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Compare and Contrast the Domestic Implementation of Human Rights between Bangladesh and USA
1. Introduction:
“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
? John F. Kennedy
As the best creation by God, from the beginning of life human inherent some rights, rights to live free and independent. Human rights and freedoms based on core principles like dignity, equality, respect and autonomy. Whenever human faced injustice, inequity, they fought for that and regain their rights. People like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi will always be remembered by us for their contribution in forming human rights.
Understanding of the notion of human rights still varies from one place to another, and the question remain whether there can be common human rights standard. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is the foundation of the international system of protection for human rights. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10th, 1948. This day is celebrated annually as International Human Rights Day.<href=”#_ftn2″ name=”_ftnref2″ title=””>[2]
This report is entitled with comparison and discrimination in implementing of human rights between Bangladesh and USA. Basically this project will show the summary of the issues that both Bangladesh and USA have dealt with regarding human rights.
2. Human rights in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a parliamentary democracy, with 300 directly elected MPs. Independence in 1971 was followed shortly by fifteen years of military rule, which eventually gave way to a peaceful transition to democracy in 1991.<href=”#_ftn3″ name=”_ftnref3″ title=””>[3] Sheik Mujibur Rahman was the leading hero who raised his voice to ensure the human rights of Bangladeshi people.
2.1 The Rule of Law in Bangladesh:
The 1972 constitution of Bangladesh declares the supremacy of the “Rule of Law”. The rulers are the subject of these laws, which means a government controlled by laws framed by people’s representative which uniformly bind the citizens and the government before the law. The rule of law is a government of law and not of men. It means the exercise of power of government shall be conditioned by law and that the citizens shall not be exposed to the arbitrary will of the ruler.
2.2 Human Rights Ongoing Issues:
As a developing country with low literacy rate Bangladesh faces many critics by the developed countries for the violation of human rights. The human rights of Bangladesh are far detached from the first world’s countries values. The constitution of Bangladesh serves for scope of assembly, the right to practice the religion of personal selection and the privilege to join trade unions. It also forbids discrimination against children, women, minority groups and persons with disabilities, ban the trafficking of persons, and forced or bonded labor. Regardless of some positive trends, implementation of human rights in legal practice seems imaginary in most sectors.
2.2.1. Women Violence and discrimination:
Bangladeshi women mostly get assaulted at their home, those brutality includes domestic violence like killing for dowry, acid throwing. They are not even safe by the police because past shows that there is risk of sexual harassment by the police. Trafficking of women and children for prostitution and forced labor is being the biggest challenge for the Bangladesh Government. Bangladesh has included on a tier 2 watch lists by the US Government as one of the two main source countries in the South Asian region for the considerable trafficking activities.<href=”#_ftn4″ name=”_ftnref4″ title=””>[4] There are many laws that are still discriminatory towards women. The citizenship laws do not allow a Bangladeshi woman to pass on her citizenship to a foreign husband, but if a man marries a woman his wife automatically becomes a Bangladeshi citizen.<href=”#_ftn5″ name=”_ftnref5″ title=””>[5]
2.2.2. Extra Judicial Killing:
Extra judicial killings started with the inception of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) since 2004, RAB is formed with special team of police, generated to diminish gang activity throughout the country. RAB has been implicated in the unlawful killing of at least 700 people. At least 200 of these killings have occurred during the tenure of the current Awami League government, despite the Prime Minister’s pledge to end extrajudicial executions.<href=”#_ftn6″ name=”_ftnref6″ title=””>[6]
2.2.3. Oppress the minority Communities:
Bangladesh population is basically a combination of multi-racial, multi-phonetic, and multi-religious people that refers that beliefs among the people can vary widely. Most of the people are muslim and Islam is the state religion of this country. But the citizens are not denied to practice, propagate any religion even tough violence against the religious minorities has devastating past, in 2002; 147attacks on Hindu religious institutions have been reported in the media. Hindu communities from different part of the country faced attack on home, property, their festivals were disrupted, and templates were damaged<href=”#_ftn7″ name=”_ftnref7″ title=””>[7]. Property act of law of 1974 was much unbiased to the Hindu society, that they were deprived from much of their property and land. There have been many reports of Hindus having been evicted from their properties, and of Hindu girls being raped, but the police have refused to investigate, to this point. So we can claim this biased religious persecution as the prime reason behind several hundred thousand Hindus, Buddhists and Christians have left the country.<href=”#_ftn8″ name=”_ftnref8″ title=””>[8]
2.2.4. Extortion of human right defenders, journalists and the opposition:
Attacks, harassments and intimidation of journalists carried out by various political and other actors. Impunity in the attacks and even the killings of journalists has also happened several times. People, who raise their voice against injustice of political parties or goons, have been killed or threatened to kill. Sagar-Runi murder case has got high-level political attention and widespread media coverage in Bangladesh. Two human rights activists were attacked by a group of BNP members on Agust8, 2005, their fault was investigating torture of an Ahmadi.<href=”#_ftn9″ name=”_ftnref9″ title=””>[9]
2.2.5. Refugees and asylums seekers:
Rohingya community identified as refugees of Bangladesh, it’s a native, linguistic and religious community who took a hikefrom Myanmar’s neighboring Rakhine State decades ago, that is why manyBangladeshi authorities view them as illegal migrants. In June 2012 violence flared in Rakhine State forcing tens of thousands of Rohingya to flee both within Myanmar and across the border. Bangladesh pushed Rohingyas back at the border as we have negative perception as “intruders” and “criminals about the Rohingyas.<href=”#_ftn10″ name=”_ftnref10″ title=””>[10]
2.2.6. Labor Rights Violation:
Violating labor rights, poor work safety and low wage are the burning topic in Bangladesh nowadays. Problems like hazardous factories, unsalaried overtime, inadequate facilities, gender discrimination and cheap wages that do not cover basic expenses. Most of the time workers are forced to work more than working hours, and they are not even paid for the overtime. Male garment workers are far more likely than women to hold jobs that traditionally pay more, such as quality control and ?oor supervisor, and men also earn more than women who perform the same work.
The Rana building collapse is the latest in a long list of factory building tragedies in Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch said. In April 2005, 73 garment workers died in a factory collapse in Savar. In June 2010, 25 people were killed in a building collapse in Dhaka. In November 2012, more than 100 workers died in a fire at a factory in Dhaka.<href=”#_ftn11″ name=”_ftnref11″ title=””>[11]
3. Human Rights in USA:
The United States of America (USA or U.S.A.), commonly called the United States (US or U.S.) and America, is a federal republicconsisting of fifty states and a federal district.<href=”#_ftn12″ name=”_ftnref12″ title=””>[12] It’s a first world country which is allowably sheltered by the Constitution of the US.
3.1. The Rule of Law in USA:
American rule of law is based on the premise that increase in government means decline in freedom. American rule of law commands that limits must be placed on government, in consideration of the addiction of government is to grow and grow and grow. People who have same absolute rights like other individual may not interfere on the freedom, life or enjoyment according to American rule of law.
3.2 Human Rights Ongoing Issues:
USA as a developed nation deals with the issues like war, terrorism, sexual abuse, police brutality. Mass people consider that in United States violation of human rights practice only against the foreigners, not against home people.
3.2.1. War on Terror:
USA has been faced so many terrorist attack by now. But the reaction on this issue made USA terrorist itself. The notion of a “war” against “terrorism” has proven highly contentious. Former U.S. President George W. Bush articulated the goals of the “war on terror” in a September 20, 2001 speech, In that same speech, he called the war “a task that does not end”, and was used by President Bush in his 2006 State of The Unionaddress.<href=”#_ftn13″ name=”_ftnref13″ title=””>[13] It’s also been said that the War on Terror is in fact a war on Islam itself.
3.2.2. Torture by Proxy:
It’s a term defines the irrelevant behavior of CIA and other US agencies that treat transferred civilians considered to be terrorists, and torture them to interrogate.Brutality at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantánamo Bay revealed the scariest truth about USA’s human rights implementation.<href=”#_ftn14″ name=”_ftnref14″ title=””>[14]
3.2.3. Biasness in the criminal justice system and media coverage:
Statistics shows that Americans are too much biased to their citizens while convicting the criminals, because they are disproportionately likely to have criminal records. Statistics by Bureau of Justice claimed that 3.1 percent men from African America, 1.3 percent men from Latin and only 0.5 percent white people are in prison. Ratio of prosecution is 3:1 among African Americans and Whites.Studies have found that when U.S. is involve in human rights violation New York Times covers it with high preference, but when it comes about other nations it give a little coverage<href=”#_ftn15″ name=”_ftnref15″ title=””>[15]
3.2.4. Child Labor:
Most of the American farms hire children from different countries at lower wage rate but put them in risky job. Those workers are exempt from minimum-wage and maximum-hour requirements that apply to all other working minors under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. Most of those workers are Latino, often work 10 or more hours a day and involve in risky works. Children under age 16 who suffered fatal occupational injuries in 2010, 75 percent worked in crop production.<href=”#_ftn16″ name=”_ftnref16″ title=””>[16]
3.2.5. Sexual violence against women:
Though USA is a country with highly educated people with the view of equality among both genders, unfortunately sexual violence rate against women is too high. There was epidemic of sexual violence against women in the military. Pentagon has said there are 19,000 sexual assaults in the armed services each year and the severe lack of criminal prosecution was highlighted.<href=”#_ftn17″ name=”_ftnref17″ title=””>[17]
3.2.6. Brutality of Police and Death penalty:
Even though Capital punishment is controversial, the number of capital punishment increasing. Human Rights Watch’s 2012 report, found that, the number of condemned convicts aged 65 or older increased 94 times faster comparative to other convicts during 2007 to 2010.
Police cruel treatment consist beatings, injudicious shootings and the use of dangerous prohibition methods. United States Uniform Code of Military Justice considers abuse of prisoners is a crime. 45 homicides have take place in US custody in Afghanistan and Iraq according to Human rights report 2006.
4. Similarities and dissimilarities between Bangladesh’s and US’s human rights implementation:
Even there is huge difference in the view, culture, economic and social condition among these two countries, from the survey I found some similarities like-
Extrajudicial killing and torture by proxy: Both Govt. letting their force to kill or torture people for their own benefit.
Violation of Labor Law: Both countries face this issue; both are trying to improve labor work safety.
Discriminating Minorities: Bangladesh discriminates the Hindu, and USA discriminates the non-citizens.
Violating Women’s Rights: Bangladesh is active in domestic violence, whereas USA violating other nation’s women while invading.
Contrast is of course huge, because the tendency to follow the human rights varies in different countries. The major difference is whenever USA faces any issue; they focus on make it invisible in other eyes by dismiss it as early as possible, because they don’t want to devalue their country. But developing country like Bangladesh put more focus on new issues, they hardly try to solve the present one, by then another issue arises.
5. Conclusion:
The purpose of this essay was to examine the similarities and contrast in implementing human rights in Bangladesh and USA.
Different societies throw up different systems of moral beliefs depending on such things as their history, traditions, geographical circumstances, and views of the world. We have no means of judging them for there are no objective and universal criteria available for the purpose, and even if there were, we would be too deeply conditioned by our own society to discover them.<href=”#_ftn18″ name=”_ftnref18″ title=””>[18]
So findings from this survey would give different opinion to different people, as a true civilian one should think about the betterment of his own and his countries while implementing human rights.
Reference:
ü People who fought for human rights and civil rights, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü http://www.biographyonline.net/people/famous/human-rights.html
ü 2 Human Right Basics, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/human-rights-basics
ü 3 Democracy in Bangladesh, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü http://www.studymode.com/essays/Democracy-Bangladesh-158469.html
ü 4 See-Bangladesh -European Community Country Strategy Paper for the period 2007-2013
ü 5 Bangladesh: Discrimination and violence against women persist, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from http://www.wluml.org/node/5097
ü 6BANGLADESH: CRIMES UNSEEN: EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS IN BANGLADESH, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from- http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA13/005/2011
ü 7(36 Amena Mohsin, Rights of Minorities in Bangladesh, in Human Rights in Bangladesh-2002, Ain O Salish Kendra, Dhaka2003, P.229-230)
ü 8Human Rights in Bangladesh, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü <href=”#Freedom_of_religion”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Bangladesh#Freedom_of_religion
ü 9 see-Essential Background: Overview of human rights issues in Bangladesh (Human Rights Watch, 31-12-2005)
ü 10 BANGLADESH: Rohingya refugees face more restrictions, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü http://www.irinnews.org/report/96526/bangladesh-rohingya-refugees-face-more-restrictions
ü 11 Bangladesh: Tragedy Shows Urgency of Worker Protections, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/25/bangladesh-tragedy-shows-urgency-worker-protections
ü 12Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
ü 13 Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People” (Press release). The White House. September 20, 2001.
ü 14Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
ü 15“Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association”. All Academic, Inc. 2006-08-31. Retrieved 2007-05-28
ü 16Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
ü http://www.labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/minors.shtm
ü 17http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_United_States_military
ü 18Bhikhu Parekh, “Non-ethnocentric universalism”, Dunne, T., and Wheeler, N. J., Human Rights I Global Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p.128.
· 2009 – Bangladesh, October.
· Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
· amnesty.org
· IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)
Volume 7, Issue 3 (Jan. – Feb. 2013), PP 09-17
e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.
· Asian Tribune, Vol. 11 No. 395
· Human Watch World Report 2003
<href=”#_ftnref1″ name=”_ftn1″ title=””>[1] People who fought for human rights and civil rights, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://www.biographyonline.net/people/famous/human-rights.html
<href=”#_ftnref2″ name=”_ftn2″ title=””>[2] Human Right Basics, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/human-rights-basics
<href=”#_ftnref3″ name=”_ftn3″ title=””>[3] Democracy in Bangladesh, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Democracy-Bangladesh-158469.html
<href=”#_ftnref4″ name=”_ftn4″ title=””>[4] See-Bangladesh -European Community Country Strategy Paper for the period 2007-2013
<href=”#_ftnref5″ name=”_ftn5″ title=””>[5] Bangladesh: Discrimination and violence against women persist, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from http://www.wluml.org/node/5097
<href=”#_ftnref6″ name=”_ftn6″ title=””>[6] BANGLADESH: CRIMES UNSEEN: EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS IN BANGLADESH, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from- http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA13/005/2011
<href=”#_ftnref7″ name=”_ftn7″ title=””>[7] (36 Amena Mohsin, Rights of Minorities in Bangladesh, in Human Rights in Bangladesh-2002, Ain O Salish Kendra, Dhaka2003, P.229-230)
<href=”#_ftnref8″ name=”_ftn8″ title=””>[8] Human Rights in Bangladesh, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
<href=”#Freedom_of_religion”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Bangladesh#Freedom_of_religion
<href=”#_ftnref9″ name=”_ftn9″ title=””>[9] see-Essential Background: Overview of human rights issues in Bangladesh (Human Rights Watch, 31-12-2005)
<href=”#_ftnref10″ name=”_ftn10″ title=””>[10] BANGLADESH: Rohingya refugees face more restrictions, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://www.irinnews.org/report/96526/bangladesh-rohingya-refugees-face-more-restrictions
<href=”#_ftnref11″ name=”_ftn11″ title=””>[11]Bangladesh: Tragedy Shows Urgency of Worker Protections, Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/25/bangladesh-tragedy-shows-urgency-worker-protections
<href=”#_ftnref12″ name=”_ftn12″ title=””>[12] Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
<href=”#_ftnref13″ name=”_ftn13″ title=””>[13] Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People” (Press release). The White House. September 20, 2001.
<href=”#_ftnref14″ name=”_ftn14″ title=””>[14] Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
<href=”#_ftnref15″ name=”_ftn15″ title=””>[15]“Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association”. All Academic, Inc. 2006-08-31. Retrieved 2007-05-28
<href=”#_ftnref16″ name=”_ftn16″ title=””>[16]Retrieved June 15, 2013, from
http://www.labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/minors.shtm
<href=”#_ftnref17″ name=”_ftn17″ title=””>[17]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_United_States_military
<href=”#_ftnref18″ name=”_ftn18″ title=””>[18] Bhikhu Parekh, “Non-ethnocentric universalism”, Dunne, T., and Wheeler, N. J., Human Rights I Global Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p.128.