This document discusses various human rights violations that have occurred throughout history, including during World War 2 under the Nazi regime and more recently in conflicts like Darfur. It outlines how the UN was formed after WWII to establish international agreements like the UDHR to protect human rights following the atrocities of that war. However, it notes that many violations still occur regularly in areas like torture, slavery, right to life and security of person. Specific examples of recent violations are provided for several articles of the UDHR.

1. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION
ANUSHA J

2. HUMAN
RIGHTS
VIOLATION
• Human rights violations occur when
actions by state (or non-state) actors
abuse, ignore, or deny basic human
rights (including civil, political, cultural,
social, and economic rights).
• Furthermore, violations of human
rights can occur when any state or non-
state actor breaches any part of the
UDHR treaty or other international
human rights or humanitarian law.
• Human rights abuses are monitored by
United Nations committees, national
institutions and governments and by
many independent NGO.

3. The Second World War One of the main reasons
that the nations of the world decided it was
time to draw up a list of human rights in 1948
was because of the trauma of the Second World
War and during which so many human rights
violations were carried out by the Nazi regime.
The atrocities carried out in the name of the
Nazi regime
• Bombing of civilians
• Murder of homosexuals
• Murder of political opponents
• Torture during interrogation
• Abuse of prisoners of war

4. • Persecution of Christians and
of Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Mass murder of gypsies
• Arrest without trial
• Arrest and execution without
trial
• Mass murder of resistance
fighters
• Cruel medical experimentation
without consent
• Mass deportation
• Murder of 6 million Jews Slave
labour
• Confiscation of property

5. The Second
World War and
the Nuremberg
Trials
After the Second World War the victorious allies decided to set
up war crimes trials in the form of an International Military
Tribunal.
This was held in the city of Nuremberg, which had been a very
important place in the celebration of Nazism.
At Nuremberg 22 high level Nazis were put on trial. This was
the first time that human rights violations committed by those
waging aggressive wars were prosecuted.
The prosecutions included the planning of atrocities by high
government officials. The Nazi leaders were tried according to
the accepted principles of law. The Nuremberg trials effectively
established that planning, preparing and initiating aggressive
war constitutes an international crime.
It also established that atrocities were not just the
responsibility of the person actually committing them. They
were the responsibility of the highest government officials who
ordered or planned them.

6. The Second World
War and Genocide
• The genocide in the South East Asia country of
Cambodia, committed by the regime of Pol Pot. This
took place between 1975 and 1979. It is believed
that 2 million people died in this genocide. This
genocide is portrayed in the film ‘The Killing Fields’, made in
1984 and directed by Roland Joffe.
• The genocide committed in the former Yugoslavia,
involving the people of Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and
Kosovo. A violent conflict involving ethnic and
religious differences raged for three years, from 1992
to 1995, in which it is estimated over 200,000 people
died.
• The genocide in the African country of Rwanda,
committed by the Hutu tribes and the Tutsi tribes,
who turned on each other in April 1994. This genocide is
portrayed in the film ‘Hotel Rwanda’, (2004) directed by Terry
George.

7. Genocide and the Trial
of Saddam Hussein
• During the 1980s there was a war between Iraq and
Iran.
• In March 1988, during a major battle between Iraq
and Iran, chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi
government forces to kill a number of people in the
Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja.
• Estimates of casualties range from several hundred
to 7,000 people. Almost all accounts of the incident
regard Iraq as responsible for this gas attack. It is
the largest-scale use of chemical weapons against
civilians in modern times.
• Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in 2003 and
Saddam Hussein was captured by American forces.
The trial of Saddam Hussein began in October 2005.
• The trial of Saddam Hussein is an important
landmark in the development of international
criminal law. The transitional government of Iraq
has incorporated genocide, war crimes, and crimes
against humanity into the Iraqi national legal
system.

8. Armed conflict
• The First World War (1914-1918) was famously expected to be ‘the war to end all
wars’. Only 20 years later the world was engulfed by another global conflict which
raged for 6 years.
• The shock of the Second World War gave rise to a huge desire for world-wide justice
and peace, seen in the creation of the United Nations Organization and the
production of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, wars have
continued to take their toll on humanity, always involving the death of innocent
civilians and the large-scale abuse of human rights.

9. The Arab – Israeli
Conflict
• The modern history of Israel is very complicated. The creation of the modern
state of Israel came about largely as a result of the terrible sufferings inflicted on
the Jewish people during the Second World War.
• The State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948 and Israel was admitted as a
member of the United Nations on May 11, 1949. The creation of the state of
Israel and the resulting violent conflicts over the years have resulted in the
displacement of large numbers of the Palestinian people.
• There have been many attempts at peace settlements. The latest flare-up of
violence took place in 2006, with armed conflict taking place between Hezbollah
guerillas in Southern Lebanon and Israeli armed forces.

10. The Arms Trade
• It is difficult to talk about war, peace and human rights without referring to the arms trade.
• $21 billion per year spent by governments on arms.
• There are 639 million small arms in the world, or one for every ten people, produced by over
1,000 companies in at least 98 countries.
• 60% of small arms are in civilian hands.
• 8 million more small arms are produced every year.
• 16 billion units of ammunition are produced each year - more than two new bullets for every
man, woman and child on the planet.
• More than 500,000 people on average are killed with conventional arms every year: one person
every minute.
• In World War One, 14% of total casualties were civilian. In World War Two this grew to 67%. In
some of today’s conflicts the figure is even higher.

11. • There are 300,000 child soldiers
involved in conflicts.
• One third of countries spend more on
the military than they do on health-
care services.
• An average of US$22 billion a year is
spent on arms by countries in Africa,
Asia, Middle East and Latin America.
Half of this amount would enable
every girl and boy in those regions to
go to primary school.
• In Africa, economic losses due to war
are about $15 billion per year.

12. Human rights advocates agree that, sixty years after
its issue, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
is still more a dream than reality.
Violations exist in every part of the world. For
example, Amnesty International’s 2009 World
Report and other sources show that individuals
are:
1. Tortured or abused in at least 81 countries
2. Face unfair trials in at least 54 countries
3. Restricted in their freedom of expression
in at least 77 countries

13. ARTICLE 3
THE RIGHT TO
LIVE FREE
“Everyone has the right to
life, liberty and security of
person.”
• An estimated 6,500 people were killed in 2007
in armed conflict in Afghanistan—nearly half
being non-combatant civilian deaths at the
hands of insurgents. Hundreds of civilians were
also killed in suicide attacks by armed groups.

14. • In Brazil in 2007, according to official
figures, police killed at least 1,260
individuals—the highest total to date. All
incidents were officially labelled “acts of
resistance” and received little or no
investigation.

15. • In Uganda, 1,500 people die
each week in the internally
displaced person camps.
According to the World Health
Organization, 500,000 have died
in these camps.

16. • Vietnamese authorities forced at least 75,000
drug addicts and prostitutes into 71
overpopulated “rehab” camps, labeling the
detainees at “high risk” of contracting HIV/AIDS
but providing no treatment.

17. ARTICLE 4 — NO
SLAVERY
“No one shall be held in slavery or
servitude; slavery and the slave trade
shall be prohibited in all their forms.”
• In Guinea-Bissau, children as young as
five are trafficked out of the country to
work in cotton fields in southern
Senegal or as beggars in the capital city.
• In Ghana, children five to fourteen are
tricked with false promises of education
and future into dangerous, unpaid jobs
in the fishing industry.

18. • In Asia, Japan is the major destination country
for trafficked women, especially women coming
from the Philippines and Thailand. UNICEF
estimates 60,000 child prostitutes in the
Philippines.

19. • The US State Department estimates 600,000 to 820,000 men, women
and children are trafficked across international borders each year, half
of whom are minors, including record numbers of women and girls
fleeing from Iraq.
• In nearly all countries, including Canada, the US and the UK,
deportation or harassment are the usual governmental responses,
with no assistance services for the victims.

20. • In the Dominican Republic, the operations
of a trafficking ring led to the death by
asphyxiation of 25 Haitian migrant
workers. In 2007, two civilians and two
military officers received lenient prison
sentences for their part in the operation.
• In Somalia in 2007, more than 1,400
displaced Somalis and Ethiopian nationals
died at sea in trafficking operations.

21. ARTICLE 5 — NO
TORTURE
“No one shall be subjected to
torture or to cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or
punishment.”
• In 2008, US authorities continued to hold 270 prisoners in
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without charge or trial, subjecting
them to “water-boarding,” torture that simulates
drowning. Former-President George W. Bush authorized
the CIA to continue secret detention and interrogation,
despite its violation of international law.

22. • In Darfur, violence, atrocities and abduction are rampant and outside aid all but
cut off. Women in particular are the victims of unrestrained assault, with more
than 200 rapes in the vicinity of a displaced persons camp in one five-week
period, with no effort by authorities to punish the perpetrators.
•

23. • In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, acts of
torture and ill treatment are routinely committed
by government security services and armed
groups, including sustained beatings, stabbings
and rapes of those in custody. Detainees are held
incommunicado, sometimes in secret detention
sites.
• In 2007, the Republican Guard (presidential guard)
and Special Services police division in Kinshasa
arbitrarily detained and tortured numerous
individuals labeled as critics of the government.

24. ARTICLE 13 — FREEDOM
TO MOVE
“1. Everyone has the right to
freedom of movement and
residence within the borders of
each State.
“2. Everyone has the right to leave
any country, including his own,
and to return to his country.”
• In Algeria, refugees and asylum-seekers were
frequent victims of detention, expulsion or ill
treatment. Twenty-eight individuals from sub-
Saharan African countries with official refugee
status from the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) were deported to Mali after
being falsely tried, without legal counsel or
interpreters, on charges of entering Algeria illegally.
• They were dumped near a desert town where a
Malian armed group was active, without food,
water or medical aid.

25. • In Kenya, authorities violated international
refugee law when they closed the border
to thousands of people fleeing armed
conflict in Somalia. Asylum-seekers were
illegally detained at the Kenyan border
without charge or trial and forcibly
returned to Somalia.

26. • In northern Uganda, 1.6 million citizens
remained in displacement camps. In the
Acholi subregion, the area most affected
by armed conflict, 63 percent of the 1.1
million people displaced in 2005 were
still living in camps in 2007, with only
7,000 returned permanently to their
places of origin.

27. ARTICLE 18 — FREEDOM
OF THOUGHT
“Everyone has the right to
freedom of thought, conscience
and religion; this right includes
freedom to change his religion or
belief, and freedom, either alone
or in community with others and
in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in teaching,
practice, worship and
observance.”
• In Myanmar, the military junta crushed peaceful
demonstrations led by monks, raided and closed
monasteries, confiscated and destroyed property,
shot, beat and detained protesters, and harassed
or held hostage the friends and family members of
the protesters.

28. • In China, Falun Gong practitioners
were singled out for torture and
other abuses while in detention.
Christians were persecuted for
practicing their religion outside
state-sanctioned channels.
• .

29. • In Kazakhstan, local authorities in a
community near Almaty authorized
the destruction of twelve homes, all
belonging to Hare Krishna members,
falsely charging that the land on which
the homes were built had been
illegally acquired. Only homes
belonging to members of the Hare
Krishna community were destroyed.

30. ARTICLE 19 — FREEDOM
OF EXPRESSION
“Everyone has the right to
freedom of opinion and
expression; this right includes
freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive
and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless
of frontiers.”
• In Sudan, dozens of human rights defenders were
arrested and tortured by national intelligence and
security forces.
• In Ethiopia, two prominent human rights defenders
were convicted on false charges and sentenced to
nearly three years in prison.
• In Somalia, a prominent human rights defender
was murdered.

31. • In the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
the government attacks and threatens
human rights defenders and restricts
freedom of expression and association. In
2007, provisions of the 2004 Press Act were
used by the government to censor
newspapers and limit freedom of
expression.
• Russia repressed political dissent,
pressured or shut down independent
media and harassed nongovernmental
organizations. Peaceful public
demonstrations were dispersed with force,
and lawyers, human rights defenders and
journalists were threatened and attacked.
Since 2000, the murders of seventeen
journalists, all critical of government
policies and actions, remain unsolved.

32. • In Iraq, at least thirty-seven Iraqi employees of media networks were killed in 2008,
and a total of 235 since the invasion of March 2003, making Iraq the world’s most
dangerous place for journalists.

33. ARTICLE 21 —
RIGHT TO
DEMOCRACY
• “1. Everyone has the right to take part
in the government of his country,
directly or through freely chosen
representatives.
• “2. Everyone has the right to equal
access to public service in his country.
• “3. The will of the people shall be the
basis of the authority of government;
this will shall be expressed in periodic
and genuine elections which shall be
by universal and equal suffrage and
shall be held by secret vote or by
equivalent free voting procedures.”

34. • In Zimbabwe, hundreds of human rights defenders and members of the main
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), were arrested for
participating in peaceful gatherings.
•

35. • In Cuba, at the end of 2007, sixty two
prisoners of conscience remained
incarcerated for their nonviolent
political views or activities.

36. • In Pakistan, thousands of lawyers,
journalists, human rights defenders and
political activists were arrested for
demanding democracy, the rule of law and
an independent judiciary.

37. CHILD SLAVERY
IN THE LRA
• For 18 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA) guerrillas of northern Uganda has been
kidnapping boys to train them as soldiers and
girls to turn them into sexual slaves of the
commanders. In 2002, as many as 20,000
children were controlled by the LRA.
•

38. • The involuntary sterilization
of disabled underage girls is
still lawful in Australia(2014).

39. • In Afghanistan, invasive vaginal
examinations are forced on women to test
“virginity” every time a girl is arrested on a
morality charge.

40. • During the
Industrial Revolutions
children as young
as six worked up to 19 hours a
day for little or no pay in horrid,
dangerous conditions.

41. • After being brought to the American colonies, Africans were
stripped of human rights, enslaved, brutally treated and
considered lesser than their fellow human beings for centuries.

42. • The international sex trade remains a
huge problem around the world and may
involve upward of 27 million people. The
sale of the women’s and girls’ bodies is a
result of gender inequality and is viewed
as acceptable by many countries.

43. • The discrimination and violation of African-Americans’ human rights did not end after
slavery was abolished. From separate bathrooms and schools to belittlement and
judgement of individuals based on their skin color, African-Americans were stripped of
their rights in America until 1964.

44. MASS
EXODUS OF
KASHMIRI
PUNDITS FROM
VALLEY
• Terrorism forced the Hindus, a large majority of
whom were Kashmiri Pandits, to flee from their
homes in the Kashmir valley in the early part of
1990.
• According to Asia Watch, the militant
organisations forced the Hindus residing in the
Kashmir valley to flee and become refugees in
Delhi-NCR and Jammu.
• Ethnic cleansing continued till a vast majority of
the Kashmiri Pandits were evicted out of the valley
after having suffered numerous acts of violence,
including sexual assault on women, arson, mental
torture and extortion of property.

45. HINDU – SIKH RIOTS IN DELHI -
1984
• In the early 1980s, Sikh separatists in Punjab demanding separate state
‘Khalistan’ committed serious human rights abuses, massacring civilians,
attacking Hindu minorities, and carried out bomb attacks in crowded places.
In June 1984, the government deployed security forces to flush out the
militants who had occupied the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple in
Amritsar.
• The military campaign inflicted serious damage to the shrine and killed
hundreds, including pilgrims, militants, and security personnel. On October
31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was murdered in an act of revenge by two of her
Sikh bodyguards.
• Following the assassination, mobs, reportedly instigated by political leaders,
went on a rampage against Sikhs in Delhi and other cities. Over three days,
over 2500 Sikhs were killed, robbed of their belongings and and destroyed.
Many women were raped in the national capital. Hundreds of Sikhs were
massacred elsewhere in the country. The authorities quickly blamed every
incident of mass communal violence on a spontaneous public reaction.

46. CHILD LABOUR DEPRIVES MANY
IGNITED MINDS OF A BRIGHT
FUTURE
• Child labour is one of the biggest menaces
which grips many bright children and spoils
their promising futures.
• Children belonging to the poorer or
economically weaker sections of the society
often fall prey to child labour. For want of
money, their parents force them to take on
petty jobs at a very tender age and make
huge compromise with their education.
• According to Human Rights Watch, two out
of five children in India drop out of school
before completing their eighth standard.
Hence, a large number of children in our
country are robbed of their fundamental
right to free and compulsory education.

47. Police
Impunities
• Last year, a Delhi court acquitted 16 police officers
who were accused of massacring 40 Muslims in the
Hashimpura locality in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, back
in 1987.
• The court’s defence was that the prosecution had
not been able to establish the identity of the
suspected policemen.
• In April of the same year, 20 people were shot dead
by the police forces in Andhra Pradesh for
‘suspected smuggling’. In Telangana, they shot five
pre-trial detainees who were being taken to court,
with the excuse that they had tried to ‘overpower
them’.

48. • According to a report released by the US Congress,
the researchers found continuing allegations that
the Indian police raped women while in police
custody.
• Tribal girls were gang-raped in government hostels,
and 48,338 child-rape cases were recorded from
2001 to 2011, A US State Department for Human
Rights report for 2015 stated that there were 555
‘encounter killings’ by security forces and police
between 2008 and 2013.
• The list includes: Uttar Pradesh (138), Jharkhand
(50), Manipur (41), Assam (33), Chhattisgarh (29),
Odisha (27), Jammu and Kashmir (26), Tamil Nadu
(23), and Madhya Pradesh (20). In August, the
National Human Rights Commission recorded 1,327
deaths in judicial custody between April 2014 and
January 2015.
•

49. DALITS
• According to the National Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB), crime against Dalits – ranging from rape,
murder, beatings, and violence related to land
matters – increased by 29 percent from 2012 to
2014. In 2014 itself, over 47,064 cases of crimes
against Dalits were registered. Dalits are still
considered ‘untouchables’ who should not receive
the kind of civility extended to every other branch
of society.
• The suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit PhD student
at the Hyderabad Central University, and the
outrage that followed, led to the revelation of
dozens of similar cases of Dalit suicides.

50. • An NHRC report shows that Dalits are prevented from entering the police station in 28 percent of Indian villages, and
their children have been made to sit separately while eating in 39 percent of government schools.
• They do not get mail delivered to their homes in 24 percent of villages and are denied access to water sources in 48
percent of our villages. Their women raped, their children tortured, and their livelihoods stripped away every odd day,
the Dalit community is the embodiment of gross human rights violations.
•

51. CONCLUSION
• Human rights exist, as embodied in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and the entire body of international human
rights law. They are recognized—at least in principle—by most
nations and form the heart of many national constitutions. Yet
the actual situation in the world is far distant from the ideals
envisioned in the Declaration.
• To some, the full realization of human rights is a remote and
unattainable goal. Even international human rights laws are
difficult to enforce and pursuing a complaint can take years
and a great deal of money. These international laws serve as a
restraining function but are insufficient to provide adequate
human rights protection, as evidenced by the stark reality of
abuses perpetrated daily.

52. • Discrimination is rampant throughout the world.
Thousands are in prison for speaking their
minds. Torture and politically motivated
imprisonment, often without trial, are
commonplace, condoned and practiced—even
in some democratic countries.
• But you can make a difference. Become
informed by reading the reports on human rights
around the world.

53. THANKYOU