Uganda has a controversial history regarding its stance on homosexuality. In 2014, the country passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which imposed harsh penalties on individuals engaging in same-sex activity, including life imprisonment for “aggravated homosexuality.” The law also criminalized the promotion of homosexuality and made it a crime to not report homosexual activity to authorities. Recently, policymakers in Uganda have proposed new legislation that would prohibit even identifying as LGBTQ. Parliament passed the new bill in order to crack down on homosexual activities. Gay people living in Uganda face life in prison and even the death penalty. The proposed bill has been widely criticized by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as many countries around the world.The international community has called on Uganda to respect the human rights of LGBTQ individuals and to repeal the proposed legislation.
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Criminalization of Homosexuality
Violations include “aggravated” homosexuality which involves gay sex with people under 18 years old or when a person is HIV positive, according to the law. The penalties are significantly steep resulting in death penalty. Failure to report homosexuality is a crime. As well as making merely identifying as gay illegal for the first time, friends, family and members of the community would have a duty to report individuals in same-sex relationships to the authorities. It bans media from publishing queer advocacy or promoting homosexuality. People found guilty of “grooming” children for purposes of engaging them in homosexual activities face life in prison. This can include discussing sexuality in classrooms or teaching about same sex relations in sexual education courses.
Impact on Society
The deeply regressive bill endangers gay people who live in Uganda and will have negative repercussions in society. The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rightsurged Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni not to sign the bill calling the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2023 “draconian”. The passing of this extremely discriminatory policy will result in families betraying their own, friends turning in friends, and communities turning their back on the LGBTQ. There will be severe psychological and mental effects for queer people in Uganda. They are condemned for simply existing. Legislation like this will only grow the anti-gay sentiment in Uganda making it much more difficult for change. The anti-gay bill will damage Uganda’s international reputation, leading to criticism from the international community and the potential for economic sanctions and aid cuts. The bill has been condemned by many western countries and organizations, including the United States and the United Nations.Overall, the anti-gay bill has had a devastating impact on Uganda’s LGBTQ community, civil society, and international reputation, and has further entrenched discrimination and violence against marginalized groups in the country.
Source Yahoo Images
What Can We Do
There are several strategies that can be employed to prevent anti-gay attitudes and actions in Uganda. To start, we must continue to support and organize with LGBTQ organizations in Uganda as well as globally. Education and awareness is key. Activists and advocacy groups cantargetawareness campaigns in schools, universities, and community centers. However, this is not possible without our continues support. NGOs to look into are Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), the United Nations, and Human Rights Watch. The international community can exert pressure on the Ugandan government to promote LGBTQ+ rights and to repeal discriminatory laws. This can include diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, and other measures. They can also foster support networks and safe spaces for LGBTQ+ individuals to provide them with a sense of community as well as a means of protection against discrimination and violence.
Source: Yahoo Images; An image of waterfalls, an important water system that helps filter the waterways.
Human rights are dependent on the environment, and we can address many environmental rights issues to bring about a better world for all those who live on this green and blue planet that we call home. In this sense, environmental rights ARE human rights, and taking a human rights approach to addressing these environmental rights can close the gaps of inequality between the Global North and the Global South countries. I am dedicating a series to deep dive into this human rights approach to environmental rights. We began this series by focusing on how issues around food can be addressed with a human rights approach. This blog will focus on water, another essential need for all living things, and how issues surrounding access to clean water can be addressed with a human rights approach.
Uses of Water
Source: Yahoo Images; A pie chart showcasing how much freshwater and saltwater there is on Earth.
Similar to food, water is also another resource necessary for all living creatures, including humans. Organisms need water to survive and function, even in the driest places on Earth. Humans need water for survival, not just to quench our thirst, but also to cook our food, and clean ourselves and our spaces. To maintain this modern civilization we live in, humans also require water for various industrial purposes, including watering the crops we consume, providing water for the livestock that we make use of, hygienic purposes, and even washing the clothes we wear. In fact, water is required for industrial use as well, including in the clothing and textile industries, mining industries, the process of oil drilling, and many more. Not having access to clean water can cause illnesses, rashes, and even death, both to humans and the organisms that live in areas with unclean water.
Although this planet is made up largely of water, it is a natural resource that is limited. Its limitations come from the fact that 97% of the water found on Earth is contained in the oceans, which are made up of salt water. Saltwater is unsafe for consumption because our kidneys are not capable of filtering all the salt out of the water, and as a result, drinking it can have the opposite effect you want to achieve, including dehydration and eventual death. Only 3% of the water found on Earth is freshwater and safe for consumption. This 3%, therefore, is what is used for all of our personal, industrial, and agricultural needs, and this same 3% also has to be shared with the many creatures we live alongside on this planet. Even still, much of that 3% of fresh water is also frozen in the form of ice caps and glaciers or contained in the atmosphere and soils. So, in reality, we only have about 0.5% of the Earth’s water source for all of our needs and those of our fellow Earth dwellers.
Consequences of Using Unclean Water
The current way we treat our water supplies and our environment can have drastic impacts on our lives, the lives of other organisms, as well as the future of this planet. We have seen what happened in Flint Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi, and the struggles the individuals in those places are going through just to be able to have clean drinking water. For those who are not familiar with these incidents, from 2014 to around 2016, residents in Flint, Michigan were consuming water that was polluted with lead. This occurred due to the negligence and carelessness of the local government, which failed to treat and test the river water. The Flint River, which was the major source of drinking water, was polluted due to the high industrial usage along its coasts and was also polluted by agricultural usage, sewage from the waste plants, and even pollutants from the nearby landfills. This incident caused health issues among the residents, and incredible levels of lead were found in consumers, including the city’s children. Something similar occurred in Jackson, Mississippi, and this issue is ongoing even today. The issues of busted pipes during cold-winter days, and the leakage of sewage among other things, were listed as the cause of the Jackson water crisis. In both these cities, many of the residents are people of color, and this has larger racial implications for the issues of access to clean and fresh water (which will be covered in later parts of this series).
Average Water Consumption
Source: Yahoo Images
All this does not even include the wasteful nature of water consumption that we in the Western nations have normalized. To put things into perspective, for each minute we spend showering, we are using 2.5 gallons of water. So, for a 10-minute shower, that is 25 gallons of water that are used. Each time we flush the toilet, we use 1.6 gallons of water, with older toilets taking as much as 3.5 gallons a flush (or even 5-7 gallons a flush for toilets made before 1985). When washing clothes in the washer, Americans use over 40 gallons of water per load. Washing dishes by hand uses another 20 gallons of water per load while washing dishes in an efficient dishwasher uses around 4 gallons. This does not include the water that is used to water the lawn, household plants, or other uses like cooking food and cleaning the house.
Negligent Water Practices – Sewage Systems, Bottled Water, and Environmental Water Disasters
Our waterways are not only impacted by chemical leaks and our water consumption but also by the way we process our human wastes and that of our livestock. Agricultural runoffs happen when sediments containing chemicals, bacteria, and manure runoff into the nearby waterways from heavy rains and flooding, causing an increase of nitrogen and phosphorous in the waters. Too much nitrogen and phosphorous in the waters can be very harmful to marine life because these elements cause an increase in algae growth, a process known as eutrophication. This may not seem so bad, but too many algae in the water can block the sunlight and oxygen from reaching the organisms on the bottom layer of the water. This in turn leads to hypoxia, a condition where the oxygen levels in the water decrease and can cause the death of many marine organisms. Similar to agricultural runoffs, human sewage also has high levels of nitrogen and phosphorous, and any leaks from sewage treatment facilities and other industrial factories that use similar chemicals can further threaten marine biology. For more information about water insecurity in America and how the sewage system exacerbates this issue, click here.
Another wasteful practice we engage in as humans are our production and consumption of bottled water. For one, the process used to make single-use plastic water bottles releases over 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide into the environment every year. Additionally, the process uses 17 million barrels of oil to meet the consumer demands for these plastic bottles. After consumption, the water bottles are rarely recycled, resulting in the addition of 38 billion water bottles to landfills. 10% of all discarded plastics end up in the ocean, a threat to aquatic life. Furthermore, consuming water from plastic bottles comes with its own health consequences, including the bioaccumulation of microplastics in our systems. Many companies also use a type of plastic (#7) that contains bisphenol A (BPA), which has many health concerns associated with them, including diabetes, heart conditions, developmental issues, and fertility issues, and can even lead to cancer. This type of plastic is actually banned in many nations around the world but is still allowed in the US.
In addition to all these issues, the water bottle industry is also a perpetrator of human rights violations, with Aquafina, Dasani, and Nestle, being the largest water bottling companies in the world. Bottling companies transform a free, naturally available resource, into a profit-making commodity. In the process, they are actually harming the water sources in the locations in which their manufacturing and bottling occur, forcing the people that live in those areas to consume bottled water, not as a choice, but as the only source of clean water available to them. For those who cannot afford water bottles, water insecurity becomes a daily reality from which they cannot escape. The insidious part of this issue is the fact that many of these bottling factories exist outside of Western nations, in countries such as India, Fiji, and other underdeveloped nations in which the residents cannot (or do not have the resources) to fight back against these corporations, an approach that can only be characterized as environmental racism. For those factories that do exist within Western nations, they are predominantly located near neighborhoods of color. The CEO of Nestlé faced backlash in 2013 for announcing that water is not a human right, but a product to be privatized and sold. This privatization of water denies these local communities the right to use the resource for their own residential, industrial, and infrastructural use, and further exacerbates their conditions of poverty and water insecurity.
Anthropogenic (caused by humans) activities have caused many of our ecosystem services to be polluted, including our water sources. We as humans have allowed many chemicals to leak into the waterways, sewage, and other waste products to run off into the streams and have done a poor job taking care of our groundwater, aqueducts, and aquafers. There has been recent news of chemicals from the train derailment in Ohio entering the waterways and causing local residents to become sick. Last year, there was a story about the US military leaking jet fuel, contaminating the waterways in Hawaii. Much of the nuclear waste we produce gets stored in containers underground, and these containers cannot hold radioactive waste for too long. At times the contents seep out, polluting the groundwater. The Ogallala Aquifer, one of the world’s largest aquifers that serves much of Central America, has been threatened by the installment of the Keystone XL pipeline, which is an oil pipeline, that if it bursts, can pollute the entire aquifer, contaminating the water used by people across eight states. These are just some of many incidents in that we as humanity have failed to protect our naturally occurring ecosystem services, which, if we had to recreate, would cost us trillions and trillions of dollars.
Water is a Human Right
Source: Yahoo Images; An image of the water cycle
Along with food, water is also listed as a human right in Article 25 of the UDHR. Although water is considered a renewable resource, it is a limited one. The reason water is considered a renewable resource is because of the water cycle, which is the various steps of a cycle the water goes through, (evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and runoff) that recycle the water that we use. Evaporation happens from the major bodies of water, when the heat transforms the liquid water into a gaseous form. Transpiration happens in forests and plants, when water moves through the plant into the atmosphere, to move nutrients and cool the parts of the plants that are exposed to the sun. Condensation occurs when the water evaporated into the air ends up filling up the clouds, changing the water vapors into a liquid form again. Precipitation is what comes next when the collected vapors fall back onto the ground, such as rain, snow, or ice. This precipitation is dispersed in many ways, from the waterways to the land. Finally, runoff refers to the water flow on the surface level, below the surface level, or even into the depths of the Earth. Simply put, runoff is water that has not been soaked into the soil. Yet, while on paper, water seems to be a renewable resource, in practice, water is polluted in many ways. Due to the current human lifestyles, clean water has become a limited resource, and our continued negligence on this subject will only exacerbate this issue.
The Threat of Water Wars and Water as a Human Right
Climate change is impacting everyone around the world, but disproportionately. The Global North benefits from an abundance of resources while the Global South, in many ways due to the history of imperialism, suffers the consequences of the Global North’s actions. Many people in the Global South face water insecurity on a daily basis, and this will only get worse as the Earth continues to warm up. By 2030, many countries in the warmest parts of the world will be uninhabitable. Apart from this, due to the rising temperatures, many of the bodies of water on Earth are drying up, further exacerbating the water issues already present. There are already feuds between China and India over the Brahmaputra River, one of the largest rivers in Asia.
One way to personally address this issue is to be mindful of our water usage. Yet, this alone will not be enough to address this problem on such a large scale. Countries around the world have to come together and find creative solutions to ensure that clean water is made accessible to everyone equally. This can be done through strategies that incorporate green infrastructure. In doing so, the strategies used to address these issues need to be inclusive of everyone, including being respectful of Native Americans and their many uses of water. Additionally, access to clean water does not just mean the ability to have clean water but it should also be affordable, regardless of where you live. In fact, water is one of those essential needs for every human being, and as a result, should be free, or nearly free to everyone. Finally, everyone should be educated on the various uses of water, and the need to maintain its cleanliness.
March 21st marks World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD). On this day, events take place worldwide to raise awareness, promote inclusivity, encourage advocacy, and support people with Down syndrome. This day carries a lot of importance for individuals with Down syndrome as it creates a platform for their voice, which is often unheard of. This year’s WDSD focuses on campaigning for the right to legal capacity, with the slogan “With Us Not for Us.” Every year the United Nations holds a conference for WDSD, which will be hosted in New York this year. The goal for each meeting is to identify and speak on key issues that affect people with Down syndrome, call for action, and inclusive policymaking. Since 2011, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has designated this day to raise awareness about the struggles and successes of individuals with Down syndrome.
Yahoo Images
History of WDSD
At every WDSD conference, individuals with Down syndrome and other disabilities, activists, and UN and government officials consider different ways to help the Down syndrome community. WDSD gives power and a voice to people with Down syndrome, enabling them to speak on the changes they want and providing guidance to how we collectively, as a global community, can help. Past themes of WDSD have supported inclusion, acceptance, and freedom for all individuals with disabilities. All too often, individuals with any form of disability are deemed unfit or incapable of being independent due to a lack of awareness and understanding, which is why this day is immensely important. Down Syndrome affects 3,000-5,000 newborns every year, which is caused when newborns have an extra copy of chromosome 21. Their struggles begin from the moment they are born. People with Down syndrome are not always accepted, particularly in societies that have strong stigmas against medical problems.
Legal capacity
Every year, the WDSD conferences promote different aspects that individuals with Down Syndrome face, this year’s WDSD conference focused on the right to legal capacity and decision-making. People with Down syndrome are often not given the right to make their own life decisions. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) protects this right, but the sad reality is that it is often ignored. Legal capacity is critical for people with Down syndrome, as without it, they have no authority to make decisions on:
This is a prevalent issue. Rather than having protection from governments or their families, people with Down syndrome are often considered mentally incompetent and incapable of making their own decisions. Governments and judicial areas within countries are responsible for ensuring that people with Down syndrome have the right to legal capacity and the proper protection and support.
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Struggles
All over the world, people with Down Syndrome are treated unjustly. They are denied proper education, healthcare, and employment opportunities and are often ignored, unable to make decisions about their lives. These struggles are pervasive, affecting developing countries and modern, progressive westernized countries. In 2019, Bassel Dib, a man with Down syndrome, was dismissed from an internationally recognized gym chain, Golds Gym, in Amman, Jordan. He was kicked because the owner did not want someone with a visible disability to ruin the gym’s prestige. The owner is a well-known member of the Jordanian parliament who has been able to get away with discrimination on multiple occasions by leveraging his status and powerful connections within the Jordanian government. Common stigmas and stereotypes surrounding people with Down syndrome prevent them from accessing specific opportunities, places, and decision-making power.
Successes
Despite these injustices, there are many inspiring success stories of people with Down syndrome. For instance, Bassel has been able to go to college, compete in the Special Olympics on the Jordanian national team, and now aspires to become a bodybuilder. Sofia Jirau made history as Victoria’s Secret’s first model with Down syndrome. Chelsea Werner, a special Olympic gymnast that has now become a successful model, was a four-time U.S. national championship winner in gymnastics and has modeled on the cover of Vogue and New York Fashion Week. John Tucker, also a man with Down syndrome, starred in the Emmy-winning series “Born This Way.” This series features seven young people with Down syndrome and follows their lives as they look for employment and housing while overcoming societal obstacles. These are just a few success stories of people with Down syndrome. Numerous other achievements exist, from small unknown advancements to big, publicized ones. The important thing is that every single one of them has been able to break societal barriers and achieve their dreams.
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What can you do
The most significant problem for people with Down syndrome is the lack of equal opportunities. We can work towards addressing this issue by educating ourselves, our peers, friends, and families. It is crucial to constantly be aware of issues preventing people with Down syndrome from accessing their full independence and power. Together, we can collectively create positive change and ensure that people with Down syndrome are given the same attention, opportunities, and power as everyone else.
Additional information
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Source: Yahoo Images; An image of Earth from space.
There is a common misconception among people that environmental rights are necessary, but they have nothing to do with human rights. Some consider environmental rights as something that is another genre of human rights, not recognizing that without the environment, we as humans seize to exist. Human rights are dependent on the environment, and we can address many environmental rights issues to bring about a better world for all those who live on this green and blue planet that we call home. In this sense, environmental rights ARE human rights, and taking a human rights approach to addressing these environmental rights can close the gaps of inequality between the Global North and the Global South countries. I am dedicating a series to deep dive into this human rights approach to environmental rights, starting with how food, water, and air, the essential needs for all living things, can be transformed with a human rights approach to address some of the most egregious practices in these fields.
Food insecurity, food shortages, and healthy food consumption in general
Source: Yahoo Images; Community gardens are a great way to grow food locally, teach young kids how to grow their own food, and respect nature, but also a great way to strengthen the community.
Food Insecurity
The issue of food insecurity is widespread in many nations worldwide, and it has only increased due to the supply-chain issues that were experienced during the pandemic. While many of the nations that face food insecurity are from the Global South, it is just as prevalent in America, one of the richest nations in the world. For more on food insecurity in America, check out this blog.
Community Gardens
One way to address this issue with a human rights approach would be to encourage the cultivation of community gardens locally to avoid supply chain issues. This would alleviate the issue of transporting the necessary products to and from places (reducing the carbon emissions in the process), provide jobs to local community members, and even cut down costs for the produce. Furthermore, members in charge of taking care of the community gardens would be trained on how to avoid the use of harmful pesticides that are known to cause health issues in humans. These chemicals are not only harmful to humans, but they are also causing bees and other pollinators to go extinct. These pollinators are largely responsible for producing crops around the world, and without them, we would have to engineer mechanical pollinators or manually perform the pollination process, both of which would cost a lot of time, energy, and money.
Alternate forms of Agriculture – Hydroponics
Source: Yahoo Images; Benefits of Hydroponics are listed on this infographic. These benefits propose that this method does not require soil, saves water, produces higher yields and faster growth, produces less disease, and requires less pesticide use.
For those communities that do not have rich soil, they can use the technology of greenhouses and other indoor cultivation technology to meet their needs. In fact, there are three types of indoor farming that are currently common in the agricultural industry – aquaponics, aeroponics, and hydroponics. Hydroponics eliminates the need for rich soils by making use of water and a mixture of liquid nutrients to supplement the plants’ needs as they grow. This technique can be used for everyday households and industrial-level agriculture, and it has quite a lot of benefits for the environment as well. For one, it uses less water than traditional agricultural practices, and it does not require soil, so it is not impacted by conditions of soil erosion. It also yields greater produce and eliminates the need for pesticides and herbicides which in turn make the crops safer for consumption and reduces the risk of health issues as a result. Also, plants can grow almost twice as fast as the ones that are grown in soil.
Alternate forms of Agriculture – Aeroponics
Source: Yahoo Images; An image of an aeroponics system that makes use of an air pump and the laws of gravity to produce crops.
Another indoor cultivation system is Aeroponics. Aeroponics uses water and a mixture of liquid nutrients like hydroponics, but in this technique, the roots are suspended in the air and are misted on a timer to keep them from drying out. This requires a lot of technical precision and uses a lot of energy. While it is a technique that utilizes a lot of energy, according to NASA, it also reduces the use of water (similar to hydroponics) by 98%, and pesticide use by 100%, and still maximizes the yields these crops produce. Additionally, plants grown using this technique have added health benefits, as they absorb more minerals and vitamins. Some setbacks to this method are the fact that this technique needs experts who can monitor the plants and the pH levels of the air. This method is also vulnerable to electrical shortages and requires a lot of advanced technologies to perform successfully, and yield crops. As a result, it is very expensive to initially set it up.
Alternate forms of Agriculture – Aquaponics
Source: Yahoo Images; An image depicting how fishes are incorporated into the aquaponics method. Fish waste is used to fertilize plants, as the waste is broken down using microbes and worms.
Finally, Aquaponics is another indoor cultivation technique that has become popular today. Similar to hydroponics, aquaponics also has a reservoir where the plants are stored, yet in aquaponics, the reservoir also contains fish. Instead of using a mixture of liquid nutrients, the fishes provide those nutrients naturally to the plants. This may sound a bit strange, but the ammonia that is released by the fishes (particularly their feces) gets converted into nitrates which provide nutrition for the plants. One thing to be careful of when using this method is to constantly check on the ammonia levels, because really high levels of ammonia will actually end up killing the fish. Other than that, the whole process takes about 6 months for the plants and fishes to form their own ecosystem that can operate without much maintenance or monitoring. There are also many benefits to using this system, including the fact that you are able to cultivate plants and fish, two food sources instead of one. Due to the fact that the water is recycled through natural processes, this method does not waste any water, and there is no need for chemicals to upkeep the plants either. The fishes provide all the nutrients that the plants need, so there is no need to top off any liquid nutrients like in the other two methods, saving a lot of money in the long run. This method is great for the environment, and because it has its own ecosystem, it is also sustainable on its own. Of course, with this method, in the winter, the reservoir needs to be kept warm, so that the water and all the fish and plants do not die off from the cold. It also requires the monitoring of pH levels like the aeroponics method does, and since this method uses fish, it requires that you know how to take care of the fish for the greatest success.
These are just some ways to address the need for better food-producing systems, as well as the elimination of harmful chemicals within our produce. As an added bonus, these systems use less water than traditional farming techniques, produce greater yields, and are healthier for consumption, all while taking up less space than farming on a field.
Wasteful Practices – GMOs and Food Waste
Source: Yahoo Images; So much food is wasted due to uneaten food, or excess yields of crops, and ends up being thrown out into landfills.
Additionally, a wasteful practice that the current agricultural companies invest in is the selling of genetically modified seeds known as “terminator seeds“. These are seeds that are genetically modified to yield crops for only a single generation. This means that the seed cannot reproduce again, and the farmers have to continue to buy new seeds every year. This is an attempt by Big Agricultural companies like Monsanto to increase their profit margins. This greedy practice on the part of Monsanto and other Agricultural companies, replace the natural, sustainable regrowth of crops to ensure that the farmers have to continue to purchase new seeds from the companies instead of using the seeds that are yielded with their crop. This practice is egregious, and addressing this is yet another way to ensure that we promote the natural functions of our environment.
Food waste is another major issue that we face in today’s society. As discussed above, food insecurity is an issue that impacts over 34 million Americans today. Hence, it is unfortunate to find out how much food is wasted in this nation, whether it is unused food, crops left unharvested due to price drops or abundance of crops in the market, or even supply chain issues. Residential consumers in homes and those in restaurants and other stores that sell produce may not be able to sell all the products they have available, especially if the produce does not appear to be picture-perfect. Farmers may not harvest many of their crops if there is an abundance of the crop they have grown in the market that season, wasting the produce that was grown but never made it to the market. As we saw during the pandemic, supply chain issues can cause a lot of food waste as well. Many farmers had to waste their crop yields as they had no way to transport these products to the local grocery stores. Many industries halted during the pandemic, making the products they produced go to waste. Every year, 40% of the food available to Americans ends up being wasted. This is painfully wasteful, especially when we consider how many people across the world, including children, go hungry every day.
Conditions in Meat and Dairy Farms
Source: Yahoo Images; Dairy farms are a cruel way to treat animals, and many of the animals live under unsanitary conditions.
For those who are meat eaters, having a few local farms provide the meat you consume (with regulations of course) can ensure that your meat is not contaminated and that the livestock was treated in ethical ways. Currently, the meat industry produces in bulk, and their practices are cruel and inhumane toward their livestock. Chickens and pigs are forcibly held in cages barely enough for them to stand in, and they live their lives inside these cages stacked on top of each other to save space. This means that they are urinating and defecating on top of each other, which is not only unsanitary and inhumane, but it can also cause the animals to develop diseases and illnesses. Additionally, cows that are not raised on grazing land are usually held in large factory farms, where they are used as dairy cows until they can no longer produce milk, in which case, they are sent to be slaughtered for meat. Certain practices used today, like genetically modifying cows to produce more milk outside of their normal milk-production periods, can lead to an increase in health risks for these animals as well.
These practices are cruel and inhumane, and they are also very bad for the environment. Not only do these farm animals add to the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases present in our atmosphere, but their wastes are also polluting the nearby waterways, making the water unsafe for the locals who live near these factory farms. All this cruelty and unsanitary conditions also carry over when these animals are slaughtered and distributed for mass consumption by companies like Tyson. During the pandemic, there were many reports about the unsafe and unsanitary conditions for the workers inside these meat distribution companies, and stories went viral of contaminated meat with fingernails and other disturbing elements found inside the meat packages. Many of the workers within these meat packaging factories actually lost their lives due to the companies’ negligence regarding their workers’ safety during the pandemic.
Food is a Human Right
Source: Yahoo Images
Food is a necessity for all human beings, regardless of who you are, or where you live. The type of cuisine you prefer may vary from region to region, from culture to culture, and from one environment to the next, but the fact still remains that every human being needs to eat to survive. By definition, food is a human right, and this is indicated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) under Article 25. Though this article does not specify this detail, it should be the right to healthy and nutritious food, rather than the generalized term food. This minor change in language would ensure that higher regulations are maintained on food and agricultural industries and eliminate harmful chemicals and ingredients within our food sources. There is an unequal distribution of food just like there is an unequal distribution of wealth and wages across the world. These food shortages can be addressed using these various techniques of indoor farming and community gardens, while safer produce can be cultivated by avoiding the use of pesticides and herbicides. Livestock can be treated more humanely instead of being stuffed in factory farms, and there needs to be a shift from a mindset of profit to a mindset of proficiency within these food industries.
This is one blog out of a series of blogs that will focus on how environmental rights are human rights. The next installation of this series will focus on how water is a human right, and how issues surrounding access to clean water can be addressed with a human rights approach.
Naturally, many human rights violations and atrocities leave one wondering, “What can I do to ensure these violations do not happen again?” Unfortunately, however, many don’t know how to help to support human rights and a lot of information online is convoluted. This in turn causes charities and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which seek to promote humanitarian efforts, to often get overshadowed by bad news.
In this blog, I will share notable charities and initiatives that one could support in an effort to make a difference in the world.
Human Rights Watch
(source: yahoo images)
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an organization that investigates and reports on human rights violations and atrocities throughout the world. The advocacy of Human Rights Watch, as said by them, is directed towards “governments, armed groups and businesses, pushing them to change or enforce their laws, policies and practices.”
Moreover, Human Rights Watch does not accept any sort of funding from the government or corporations, as they seek to remain unbiased and bipartisan. The organization is complied of over 400 lawyers and human rights experts, and they would be a great organization to help out with donations.
Human Rights Watch prides itself on its transparency in its affairs, and it was thus awarded the Guidestar Platinum Seal of Transparency, an award given by an organization that “gathers, organizes, and distributes information about U.S nonprofits in an effort to advance transparency, enable users to make better decisions, and encourage charitable giving.”
Moreover, if that was not enough to show you the commitment of Human Rights Watch, allow us to make note that in 1997, they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for helping create the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty — a piece of legislation that brought about newfound protection to citizens from bombs which previously “killed and maimed indiscriminately.”
Therefore, with all of the aforementioned facts in mind, donating to Human Rights Watch would be a sure way in bringing about change and ensuring that human rights violations get exposed, lessened, and stopped.
Amnesty International
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Amnesty International is one of the most influential and famous nongovernmental organizations in the world. Amnesty International, simply put, could be defined by its mission statement: “[we are] a global movement of more than 10 million people who take injustice personally. We are campaigning for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all.” Amnesty International, like Human Rights Watch, is primarily funded by its supporters – not governments or political institutions.
Moreover, Amnesty International is both unbiased and bipartisan – they simply just seek to ensure all people enjoy human rights. Amnesty International functions by lobbying governments to ensure they keep their promises and passions for human rights; investigate and expose all violations that occur in the world, despite of where or what might have happened; and seek to educate and mobilize all people who wish to learn more about human rights.
Amnesty International was founded more than 50 years ago when the owner, Peter Benenson, saw two Portuguese students jailed for raising a toast to freedom in 1961. Since then, Amnesty International has been one of the most prominent and respected NGOs on the scene, and they have accomplished a lot.
In just 2022 alone, Amnesty International has helped free individuals who were imprisoned unjustly and ensured that human rights abusers got locked up. Moreover, Amnesty International was a driving force behind the decriminalization of Abortion in Colombia. Needless to say, Amnesty International’s impact, passion, and dedication to human rights is incredibly influential, and donating to their cause would definitely help bring about good changes.
Human Rights First
(source: yahoo images)
Human Rights First (HRF) was established in 1978, with the mission of “[ensuring] that the United States is a global leader on human rights.” Human Rights First is centered in the United States, but it conducts a multitude of work abroad to ensure that “human wrongs are righted.”
Human Rights First has been involved in a lot of international political affairs which sought to eradicate injustice and, as they put it, human wrongs. For instance, in 1988, Human Rights First initiated its Lawyer-to-Lawyer network, which was an initiative that helped ensure all lawyers that have been imprisoned unjustly internationally are released. As of now, the program has worked with over 8000 lawyers in over 130 countries.
In addition to helping create the International Criminal Court, Human Rights First also helped establish the Fair Labor Association in 1999. This Association brought together over 60 major companies, such as Nike and Adidas, to help set workplace standards for industries throughout the world. In doing so, Human Rights First helped ensure that those who work for major international companies are not going to face hardships or disparity in their workplace environment.
Human Rights First, in addition to all that has been mentioned, has been a major actor in the anti-torture movement. In 2009, Human Rights First stood beside President Obama when he signed the executive order banning all torture in the United States. Then, in 2015, Human Rights First sought to make Obama’s order even more powerful and impactful. After the release of the Torture Report, Human Rights First was able to gain public support and then work with Senators McCain and Feinstein to craft what they consider to be the “strongest anti-torture law in U.S. history.”
Needless to say, Human Rights First is an incredibly dedicated, driven, and successful organization, which has had years of successful changes in the world of human rights. You definitely would not go wrong by donating or supporting them.
Summary
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In summary, human rights is a very complicated topic that is often convoluted and hard to understand through the media. Due to this, many do not always know what is the best way to donate and help out, despite wanting to. In this blog, I have listed multiple different organizations that have a proven history of success and change, and I thus hope to have made the process of getting involved in human rights easier.
If more people are involved in human rights, more change will happen, and more people internationally will have access to these same rights. It is my hope that, one day, human rights will be as accessible to everyone on this planet as oxygen is. This will only happen with support, and that is exactly what I hope to have urged you to do in this blog — support the NGOs which fight for human rights.
These past few weeks, we have focused on the broader struggles that people with disabilities face in America. We also looked into the American Education system and explored the many obstacles children with disabilities face within it. This was a much-needed topic to explore, yet I recognize the heaviness and feelings of despair that can follow after reading such a blog series. So, in order to provide some hope, as well as meaningful resources to those struggling with these issues, I have compiled a list of local non-profit organizations that focus on providing services to children (and adults) with disabilities and their families. These organizations provide various services, including places to destress and socialize, and range from serving individuals with both physical disabilities and invisible disabilities. Please take a few minutes to look through this blog and find the resources that you or someone you know might benefit from.
Intellectual Disabilities and Neurodivergence
Oftentimes, people with invisible disabilities can be overlooked by their teachers, peers, and community members because their disability is not “obvious”. Many people with intellectual or learning disabilities struggle to have their needs met because people are either dismissive of them or completely refuse their lived experiences altogether. Navigating through life with an invisible disability can be difficult, especially for younger children, but there are resources in the local Birmingham area that can help children with invisible disabilities as well as their caregivers better prepare for their future. Some of the resources below address developmental needs, and workplace readiness, and offer a sense of community for both children and adults with intellectual and learning disabilities, while others focus on people with a range of disabilities of all ages.
Source: Yahoo Images
Mitchell’s Place
Located in two locations, (Southside, and Birmingham), Mitchell’s Place is a non-profit organization that works with children who may be on the autism spectrum. They provide research-based resources for children with disabilities and their family members. For parents and caregivers of children with disabilities, Mitchell’s Place provides education and resources on how to provide the best care for those under their care. They also provide many resources for children, such as helping them develop social skills, helping with feeding, speech, and occupational therapy, providing both psychological and psychiatric resources, and also early learning opportunities for preschool-aged children. Established in 2005 by parents who were unable to find resources for their child with autism, Mitchell’s Place has served over 2500 families and prides itself on being a supporter of diversity, equity, and inclusion. For those interested, their Southside location can be found at 2305 Arlington Rd. Birmingham AL, 35204, and the other one is located at 4778 Overton Rd. Birmingham, AL 35210.
The Arc of Central Alabama
The Arc of Central Alabama (ACA) is another great resource for people of all ages with intellectual and learning disabilities (IDD). Supporting individuals throughout Jefferson County and Blount County, the ACA is Alabama’s largest provider of disability services and prides itself on being the only non-reject program in the state. This means that as long as referrals follow the proper channel, no individual is rejected from being part of the program. A local chapter of The Arc of Alabama and the larger Arc of the United States, the ACA also serves as a crisis center for individuals with IDD, providing a safe space for individuals and their families in times of need. The ACA caters to individuals of all ages, and its various programs focus on these different age groups. Their early intervention programs provide support for infants and toddlers with IDD, along with education and resources for their caretakers and families. Their employment support program trains high school-age students with IDD to help them find better employment opportunities when they are ready to enter the job market. The residential programs focus on providing a safe space for adults of all ages, and a newer adolescent unit has also been created to address the growing needs within the Central Alabama region. Finally, their Community Day programs cater to adults of all ages, providing them with opportunities to socialize and engage with others within their community and develop daily living skills, from balancing their finances to helping with hygienic needs. These programs are tailored to each individual based on their needs, necessities, abilities, and interests. In addition to all these programs, the ACA also empowers its members by providing them with training in advocacy work, focusing on educating the public, following state and federal policies (and funding), and providing them avenues to advocate for their needs and rights. With four locations across Central Alabama – Birmingham, Blountsville, Cleveland, and Irondale – and lifelong opportunities for care and support, the ACA is an accessible and reliable resource for many across this region.
Source: Yahoo Images
The HANDS program/ the Alabama Autism Assistance Program (AAAP)
Another resource for children with neurodivergent disabilities is the HANDS program, or the Alabama Autism Assistance Program (AAAP). This non-profit organization provides many services, including therapy (both clinical and home sessions), school services, summer programs for early childhood development, and also seasonal services. Their therapy services are individually catered based on assessments of the child’s needs, in which they provide two-hour, one on one sessions by licensed therapists that track the child’s progress to provide the best resources. Their school services provide additional support during the school year in both academics and behavioral areas. Their summer programs provide a structured environment for children to socialize, learn and play with peers and their seasonal services offer support for children interested in sports. For children with disabilities, socializing with peers can be stressful, so having a safe environment to be able to socialize and make friends can help them become more confident individuals in the future.
Alabama Easterseals Society
With over 50 facilities nationwide and 12 facilities throughout Alabama, the Easterseals Society was founded in 1934 to raise funds to provide services to people with disabilities and advocate for their “right to live a normal life.” The organization challenges the narrative around disability as a burden and instead focuses on empowering individuals with disabilities with skills and resources. They have services for pediatric rehabilitation, which include speech therapy, feeding therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. They provide services for workforce development, such as career classes which provide training for specific careers, and summer internships to prepare high schoolers for the job market. They also have recreational opportunities, with an emphasis on camping, which can be very therapeutic and great for your mental health. As with the ACA, the Easterseals also have an advocacy element, which spreads awareness about disability rights, supports the passage of legislation centered around disability rights, and provides the space to conduct solution-based workshops within their local communities. They provide additional assistance for elderly people with disabilities, veterans, and caregivers, with both resources and recreational opportunities. Some locations (such as the one in Tuscaloosa) even provide transportation services for those who are unable to drive themselves to work and other places.
Transportation Help
Source: Yahoo Images
Of the many challenges that people with disabilities face, transportation is a key issue. Many people with disabilities who can drive require specially tailored vehicles to fit their needs, while others who are unable to drive have to depend on family members, friends, or community volunteers to help them get from one place to another. Due to the fact that many people with disabilities have to visit their healthcare professionals regularly, this can be especially challenging. ClasTrans, (which stands for Central Alabama’s Specialized Transit) serves people with disabilities within Jefferson and Shelby counties who require transportation to various places, including medical appointments, grocery stores, entertainment venues, and so much more. This service is available for those living in urban and rural areas, and they can plan their trips ahead of time to know exactly what they can expect for the day. ClasTrans drivers also provide riders with assistance during the ride, including boarding the vehicle and transferring into their seats. ClasTrans is available for elderly members and those who are able to verify their disability status. While the services are not for free, their rates are affordable, with one-way trips starting at $4. Regular riders can also purchase fare credits, which they can pay ahead of time to avoid carrying exact change on their person each time they use the service.
Therapeutic and Recreational Opportunities
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Red Barn
An organization focused on incorporating Equine Assisted Services for low-income children with disabilities, Red Barn was founded in 2012 to serve the children in their local community. Equine Assisted Services (EAS) is a professional field of collaborative services that incorporate interaction with horses into therapy, learning, and development for children with disabilities. EAS has three areas of focus: Horsemanship, Therapy, and Learning. Horsemanship deals with activities such as learning how to ride a horse, taking care of the horses, and participating in other equine-related sports and activities. These services are conducted by specially trained individuals who are licensed to provide this training. The second focus of EAS, therapy, deals with counseling services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychotherapy, and speech-language pathology. All these therapy options are equine-based, incorporating interaction with horses and equine discipline within these sessions, which are led by licensed therapists. Finally, their third focus, learning, centers on equine-assisted learning in education (such as learning life skills, academic skills, and character development), organization (such as learning team-building skills, leadership skills, and participating in group activities), and development (such as learning skills pertaining to problem-solving, decision making, critical thinking, and communication). For children with disabilities, learning and developing while caring for horses can be a powerful, healthy way to become strong, independent members of their community. It can help encourage them to explore new avenues of interest and expand their opportunities for employment and life fulfillment.
Exceptional Foundation
Founded in 1999, the Exceptional Foundation provides children (and adults) with disabilities with social and recreational opportunities that allow individuals in the Greater Birmingham region to engage with others on a socio-emotional level. At first, the Exceptional Foundation began meeting at the Homewood Park and Recreation Center but later grew to include a gym, office space, youth center, and other spaces to provide recreational opportunities for their members. Today, the Exceptional Foundation has branched out to include much of Alabama and even parts of Georgia, following the same foundations laid out by the Birmingham facility. They offer many afterschool and summer programs for their youth, including sports events (to both participate in and attend), clubs, and other activities to provide enrichment such as art and music lessons. For adults, there are a variety of daily activities that are offered, including cooking classes, dancing lessons, music classes, gym time, art classes, field trips, and many more. While many of the resources listed above focus on advocacy, education, and support, this organization provides the space for entertainment and enjoyment, encouraging a fulfilling lifestyle for its members. For many people with disabilities, recreational activities can be stressful, and opportunities can be rare. Having the space to engage with others and learn together can help improve social skills and life skills, and can foster a sense of community.
Resources for people with multiple disabilities and or sensory disabilities
Source: Yahoo Images
United Ability
Established in 1948 by concerned citizens, United Ability began as a place to offer help and resources for people with cerebral palsy. As it grew and expanded, United Ability became a place that offers a full spectrum of services for all people with various disabilities and prides itself as being the place that connects people with disabilities to their larger community.
They provide early learning and early intervention programs for children, that focus on encouraging children to learn, grow, and develop alongside other children, while also providing their families with the help and resources they may need. Additionally, United Ability provides a clinic that focuses on meeting the medical needs of individuals with disabilities, which includes various forms of therapy, evaluations, assessments, and any technical assistance they may need. Furthermore, they also provide adult programs for recreation and enrichment and even offer employment services to adults with disabilities. This includes their United Ability Enterprise, a large umbrella under which many people with physical, developmental, and intellectual disabilities are employed. The businesses under this umbrella include Gone for Good, an off-site paper shredding company, as well as Outsource Solutions, a company that offers a variety of projects, including sorting items, housekeeping needs, mailroom needs, and more. It is located in Birmingham for those who are interested in the organization.
Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind
One of the most respected institutions in the world for its all-inclusive approach, the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB) spans all over Alabama, with campuses in Talladega, Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville, Decatur, Montgomery, Opelika, and more. It was founded in 1858, by Dr. Joseph Henry Johnson, and his brother was among the first 21 hearing-impaired students he served that year. In 1932, AIDB was responsible for a project that employed 10 visually impaired seamstresses, a project that laid the foundations for the Alabama Industries for the Blind, Alabama’s largest employer of visually impaired individuals. Similarly, in 1968, a trade school for visually impaired individuals and audio-impaired individuals was created to provide adults who did not want to (or could not) attend college with the necessary skills to enter the job market. The AIDB provides services for visually impaired individuals, audio-impaired individuals, and those with multiple disabilities. AIDB serves children, as young as infants and toddlers, to adults of all ages, including seniors with sensory disabilities. Among the many services they offer is aiding children with sensory disabilities in schools. They focus on education and rehabilitation and provide a variety of services, including early intervention for children, and counseling, interpretation, and transportation for individuals of all ages.
Finally, students with disabilities that attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) are provided with support through the Disability Support Services (DSS) program. Some of the services provided are note-takers, sign-language interpreters, transportation around campus for mobility-impaired individuals, and specifically catered support such as time extensions on tests and assignments. UAB also provides ramps and sidewalk cuts for easy access to those using a wheelchair or walkers, and many accessible parking spots at the Hill Center for visitors. UAB empowers its students to advocate for themselves and provides the necessary support they need to have a pleasant educational experience.
In May 2020, I sat at the dinner table with my family breaking our fast for Ramadan as we heard our home country was still facing many hardships. Being Palestinian, I am constantly surrounded by news notifications and Instagram posts explaining the horrors of many lives, but for some reason, that night, I felt a different wave of emotions as I saw my friends post about their families and neighbors’ villages being bombed, indicating that my family’s village was under attack. Three years later, the feeling still lingers, echoing the struggles faced by my ancestors since Al-Nakba in 1948. Every year during Ramadan, which is the holy month for millions of Muslims around the world, I reflect on the safety of our homes midst of breaking our fasts while millions in Palestine struggle to protect themselves under Israeli occupation, not just in Ramadan, but since the first Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948. The Palestinian struggle has persisted through generations, yet it continues to be brushed off by many influential international figures.
The images and events that took place in Al-Aqsa shocked the United Nations and many nations around the world. Turkey is among the few countries to come out and condemn Israel’s actions. The Arab League has urged the UN Security Council to intervene and stop the hate crimes, while other countries such as Jordan, Egypt, and Qatar have expressed their support for Palestine.
Amnesty International has documented the experiences faced by Palestinians during these attacks. Shadi, a 17-year-old, stated: “Twice I tried to raise my head, and both times [the police] beat me with the butt of their guns on my head […] you are not allowed to raise your head. I was hurting all over my body from the beatings and the bruises… what I went through does not even compare to the beatings others faced.”
The Palestinian Struggle
The Palestinian struggle has existed since 1948, with conditions deteriorating over time. Palestinians continue to live under an apartheid regime. Amnesty International noted through its past investigations that the Israeli forces enforce systems of oppression, domination, and control against Palestinians. Despite some portraying the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a “two-sided” issue or a “religious war,” it requires the two sides to be on equal stance, for it is an equal fight. In reality, this is a one-sided conflict, where Israel possesses the weapons and Palestinians to live under its occupation. Since the Gulf War, Israel has implemented economic and political sanctions that are evident to this day. These sanctions include road blockades to prevent Palestinians from entering Israeli territories, controlled city borders, and different governmental statuses based on ethnicity. There is no explanation or justification that could be presented for the mistreatment of Palestinians. Along with Amnesty International, many countries and activists have called for the condemnation of Israel and for the International Community to take action to address the situation.
There have been efforts to enact peace plans and promote a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, these talks often leave out the most critical voice, that of the Palestinians. The latter is impossible to achieve if Israel is not held accountable and faced with consequences for its actions in international courts. Peace cannot be reached as long as Palestinians continue to face disposition and displacement and live under constant control and occupation.
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Human Rights Violations
There are numerous documented human rights violations committed by Israel, among which are:
Unlawful attacks and killings. Israel is also accused of many unlawful attacks and killings of Palestinians, whether through storming Al-Aqsa to attacks on the Gaza Strip.
The Right to truth, justice, and reparations. The Israeli government continues to be noncooperative with investigations by the international courts.
Freedom of movement. There are over 170 permanent checkpoints and roadblocks within Palestine, impeding the Palestinians’ ability to travel freely throughout the country. Millions of Palestinians have been displaced since the start of the war, with the number continuing to grow with forced evictions and demolitions of homes and villages.
Freedom of association and expression. Many Palestinians are denied the right to express their views and protest their attackers freely.
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Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip is known as the largest open-air prison in the world. Home to more than two million Palestinians, with the Gaza Strip being the Israeli authorities’ main point of attack and destruction. Israel completely controls the Gaza Strip by imposing an airtight blockade on land, sea, and air. Those who live in that region are rarely able to leave unless it’s an “exceptional humanitarian case, with an emphasis on urgent medical cases,”—which are rarely granted. Surrounding the Gaza Strip, Israel constructed an electric fence and a concrete wall to prevent entry and escape. In 2001, Israel boomed and demolished the only airport in the Gaza Strip, further isolating the region. Israel’s blockade and control of Gaza limit access to clean water, electricity, aid, and humanitarian and medical care. It is a modern-day prison camp that goes unnoticed in the mainstream media.
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What can you do
The Palestinian struggle is a humanitarian issue that requires a much deeper dive beyond the scope of this post. Unfortunately, it is often overlooked and constantly neglected in mainstream media. The most vital thing one can do is to educate themselves, advocate, and be aware of the struggles happening across the world. Speak to your Palestinian peers, read publications, and listen to the news.
For years the United States (US) has been employing extraterritorial jurisdiction to impose oppressive sanctions on foreigners. Often, these sanctions violate due process rights because they are imposed without providing individuals with adequate notice, a fair hearing, or an opportunity to challenge the designation. The US has the authority to freeze assets, ban travel, and place other restrictions on financial transactions. This significantly impacts an individual’s human rights as the freedom to travel, freedom to work, and freedom to have privacy. Targeting individuals abroad for alleged activities that occurred outside of the US makes it evident that these restrictions are over-complying out of fear, a fear which is rooted in ethnophobia. Many Americans fear immigrants are taking their jobs, and sanctions like this only bolster this. Arbitrarily depriving someone of their property based on where they are from is an inherent violation of human rights. Unilateral coercive measures like the Global Magnitsky Act, Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Person List, and Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions have a disproportionately negative effect on international people.
Global Magnitsky Act
The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act authorizes the president to block or revoke the visas of certain “foreign persons” (both individuals and entities) or to impose property sanctions on them. People can be sanctioned (a) if they are responsible for or acted as an agent for someone responsible for “extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” or (b) if they are government officials or senior associates of government officials complicit in “acts of significant corruption.” It was enacted as a deterrent for foreign political corruption but instead was a catalyst for arbitrary detention and arrests without due process. There is a lack of transparency and little to no evidence provided to justify designating individuals under the Act. UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan concerned about human rights violations states, “This is a clear violation of due process rights, including the presumption of innocence and fair trial.” The Act allows the US government to impose sanctions on individuals accused of human rights violations and corruption but does not provide them with a fair opportunity to challenge these allegations. Though it serves the purpose of preventing acts of terrorism and maintaining foreign accountability, the language is not concise enough to prevent arbitrary detentions or sanctions.
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Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Person List
The SDN list is updated regularly with the names of individuals, entities, and organizations deemed to be involved in a range of criminal activities such as terrorism, narcotics, or arms. Therefore, US nationals are prohibited from engaging in any form of transaction with SDNs. Based on similar provisions under the Patriot Act, the government can block all of an individual’s or entity’s assets in the US. Similar to Magnitsky, there are concerns over transparency and due process violations. There have been inconsistencies in the way that individuals and entities are designated on the list, including cases where some individuals or entities are designated while others engaged in similar activities are not. Since the process behind the designation is not made public, it begs the question what is the real intention behind this decision and are there any underlying motives? Also, the list is public which subjects the individuals on the list to political abuse by targeting people that are seen as political opponents or rivals, rather than based on evidence of wrongdoing. “This is a clear violation of due process rights, including the presumption of innocence and fair trial, “ The Special Rapporteur observed.
Office of Foreign Assets Control Sanctions
OFAC is an office of the U.S. Treasury that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on U.S. foreign policy and national security goals against targeted individuals and entities from foreign countries. OFAC sanctions can have unintended consequences and harm innocent parties, such as businesses or individuals that have no connection to the sanctioned entities or countries. The exterritorial reach the US has over foreign businesses is overt and unnecessary. Similar to the other legislation, there is a significant gap in knowledge between the government and the individuals affected. They do not know what they have done that has caused them to be targeted. The affected parties have no way to challenge these accusations if they are not aware of what they have done wrong, thus hindering the due process. The UN expert mentioned how human rights are infringed upon when US trade sanctions against specific countries penalize foreign companies for doing business.
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Revaluate
While these laws are in the interest of national security, we need to reevaluate if their ability to reach their intended goals or if have they just enforced discriminatory, biased legislation. There are concerns about their impact on innocent parties, lack of transparency and due process, extraterritorial reach, and potential for abuse. These are important factors to consider when evaluating the country’s presence in foreign entities. It is important to incorporate human rights protections in the sanctions the government passes because they affect international relations, global human rights, and the preservation of American ideals of democracy and equality.
This post is an update on the previous blog titled: The Natural-Humanitarian Disaster of the Turkey-Syria Earthquake. While this topic is no longer in our regular newsfeed, the consequences of disaster are very much ongoing. People n Turkey and Syria are still recovering from the devastating aftermath of the first earthquake that occurred on February 6th people and have yet to find a sense of calm. Trying to find a sense of normalcy, children have begun attending school, and parents have attempted to return to their usual lives. But there is still so much destruction, making it hard to do so. According to the latest records, the earthquakes have killed over 50,000 individuals and injured over 100,000. 214,000 homes have collapsed, leaving thousands in need of aid and shelter. There are still victims that have yet to be found or identified under the rubble of what was once their home. UNICEF has reported that earthquakes have impacted almost 5 million children. Even though the initial earthquakes have finished, the need for humanitarian assistance has worsened.
An Update
These earthquakes are incredibly destructive considering the conditions of the areas, mainly referring to Syria. Syria has already been going through one of the most significant humanitarian crises in the world. The earthquake has only worsened its conditions, and access to aid is even more limited. Access to aid has been a very important topic considering the governmental sanctions imposed by many of the big nations (USA, Europe, etc.), and part of the country is controlled by its own government. Other areas are under the control of NGOs. On February 12, Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the UN, stated: “We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.” Over 4.1 million individuals in Syria depend on aid and assistance from NGOs, primarily women and children. Getting aid to Syria has been and is more difficult than getting aid in Turkey. It is especially apparent when comparing the aid given to both countries on an international level because, on the one hand, Turkey receives both international aid and support from its government. Yet, on the other hand, Syria, which is not controlled by one body of government, can receive partial international aid.
Source: Yahoo Images
Problems in Syria
On February 14th, eight days after the initial earthquakes, border crossing points were finally opened for UN aid to be delivered to Syria. By February 22nd, 282 aid trucks were sent by 6 UN agencies. On February 19, Medical Charity Médecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), was able to send 14 aid trucks to Syria in an effort to assist with the rescue operations. As essential as these efforts of sending aid and providing help have been, many problems remain, mainly the governmental sanctions and the closed borders surrounding the affected areas. In addition, Syria is still undergoing a Civil war, making it even more challenging to receive the help they need. Since the initial earthquake, it took days for aid and rescue crews to arrive, which has critically impacted injured civilians and individuals stuck under the rubble of buildings. The Syrian regime has bombed the affected areas of Syria (Northwest area) over 84 times. Such attacks have caused damage to the border crossings, so many NGOs have requested for more crossing points to be available, especially considering the scarcity of resources in Syria and the inability of UN aid to reach the areas affected.
Source: Yahoo Images
Efforts to help:
As seen, there is a lot of sadness surrounding the earthquakes and their aftermath. Along with the destruction, there have also been many organizations, individuals, and countries who have come to help, providing a sense of hope and relief. A group of online internet activists has created a website called TakeShelter, which enables displaced individuals to connect with hosts worldwide. This initiative was created and developed just 48 hours after the earthquakes occurred. One of the founders, Avi Schiffmann, stated that this website has reverted “power back into the hands of those displaced by the earthquake, allowing them to find shelter.” This website was launched through an organization called InternetActivism. This has opened many doors for activism and providing humanitarian care for generations to come. With almost everything being online, this website has paved the way for providing humanitarian support through a digital platform and helped over 100 families to find shelter in the homes of others.
Moreover, many countries have taken a stronger initiative by investigating earthquake destruction prevention methods. Iraq has begun to install 16 earthquake warning stations throughout the country. Iraq experienced some aftershocks from the initial earthquakes. Since then, they have worked to put different stations to monitor the earthquakes and future ones on the borders connected to Syria and Turkey. In addition, Saudi Arabia has built around 3,000 temporary homes to be sent to the victims in Turkey and Syria. Public, influential figures such as Cristiano Ronaldo have sent aid to those affected. There have been many reasonable efforts that have been made and shown.
Source: Yahoo Images
What can you do?
In times like these, after the shock has been visible through news cycles, articles, and social media posts, people tend to think that this disaster is fixed, but that is not the case. The weeks after an initial humanitarian disaster can be much worse than the first day of it. As time passes, more family members are identified as dead or remain missing. Incomes for families have entirely disappeared, and now humanitarian aid support is required to survive. Those who have lost their homes are now living in community shelters or on the streets, and the conditions of those affected will continue to worsen unless we do something about such a situation. Hundreds and thousands of homes, schools and businesses must be rebuilt. The importance of donations, providing awareness and finding ways to help continues. Even though the earthquakes have stopped, millions continue to be displaced. Below are resources to donate and learn more about the cause.
**The content of the mentioned works below deals with racial, sexual, and gendered themes that may be difficult for some readers. Consider carefully before reading.**
Contested conversations and debates around literature, even books bans, are nothing new. Unfortunately, we find ourselves during a time when pushes for literary censuring are on the rise, with fervent calls to remove books with references to enslavement, sex, gender, or Queer people. In light of this, I wanted to present a list of only a few Black authors, some of which are women, Queer, or both, so that we can remember and learn from them, and never let anyone take their lessons from us.
W.E.B. DuBois
Figure 1: Source: Simon & Schuster; The cover of one of W.E.B. DuBois’ books, The Souls of Black Folk.Figure 2: Source: Yahoo Images; An image of the preeminent author, W.E.B. DuBois. Preeminent author W.E.B. DuBois.
A founding member of the NAACP, W.E.B. Dubois is one of the foremost Black scholars of his era. He was the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University and went on to challenge notions by abolitionist Frederick Douglas and contemporary intellectual Booker T. Washington in his numerous writings and actions. Instead of promoting the ideology that Black people should integrate into White society or compromise rights to make small gains, DuBois loudly proclaimed Black pride.
In his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Dubois coined the now-famous term “double consciousness.” He discussed the irreconcilable double existence Black people lived through in America as both American and Black. Since then, the term has become a theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics of unequal realities and structures.
He attended the founding convention for the United Nations in 1944 and was a leader in the Pan-Africanism movement, organizing a series of Pan-African Congress meetings throughout the world.
He passed away at the age of 95 on Aug. 27, 1963, after moving to Ghana and acquiring citizenship there.
James Baldwin
Figure 3: Source: Yahoo Images; An image of the author of several award-winning novels, James Baldwin. Figure 4: Source: Yahoo Images; The cover of James Baldwin’s first novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain.
Writing between 1953 and 2011, a mix of standalone novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and non-fiction books, James Baldwin is considered a quintessential American writer. As the grandson of an enslaved person, Baldwin’s work reconciled with the experience of being a Black man in White America. Born in 1924 in Harlem, New York, he was the oldest of nine kids and spent most of his time in libraries.
He spent three years in his stepfather’s profession as a preacher before moving to Greenwich Village and pursuing writing. Even though most of his work was embroiled in experiences of anger and disillusionment, Baldwin always advocated love and brotherhood.
After passing from stomach cancer at the age of 63 in 1987, Baldwin became known as one of the most vocal and prominent voices for equality. He is considered an essential, and enriching, part of the American literary canon.
Alice Walker
Figure 5: Source: Yahoo Images; The cover of one of Alice Walker’s novels, The Color Purple. Figure 6: Source: Flickr, Photo credit to Virginia DeBolt; An image of acclaimed author, Alice Walker.
Alice Walker was born in 1944 in Eaton, Georgia. Her parents were sharecroppers and after a childhood incident that left her blind in one eye, Walker’s mother considered her more suited for writing than chores. This talent landed her a scholarship to Spelman College, whereafter she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College and earned a BA in Literature.
After graduating, she moved to Mississippi to join the Civil Rights Movement and married Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal; becoming the first interracial marriage in the state.
Walker is hailed for her rediscovery of author Zora Neale Hurston and her foundational role for Black women authors.
She published her first book of poetry in 1968, Once, and her first novel in 1970, The Third Life of Grange Copeland. Her most acclaimed work came in 1982, The Color Purple, wherein she explores gender, sexuality, and race. She continues to publish to this day and is widely regarded for her insightful portrayal of Black American life and culture.
Toni Morrison
Figure 7: Source: Yahoo Images; An image of the author of several award-winning novels, Toni Morrison. Figure 8: Source: Yahoo Images; The cover of Toni Morrison’s first novel, Beloved.
Toni Morrison was born on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio. Though living in a semi-integrated area, Morrison experienced the cruel reality of racism. At two years old, their landlord set their apartment on fire with them inside when her family could not afford rent.
She turned her attention to reading and eventually attend the historically black institution, Howard College. There she was exposed to colorism and witnessed firsthand how racial hierarchies extended to skin pigmentation within the Black community.
Working within academia throughout the North and South, Morrison eventually settled in an editing career. Though she worked for publishing companies, she did not publish her first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), until she was 39 years old. However, after (and like) this first work, each of her subsequent novels earned critical acclaim and several awards. In 1987, she released her most-known work, Beloved, which is based on the true story of an enslaved woman. The novel was on the Bestseller list for 25 weeks and won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
In 1993, Toni Morrison became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and has also been awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, National Book Critics Circle Award, and she was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress.
As an internationally renowned author, Morrison has left a litany of insightful works from novels to plays and children’s stories. She passed away in 2019.
Ralph Ellison
Figure 9: Source: Yahoo Images; The cover of Ralph Ellison’s first novel, Invisible Man. Figure 10: Source: Yahoo Images; An image of the esteemed author, Ralph Ellison.
Ralph Ellison was born on March 1, 1914, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was the grandson of enslaved people. He only ever published one book during his lifetime, Invisible Man (1952), yet this book gained him national acclaim. After his death on April 16, 1994, his second novel, Juneteenth, was published in 1999.
Originally, Ellison had had dreams of becoming a professional musician and had enrolled at the Tuskegee Institute to do just that. However, after traveling to New York City during his senior year to earn funds for his final year, he met Richard Wright (author of the polemic novel Native Son). This, coupled with the onset of the Great Depression, prompted Ellison to embark on his writing career.
He wrote for the New York Federal Writer’s Program, an offshoot of the Works Progress Administration. After the outbreak of WWII, Ellison joined the U.S. Merchant Marine as a cook and began planning for what would become his infamous novel, Invisible Man.
When it debuted, it was on the Bestseller’s List for 16 weeks and won the National Book Award. Forty years later, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Saul Bellow, stated, “This book holds its own among the best novels of the century.”
Zora Neale Hurston
Figure 11: Source: Yahoo Images, Available from the United States Library of Congress; An image of the author of several award-winning novels, Zora Neale Hurston. Figure 12: Source: Yahoo Images; The cover of Zora Neale Hurston’s acclaimed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, U.S. She is a world-renowned author and one of the first students of the father of anthropology (Franz Boas).
She was the daughter of enslaved parents. At a young age, her family relocated to Eatonville, Florida where her father became the town’s first mayor, in what was the first all-Black incorporated town in the state.
Hurston earned her Associate’s from Howard College before she won a scholarship to Barnard College and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Anthropology. As a student in New York City, she met fellow writers like Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen and joined what is remembered as the Harlem Renaissance 一 a black cultural movement of arts, music, and literature.
She began publishing short stories as early as 1920, though was largely ignored by white mainstream literary circles (though she gained a large Black readership). In 1935, she published her debut novel, Mules and Men, and between 1934 and 1939 wrote three more works. Her most acclaimed novel is Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) which incorporated her research and literary talents to focus on the life of Janie Crawford, a Black woman whose journey of self-discovery and identity takes her to many places.
She is a pioneering figure of modern anthropology and traveled to Haiti and Jamaica to study African diasporas. Moreover, she chronicled many Black folktales and dialects which she subsequently incorporated into her own writings. While this drew criticism from some contemporary figures, her work celebrated Black language and culture unabashedly.
Zora Neale Hurston passed away on January 28, 1960, in Fort Pierce, Florida. Zora Neale Hurston was long an unsung literary figure but after her rediscovery by author Alice Walker, her works have once returned to print.
Regarded as one of the founders of Black writing, particularly for Black women authors, Alice Walker has said:
“Her work had a sense of Black people as complete, complex, undiminished human beings and that was crucial to me as a writer.”
bell hooks
Figure 13: Source: Yahoo Images; The cover of bell hook’s first novel, Ain’t I A Woman? Black Women and Feminism. Figure 14: Source: Flickr, Photo credit to Kevin Andre Elliot; An image of the acclaimed author, bell hooks.
bell hooks, a pseudonym of Gloria Jean Watkins, was born September 25, 1952, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
She grew up in a segregated community in the American South which eventually informed her writing. She published her first work, Ain’t I A Woman? Black Women and Feminism (1981), while still an undergraduate at Standford University.
Her pseudonym was fashioned after her great-grandmother’s name in order to honor female legacies and she chose all lowercase letters because she wanted people to focus on the content of her books over her.
hooks was a progressive thinker and scholar whose work engaged with the intricate relationships of race, class, and gender as situated in systems of structural oppression and violence. She educated people on intersectionality well before it became a common word now (essentially pioneering the ideology itself).
She passed away on December 15, 2021, in Berea, Kentucky. You can find a selection of her works here.
Angela Davis
Figure 15: Source: Yahoo Images; An image of the author of several provocative books, Angela Davis. Figure 16: Source: Yahoo Images; The cover of one of Angela Davis’ acclaimed books, Are Prisons Obsolete?
Angela Davis was born January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama in a neighborhood known as “Dynamite Hill” for the numerous bombings committed by the domestic terrorist group, Ku Klux Klan. She is a philosopher, activist, and former Black Panther and political prisoner who was wrongly accused of participating in the killing of a prison guard after becoming involved in the Soledad Brothers campaign. After that, Davis went into hiding and was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List, making her the third woman to ever be placed on the list.
An international movement to “Free Angela” led to songs from artists like Yoko Ono, John Lennon, and the Rolling Stones. On June 4th, 1972, she was found not guilty of all charges.
Angela Davis continues her legacy to this day, giving speeches and continuing to write new works that discuss intersectionality, racial disparities and structural violence, and abolition, among a few topics. Her latest book was published in 2022 with her partner, Gina Dent, alongside Erica R. Meiners and Beth E. Richie titled: Abolition. Feminism. Now.
Figure 17: Source: Yahoo Images; The cover of one of Maya Angelou’s works, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Figure 18: Source: Yahoo Images; An image of the celebrated author and poet, Maya Angelou.
Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She writes across several mediums as a memoirist, poet, author, playwright, and essayist. Her work explores themes such as economic conditions, race, and sexual oppression. She is also renowned for her unique and visionary autobiographical writing styles.
Angelou did not live with her parents full-time during her childhood as a result of divorce and other factors. When she returned from her grandmother’s care to live with her mother at the age of seven, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. He was jailed, and upon his release, was killed. Believing that she had somehow had a part in the death of this man, Angelou became mute for the following 6 years of her life.
Angelou displayed her literary talents from a young age but did not become a professional writer until much later in life, around when she joined the Harlem Writer’s Guild in 1959. She was also a prominent activist in the Civil Rights Movement and served as the North Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
In 1969, she wrote one of her most famous works, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which was an autobiography of her early life, exploring her experiences with sexual abuse. Many schools sought to ban this book as a result of these depictions, but numerous sexual abuse survivors have credited her work as telling their stories.
While she has earned numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards, for her writing she was awarded the National Medal of Arts (2000) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010).
Maya Angelou passed away on May 28, 2014, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina after a long and fruitful career. You can find a list of her complete works here.
James Cone
Figure 19: Source: Wikimedia Images; Dr. James Cone at the 174th Convocation of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Figure 20: Source: Alex Yates; The cover of one of James Cone’s pioneering books, A Black Theology of Liberation.
James Cone is a highly influential figure who founded Black liberation theology, alongside, being an outspoken proponent of justice for the oppressed in society. He is known as one of the most widely regarded theologians in America, teaching at the Union Theological Seminary for 50 years and influencing generations of scholars. One such student is currently a senator for the state of Georgia, Rev. Raphael Warnock, who was elected in 2020 as the state’s first Black senator.
Born August 5, 1938, in Arkansas, he grew up during intense racial segregation during the 40s and 50s. Living under the threat of lynching revealed to Cone the immense spiritual and moral depth of Black people, especially as Cone’s own parents taught love over hate when confronted by racial injustice and threats. As a result of his personal experiences and figures such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Cone developed Black liberation theology to challenge the white hegemony of Christian teachings and understanding.
Black liberation theology is informed by six sources which can be summarized as the black experience (slavery, segregation, and lynchings), black culture and revelation, and tradition and scriptural interpretation. He is best known for his political and influential books, Black Theology and Black Power (1969), A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), and God of the Oppressed (1975).
He passed on April 28, 2018, at the age of 79. His latest memoir was written just prior to his passing and is titled: Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody.
Octavia Butler
Figure 21: Source: Yahoo Images; An image of the acclaimed author, Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, California. She is an author of mostly science fiction novels in future settings, often incorporating unique powers. Her numerous works are known for their synthesis of science fiction, mysticism, mythology, and Black American spiritualism.
Not only was Butler the first Black woman to receive wide acclaim in this genre of fiction, but she was also the first science fiction writer to win the MacArthur “Genius” Award. She has also won several other awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and Locust awards.
In 1975, she published her first novel Patternmaster, which was quickly followed by Mind of My Mind and Survivor: This series is about humanity’s evolution into three separate genetic groups.
Her best-known work, Kindred, was published in 1975 and continues to be taught in high schools, universities, and community reading programs to this day. (There was even a recent television adaption on Hulu.)
Much like other Black women authors on this list, Butler’s work extends beyond race and explores the dynamics of sex and gender, challenging traditional gender roles in works like Bloodchild and Wild Seed. Octavia Butler passed away on February 24, 2006, in Seattle, Washington, but not before securing her legacy in her numerous works.
Conclusion
To learn more about book bans, read the article by Nikhita Mudium: “Book Bans in the United States: History Says it All.”
If you liked this book list, check out the list of contemporary Black authors here.
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