Genocide in Palestine and the social work response

Armed Conflict and Human Rights in Colombia

This study examined the importance of the remedy system at human rights organizations with local governments, aiming to provide an improvement plan. It analyzed three cases of human rights violations, settled between 2019 and 2021, of those employed at social welfare facilities of human rights organizations in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do Province from a restorative justice perspective. According to analysis findings, the remedy system of human rights organizations at local governments was implemented based on the participation from victims, perpetrators, and the community. While the system was useful for assisting victims to recover from damages and providing corrective recommendations to perpetrators, there were issues with how it interpreted human rights violations as merely infringements on the freedom of employees, and the actual effectiveness of corrective recommendations issued to perpetrators. With respect to the findings, the following improvements may be suggested from a restorative justice viewpoint. First, more attention and efforts are needed from social welfare facility employees to boost perpetrators' fulfillment of corrective recommendations. Second, the remedy system of local governments' human rights organizations should be strengthened, and lastly, the decisions of human rights violations at local governments should be publicized more widely.

The need for protection and the attraction of opportunity continue to drive international migration, which has become one of the most sensitive policy issues. This human movement in search of better opportunities in the developed European countries has been predominantly called transit migration. Whether someone migrates to escape war, famine, persecution, natural catastrophes, economic depression, or just to find a chance for a better life, that person may find insecurity, human rights violations, and often destitution of their situation in the country of transit or destination. The degree to which human rights are violated, migrants are excluded from legal protection or redress and social work responses are provided effectively, varies widely among countries. The Republic of Macedonia has been among the European countries forced to develop specific responses to the unforeseen large-scale transit migration that affected the country during 2015–2016. Located directly on the transit route of Middle East refugees, the Republic of Macedonia found coping with the issue a huge challenge that resulted in periodic ill-treatment and human rights’ violations of migrants, accompanied with scarce social work activities which mostly served to mitigate the impact of human rights’ violations. The article initially presents a brief overview of international migration trends and instruments for protection of the human rights of migrants in general, as well as definitions and trends related to transit migration, in particular. Furthermore, with a purpose of highlighting the gaps between protection of migrants in paper (through international and domestic instruments) and in practice in the Republic of Macedonia, the article focuses on challenges and problems encountered regarding protection of human rights of transit migrants and social work support provided to them, in light of the recent 2015–2016 transit migration crisis.

Reflections on BDS

The task of this paper is to study the role of international human rights organizations in response to the conflict taking place in eastern Ukraine. The study is based on recent reports from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the OSCE on Ukraine. The relevance of the stated topic is determined by the situation with human rights violations in the armed conflict in Ukraine and the significant role of international human rights organizations, making active efforts to resolve it. The purpose of this study is to determine the main aspects of the role that international organizations play in resolving this range of issues. This will help to identify potential opportunities to tackle the problem with human rights violations in the Ukrainian territories. The study combines quantitative and qualitative research of the entire spectrum of issues brought into the subject. The main results obtained are: analysis of the role and place of international human rights organizations in assessing the situation with the conflict in the Ukrainian territories and obtaining statistical information on the current status of human rights violations in these territories. The value of this paper lies in obtaining practical recommendations for finding ways to peacefully resolve the conflict in the East of Ukraine and implementing comprehensive measures to create conditions for the protection of human rights in this region

The execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other environmental and human rights activists in Nigeria in November 1995, represented flagrant violations of human rights. What was exceptional about this case was that the uprising, which ultimately lead to the executions, was not primarily aimed at the Government, but rather at one of the large transnational corporations, Shell Oil. The article analyses the composition of the actors and the various human rights involved in this conflict. It argues that the complexity of the conflict is shown through the wide variety of environmental NGOs, human rights NGOs, international business and organisations that were implicated in it. The article points to the interrelatedness of various human rights - and the interlinkedness to environmental issues, claiming that environmental organisations were forced’ to use rights language, while human rights organisations needed to address environmental issues. And ultimately, the business actor has publicly stated intent to observe a human rights accountability.

The Pitfalls of International Human Rights Monitoring: Some Critical Remarks on the 1995 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki Report on Xenophobia in Germany Manfred H. Wiegandt (bio) The euphoria of the opening of the iron curtain in Germany in 1989 and the unification one year later of a country that had been divided since the end of World War II was just abating when the ugly face of xenophobia started to reappear in the country. Pictures of skinheads lashing out at “foreigners,” of shelters for asylum seekers beleaguered by neo-Nazis, and of burned down dwellings housing Turks did the rounds in the international media. Increasingly hostile attitudes and behavior towards foreigners, which occurred amidst a public debate on how to curb the influx of hundreds of [End Page 833] thousands of asylum seekers into Germany, alerted many observers who were concerned about the situation of foreigners in Germany. One of the human rights groups that reacted to the dramatic increase of violence against foreigners was Helsinki Watch, now called Human Rights Watch/Helsinki. In October 1992, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki issued its first report on xenophobic violence in Germany (1992 Report). 1 In April 1995, it released a more elaborate follow-up report on the subject (1995 Report). 2 One may suggest that the international reaction to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki’s allegations of a wave of violent xenophobia in Germany both alerted the public to problems in Germany and put pressure on the German federal and state governments to make changes after they had partly given the fatal impression of silently tolerating, ignoring or, at least, belittling the degree of violence against foreigners in the country. However, despite the beneficial effect of evaluations by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and other groups, 3 the 1995 Report by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki gives rise to a critique of its approach to human rights monitoring—a critique that may, to some extent, be valid for other human rights groups that pursue a similar approach. There are some fundamental problems with the 1995 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki Report itself. In addition, one might voice some objections to the principles that Human Rights Watch/Helsinki voiced in its dealing with Germany, in particular its “hate speech” policy. The first critique concerns the introductory section of the 1995 Report. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki mentions that Germany has experienced widespread beatings and even killings of foreigners. 4 The 1995 Report states that “[i]t is clear that racist attacks and killings are not unique to Germany. Genocide has been committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Many violent attacks against foreigners have occurred in France, England, Sweden, and other Western European democracies in the early 1990s.” 5 It might be just sloppy language that seems to insinuate that the xenophobic attacks in Germany fall under the same category as the genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. However, it is unwise to start a serious human rights [End Page 834] investigation with an overdramatization of the situation. Strong words are warranted to attract the attention of the public to the serious human rights violations that have occurred in Germany, particularly because initially the authorities, as the 1992 Report concluded, 6 did not take the violations seriously. However, a comparison between the events in Germany and the genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia is so out of proportion as to cast doubt on the lack of bias in the whole 1995 Report. The advantage of nongovernmental human rights organizations (human rights NGOs) is that they do not have to feel confined by “diplomatic” usages. Unlike intergovernmental human rights organizations, NGOs are able to speak out and arouse immediate international attention to a specific problem. However, this relative flexibility, which makes human rights NGOs a valuable supplement to “official” and often very inert international human rights organizations, should not be compromised for cheap showmanship. If NGOs in the human rights field were to act like the international media then they could spotlight some situations, but, in doing this they might not be taken seriously by the governments of the countries they were evaluating. It is this type of behavior that could give governments a valid reason not...

This study examines how human rights organizations (HROs) use various Internet platforms as a communication tool in Egypt. It attempts to investigate four issues: (1) main themes related to human rights posted on the websites of HROs in Egypt; (2) visual and technical aspects utilized in these websites; (3) websites use of interactive communication facilities with different publics; and (4) perceptions of HRO directors about the Internet as an effective communication tool to reach out to the target publics. The researcher analysed websites of the main 34 human rights organizations in Egypt to explore how they employ these websites as suitable communication tools. A questionnaire was designed to examine how personnel and executives of HROs perceive the value of the Internet. Findings of the study show that the HROs in Egypt use all available means to reveal violations of human rights, including their Internet sites. These bodies are mainly concerned with issues relating to basic human rights such as rights to be treated equally and not to be violated in custodies and prisons. The HROs use their websites also to present and manifest issues related to people’s rights to express their opinions through assemblies and media. The websites of the HROs applied some visual aspects in their presentations of issues related to human rights and neglected others. The analysed websites are poorly presented in terms of using tables, graphics, audio and video clips. Lack of visual and technical aspects used in the websites may be understood in terms of limited resources available to them. As for using feedback facilities by the websites of HROs, findings indicate that mutual communication and interactivity are far from being applied through the websites. Findings also show that nearly all respondents recognize that the most important usage of the Internet is for e-mails to contact HROs’ members and to provide information to their publics. Building relationships with audiences was among the common uses of the Internet as a communication medium. On the other hand, respondents approached for this research did not perceive categories of interactive communication as common uses of the Internet. They also believed that the key objective of using the Internet is to reinforce concepts of human rights. Participants in the study also perceived that their websites had the potential to provide new advantages to their organizations such as flexibility to avoid state control and censorship that are usually imposed by the government in Egypt. Despite the fact that governments may impose censorship through procedures of licences and regulations or filtering Internet content through control of the servers, they believed that the Internet is still the most free medium in comparison to other traditional mass media.

The article is devoted to the volunteer movement in the sphere of human rights protection and cooperation of volunteers with non-governmental human rights organizations. It is pointed out that due to the activization of civil society and the growing number of violations of human rights on the international arena, this issue needs to be studied in more detail. In order to study the nature of volunteer organizations, a retrospective historical analysis of the phenomenon of volunteering since its appearance has been conducted. Several directions of historical development of the volunteer movement are compared. In order to understand the role of volunteer movements in the protection of human rights, the definition of the concept is proposed and explained, their functions and features as well as the main directions of activity are singled out. The comparison of concepts, functions and roles of volunteer and non- governmental human rights organizations is made. Also, the definition of the concept of “non-governmental human rights organizations” is given, on the base of which the common features of the above elements of civil society are defined. Examples of state regulation of volunteering activities in European countries, as well as the activities of volunteers in the sphere of human rights protection and cooperation of the latter with non-governmental human rights organizations are analyzed. The importance of cooperation between volunteer organizations and NGOs is also emphasized, as well as the mutual benefit for these organizations.

Human rights are the birthright of human beings. Irrespective of state, caste, religion, or creed, everyone has human rights that can never be transferred, and no one can curtail human rights. Human rights are universally recognized. Various human rights organizations have been formed to protect the human rights of all people around the world, and international and domestic laws have been enacted to ensure human rights. There have been two world wars in the world so far with bloodshed and gross violations of human rights. Especially the horrors of World War II, which started in 1939 and finished in 1944. Which were so devastating and a disaster for human rights that it was a gross violation of human rights. After seeing the horrors of World War II, world leaders agreed that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was promulgated on December 10, 1948, through the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. Respecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the member states of the United Nations, especially Bangladesh, have inserted fundamental rights in the constitution modeled after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and established the National Human Rights Commission for the protection of human rights. This paper is to draw the definition of human rights, the history of the formation of the National Human Rights Commission, its structure, and its functions. Along with that, the objectives of the National Human Rights Commission, the contrast between the reality with the motto of the National Human Rights Commission, and the failure of the Human Rights Commission to solve or reduce the violations of human rights and emerging problems in Bangladesh will be highlighted, as well as some recommendations.

The creation of the human rights system with the adoption in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1981 of the Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Charter) under the auspices of the former Organization of Unity (OAU) and its entry into force on 21 October 1986, a culmination of the yearning of many civil society and human rights organisations have a home-grown human rights mechanism that works promote and protect the human rights of the peoples of Africa. It is now common knowledge that the 1961 International Commission of Jurists' African Conference on the Rule of one of the early fires in this regard. One of the resolutions of the conference (the famous Law of Lagos) in effect the creation of a human rights court under a proposed African Convention on Human Rights, which was lay down the basis for future efforts for the establishment of rules and mechanisms for the regional promotion and protection of human rights in Africa, and to give full effect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Granted that it took 20 years after the Law of Lagos for the Charter that sets the tone for a regional human rights regime be adopted, its adoption a welcome development. During the early period of this development, the Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Commission) the only organ mandated under the Charter to: 1) engage in promoting human rights; 2) protect human rights; 3) examine state reports; and 4) provide interpretation of the Charter. As part of its protection mandate, the Commission innovated the hearing of individual complaints for human rights violations brought it by victims of such violations or their representatives.

Non-governmental human rights organizations active in the world for over 100 years. In Russia they born in the 60s of the twentieth century in response to human rights abuses by Soviet authorities. On the other hand, non-governmental organizations today appeared in Russia in the late 80s and 90s of the twentieth century. Some of them act today. Russian non-governmental human rights organizations have several characteristics. Firstly, they arose spontaneously, usually in response to the glaring examples of human rights violations. Second, their founders were activists who own attitude opposed the policy. They became symbols of the so-called. passive resistance, or deliberate violations of the law in the name of higher goals - were therefore willing to bear legal responsibility. This is the classic behavior known under the term civil disobedience. Thirdly, these organizations functioned without any internal legitimacy - until 1995 there were no regulations defining the principles of the formation, operation and activities of NGOs.

Reviewed by: Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope Carrie Booth Walling (bio) Sonia Cardenas , Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope (Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010) 248 pp., ISBN 978-0-8122-4197-6. The human rights record of Latin America is decidedly mixed. Plagued by high levels of poverty and inequality, legal impunity, weak democratic institutions, and strong militaries, Latin America has experienced severe levels of human rights abuse. Human rights violations in the region have included torture, extrajudicial killing, forced disappearance, and political imprisonment. Individually and in tandem, authoritarian regimes in Latin America have used repression and state-sponsored terrorism in the name of political stability and national security. Human rights abuse in Latin America, until recently, had been considered among the worst in the developing world.1 The regional experience of human rights has been one of significant political terror; but Latin America is also home to powerful human rights organizations and precedent-setting efforts to secure justice and accountability for government human rights abuse. Indeed, Latin America has displayed extraordinary leadership in the development and proliferation of international human rights norms and institutions. Latin American countries played an important role in securing human rights language in the United Nations Charter, developed and ratified the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man in early 1948 (preceding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and were at the forefront of efforts to ensure state accountability for human rights violations through the development of new human rights standards (protection from forced disappearance, the right to an identity) and the use of transitional justice mechanisms. There is a regional trend toward embracing human rights norms which has been aptly described as a "human rights norms cascade" in Latin America.2 Sonia Cardenas effectively captures this nuanced and complicated history of human rights in a simple but substantively rich introductory text book, Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope. Cardenas' text is an attempt to complicate simple understandings of human rights in Latin America by introducing students to the terror of human rights abuse, the hope of human rights reform, and the challenge of accountability through an examination of regional trends and cross-national dynamics. Cardenas has written her text with two audiences in mind: undergraduate students of human rights and undergraduate students of Latin America. She makes [End Page 1032] human rights concepts accessible for students by examining them within the historical and geographic experience of Latin American countries. This approach reflects a principal goal of the book: to introduce students to the systematic tools and methods for studying human rights while simultaneously introducing them to the lived experience of victims and survivors of human rights abuse. Cardenas invites her readers in "stepping back and getting up close— stepping back to identify key facts and trends, getting up close to hear personal experiences of abuse.3" As a result, the book combines quantitative analysis of human rights trends with qualitative research on the origins of abuse and the dynamics of political reform with personal narratives of survival and official documentation of repression and redress. Cardenas' text is a welcome effort at combining different literatures, analytical approaches and narrative styles, providing students with a rich and multilayered experience of human rights in both principle and practice. Cardenas achieves this by including "Up-Close" text boxes of first-hand accounts and primary documents that function as mini-case studies throughout her scholarly analysis.4 This dual approach cleverly introduces students to the broad content of human rights, perpetrators of abuse, and tools of human rights change. While the book necessarily focuses its analysis narrowly on the violation of physical integrity rights that have plagued Latin America (freedom from torture, extrajudicial execution, forced disappearance, and political imprisonment), it succeeds in introducing students to human rights issues that overlap, but push beyond these particular political and civil rights, hinting at the broad, interconnected, and interdependent character of all human rights. Using "up close" text boxes, Cardenas exposes her readers to diverse human rights issues including femicide, disability rights, sexual orientation rights, labor rights, indigenous rights, and the rights...

The recently released National Institutes of Health Plan for Social Work Research (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2003) is evidence of two important trends in the field of social work. One is the growing recognition of the value of social work research for promoting and preserving health in our country. The other is the inclination and capacity for NASW to collaborate with and support other professional social work organizations. In 2003 the Congressional Appropriations Committee commended the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Cancer Institute, and the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research for their recognition of social work research's important contributions to the nation's health. They urged to develop a social work research plan that outlines research priorities, as well as a research agenda, across NIH Institutes and Centers (Senate Report 107-216, 2002, p. 155). In the National Institutes of Health (NIH) plan social work research is defined as studies of the individual, family, group, community, policy and/or organizational level, focusing across the life span on prevention, intervention, treatment, aftercare, and rehabilitation of acute and chronic conditions, including the effects of policy on social work practice. This definition acknowledges that social work research often examines cross-cutting issues, such as children's mental health in juvenile justice settings, aging and caregiving, or community services to diverse cultural groups. Key social work organizations supported development of the report and have been responsive since its release. NASW participated through ANSWER (Action Network for Social Work Education and Research), our advocacy coalition of social work organizations, including NASW, CSWE (Council on Social Work Education), BPD (Baccalaureate Program Directors), SSWR (Society for Social Work Research), IASWR (Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research), GADE (Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education), and NADD (National Association of Deans and Directors). All groups encouraged Congress to make the request to NIH and to develop a plan. The report specifies proposals in the areas of social work research, research infrastructure and training, and information dissemination and community outreach. The recommendations include the following: social work research * to establish a Social Work Research Committee, a standing committee internal to NIH, to assess and initiate activities to foster social work research at NIH * to expand outreach activities designed to increase the submission of investigator-initiated research focused on social work practice related to concepts relevant to missions of each NIH Institute * to develop a program announcement entitled Developmental Research on Social Work Practice and Concepts in Health to integrate social work-specific perspectives and concepts into the NIH portfolio and to expand a social work-relevant scientific base that would be useful to allied health professionals research infrastructure and training * to develop a mechanism whereby social work researchers could be added to ongoing NIH research projects to increase mentoring and research training and to improve their competitiveness for NIH training. …

Human Rights abuses in South Africa occasioned by xenophobic attacks in South Africa had occurred intermittently for over a decade despite the hue and cry against xenophobia. Driven primarily by efforts to protect human life and overcome the challenges of xenophobia, some international human rights organisations expressed their views on the curtailment of human rights abuses perpetrated in South Africa. Contextually, South- Africa has notable human rights organisations, yet human rights abuses happen through xenophobic attacks in some parts of the country. The primary objective of this paper is to identify human rights challenges brought about by xenophobic attacks, including the right to human dignity and the right to life. This methodology adopted in this paper included reference to statutes, internet sources, and newspaper publications. This paper finds, amongst others, that despite the United Nations conventions and other international laws guaranteeing the human rights of all persons, the South African government appeared overwhelmed by the xenophobic attacks in dealing with the situation. This paper made useful recommendations towards preventing future xenophobic attacks and avoiding human rights violations.