The Dark Side Of Labor In China, Karine Lepillez
The Dark Side Of Labor In China, Karine Lepillez
Human Rights & Human Welfare
With a population of 1.3 billion and a gross domestic product growing at an impressive rate of 10 percent per year, China has quickly become one of the largest contributors to the global market. Deng Xiaoping’s reforms of the late 1970s and early 1980s vastly improved the country’s standard of living and made economic development possible; unfortunately, China’s remarkable growth has a dark side: the forced labor of men, women and children. The country’s unique combination of Communist ideology and decentralized economic power has contributed to the use of both state-sanctioned and unsanctioned forced labor, the latter of which is …
Forced Labor In The United States: A Contemporary Problem In Need Of A Contemporary Solution, Chrissey Buckley
Forced Labor In The United States: A Contemporary Problem In Need Of A Contemporary Solution, Chrissey Buckley
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Legal slavery ended in the United States in 1865, yet the practice of forcing individuals to work against their will, oftentimes in inhumane conditions, continues today. Currently there are around 50,000 people working in forced labor situations in the United States (Bales 47). Although this number is smaller than it was during the 18th century, finding and freeing these individuals is difficult because they are hidden away and exploited. The United States is now at a critical juncture in its struggle to end forced labor. In 2000, the U.S. Government enacted legislation that holds perpetrators of forced labor accountable, and …
Matthew S. Weinert On Democracy, Minorities, And International Law By Steven Wheatley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 201 Pp., Matthew S. Weinert
Matthew S. Weinert On Democracy, Minorities, And International Law By Steven Wheatley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 201 Pp., Matthew S. Weinert
Human Rights & Human Welfare
A review of:
Democracy, Minorities, and International Law by Steven Wheatley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 201 pp.
Contemporary Slavery And International Law, Jessica Bell
Contemporary Slavery And International Law, Jessica Bell
Human Rights & Human Welfare
In this essay, the definition of contemporary slavery is derived from Kevin Bales in his book, Disposable People, which states that contemporary slavery is “The complete control of a person, for economic exploitation, by violence, or the threat of violence.” Contemporary slavery includes the slave labor of men, women, and children, forced prostitution, pornography involving both children and adults, the selling of human organs, serfdom, debt bondage, and the use of humans for armed conflict.
John D. Becker On Islam, Liberalism, And Human Rights: Implications For International Relations By Katerina Dalacoura (Revised Edition). London: I.B. Tauris, 2003. 248pp., John D. Becker
Human Rights & Human Welfare
A review of:
Islam, Liberalism, and Human Rights: Implications for International Relations by Katerina Dalacoura (revised edition). London: I.B. Tauris, 2003. 248pp.
Kathleen J. Hancock On Human Rights: International Protection, Monitoring, Enforcement By Janusz Symonides. Burlington, Vt: Ashgate Publishing, 2004. 416pp., Kathleen J. Hancock
Kathleen J. Hancock On Human Rights: International Protection, Monitoring, Enforcement By Janusz Symonides. Burlington, Vt: Ashgate Publishing, 2004. 416pp., Kathleen J. Hancock
Human Rights & Human Welfare
A review of:
Human Rights: International Protection, Monitoring, Enforcement by Janusz Symonides. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2004. 416pp.
Access To Health, Natalie Huls
Access To Health, Natalie Huls
Human Rights & Human Welfare
Access to health is an often-overlooked aspect of the right to health. Without practical access, the right to health becomes an empty promise. International human rights conventions and declarations do not directly mention access to health, but the above comment on the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights does address the issue.
Matthew S. Weinert On Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle For Social Justice By Geoffrey Robertson. New York: The New Press, 1999 (Revised 2002). 658pp., Matthew S. Weinert
Matthew S. Weinert On Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle For Social Justice By Geoffrey Robertson. New York: The New Press, 1999 (Revised 2002). 658pp., Matthew S. Weinert
Human Rights & Human Welfare
A review of:
Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Social Justice by Geoffrey Robertson. New York: The New Press, 1999 (revised 2002). 658pp.