Why Human Rights Are Important

“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
― John F. Kennedy

Every human being is entitled to having human rights. Or at least, they should be. Some examples of
human rights are having the right to life, having the right to freedom, have the right to freedom of
speech and thought and many more. But why should these rights be essential to every human
being?

The reason why human rights should be important to every human being is that human rights
respect the dignity in a human’s life. Human rights are important because they apply to everybody,
they cannot be taken away and they are protected by the law. They are important because they
ensure that everybody, no matter your culture, is treated equally. Without human rights, we
wouldn’t have the freedom that we deserve.

In “The Freedom Writers Diaries”, multiple human rights were violated. The main human rights that
were violated were the right to be free and equal in dignity and right and the right to life and the
right. Or more specifically, Articles 1, 3 and 29. One of the other human rights that were breached in
the Freedom Writers is the right to education. The reason why this right was breached is because
Ms. Grunwell’s class, the students of room 203 were referred to as “delinquents”, “below average”
and “unteachable” and even going so far as to not give them the same textbooks as everybody else
and giving them the old, broken and battered up books.

To combat these breaches on human rights, human rights organizations step in. What are human
rights organizations? Human rights organizations are non-governmental groups which advocate for
human rights. Some examples of these human rights organizations include Human Rights Watch,
Human Rights Action Center, Child’s Defense Fund (CDF) and more.

The human rights organisation that I will be focussing on is Human Rights Watch. Human Rights
Watch is a non-profit, nongovernmental human rights organisation made up of roughly 400 staff
members around the globe. Human Rights Watch is known for it’s accurate fact finding, impartial
reporting, effective use of media, and targeted advocacy, often in partnership with local human
rights groups. What does Human Rights Watch do? Human Rights Watch documents abuses of
human rights around the world with the goal of ending them and bringing the perpetrators to
justice. All information about Human Rights Watch in this paragraph was taken from the official
Human Rights Watch website. (www.hrw.org)

Why are human rights important to everybody’s lives? Human rights are the basic freedom and
rights that are entitled to everybody.