Human Rights Day was celebrated on the December 10, 2019 across the world.
Theme
The United Nations’ theme for this year’s Human Rights Day is: “Youth Standing up for Human Rights.” The youth will be celebrated as agents of change and encouraged to amplify their voices against racism, hate speech, bullying, discrimination, and fight for climate justice, among other issues, and engage a broad range of global audiences in the promotion and protection of rights.
Background
Human Rights Day is celebrated on the December 10, every year to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 as the shared standard yardstick to protect human rights across the globe.
The Declaration recognizes that the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of mankind are the foundation of justice, freedom and peace in the world.
National Human Rights Commission and Human rights
Since its inception on the 12th October, 1993, the National Human Rights Commission has endeavoured to promote a culture of human rights. The NHRC, like most of the human rights institutions in the world, is a recommendatory body as per the Protection of Human Rights Act passed by Parliament. But this provision has not come in the way of most of the recommendations of the Commission being accepted by the Governments resulting in the trust and confidence of the people in it. This reflects in the increasing number of complaints it has been receiving every year.
The Commission’s functions also include reviewing safeguards provided under the Constitution or any Law, make recommendations for effective implementation of International Conventions/Covenants, undertake research and organize seminars and discussion programmes on human rights issues, spread awareness about human rights and encourage efforts of non-governmental organizations towards promotion of human rights.
It has made a number of interventions on key issues of human rights, which include, among others, issues of bonded and child labour, prison reforms, right to health, mental healthcare, rights of persons with disabilities, silicosis, illegal clinical drug trials, pesticides in food items, pricing of drugs, corporate-social responsibility, manual scavenging and sanitation, human rights of women.
Another important initiative of the Commission this year has been that it is proposing to set up a task force to prepare a National Action Plan on Human Rights( NAPHR) comprising the representatives of various Ministries, NGOs, Civil Society and the NHRC among the other stakeholders. This will help flag the key issues of human rights for the government(s), which would require to be addressed with a targeted approach to improve the human rights situation in the country through a sustained mechanism.
