We celebrate International Human Rights Day to create awareness about human beings’ elementary rights and propagate the UN’s efforts to empower the global population in issues of human rights.
When is Human Rights Day 2021?
World Human Rights Day is observed every year on the 10th of December. The famous words that linger in all our ears when we hear of human rights are – equality, justice, freedom, peace, hope, dignity, lawful living, prosperity and many more. The General Assembly of the United Nations passed the resolution of the universal declaration of human rights in the year 1948. It is not restricted to a day’s celebration; instead, it follows up for an entire year till the anniversary date comes by.
Why is Human Rights Day celebrated on 10th December?
The world has struggled to come to terms with achieving fundamental rights for their survival. In one part of the world, there is a growing income trend and relatively higher living standards. On the other hand, some communities and groups cannot afford even a single square meal per day. The latter group is sadly larger in number compared to the former.
The United Nations took to the media to educate and spread the message of human rights through the celebration of International Human Rights Day. The massive propaganda of fundamental human rights to all human beings is not a very old thought. It started much later, and World War II acted as a precursor to bringing human rights issues to the world’s frontline.
Rights of humans come to them due to their respective position in their families, status, position at work etc. It is also granted naturally to a person owing to his citizenship, religious status, position in a group etc. The ancient sacred texts of every tradition speak of fundamental human rights and duties as an individual.
They are guiding lights that have elaborated in detail about the context and significance of human rights and social activities. Later in 1919, many laws favouring the labour classes were formulated to protect working-class men and women’s concerns and look into their health factors and welfare schemes.
At the Second World War’s closure in 1939, the human rights protocol had received more excellent vision and meaning than earlier years. The mass massacre of the Nazis put the world to focus on the existence of human rights and called in for a better perspective. In 1941, Franklin Roosevelt stressed the need for the essential freedom of humans. Later 56 UN member nations accepted the UN proposal and have been following suit.
Human Rights Day 2021 Theme
- The theme for International Human Rights Day 2021 is undecided yet. The year 2020 theme was “Recover Better – Stand Up for Human Rights”.
- The year 2019 put the entire focus on the next generation and quoted as “Youth standing up for human rights”.
- The year 2018 more or less carried a similar theme resembling 2017, and it said:” Stand up for human rights”.
- The year 2017 marked the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of human rights by the UN Charter. Hence, the year’s theme was: “Let’s stand up for equality, justice and human dignity.”
- The year 2016 gave a very benevolent theme to the world, it said: “Stand up for someone’s rights today”.
Human Rights Day 2021 Celebrations
Some of the most common ways of celebrating the day include:
- Arranging socio-political events, meetings and conferences to highlight the theme of the day.
- Exhibitions displaying caricatures and epic series of human rights evolution over the years are common ways of celebration.
- Cultural events by children are the biggest highlights of the day.
- Schools spread awareness among their pupils by arranging debates, speech, essay writing competitions, poster making, painting competitions, etc.
- On the other hand, the day shall also be observed with many protests and marches against incidents that took a toll on human rights execution.
- Many political set-ups use the day as a platform for talking about child rights, consumer rights and other allied rights that co-exist with human rights.
World Human Rights Day 2021 Significance
The country’s youth is responsible for leading the country and acting as change-makers when it comes to transforming the human rights scene of respective countries. The youth’s zeal and potential can create the next generation of leaders and create a different place for human rights to thrive and be reachable to the more significant population.
The youth of this country should actively participate in the protection, promotion and preservation of human rights. Human rights are the necessities of a person, and it does not discriminate against anyone on the grounds of caste, creed, religion, sex, community, nationality or economic status.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the UN adopts in the year 1948 has published the official document in more than 500 languages, making it easily accessible to the global population. Every human’s dignity and rights come naturally by birth and cannot be claimed or taken away by power.
A civilised society believes in practising human rights and empowers people to question the authorities if a thing went wrong. The authorities at the higher order of working have always believed in the youth’s power to contribute to the protection of these rights explicitly.