Human Rights Day is observed globally on 10th December

Human Rights Day is observed globally on 10^th December. Bidyot Bhowmik

 Human Rights Day is observed globally every year on 10th December. It was 72 years ago on 10 December 1948 that United Nations General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the glorious Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which was one of the first major achievements of the then new the United Nations after U.N.O was founded in 1945. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as United Nations General Assembly adopted in 1948 is regarded as a effulgent milestone document proclaiming the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. We must respect all human beings as equal. Love and respect are mutual and reciprocal. The day is normally marked both by high-level political conferences and meetings and by cultural events and exhibitions dealing with human rights issues. It was Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the then great American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (term 1933-1945) played a leading role as Chairperson of the drafting committee of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which has been well documented. But other women also played essential parts in shaping the document.

The theme of 2020 Human Rights Day is to Build Better and Stand up for Human Rights. This theme of 2020 relates to the COVID-19 pandemic and focuses on the need to build back better by ensuring Human Rights are central to recovery efforts. We will reach our common global goals only if we are able to create equal opportunities for all, address the failures exposed and exploited by COVID-19, and apply human rights standards to tackle entrenched, systematic, and intergenerational inequalities, exclusion and discrimination. 10^th December is an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of  human rights in re-building the world we want, the need for global solidarity as well as our interconnectedness and shared humanity.

The COVID-19 crisis has been fuelled by deepening poverty, rising inequalities, structural and entrenched discrimination and other gaps in human rights protection. Only measures to close these gaps and advance human rights can ensure we fully recover and build back a world that is better, more resilient, just, and sustainable. We should never forget that Human rights are part and parcel of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as in the absence of human dignity we cannot hope to drive sustainable development. Human Rights are driven by progress on all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the SDGs are driven by advancements on human rights

Source: United Nations on Human Rights Day

Former professor, writer and advisor to CBNA

Montreal, Canada, 9^th Dec. 2020

-এস এস/সিএ