Humans: The Biggest Barrier to Realising Human Rights - A South African Perspective

In demarcating the law, human rights, and human behaviour, the objective is to explore the tension between safeguarding human rights and promoting individual autonomy. While international human rights law signifies the potential of creating dignified life experiences, the behaviour of humans, and, specifically, of those in government incited my focus on the effect of human behaviour on the realizsation of human rights. By studying human rights through a philosophical lens, a (a) conceptual clarification of human rights is provided, (b) the most prominent human rights are identified, (c) general and specific justifications of human rights discussed, and (d) the normative implications of human right claims explored. Focus is placed on South Africa although the value and potential generalisation generalization of the data for evaluating the effectiveness of human rights in achieving their social goal globally, are acknowledged. Reviewing literature, an overview is provided of the law and human rights; the different dimensions of human rights; and human behaviour. Persistent human rights violations, albeit legal protection, are delineated and the significant role played by human behaviour during such violations are highlighted. Given that human behaviour is influenced by various ethical, social, and legal principles, governments are urged to be mindful of the well-being of the humans they are ethically and legally obliged to serve.

Problems of Social Rights Enjoyment by Persons Diagnosed with Epilepsy: Legal Aspect

Epilepsy is a disease that creates many problems for people with such a diagnosis in the enjoyment of their social rights. Despite the existing regulatory legal acts governing the protection of health and the social rights enjoyment by citizens with epilepsy, there are many questions on this topic both regarding accessibility of these norms to people with epilepsy and in terms of compliance of the current legislation with the norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. In this article, we tried to reflect the basic norms of the current legislation in the Russian Federation governing the provision of medical care to people with epilepsy, providing them with free medications, admission of patients with epilepsy and epileptic syndrome to various types of work, education, military service, possession of weapons, driving, and pay attention to the problems of people diagnosed with epilepsy.

A Human Rights-Based Approach to Maternal and Child Health in Ethiopia: Does it Matter to Promote Health Equities?

A rights-based approach to health helps to address health equity gaps. While several aspects of health as a human right exist, this chapter highlights particular indicators relevant to shaping a human rights approach to maternal and child health in Ethiopia. These indicators include recognition of the right to health; national health plan; accessible and acceptable health-care services; accountability; and a civil society that draws on the agency of vulnerable groups. Probing the extent to which the Ethiopian health system includes these features, this chapter identifies that the Federal Constitution does not adequately recognize maternal and child health as a human right. While identifying the positive developments of increased access to women’s and children’s health-care services in Ethiopia, the chapter also charts problems that limit further improvement, including health workers’ inability from making the right health-care decisions; extreme gaps in ensuring accountability; and a restrictive law that restrains social mobilization for a proper health rights movement. The chapter concludes by providing recommendations to the government of Ethiopia that addressing these problems using a rights-based approach offers an alternative pathway for the progressive realization of the right to health of women and children, and it thereby improves health inequities in the country.

Enhancing Quality of Higher Education and Employability in Kazakhstan: Gender Aspects

How can the higher education system of Kazakhstan be improved so that graduates are in demand in the labor market and are prepared for the challenges of a changing world? This chapter provides an analysis of the quality assurance (hereinafter the QA) systems of European universities, national QA system analysis of Kazakhstan, Belgium, France, and Sweden; and survey of internal QA systems in Kazakhstani Universities. This chapter examines the possibilities and acceptability of applying the best European practices in Kazakhstani Universities and argues that educational reforms successful in Europe may be ineffective in Kazakhstan due to the different starting conditions to reform. This chapter agrees that improvement of the internal standards of the QA and the quality culture contribute to improving the education quality and graduates employability, provided that all other areas such as economy, business, and living standards shall comply with international standards. The main aspects of this research deal with the interrelation between quality of education and employability of graduates, interconnection between gender discrimination and restricted employment opportunities of women. The chapter argues that the quality of higher education and training of highly qualified and employable specialists are the important prerequisites of sustainable social and economic development of society.

Uprising and Human Rights Abuses in Southern Cameroon-Ambazonia

In 2016, lawyers, teachers and students in the two Anglophone regions initially led demonstrations and strikes, which eventually involved a wider section of the population. This mobilization was against their marginalization by the Francophone-dominated government in which they were chronically under-represented in all aspects of national life: political appointments and professional training and had been treated as second-class citizens since their reunification. They argued that their vibrant economic and political institutions had been completely erased, and their education and judicial systems had been undermined and degraded. Activists spread videos that show security forces abusing human rights (by suppressing peaceful gatherings, beating, harassing, arresting and killing protesters, burning their houses, schools and hospitals) in order to produce a counter-narrative to the ‘official story’ that main-stream media had been producing. We collected and analyzed 30 videos to better appreciate the human rights abuses. The videos provide information that cannot be provided by other types of data. They are used as ‘proofs of facts’ and they contain much more visual information on bodily movement and acoustic data. The videos show appalling images not just of how French-speaking soldiers tortured Anglophones but also their inability to communicate with them adequately although they share the same country.

Police Education in the United Kingdom: Challenges and Future Directions

This chapter outlines the historical development of police education in the United Kingdom, more precisely in England and Wales, and highlights new strategies and planning for the professional development of the police. There is a plethora of research carried out regarding professionalism in policing to meet the needs and challenges of the twenty-first century. Considering the recent developments in police education and training, this chapter mainly discusses three newly introduced routes for recruitment and education of police constables under the Policing Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF), namely Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA), Degree Holder Entry Programme (DHEP), and Pre-Join Degree (PJD). Higher education institutions (HEIs), in partnership with the police forces, are providing professional qualifications for policing as a graduate level profession. Though they have made remarkable progress in developing police education programmes, they are facing various challenges in implementing the qualification framework. This chapter also explores pedagogical aspects of police education including the effectiveness and contrast between different forms of teaching and learning. While featuring the challenges and prospects of the new police education programmes, this chapter also outlines different aspects of partnership for delivering these professional qualification programmes.

Towards Global Peace and Sustainability: Role of Education in Peace-Building in the Great Lakes Region of Sub-Saharan Africa

The Great Lakes Region of sub-Saharan Africa is well known for being volatile and turbulent in terms of peace and stability. For over 60 years, almost all countries in the region have experienced some kind of political and social turmoil such as civil war, coup de tat, and genocides. In 1960, the first democratically elected Congolese prime minister was assassinated. There were unprecedented social and political havoc in a nearby “other Congo” characterized by power struggle between various political and ethnic factions in the post-independence Congo Brazzaville. In Burundi and Rwanda, ethnic tensions between the Tutsi and Hutu engulfed the developmental dreams of nationalist freedom fighters until 2015. Though arguably stable, Tanzania has experienced its own share of socio-political messy including the 1998 Mwembechai and 2001 Pemba massacres. Efforts to build a sense of sustainable peace and development based on mutual understanding and socio-political harmony has brought limited success. In all these countries, the missing link in building sustainable peace and security has been a lack of education. The chapter intends to fill this gap by critically analyzing the potential role of basic education, especially pre-primary and early grades education, in sustainable peace-building in the sub-Saharan context.

Food Security in Kazakhstan: Do Gender Inequalities Affect?

Kazakhstan has a large reserve of natural resources to provide the food self-sufficiency with domestic production. It could be three times more than population needs. However, Kazakhstan depends on food import and the agricultural sector accounts for 5% of GDP only. The actual poverty is higher than official data indicate, and it’s about four times more in rural areas where 46% of population resides and one-fifth of the working-age population is employed. Women represent the majority among the poor and unemployed and face unequal treatment in labor market and burden of larger unpaid household workload. All of this decreases women’s purchasing power, lowering economic access to quality food. This paper examines the interaction of gender inequality and food insecurity, applying the growth constraints analysis and engendering this approach and the empirical research on Karaganda oblast. It argues that gender inequality and rural poverty are linked to high economic costs and constraints in agriculture development and food security attainment.

Treating the Enemy: Victims of the Syrian Civil War in Israel

Between February 2013 and December 2018, many thousands of victims of the Syrian civil war crossed the closed border between the two warring states and received, at no cost, high-level and extensive medical and humanitarian care in Israel. Overall mortality rates were very low, and more than 40 Syrian babies were born in Israel. All the patients returned to Syria after their treatment which extended in some cases into many months. Severe medical disease, surgical conditions and the major traumas of war injuries.were treated in in-patient and ambulatory settings. The story of this unique campaign contains many themes: military, legal, medical, social, humanitarian, ethical, media, personal and political. There have been very few, if any, precedents for a campaign of this nature involving two bitter enemies, over whose mutual border real and potential threats are constantly being played out.

Archaeological Sites, Cultural Heritage, and Sustainable Development in the Republic of Kazakhstan

This paper addresses the problem of protecting and preserving archaeological sites from the Bronze Age through the Medieval Period (ca. 2500 BC–1500 CE) as part of sustainable development that includes such economic and social benefits as (1) promoting national status; (2) integrating archaeological sites into the Silk Route narrative; (3) developing tourism related to historic and cultural heritage; and (4) creating a citizenry that values its cultural and historic resources in the face of rapid economic development and changing natural and cultural landscapes. Two UNESCO World Heritage sites will be discussed briefly: Otrar and the surrounding oasis, a medieval complex of sites along the Great Silk Route, and Tamgaly, a petroglyph and archaeological reserve. These two UNESCO World Heritage archaeological sites or preserves will be contrasted with the Talgar Iron Age sites (400 BC–100 CE) situated in a rapidly changing landscape due to economic development and infrastructure (pipelines, railways, roads, and housing) about 12–15 km east of the major city of Almaty. The goal of this article is to discuss the complexity of the entangled sectors of cultural and historic preservation, economic development, tourism, and global transnational heritage within the framework of sustainability.