South Asia

South Asia makes the large part of the world and includes major countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Maldives are often considered part of South Asia. One-fifth of the world lives in South Asian countries. These countries are filled with diverse cultures, religions, and societies.

In this article, our main focus will be to explore the situation of human rights in South Asia and primarily discuss the issues of human rights. Every human being possesses certain inalienable, universal, equal, and indivisible rights without any discrimination.  In practice, human rights violations are common throughout the world.

issues of human rights

There are many issues of human rights in these countries because of different reasons like religion, culture, politics, and ethnicity. South Asian countries have a poor position when it comes to human rights as compared to Western countries. According to the director of Amnesty International, Biraj Patnaik (2017) south Asian countries have a worse situation about human rights.

The data collected by Amnesty International showed that there are many social and political issues of human rights. Human activists have been tortured, journalists have been killed and threatened to stop reporting against the government, transgender has been tortured and social media bloggers have been harassed and abducted and women raped. In this article, we will be discussing human rights issues in South Asia in detail.

 Since 1960 various organizations have tried to work on the human rights issues in South Asian countries. These organizations were mostly from the USA. Similarly, the important organizations of SAARC and ASEAN worked with the governments of different countries to work on the betterment of human rights.

These organizations made various declarations for example in 2002 they adopted two treaties relating two women and child rights. SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in women and children for prostitution and the other was the SAARC Convention on Regional Arrangement for the Promotion of Child Welfare in South Asia.

Tayed (2005) argued that in countries, where uniform culture is scarcely present human rights management, is impossible in such countries. This argument fits in the counties present that are part of South Asia. For example, human rights are violated in the case of love marriage because the majority of the people support arranged marriages.

The social setups in these countries are family-centered and people are dependent. The family system is patriarchal in nature due to which females suffer a lot of difficulties and inequalities, particularly in India and Pakistan. In Pakistan women in rural areas have been deprived of education because of old school thoughts of parents.

 According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights are inalienable, universal, and equal rights because humans are born free and equal. In simple words, human rights are freedoms guaranteed which include freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of thought, and freedom from fear and want.

In actual practice, these humans have been deprived of these rights. In developing countries, human rights violations are more common and frequent. In the case of South Asian countries, the case is similar and humans have been deprived of their rights. Some examples of human rights violations are given below.

    In 2015, five secular bloggers were slain in Bangladesh because of allegations from extremist groups. A similar case happened in Pakistan few bloggers were abducted based on blasphemous allegations but then they were recovered however, no blasphemy was proved on them.

In 2016, two journalists were killed and one was abducted according to the Pakistani Press Foundation. Similarly in India, two journalists were shot dead in Uttar Pradesh by a gunman; another Hindu journalist was murdered for his writing which is clearly a violation of the freedom of speech and expression.

Not only journalists but common people have also suffered a violation of human rights in Bangladesh, a 22-year-old student was punished because of criticizing a politician on social media, a similar case happened in India few people were arrested based on sharing a rude picture of Hindu nationalist groups. In Nepal, a Canadian lawyer was arrested and expelled because of criticizing the Government. In Afghanistan, millions of people have been deprived of their rights by militant groups. The majority of Afghans are now living in foreign countries to protect their lives.

The violation of human rights based on gender is widespread; women have also been deprived of their rights in South Asia. Women have been raped in South Asian countries. In countries like Pakistan, women have been badly tortured in their homes and deprived of certain freedoms.

Women empowerment is a huge problem in these countries.  These issues of women are particularly due to cultural and social problems. Gender discrimination is very common in countries like Pakistan. Acid attacks have destroyed the lives of females and some women are beaten to death by husbands at home. Asma Jehangir is a brave woman and human rights activist who always supported innocent women. The culture present in countries like Pakistan and India is collective rather than individualistic due to which human rights violation is common.

Similarly, the violation of human rights in the South is directly related to income and social status. There is discrimination when it comes to social status. The upper class enjoys more rights and freedoms than the lower class.

According to the Human Development Index (HDI): which is the average measurement of human development in a country, shows that the HDI of South Asian countries is very poor. However, the human development index of India is better than Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The inequality in Pakistan is greater than in Bangladesh. This report also showed that these countries need to work on human development.

Besides, there are also issues like terrorism, extremism, and riots. Due to terrorism, countless people lose their lives, especially in Pakistan but terrorist attacks also occurred in India, Sri Lanka, and other countries. Similarly, riots also caused a lot of destruction and loss of human lives. Hindu-Muslim riots in India and Sunni-Shia riots caused a lot of destruction. Women have also suffered due to the violation of rights.

The major issue of human rights in South Asia is in Kashmir. This is an international issue of human rights and its solution is important for peace in the region. The people of Kashmir are suffering the atrocities of India. The human rights observing bodies should highlight this issue and the United Nations should work for the solution of this problem.

South Asian countries should tackle the problem of Human rights by forming different organizations and human rights observing bodies. These countries need to punish strictly the culprits of human rights violations. Human rights should be taught at schools and colleges and no compromise should be made in the case of human rights.

Freedom of speech and freedom of belief should not be discouraged. These countries also need to transform their education system to make it more productive.

Religious extremism should be discouraged and the culprit should be strictly punished. The countries should try to boost their Human development index (HDI). If South Asian countries focus on Humans they will soon overcome different issues of Human rights like discrimination, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, religious extremism, cultural influence in human rights violation, and terrorism then these countries will march towards development and prosperity.

References

Ullah, Z., & Khan, M. (2016). HRM in the South Asian Context: A Comparison of HRM in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://journal.suit.edu.pk/index.php/sjms/article/view/52/html

Tayeb, M. H. 2005. International Human Resource Management: A Multinational Company Perspective: Oxford University Press, USA.

Patnaik, B. (2017, February 28). Human rights violations endemic in South Asia. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/02/human-rights-violations-endemic-in-south-asia/

Mohanty, A., & Shashikala, S. (2014). Rethinking Inclusive Development: A Human Rights Critique of South Asia. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814058364/pdf?md5=fa6cb8ca48285f66faff3a01957499af&pid=1-s2.0-S1877042814058364-main.pdf