ON International Human Rights Day, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) calls upon government to be guided by human rights standards provided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and all United Nations human rights treaties in all of its actions.
Proclaimed on 10 December 1948 by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the UDHR is a landmark document, which sets out fundamental human rights principles that are to be universally protected and enjoyed by every person regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, language, political or other opinion or birth or other status. The UDHR serves as a foundation for an expanding system of human rights protection.
This year’s International Human Rights Day is commemorated under the auspicious theme “Our Everyday Essentials” and this theme resonates with the core principles of the UDHR, which are at the heart of what it means to be human.
The theme re-affirms the values of human rights and its importance in shaping people’s daily lives and depicts human rights not as an abstract idea but as the essentials which people rely upon as they are inherent to all people, ensuring equality, fair treatment and dignity.
ZLHR embraces the theme for this year and reaffirms its commitment to challenging impunity and standing up for the vulnerable and under-privileged members of society.
Despite the universal human rights standards set by the UDHR, of promising dignity and equality for everyone, several communities around the world are enduring attacks on their basic and essential rights.
ZLHR notes with concern that the dream of “universal human rights” remains an aspiration, rather than a reality in Zimbabwe. Despite a progressive 2013 Constitution, which contains universal human rights standards, enjoyment of human rights continue to be under threat from state and non- state actors.
Citizens are confronted with violations of the right to education, the right to health care, the right to property and the right to freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of assembly among other excesses.
Protections against internal displacements and arbitrary evictions are routinely disregarded while environmental rights are trampled upon and children, the disabled and women continue to suffer most, despite commitments made to accord them full and equal dignity.
To make human rights everyday essentials, ZLHR calls upon government to give effect to the guarantees set out under the UDHR, international human rights treaties to which Zimbabwe is a party to and the Constitution. ZLHR urges the government to;
- Make human rights an everyday essential;
- Stop actions that curtail and undermine citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms;
- Protect, promote and uphold human rightsguaranteed in the UDHR and other legal instruments including the Constitution;
- Promote democratic principles.
/ENDS/
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
Kodzero/Amalungelo House
No. 103 Sam Nujoma Street, Harare, Zimbabwe
Phone: (+263 8677005347, +263 242 764085/705370/708118
Email: info@zlhr.org
www.zlhr.org.zw
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