Yarba was not allowed to stop working to bury her child until later that day, nor could she perform proper burial rights.

Mauritania was the last country in the world to officially abolish slavery in 1981, over a century after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in the United States. In 2007, a law was passed under international pressure, criminalizing slavery in the country. So far, the law has only resulted in one successful conviction of a slave owner. 

The government’s official narrative is that all people in Mauritania are free and slavery is no longer a practiced phenomenon. This is far from the truth, but such a narrative is easily perpetuated given the country’s incredibly vast desert that separates groups of enslaved people  by hundreds of miles, as well as the complex network of extreme poverty, racism, ethnic hierarchy and religious ideology that prevents slaves from leaving. Many who try cannot sustain themselves and face social ostracization, left with no choice but to return to their masters.  

The actual number of enslaved people in Mauritania is contested among sources. The Global Slavery Index reported 90,000 people living in modern slavery in 2018, whereas CNN reported anywhere from 340,000 to 680,000 enslaved people as of 2012. 

By the sheer number of its people living in slavery alone, Mauritania stands out in its practice of this internationally-condemned human rights abuse. However, it is not the only country still participating in “modern slavery,” defined as “the severe exploitation of other people for personal or commercial gain.” There are currently an estimated 40 million people worldwide living in modern slavery, 71% of whom are female and one-fourth of whom are children. Most enslaved people live in poverty.

Unlike the traditional (and outlawed) form of slavery studied throughout history, modern slavery is often hidden and practiced in more covert manners. The most common types of modern slavery include the broad categories of human trafficking, labor trafficking and slavery of children including forced or early marriage. 

Human Trafficking

Human trafficking encompasses the exploitation of people for forced prostitution, labor, crime, domestic servitude, marriage and even organ removal. Those who find themselves entangled in human trafficking typically live in poverty and seek ways to support themselves and their families. Traffickers lure in these vulnerable people through false promises of work and financial assistance, then trap them into human trafficking through means of violence, threats, fraud or coercion.

Women, especially immigrant women, and children suffer disproportionately from human trafficking. The United States’ human trafficking population is almost exclusively comprised of immigrant women, whose bondage is perpetuated by their inability to speak English and unawareness of U.S. employment protections, among other factors. The American Civil Liberties Union also attributes their heightened vulnerability to poverty, gender discrimination, illiteracy, lack of education, regional conflicts and job opportunities. The work these immigrants are forced into is unregulated by governments and thus keeps them out of public view. 

Regarding sex trafficking, in particular, The International Labor Organization and Walk Free Foundation, partnered with the International Organization for Migration, reported 4.8 million victims of forced sexual exploitation in 2016 — 99% of those victims were female and 21% were under the age of 18. 

One victim is Carla (an alias) from Honduras, who shared her story with The Guardian in 2017. When Carla was 15-years-old, she and a co-worker were kidnapped at gunpoint by three gang members, raped, and forced to sell cocain on street corners. Carla escaped with the help of a paying “client,” who paid for her ticket to the Mexican border where she was applying for refuge as of 2017.

Labor Trafficking – Forced and Bonded Labor

Under labor trafficking, the most widespread subcategory is forced labor, or any work or service people are forced to do against their will under the threat of punishment. These punishments may include outright violence and intimidation or take more subtle forms such as keeping identity papers away from laborers or threatening to report them to immigration authorities.

It is often found in industries that have an abundance of laborers and minimal regulations, such as agriculture, manufacturing, and construction. Prostitution and sex trafficking may also be considered forced labor. 

The International Labour Organization’s 2012 report estimates that 20.9 million people worldwide are victims of forced labor, 56% of whom are located in the Asia-Pacific region. The trend of targeting vulnerable individuals persists; women, children and migrant workers make up a large amount of the population. Similar to the targeting of immigrant women, migrant workers are targeted specifically because they often do not speak the language of the country they have migrated to, have few social connections, have minimal rights and are dependent on their employers. 

Corruption within the governments and economic reliance on cheap labor within the regions that practice forced labor, which allows modern slavery practices to go unchecked, also contribute to their continued victimization. 

Bonded labor, or debted bondage, shares similar characteristics as forced labor. The key difference is that bonded labor involves debt repayment in exchange for labor on the part of the victim. One definition states bonded labor functions as a sort of permanent enslavement. An individual will give themselves into slavery as loan security or to pay an inherited debt, only to find that repayment is impossible. After Transatlantic Slave Trade was abolished, bonded labor was used as a method of further trapping the enslaved people working on plantations in Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia into slavery. 

Bonded labor affects approximately half of the people trapped in forced labor, and flourishes especially in South Asia countries like India and Pakistan. Anti-Slavery International contributes this strong prevalence in South Asia to poverty and widespread caste-based discrimination, especially among the lowest caste called the “Untouchables.” It is important to note that the caste system was officially abolished in 1950, but caste-based discrimination still exists. 

Poverty is nearly impossible to escape, and the need for money drives people to take out loans with their labor. Nearly all the money victims of bonded labor earn go towards paying their debt, yet employers continue to tack on expenses to trap them in a cycle of indebtitude. The debt can be generational as well, keeping entire families captive for extended periods of time. 

Ali from Bangladesh spent the equivalent of over $13,000 to travel to Singapore and build a social housing development as a construction worker, promised a monthly wage of $741. The $13,000 spent on training and agent fees required his family to sell land, borrow money, and take out a bank loan. After five months, the money stopped coming and Ali’s boss fled Singapore. Unable to make their loan payments, Ali and his family now face the wrath of the bank, which will seize the deeds for their land and has lodged a police report against Ali. 

Child Slavery

The final major category of modern slavery is child slavery, which aside from child trafficking also encompasses child marriage and child soldiers. 

Between 2005 and 2020, UNICEF has verified that a total of 93,000 (although the true number is believed to be higher) child soldiers were recruited and used in armed conflict. Some are abducted or manipulated and threatened by armed groups, while others volunteer to financially support their families and others join for survival. 

Child soldiers endure incredibly dangerous hardships, risking death, chronic injury and illness, and are sometimes forced to participate in tortures and killings. Girls involved with armed groups are often subject to gender-based violence. The conditions these children live in are abhorrent; they face a lack of nutrients and healthy living conditions, and some are forced into substance abuse. 

Children who escape and attempt to reintegrate into their communities are often ostracized, treated as suspicious by both their families and neighbors who may turn them away. The psychological damage resulting from their time in armed conflict makes reintegration all the more difficult. 

Child marriage, or marriage involving children under 18 years-old, is a culturally common practice in many countries. Approximately 650 million women alive today were married under the age of 18. 

The practice has negative impacts on the child’s (almost exclusively practiced with girls) health, education, and general freedoms. However, it only is classified as slavery under specific conditions: the child has not given genuine, free and informed consent to enter the marriage; the child is subjected to control through abuse and threats and is forced to partake in domestic chores and/or engage in non-consensual sexual relations and the child cannot realistically leave or end the marriage. 

A handful of countries have made legislative efforts to tackle the issue of modern slavery in recent years by targeting company supply chains. One such effort was United Kingdom’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015 that required organizations running businesses to publish annual slavery and trafficking statements. France, whose legislature also included sanctions against business found using modern slavery, Australia and the Netherlands have introduced similar counter-measures. 

These laws are far from perfect, having minimal impact in incentivizing businesses and individuals to halt slavery practice and often overlooking the exploitation of children, but are a start. The fight against modern slavery is ongoing, and the stories shared of its victims are only a few among millions of unheard voices. 

Afghanistan Conflict

Prompted by the events of 9/11, the United States invaded Afghanistan after the Taliban government refused to hand over the orchestrator of the deadly attacks, Osama bin Laden.. Once the United States intervened, the Taliban quickly lost power and relocated to southern Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. A Western-backed government was set in place in the capital of Kabul, and the country witnessed its first democratic election.

In February of 2020, the United States. and the Taliban signed a peace agreement stating that the United States would conduct a full removal of troops from Afghanistan if the Taliban prevented the occupation of their land by terrorist groups and began negotiations with the Afghan government. However, the Taliban shortly began to execute attacks on Afghan security forces and civilians, all while gaining more territory and increasing conflict within the state. Violence ensued as the United States increased its airstrikes against the Taliban, who later regained control of the Afghan government in August of 2021. 

It was during this increase in political control that the Taliban managed to disrupt millions of girl’s education across the country. Since the Taliban have been in power, secondary schools have only been opened to boys, excluding girls from receiving an education past the seventh grade. The Taliban’s acting higher education minister, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, recently released a statement saying that modern studies are “less valuable” than the religious studies taught at Islamic religious schools. This goes in hand with the aspect of Sharia law that the Taliban follows, a religious law of Islam.

In addition to the Taliban, Afghanistan is also threatened by another terrorist organization, the Islamic State in Khorasan, which has gained control of Eastern provinces and attacked civilians through tactics such as suicide bombings.

Afghanistan Culture

Many Afghan civilians belong to religious tribes and communities that believe the only role of women is taking care of the home and children. Included with this belief is a long tradition of child marriage. According to recent research, “More than half of the girls in Afghanistan are getting married before reaching the age of 19.” This causes a large disruption in education as these girls are no longer expected tor receive an education, and instead are trained to care for a home, their new husband, and start to create  a family. Additionally, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has reported that reasons for the high rate of child marriages include poverty, unfair socialization and culture. However, the primary reason they reported was illiteracy. 

In 2018, the illiteracy rate in Afghanistan was 57%. Although this was an 11% decrease from the year prior, it is important to note that this statistic was taken at a time when the Taliban was not in full control of the nation. Since then, there have not been any new reports regarding the illiteracy rate of the country, which leads one to believe that since the Taliban has come into power, that percentage has dramatically increased.

The remaining girls who are able to receive an education face a shortage of female instructors – an issue that is also caused by a lack of education amongst womenMany traditional families in Afghanistan disapprove of a male presence in schools that instruct girls, and a majority of girls that receive an education do so at all-girls schools. However, the shortage of female instructors caused the government to allow instruction to be taught by men. Many families disapproved of this and removed their daughters from schools altogether.

Beyond cultural barriers, many girls are unable to receive an education today due to the increased conflict within the nation. According to the UN, students in Afghanistan are three times more likely to be affected by an attack at school. These attacks are mainly conducted by terrorist groups that disrupt girls learning through school shootings and bombings. UNICEF has reported that since December of 2018, over 1,000 schools have been closed due to these dangers, affecting over half a million children. The increased conflict in the region, either from international wars or national attacks, has dramatically decreased the number of girls that can receive an education, as they tend to be the targets for the majority of the terrorist attacks in the nation.

Solutions

In addition to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Afghanistan previously ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESC), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It is necessary that international organizations, such as the UN, and international nations, such as the United States, hold Afghanistan accountable for the treaties they have ratified and give women the rights they once stood for.

Equal access to education is a human right and is something every child, regardless of gender and birthplace, should receive. For this reason, it is necessary to support organizations (either through donations or volunteering), such as UNICEF, who work to support children in nations like Afghanistan and provide them with the resources to receive a proper education. Other organizations include the Malala Fund and Sahar Education, which focus primarily on getting girls back into classrooms safely from the surrounding conflict. Their efforts have made an impact on hundred’s of girl’s lives, but have been more and more mitigated due to the Taliban’s increased control and implementation of their Sharia law. To take a more hands-on approach, one can also write to their national government asking to include women’s rights in any treaties and agreements constituted with Afghanistan and the Taliban government. Regardless of how one chooses to help, it is evident that millions of girls in Afghanistan are being deprived of their birth-given rights, and any help they could receive from people around the world can make all the difference.

This is what it took to effectively eradicate systematic forced labor in Uzbekistan. And still, remnants of the old system persist.

In the field of human rights work, success stories are few and far between. The decades of dedication, hard work and undying perseverance of human rights defenders, therefore, makes each rare instance all the more remarkable. With cautious optimism, the case of forced labor in the Uzbek cotton harvest now earns its label as a human rights “success story” of its time. 

Tracing the practice back to the Soviet Era, forced cotton picking in Uzbekistan finds its origins in cotton production quotas under the 1920s Gosplan system. Although thirty years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its ill-fated economic policies, the practice of forced labor which fueled decades of human rights abuses and rested on the fulfillment of a cotton quota continued well into the 21st century. 

The Uzbek cotton harvest, involving over 2 million laborers as the main source of employment, is the world’s largest seasonal labor mobilization. At its height, under the former president and long-standing dictator of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, who died in 2016, the practice of forced labor involved millions of people being forced to pick cotton against their will under abusive conditions, including children.

Professor Steve Swerdlow, a human rights lawyer who teaches in the University of Southern California’s Department of Political Science and International Relations, has closely monitored Uzbekistan’s human rights record and the cotton issue for years. He described the process in an interview with Glimpse from the Globe. “Several million citizens would be mobilized roughly between the months of August and November every year to harvest what many called Uzbekistan’s ‘white gold’,” he stated. “Cotton, as a raw material for an economy that needed cash, was a very important commodity.”

Under the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan’s cotton accounted for 70 percent of irrigated land under cultivation in the republic and for more than two-thirds of the total cotton production in the USSR. Cotton became such a valuable cash crop for the Kremlin that intense agricultural practices led to the drying of the Aral Sea, one of the worst ecological disasters in the world. 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Karimov recognized cotton as an important source of revenue for Uzbekistan. He continued adhering to Moscow’s heavily state-run economic system, creating annual cotton quotas which fueled the practice of forced and child labor. “For many, many years it was an important source of revenue for Karimov’s often closed and isolated economic system,” Swerdlow explains, “It played an important role in propping up a dictatorship.”

The human cost of this lucrative Karimov-era practice was steep. 

“The way it worked under Karimov,” Swerdlow details, “is that local officials from what are called ‘mahallas’ [neighborhood committees], assisted by the police, would go from door to door to ensure that every family was contributing to the cotton harvest. They would pressure citizens, even single mothers, vulnerable citizens, people who were ill, the elderly, to sacrifice their time and participate in this mobilization for several months out of the year.”

Living conditions were abysmal, workers’ rights nonexistent, wages alarmingly low and compensation frequently withheld. Workers faced abusive conditions picking cotton. Students were often pulled out from schools and universities to participate in the harvest, and foreign journalists, NGOs and local civil society were ruthlessly suppressed, leaving no room for outside scrutiny. As the human rights violations amassed, Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest in the Karimov period remained “one of the only examples in the world where a government was controlling, coordinating, mobilizing and organizing the forced labor from start to finish,” said Swerdlow.

In 2007, in response to the decades of systemic forced labor and human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, activists across a number of sectors formed the Cotton Campaign. The Cotton Campaign, where Swerdlow acted as a representative for Human Rights Watch from 2010 to 2019, works with governments, local civil society, companies and foreign investors to advocate for Uzbek rights and address the issue of forced cotton picking. Since its formation, the efforts of the campaign, in conjunction with ongoing international diplomatic efforts, have seen significant outcomes.

The first major accomplishment of the global effort to eradicate forced labor in Uzbekistan came in 2014, when it succeeded in exerting enough pressure on the Uzbek government to allow the International Labor Organization (ILO) into the country to monitor the cotton harvest — a feat all the more significant when considering it took place during the period of Karimov’s brutal regime. Since the end of the Karimov era, marked by his death in 2016, systematic child labor effectively ended within a few years of the ILO’s monitoring. Each subsequent year, due to the ILO’s extensive monitoring and fieldwork, the government dramatically reduced adult forced labor by increasing wages and ensuring compensation. 

Currently, Professor Swerdlow is working alongside human rights defenders in Uzbekistan to evaluate the outcomes of the 2021 cotton harvest. He outlines the results of his monitoring. 

As of late 2021, the “reporting, research and monitoring [by human rights defenders]leads to the conclusion that forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector is no longer systematic. That is, the system in which central government officials forced people to pick cotton against their will no longer exists.” The ILO corroborates this claim in a 2020 report, concluding that “systematic forced labour did not occur” and “child labour is no longer used during the cotton harvest in Uzbekistan.” The end  of systematic forced labor in the Uzbek cotton harvest marks a major victory for the human rights community. 

This movement’s success — including diplomatic missions, the formation of an international campaign and the work of the ILO — was not without the cooperation of the private sector. The campaign spearheaded efforts to enact an international boycott on Uzbek cotton, a pledge to which over 300 brand-name retailers became signatories. 

By committing to not source Uzbek cotton, a source of revenue upon which Uzbekistan’s state-run economy is heavily dependent, the business sector played a huge role in forcing the government’s hand on the issue. Notably, the cotton pledge remains in place to this day, continuing to cripple the economy amidst ongoing efforts to address human rights concerns — leverage over the Uzbek government that the Cotton Campaign seems unwilling to lose.

The Uzbek government, the role of which can be characterized as twofold, further contributed to the initial success of the campaign. 

Firstly, the death of Islam Karimov in 2016 and the subsequent rise in power of Shakvat Mirziyoyev marked a drastic shift in Uzbekistan’s political climate as the nearly thirty-year reign of a brutal dictator came to a sudden end. Although the deeply-rooted authoritarian legacy of the post-Soviet Era remains ingrained in Uzbekistan’s institutions, Mirziyoyev’s reform-oriented agenda has facilitated huge strides forward in the country’s human rights situation. Since his rise to power, Mirziyoyev has issued several presidential decrees aimed at addressing child and forced labor practices in the country, culminating in a landmark 2020 decree which saw the complete abolition of the state-sanctioned cotton quota — the main driver of forced labor in the Uzbek cotton harvest.

Mirziyoyev’s commitment to bettering Uzbekistan’s global image, transforming the economy through privatization and opening the country to foreign investment by defrosting the isolated Karimov-era status quo have been instrumental in furthering the effort to end forced labor. 

The political will shown by the Uzbek government in recent years to cooperate with some human rights defenders on the issue has been instrumental to the effort’s success. “In the Uzbek case, there was a critical mass of government officials who were willing to adapt and recognize that the criticism of their record had to be addressed,” Swerdlow recounts. 

Officials like Senate Chairwoman Tanzila Narbaeva, an advocate for reform, and President Mirziyoyev have been key in ensuring government cooperation with global efforts and diplomatic missions by the United States, EU and other partners. In December 2021, for instance, exiled human rights activist and prominent Uzbek voice Umida Niyazova made an important visit to Uzbekistan, where she met directly with the Minister of Labor to discuss reforms in the cotton sector. 

“While there’s an adversarial relationship with governments, you also have to be ready for dialogue. This is one of those really interesting examples where the government changed its position.” According to Professor Swerdlow, the case of Uzbekistan speaks to the need for flexibility in any human rights campaign. “There may come a time when the government that you’ve been fighting for ten years says, ‘we’re ready to talk.’”

Moreover, Swerdlow emphasizes the importance of empowering civil society in any human rights campaign, pointing to its instrumental role in ensuring Uzbek workers’ rights are protected moving forward. 

“The Uzbekistan model provides some lessons in terms of the use of creative tactics, and always giving voice to civil society first.” The Cotton Campaign similarly highlights the role of “an independent, vibrant, and diverse civil society” in “ensuring the success of the reform process,” and the need for local monitoring of the cotton harvest by international and local groups without interference.

However, while the global movement to eradicate forced labor in Uzbekistan has been largely successful, significant obstacles remain. Although systematic, state-sanctioned forced labor has come to an end, instances of forced labor and human rights violations in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields continue to be documented. Mirziyoyev’s reforms have seen Uzbekistan through a transition from a state-run economy (a remnant of the Soviet era) to one that is more privatized and market-based. However, these reforms have given rise to new challenges in human rights work. 

The Uzbek government has “transitioned to a new model known as the cluster system, where private manufacturers and farmers group together in private entities, and essentially privatize the sector,” Swerdlow explains. “But there are still many aspects of the system that human rights activists point to as continuing some of the abuses of the past. Some of the key problems are rooted in the lack of independent feedback or complaint mechanisms that workers could use to raise concerns about the conditions in the fields, their contracts or other issues. The legal basis upon which workers are contracted requires more regulation and safe working conditions that comply with the international labor conventions Uzbekistan has signed need to be implemented.”

Another important concern is the lack of independent unions and absence of collective bargaining to protect workers’ rights. For instance, Uzbekistan’s first independent labor union, Halq Birligi, was founded in March 2021 by laborers in the Indorama Agro cotton farm. Within a week, members of the union were already facing harassment, threats and demands to disband by local authorities. 

Moreover, Swerdlow reports, “Some of the current obstacles relate to how workers’ rights and the conditions of their labor are protected in the fields, from their access to healthcare, proper protective clothing, and sanitary conditions.” Instances of wages being withheld by farmers and picker leaders and disputes over the amount of cotton collected are also regularly reported. As such, protection of workers’ rights is one of the central challenges associated with the emergence of the cluster system — challenges that can only be effectively addressed if Uzbekistan’s civil society is empowered to address them.” 

Another challenge is the legacy of authoritarianism that still lingers in Uzbekistan. Uzbek security services continue to exercise an outsized influence just as they did during the Soviet and Karimov eras, preventing local human rights organizations from obtaining registration with the Ministry of Justice that would allow them to monitor the cotton harvest. The Ministry of Justice has denied registration to numerous independent civil society and volunteer groups, limiting their ability to monitor the cotton harvest and thus strengthen the sector overall.

“Fear of police and a general reluctance to complain against powerful authority figures present major obstacles for workers’ rights,” Swerdlow explains. When there is no democracy and no meaningful civil society engagement, giving voice to the victims of this abusive system becomes an even more daunting task.

The empowerment of civil society, registration of NGOs and unionization remain major obstacles in the movement to completely eradicate forced labor in Uzbekistan. 

However, challenges also emerged in the process of the human rights work that went behind this movement. Professor Swerdlow reflects on some of the insights gained from his work with the Cotton Campaign. 

“No matter the human rights issue at stake, coalitions are a messy business. Human rights work is never linear. It takes blood, sweat and tears to form successful coalitions. In the effort to end forced labor in Uzbekistan, while centered in Uzbekistan’s civil society, the coalition encompassed actors from vastly different sectors and there were certainly moments when conflicting priorities would emerge, and some companies were more proactive than others in joining the effort.”

Ultimately, however, success in ending forced labor would never have been possible without the collective efforts of civil society actors, the business sector, government officials and diplomats alike. 

“This is not only a story about international actors,” Swerdlow concludes. “By far, the heroes of this story are the workers and the local human rights defenders themselves, who risked a great deal to speak truth to power. In so doing, they changed Uzbekistan’s trajectory forever in a positive direction” 

The case of Uzbekistan holds important lessons for human rights work globally. As a success story, the movement to eradicate forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector highlights the power of coalitions and international cooperation in addressing the challenges of our time — none of which would have been possible without the involvement of all the actors involved. 

Already, the successful effort to end forced labor in Uzbekistan has lent momentum to efforts to a parallel project to eliminate forced and child labor practices in Turkmenistan, where ruthless, totalitarian, authorities have maintained one of the world’s most repressive systems for decades, even in comparison to Uzbekistan at the height of the Karimov’s rule. Takeaways from the human rights work in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector are also relevant to the situation in Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China are forced to work in deplorable conditions, subject to gross human rights violations, and to exploitative labor practices in West Africa and Thailand. 

Uzbekistan illustrates the importance of engaging multiple actors in addressing  complex human rights challenges. In this case, the combined efforts of local civil society with the Cotton Campaign, diplomatic missions, the ILO, the business sector and Uzbek officials were instrumental to this success. 

One can only hope that the “success story” of Uzbekistan will be not an anomaly, but the first of many more to come. 

LOS ANGELES — In nearly every humanitarian crisis of the 21st century, realpolitik rears its ugly head. 

Although the state of human rights is on a downward trajectory globally, “human rights” and “democracy” remain favorite catchphrases in Western foreign policy, yielded as political tools that serve to further countries’ geopolitical interests abroad. 

The work of human rights defenders and civil society activists, therefore, becomes all the more critical, and gives a voice to those most vulnerable to the plights of our increasingly globalized world

Through no fault of its dedicated agents, the human rights framework today is deeply flawed and in dire need for reform. Though both its strengths and weaknesses are numerous, two factors stand out as emblems of the framework’s ineffectiveness — namely, its inherent political neutrality and the implementation of economic sanctions. 

Political Neutrality

The field of human rights tackles some of the most contentious, critical crises of our time. In the pursuit for justice, peace and universal rights, the human rights framework is rooted in a promise to maintain political neutrality that is fundamental to its structure. Today, civil society operates on a backbone of non-governmental, apolitical and non-partisan organizations that, in most countries, are subject to certain commitments to remain politically neutral in order to register and carry out their work. 

The innate political neutrality of human rights work is, in most ways, justified. Foreign organizations and local human rights groups are often faced with repressive, harsh conditions when conducting  humanitarian missions in authoritarian and non-democratic countries like Belarus or Azerbaijan. In many of these extreme cases, their operations are strictly limited, outright prohibited or targeted in crackdowns, with human rights activists subjected to exile, imprisonment or violence. 

To carry out their critical work under such conditions, compliance with the government and local authorities and distance from political issues is key to protecting activists, the victims of human rights violations and ongoing operations of the organization. Political neutrality ensures that human rights activists can work with a wide array of people, unhindered by political complexities and with the sole purpose of humanitarianism.

Of course, operating under the condition of political neutrality does not make human rights advocacy unprincipled. Commitments to universal human rights are values shared and upheld by those carrying out human rights work globally. The problem, then, arises not when political neutrality facilitates this work, but when it becomes counterproductive.

At the heart of some of the most relevant humanitarian crises lies political and historical injustice. Politics is so deeply intertwined with war and armed conflict, one of the most devastating forces jeopardizing global rights, that remaining impartial is done so at the cost of already ravaged, war-torn communities. 

In the famous words of the recently departed Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Reverend Tutu’s words ring especially true in regions like Post-Soviet Eurasia and the Middle East, where human rights advocacy is often stifled by more powerful political forces at play. 

Delving into one of these examples, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War saw a violent, bloody conflict unlike any of its kind in the 21st century. Thousands of soldiers were left dead, hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced and whole cities destroyed. The still-unresolved conflict involved a small, fragile democracy whose future held promising prospects for the West faced with an oil-rich, corrupt dictatorship where freedom of expression and civil society are ruthlessly suppressed. Ethnic Armenians make up an overwhelming majority of the population in Nagorno-Karabakh and therefore bore the brunt of the casualties. 

Yet, human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch maintained firm positions of neutrality, opting to characterize the conflict as completely two-sided, ergo contributing to the narrative pushed by Azerbaijan. Although human rights violations were committed by “both sides” (a favorite phrase of Western news media in the coverage of Nagorno-Karabakh), the crimes of the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces are incomparable in scale when the impact of war was disproportionately absorbed by the Armenian civilians as the region was effectively ethnically cleansed. Despite Azerbaijani efforts to prevent foreign journalists from documenting the war, monitoring by human rights groups took place — though its outcomes and neutral reporting ultimately failed to capture the extent of abuses endured by victims of the war.   

The time has come to revisit the political neutrality that is inherently embedded in the contemporary human rights framework. When political injustice becomes the main violator of human rights, the structures in place must have the flexibility to adapt and meet these challenges, addressing abuse at the root rather than being limited by commitments to absolute neutrality. The need for nuance, subjectivity and sensitivity is essential when at the core of humanitarianism lies humanity. Politics will not untangle itself from conflict to make room for human rights. 

Because when oppression and injustice are met with neutrality, this vicious cycle is left unbroken and undisturbed, free to wreak havoc on the vulnerable.

Economic Sanctions

Economic sanctions are the primary tool used to address human rights abuses. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has authorized sanctions 30 times since 1966. Sanctions are also frequently enacted unilaterally, with the United States authorizing sanctions as recently as December 10 of last year.

Classical perspectives on this issue hold that sanctions are often effective at achieving the goals of the sanctioning actor. However, this perspective does not address the bigger picture. In order to evaluate the success of economic sanctions, we need to not look at just whether the initial goal was achieved. Rather, we must also look at whether humanitarian conditions actually improved as a whole.

Past evidence shows that the sanctions’ record on holistically improving humanitarian conditions is at best mixed. Two examples clearly illustrate the pitfalls of using economic sanctions to improve humanitarian conditions: U.S. sanctions against Cuba since 1962 and more recent sanctions on Venezuela.

With some fluctuations in rules, the United States has banned virtually all exports to Cuba since 1962, and has sanctioned others who have violated this unilateral embargo. The goal of ending the oppressive regime in Cuba is admirable. However, this embargo has created significantly more harm than benefits to humanitarian objectives.

It first ought to be recognized that economic sanctions against Cuba have not achieved their objectives. The Communist Party of Cuba is still in power, and liberalization has been made only in half-steps. In fact, there is substantial evidence to show that the embargo of Cuba has only strengthened the Communist Party of Cuba’s grip on power, with former and current leaders of Cuba leveraging the embargo to vilify the United States and distract from domestic abuses.

Beyond the embargo’s ineffectiveness, it has actively harmed the livelihood of the Cuban people. The UN estimates place the cost to Cuba at almost $130 billion since the embargo started, with the vast majority of this cost being borne by the Cuban public. This situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Cuba being unable to import needed medical supplies. 

While the United States’ embargo of Cuba may be the most enduring example of the humanitarian failures of sanctions, none is as dramatic as the recent failures in Venezuela. 

Since the Venezuelan crisis began in 2010, the United States and other countries have placed large-scale sanctions on the Venezuelan economy. Most consequentially, Venezuelan petroleum exports have been embargoed and Venezuelans are no longer able to access global banking institutions. These sanctions are intended to place pressure on the regime of Nicolás Maduro to cede power to Juan Guaidó. 

Yet again, these sanctions have not achieved their goals, and have only furthered the economic and humanitarian struggles which Venezuela is facing. The alimentary crisis in Venezuela has deepened since sanctions have expanded, with Venezuela being largely unable to import food. The actions of humanitarian organizations have been curtailed, as they are unable to access foreign finances while working in Venezuela. Further, sanctions on Venezuela have actually served to restrict free enterprise. By limiting access to international financial institutions, sanctions on Venezuela have made it impossible for new businesses to formally establish themselves.

Recognition of the harms of economic sanctions is growing. Recently, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has called for a “reevaluation” of economic sanctions to ensure that they do not compound human rights violations. However, when the tool used to stop human rights violations only makes them worse, it is very clear that we need a far more effective enforcement mechanism.

Conclusion

The pursuit of human rights is admirable. Human rights frameworks are widely agreed upon and serve to provide international mechanisms to uphold them when states cannot. However, it is clear that these mechanisms have failed.

In outsourcing human rights enforcement to non-governmental organizations which lack the power or will to condemn human rights violators, states have made it impossible to place the needed pressure in order to stop these human rights violations. When states do pursue their own, non-politically neutral actions, they often make the humanitarian condition on the ground worse not better. States need to reconsider their approach to protecting human rights in order to truly meet their commitments to humanitarian endeavors.

When faced with human rights crises, states need to move beyond past models of political neutrality and economic sanctions. The first step is acknowledging that political neutrality cannot always account for the situation on the ground. Recounting the truth of a situation does not constitute taking a “politically motivated” side. When engaging in humanitarian action, states need to address the facts of the situation, regardless of their political convenience. 

Further, sanctions should not take the place of exerting soft power and providing aid. Using soft power to influence others not only avoids the harms of economic sanctions, but helps provide legitimacy to those acting to stop humanitarian crises. Further, providing aid is truly the only way to improve the situation on the ground. Fears of aid being misappropriated are largely misguided. Aid need not only be provisioned by states; NGOs can also help to fill in the gaps, further ensuring that it is sensitive to the needs of the communities which it is going to. 

 An ineffective human rights framework is a broken one. The time for reform is now. 

Unfortunately, this is not the only example of such discrimination. Across the world, refugees are deprived of their human rights in the places that should act as their safe haven from the turmoiled countries they fled. Instead, they flee one set of dangerous conditions to another.

In Sierra Leone, for example, poor housing infrastructure within refugee camps led to rodent infestations, causing a large outbreak of Lassa Fever throughout the encampment. The camp’s poor storage of food was what attracted the rats, causing over 2,000 refugees to contract the disease. The stigma around Lassa Fever makes it even harder to stop the disease from spreading, as many refugees are afraid to report their illness to the camp’s health authorities. The combination of poor organization and lack of health resources has caused thousands of refugees to become ill, some to the point of death.

Across the world, these intertwined challenges of public health, sanitation and hygiene and refugee camps persist. In Lebanon, the combination of constant flooding and poor ventilation led to many refugees contracting tuberculosis. The housing provided in the refugee camps were not properly constructed for Lebanon’s large rainfall during the winter months, making the refugee’s living spaces damp and humid — the perfect breeding ground for TB. As the conditions worsened, so did the number of TB cases within refugees. The proportion of Syrian TB cases residing in refugee camps (29.3%) was higher than the proportion of Syrians refugees residing in camps (17.1%). Similar to the situation in Sierra Leone, many refugees are afraid to receive help for their illness, or are met with under sufficient resources (such as medical professionals, equipment, and hospitals). 

Until the government takes the time to improve the infrastructure within their camps, many refugees will continue to become ill, causing the spread of TB to even reach other Lebanese communities. 

And in Greece, these issues are disproportionately affecting women and girls, who refuse food and water for multiple days at a time to avoid using the latrines, especially latrines in dimly lit locations at night. Meervat Ali, a fifteen-year-old Syrian refugee staying at the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece told Buzzfeed News that she fears for her safety.

“Yes, I am scared. I cannot go inside because there are too many people, too many guys, too many drugs, drunk people,” Ali stated. 

Women and girls make up over 40% of the camp’s population, many of whom are also fearful of using the restrooms. Toilet facilities are only cleaned once a month, with no trash bin for female products, and no hot water after 5 a.m. (which many women do not use since it is considered dark and unsafe). There is a severe lack of proper hygiene and healthcare. There are very few doctors available for the 6,000+ refugees in the camp, women are unable to find clean pads, and the unsanitary toilet facilities are home to many different illnesses.

“I thought it would be like paradise, but here I feel like a hostage” Ali said.

Ultimately, the people who seem to need help the most are the ones who are receiving it the least. 

By having countless human rights stripped away, including gender equality, access to education, access to clean food and water, it comes to no surprise that thousands of refugees become ill or die while in these camps. The majority of these deaths can easily be prevented through the implementation of more sound infrastructure, and better organization in areas such as health and hygiene. 

The United Nations reported that the main causes of death among refugees are the “lack of medicine, and lack of food.” 

In the face of these dire conditions, many NGOs and international organizations are working tirelessly to help displaced people. However, many governments prohibit these organizations from entering the country or providing direct aid to the refugees, all in an effort to prevent this integration from occurring in the first place. 

Maltreatment of the displaced is commonly fueled by cultural and religious differences. Often, refugees are denied an education, work visas, and even the ability to learn the native language, just like the Rohingya in Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi government accounts for their infringement of this human right by mentioning the lack of resources and how they intend to make reparations with Myanmar in the next few years, so there is no need to continue formal education for the refugees since they will only be there temporarily. 

Similarly, many Kurds staying in Turkish refugee camps have been forbidden from setting up their own schools and education systems in Kurdish. The limited access to education within the camps solely educate students on the Turkish language and customs, ignoring any cultural learnings and identities of the Kurds.

Additionally, the majority of funding is allocated towards reintegrating refugees into society. This funding is provided by both the nation’s government, as well as any fundraising that NGOs and international organizations may have earned. Rather than improving the living conditions of the refugee camps, which are only viewed as a transitional place, most volunteers and donors focus all their efforts on finding more permanent solutions for these refugees. It is viewed as the most vital part in helping refugees regain control of their lives, and typically the step most donors and volunteers feel that they are able to help with the most. 

Although this is a necessary step in the integration process and has helped millions of refugees, it still leaves those who remain in the refugee camps, some for years at a time, to suffer from the lack of resources. 

Refugees are thought of and treated as visitors in their host countries, waiting to return home. This mindset jeopardizes the health and safety of all refugees, and rather than viewing refugee camps as temporary shelters, they should be considered as homes. 

This change in perspective will begin a new discussion and approach toward improving the lives of 82.4 million people, and will transform the illusion of these emerald cities into a reality.

Global trends of democratic backsliding remain a chief concern for the world. Though it has been decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the complete collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s impact on the international community since Putin’s inauguration reveals that authoritarianism continues to thrive in corners of the world — and more importantly, it will continue to undermine global democracy.

Putin’s tight grip on power allows a different version of the Cold War to thrive in the 21st century. The United States never stopped worrying about the Kremlin — nor should it.

Today, Putin aims to dismantle Western progress towards democratization, which he identifies as a threat to autocracy and his geopolitical ambitions. In his quest to reinvigorate Russian power and dominance, the Russian leader blatantly disregards international law and human rights conventions while creating a fundamentally unjust and oppressive domestic Russian society. 

Beyond Russia’s own borders, countries in the post-Soviet region, such as Ukraine, are more susceptible to interference in elections from Russian powers. Their vulnerability is a result of their unique history and close geography. As a result, the West must step up to protect growing democratic movements in these countries from being deconstructed. 

However, democracy is waning in countries that have been traditionally viewed as beacons of freedom, like the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. These powers’ inability to prevent information and cyber warfare by Russia weakens the West’s ability to protect more vulnerable states against Putin’s agenda. As a result, efforts to protect and promote global human rights are uncertain. 

In Russia’s conquest to destabilize Western dominance and influence, it set its eyes on interfering with the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. The Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, commonly known as the Mueller Report, says that “[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” 

Russia primarily influenced the election by spreading disinformation through social media and leaking hacked information. The Internet Research Agency (IRA), based in St. Petersburg and funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, began creating a program to compromise the U.S. electoral system in 2014 and 2015. The campaign’s infrastructure was then used to further sow and exploit political and social divisions by spreading disinformation throughout the election. 

According to the Mueller Report, by early 2016, it was evident that “[the campaign]favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton.” 

In addition to spreading disinformation in support of Trump, in March 2016, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) hacked the Clinton Campaign. For example, campaign Chairman John Podesta’s server and various employee emails were hacked. One month later, GRU hacked the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee. The Russians released their findings through WikiLeaks, DCLeakes and other internet sites. 

The United States found that Russia’s foreign interference in the election infringed on U.S. Criminal Law. Individuals and companies involved in spreading disinformation on social media, and subsequent identity theft, were charged. 

In United States of America v. Internet Research Agency the Justice Department stated that “[t]he United States of America… regulates the activities of foreign individuals and entities in and affecting the United States in order to prevent, disclose, and counteract improper foreign influence on U.S. elections…” and, “bars agents of any foreign entity from engaging in political activities within the United States without first registering with the Attorney General.” 

As a result, anyone involved in the hacking and release of information was charged, as evidenced by the United States of America v. Netyksho case. Many Russian nationals were expelled from the United States. Even before the release of the Mueller Report, Obama placed sanctions on Russia in response to their meddling in the election. 

Russia’s continued meddling violates international law as it prohibits a state from interfering with another state’s domestic affairs. Coercion is not permitted in the form of financial or armed groups. However, the definition of coercion ought to be altered to include electoral interference as it infringes on a state’s sovereignty and can be just as dangerous as traditional methods of “coercion.” 

In 2020, Russia — again — attempted to meddle with the U.S. election despite not trying to change the technical, vote-tallying aspects of the election. In the report, Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections, the National Intelligence Council stated that Russia was able to hack into some state and local governments before the election took place to undermine the public’s trust in the election results. Russia hoped that this would diminish Biden’s credibility and support Trump’s perspective that the election was compromised, unfair and should not be trusted. Pushing this narrative created social and political chaos, as demonstrated by the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. 

In addition to the anti-democratic rhetoric and actions that Putin helped incite during the election, he also assisted in crafting a contrived narrative about election distrust. This continues to affect the state of civil liberties and human rights in the United States. Republican leaders have used this momentum of skepticism to pass laws that will increase voter suppression. These laws disproportionately affect Black and Latinx Americans from accessing the polls, a group that traditionally votes for more progressive candidates. Today, 1 in 16 Black Americans cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws. Attacks on voting rights have only worsened in recent months, with eighteen states creating 30 new laws restricting voting in the first half of 2021.

It can be argued that Russia is indirectly in violation of international law as disenfranchisement legislation violates Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 25 says that all citizens should have the right to vote without facing discrimination and that there should be no “unreasonable restrictions” on voting. As the disenfranchisement laws are also targeted to affect minorities, these laws breach the International Convention on the Elimination on all Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Convention states that all humans, despite their race or national origin, are born equal. According to both U.S. and international human rights standards, Russia has limited human rights through its election interference, paving the way for a more restrictive and unequal society.

Russia has also conducted information and cyberwarfare in other nation-states in the West. Most notably, in 2017, Russia meddled in the German elections. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany and Russia had a generally undefined and friendly relationship. Following the 2008 financial crisis, there was a wave of populism in Europe. As a result, Germany rose to the occasion and became a leader for democracy and progressive policies. Since Germany involved itself in supporting the democratization of Ukraine, Germany and Russia have had a more contentious relationship. Consequently, during the 2017 election, Russia hacked German government computers and attempted to spread disinformation. 

A similar narrative was present in the Brexit referendum and the 2017 Dutch elections. In the UK, Russia spread disinformation through social media and Russia state-sponsored broadcasters such as Sputnik and RT. A press notice from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament stated: “Russian influence in the UK is the new normal,” and “[the]UK is clearly a target for Russian disinformation.” 

In the Netherlands, Russia attempted to spread fake news; however, Rob Bertholev, head of the General Intelligence and Security Service, said that the Russian’s objective was unsuccessful. As seen by its consistent efforts, Russia has and will continue to spread disinformation and conduct cyberwarfare during elections in Western states to undermine their society in hopes of expanding authoritarian and xenophobic ideology.

As post-Soviet states begin to Westernize, Russia placed intense focus on these states to eliminate the potential spreading of democratic values. In Ukraine, Russia has worked to interfere with domestic elections as they fear Ukraine is on track to becoming a thriving liberal democracy, which threatens Putin’s vision for the world. Russia has attempted to meddle with two different Ukrainian elections. In 2014, a pro-Russian hacking group, Cuberkerkut, tried to alter election results, and Russia was barely stopped by Ukrainian cyber experts.

For the 2019 Ukrainian elections, Russia changed its approach. As Russia has more control over Ukraine, it can also use physical action to destabilize the country in order to affect elections. In March 2019, the Security Service of Ukraine announced that it had prevented a terrorist attack, which was supposed to take place in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Russia had enlisted locals to place explosives in train stations, with the objective of creating instability before the election on March 31. 

Currently, we see even significantly more egregious attacks with Russia as they put pressure on Ukraine in what looks like an invasion. Moreover, Russians also ordered attacks on churches in Southern Ukraine, which included arson and placing Nazi symbols on church walls. A report done by the Secret Service of Ukraine said that “[these attacks]aim to destabilize the social and political situation in our country via the use of artificial religious conflict.” 

These actions violate the ICCPR as the terrorist attacks in Kharkiv infringe upon Article 6, which protects a person’s “inherent right to life.” Additionally, while the religious attacks were contrived, Russia’s actions still violate Article 18, which safeguards religious freedom. In response to these attacks, Ukraine has given the Central Election Committee cybersecurity funding. The government also generated a Malware Information Sharing Platform, in compliance with EU and NATO guidelines, to collect intelligence about cyberthreats in real-time. This technology is now used around the world.

The West must act quickly to prevent future information and cyberwarfare. 

It’s important to first recognize this type of warfare as an infringement on a state’s sovereignty and a violation of international law. While the EU has crafted systems to identify disinformation, countries must continue expanding these efforts and technologies as the complexity of our media simultaneously develops. To protect against cyberattacks and restore the perception of voting integrity, we must improve upon our aging voting infrastructure. Some electronic voting machines that are still being used in the United States are not even manufactured today, leaving our electoral process susceptible to cyberattacks. Furthermore, every government should have a committee dedicated to producing risk assessments for cyberwarfare. 

Most importantly, we need long-term support and funding domestically and abroad. In 2018, the State Department provided $10 million in aid to Ukraine to prevent cybersecurity attacks; meanwhile, Russia spent $350 million to create instability in Ukraine ahead of their elections, according to the Chief of the Ukraine Foreign Intelligence Service, Ychor Bozhok. However, due to the United States’ shifting political positions and radicalized ideology, which has already been exacerbated and exploited by election interference, raising funds will be a challenging feat. The West must make swift changes now to protect democracy and human rights worldwide.

Information and cyberwarfare is traditionally seen as only a matter of national security. However, a national security threat of this kind is inherently a risk to human rights and civil liberties. The United States has already seen how authoritarian ideology has transformed the political and social landscape. Americans cannot be blind to the actions, rhetoric and growing sentiments beyond our borders and expect democracy to prevail around the world on its own. 

Power and control are at the center of authoritarian regimes. Thus, the West must take action to safeguard elections and promote cybersecurity around the world in the name of protecting human rights and civil liberties.

In 2021, Yoshiro Mori, the head of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Organizing Committee, made headlines due to numerous controversial comments he made about women in leadership. According to Asahi Shinbun, he said that “a meeting of an executive board that includes many women would take time. Women are competitive. When someone raises his or her hand and speaks, they probably think they should speak too. That is why they all end up making comments.”

For many, this statement was seen as offensive and, even, ironic. Because while competitiveness and the eagerness to pitch ideas are all qualities that are valued in men in the professional world, Mori saw these qualities as detriments for women.

Misogyny is deeply rooted in the history of Japan and continues to infiltrate its professional world, creating high barriers for women to overcome. This misogyny is also rooted in family values and teachings. In Japan, young boys and men are often taught these ideas because traditional values and gender roles are espoused and repeated by their heads of family — their fathers. When these men enter the professional world, their skewed perception of women and gender norms and roles follows. 

In 2013, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed a “womenomics” tactic to address Japan’s declining economy. In essence, this plan would extend the role of women in the professional world in order to regenerate Japan’s economy. 

The results of “womenomics” were mixed. On one hand, nearly 2 million women joined the workforce in the plan’s first 6 years. However, since the initiative was intensely corporate driven, no fundamental changes were made in other aspects of working life to reduce barriers of entry for women in the workforce. For example, changes in the daycare system and policies that often forced women to choose between starting families or working (a contributing factor to Japan’s declining birth rate) were not addressed. 

Interestingly, however, is the motivation for this policy. Many saw “womenomics” as not an effort driven by the restoration of fundamental rights and liberties for women but instead as a strategy introduced in order to utilize human capital in a more efficient way. It was a plan focused on profit and the economy, not a true pursuit of equality.

This policy, which the government claimed was for workplace equality, came from a desperate need to boost Japan’s economy. For many women, this hollow attempt at equality was poorly received.

Clearly, this reform is idealistic and shallow. 

The problem of equality for women in Japan’s workforce — and greater society — is more than just a work policy problem. Instead, it’s a problem deeply rooted in Japan’s long history, complex political culture and traditional values. Traditional beliefs regarding the role of women in Japanese society hinder the country’s social progress. 

In an interview with Emi Doyle, a civil engineer, Ph.D. candidate of Kyoto University and mother in Japan, she said she experiences this inequality often.

“Even though I have long experience as a civil engineer and a Ph.D., men do not respect [my]opinion and any professional input in their decision-making process,” Doyle said.

Despite her qualifications, which include managing projects within the Japan International Cooperation Agency and conducting research at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Management, Doyle said that the pressure to always prove oneself persists for working women in Japan. 

According to The New York Times, “[m]en in Japan do fewer hours of domestic work than in any other wealthy nation.” In Japan, raising children is primarily a women’s issue and, therefore, is not considered a political or social priority. As a result, policies on childcare and maternal leave have yet to progress in the way that it has in other developed countries. In fact, the term “maternity harassment” was coined in Japan. The term refers to discouraging women in the workplace from having children. 

Mainichi Shimbun reported that an employee at a cosmetics company claimed that childbirth and child-rearing schedules were emailed to her and 22 female colleagues. Instead of being accommodating of female employees, many corporations expect the individual to prioritize the company, labor and profit. 

“Due to time constraints, I felt disadvantaged,” Doyle said. “The women work so hard to balance their careers and family. Especially in Japan, we could not distribute our house workloads to our partner or someone else [like a nanny]due to a staunch conservative mindset. I was lucky to have a full-time house husband to take care of my daughter to help me handle a long-term business trip or overwork till late at night.”

According to The Economist, “when women [in Japan]have their first child, 70% of them stop working for a decade or more, compared with just 30% in America.” But, “quite a lot of those 70% are gone for good.” 

On a personal note, growing up in Japan I was rarely exposed to the normalization of working mothers or the division of household labor. There is also an extreme lack of representation, especially when it comes to women in positions of power. Additionally, while the term “feminist” has revolutionized numerous movements in the United States, the same term often carries a negative connotation in Japan. 

Despite Japan’s impressive ranking as a global economic power, it ranks 120 out of 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index for 2020 for economic opportunity. This stems from the fact that gender equality is not often discussed in workplaces or schools, and therefore Japan’s youth is less exposed to it. And given that men are usually the ones with the power to make substantial changes in the education system, this vicious cycle prevents women from having positions high enough to address the root of these problems.  

With Japan’s economy and population both declining, gender equality needs to be a priority. Not only is it a human rights matter, but it is also critical to revitalize the country’s economy. While there are many challenges that need to be overcome for gender parity to be reached, the first step is to normalize conversations of gender equality in schools, households and workplaces. Japan has a long way to go, but this will put the country on the path to resolving this issue.

Today, the United Nations has a complex identity and role in global politics — marked by a long history of disastrous failures, extreme successes and several outcomes resting somewhere in between. Since 1945, the UN has been credited with helping 34 million refugees, providing clean drinking water to more than 1 billion people, eradicating polio and smallpox, negotiating 172 peace settlements, passing 80 declarations on human rights and much more. These feats have undoubtedly improved access to human rights for billions of people across the globe.

Yet, there are glaring faults built into the foundation of the UN that hinder its potential. Current mismanagement and abuse of the process by member-states has further exacerbated these issues, placing the UN in danger of causing more harm than good. In order to understand the full impact of the world’s largest multilateral organization, its current and historic flaws must be examined.

The Built-In Flaws of the Security Council

The primary actor that controls the UN’s actions is the Security Council (UNSC). The UNSC, comprised of 15 members, is the most powerful body among the five UN organizations. Out of 15 members, five are permanent: the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China and France. The other ten members are elected to serve temporary two-year terms by the UN General Assembly. While all members each have an equal vote when deciding on resolutions, the five permanent members also have the power to veto.

The imbalance in power that the veto provides has been manipulated in inarguably political ways by the permanent member-states, especially the United States and Russia. Since 2001, the United States has been the sole member to veto resolutions 14 times; 12 of these instances were to defend Israel concerning the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Russia has used its veto 26 times in the same period, primarily to protect national interests in Syria. 

Russia’s abuse of power, aided by China’s joint veto in several cases, had disastrous effects on the Syrian people. The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011 due to the violent crackdown on protesters of the Bashar al-Assad regime, has resulted in approximately 6.8 million Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers and 6.7 million internally displaced Syrians to date. Over the last 11 years, the proposed resolutions would have imposed sanctions on Syria, condemned ongoing human rights violations, taken countless measures to ensure accountability for Syria, and delivered humanitarian aid to civilians. Instead, the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates that these vetoes contributed to the deaths of 250,000 civilians and the unjust arrest of 150,000 others.

In addition to the veto system, the UNSC’s revolving door of temporary members provides another opportunity for pushing political interests. According to recent research, temporary members who are allies to the United States experience an increase of 40% in U.S. aid when voting in favor of U.S.-supported resolutions. These countries also receive more loans from international institutions that the United States informally controls, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

This use of power by the United States has openly existed for years. Since the 1980s, the U.S. State Department has been required to track the UN voting records of all nations and report it to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which in turn determines the amount of foreign aid disbursed based on alignment with U.S. interests. 

When countries in the UNSC vote against U.S. interests, their punishment is swift. In 1990, Yemen voted no on a resolution pushed by the United States to place a deadline on the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait. The following year, $70 million in foreign aid to Yemen was cut, with the then Secretary of State James Baker remarking that it was “the most expensive vote they ever cast.”

The Less Powerful Arm: The UN General Assembly

The United States has also employed monetary persuasion to influence the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The aforementioned use of votes by the United States to determine aid has led to a startling trend. According to research from the University of Cambridge, poor democratic nations dependent on the United States for aid are more likely to cast votes within the UNGA in favor of U.S. interests. 

Exploitation of influence amongst powerful UN members during the convening of the UNGA is common. In 2014, UN diplomat whistleblowers reported that Russia threatened retaliation against several countries, including Moldova and Tajikistan, if they voted yes on a resolution that threatened Russia’s interests in Ukraine. In 2019, the United Kingdom produced a joint statement signed by 22 countries condemning China’s human rights violations and demanding UN access to Uighur internment camps. Chinese officials retaliated against signatories of the statement, canceling a bilateral meeting with Albania and allegedly threatening Austria with the cancellation of a proposed embassy in Beijing.

Despite the aggressive approach by members to influence votes within the UNGA, critics have long stated that the resolutions passed have little to no power. Not only are they not legally binding, but the strength of the resolutions are also impacted by a so-called “lowest common denominator” effect. This describes the dilution of the initial ambitious proposal into a weakened final resolution due to the involvement and input of all member-states in the creation process. Other scholars disagree with this pessimistic viewpoint and instead argue that the “world opinion” that these voted resolutions create is necessary. According to them, this provides a supporting structure by which individual nations can condemn human rights violations.

Peacekeepers: Keeping It, Creating It or Destroying It? 

While debates about the ethics of member-state actions rage on amongst civil society and scholars, another arm of the UN has also garnered controversy: peacekeeping missions. These operations are approved by the UNSC and directed by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPO) and the Department of Field Support (DFS). Peacekeepers are unarmed or slightly armed military personnel provided by member-states. In principle, they are sent to regions of conflict with the intention of supporting an established peace agreement.

In recent years, the UNSC, facing criticism and pressure to solve crises, has implemented more and more ambitious plans involving peacekeepers. Several recent missions have sent personnel into ongoing and unresolved crises with the intention of protecting civilians and facilitating agreements between hostile parties. Peacekeeping has transformed into peacebuilding. 

The funding for these missions is grandiose, with an annual budget of $8.28 billion for 12 operations employing over 100,000 peacekeepers across the globe. In recent years, operations have become more costly, inefficient, and long-lasting. Rather than a temporary solution, peacekeeping missions have become a permanent pillar of UN responses. 

These operations are rife with mismanagement and fraud. According to a 2007 investigation by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (UNOIOS), 40% of funds within a group of contracts worth $1.6 billion were tainted by corruption schemes. However, the UNOIOS itself has been plagued with corruption and bias in recent years. Former UNOIOS officials have shed light on a disturbing pattern of political interests, selective investigations, hiding “embarrassing” cases, and retaliation against officials looking into misconduct within the UN.

Peacekeeping operations have experienced the same lack of transparency and accountability, specifically in regard to horrifying reports of sexual misconduct by peacekeepers. Reports over the last several years have surfaced that allege sexual abuse perpetrated during missions in countries such as Haiti, Liberia, South Sudan, Mali and Burundi. These allegations include rape, child molestation, murder, sex trafficking, prostitution and the nonconsensual production of pornography. 

In efforts to address this, the UN has instituted Conduct and Discipline Teams on all peacekeeping missions and employed stricter requirements for peacekeepers. While data publicized by the UN suggests that sexual violence by peacekeepers has decreased within the 21st century, a leaked expert report commissioned by the UN in 2013 revealed that the issue persisted due to a culture of silence and underreporting. 

According to political scholars Dr. Kate Cronin-Furman and Dr. Nimmi Gowrinathan, the violent nature of these peacekeepers can be linked to the national and militaristic identity of their country of origin. In 2007, several Sri Lankan peacekeepers were removed from their operation in Haiti due to sexual misconduct allegations. These peacekeepers had been part of the Sri Lankan military, which had fought in a violent civil war for decades and had garnered a reputation for human rights violations against civilians. As a result, Dr. Cronin-Furman and Dr. Gowrinathan argue that these peacekeeping forces cannot be treated as neutral members because they absorb and represent the misconduct normalized by their military of origin. “The violence of peacekeepers is, in some senses, the violence of the state,” they write.

Peacekeeping missions also engage in ineptitude in more indirect manners. To create relationships with actors within the region, personnel often establish relationships with abusive leaders and regimes, complicating their intention to improve conditions for civilians in an ethical manner. Moreover, peacekeepers often falter in their primary objective to protect civilians. A study conducted in 2014 found that peacekeepers failed to respond to 80% of the 570 reported cases of violence against civilians across several operations.

Finally, the most publicly recognized mistake on the part of peacekeeping missions is that of the cholera epidemic in Haiti. The infamous outbreak that began after the 2010 earthquake was traced back to a UN peacekeeping camp that contained poor sanitation measures. Over 10,000 Haitians, who had not been exposed to cholera and therefore had no immunity, have died as a result. Leaked internal reports have revealed that irresponsible sanitation amongst UN peacekeepers continued to occur after the start of the outbreak and could have been fixed for $3.15 million. Instead, these failures persisted and the UN has spent $140 million on the efforts to eradicate cholera in Haiti.

Looking Forward

Despite the documented failures of the UN, public perception continues to be mainly positive. According to a Pew Research poll of 13 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia, a median of 67% “express a favorable opinion of the UN.” Notably, these countries do not include the subjects of most UN resolutions and peacekeeping missions.

The complete overhaul of the UN is not approaching any time soon. However, lingering mismanagement, misconduct, and unethical politics within the major activities of the UN has made its approach inadequate and even willfully dangerous. Potential solutions include removing the veto power of permanent UNSC members and implementing a more selective and narrow approach when directing peacekeeping missions. 

However, these proposals are unlikely to occur given the lack of political and public willpower. While the potential of diminishing veto power by waiving it in the case of mass atrocities has been discussed previously, reactions by member-states have been mixed. Representatives from France state that they are open to the idea, but Russian officials have emphasized their worry that this exception may be abused (a particularly ironic sentiment given Russia’s record of abusing the veto). 

Meanwhile, a reduction of peacekeeping missions is proving to be unfavorable amongst the public, potentially due to cover-ups of misconduct. Since 1948, U.S. taxpayers have accounted for between 25% to 33% of total peacekeeping mission expenditures. Still, a recent 2021 survey by Better World Campaign reveals that 68% of U.S. voters agree with continuing to pay UN dues in full for peacekeeping.

Much of the UN’s flaws are hidden in its bureaucracy; the multi-bodied organization is too complex to notice the potential significance behind every leaked report and allegation of misconduct. Even previous UN officials acknowledge this; former assistant secretary-general Anthony Banburg said: “If you locked a team of evil geniuses in a laboratory, they could not design a bureaucracy so maddeningly complex, requiring so much effort but in the end incapable of delivering the intended result.”

In order to force change and enlighten the public, politicians, journalists, and independent human rights organizations must be clear, concise, and educational in their coverage. The continued failures of the UN must be publicized in order to sway public opinion within powerful member-states. Without this change in perception, the UN and key players will be content to hide behind their intricate curtains and pull strings that intentionally or unintentionally harm the state of human rights.

Despite significant progress since 2003, a glaring stain remains on Georgia’s human rights record — one that the government is seemingly unwilling to address. That flashpoint is the rights of ethnic minorities. 

Ethnic minorities make up approximately 13% of Georgia’s population today. Although a small republic, Georgia hosts a myriad of diverse ethnic groups, two autonomous republics (Abkhazia and Adjara) and a de-facto independent region (South Ossetia). According to the 2014 census, the two largest demographics are Azerbaijanis (6.2%) and Armenians (4.5%), while ethnic Russians, Abkhazians, Ossetians and other groups comprise the remaining 2.8%.

Although Georgia has seen several changes in leadership and a complete democratic overhaul of state institutions in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government’s stance on ethnic minorities has remained constant and uncompromising, embracing xenophobic rhetoric and policies which subject Georgia’s minorities to continued discriminiation, violence and exclusion. Some attribute Georgia’s continued oppression of ethnic minorities to its formerly privileged position under the USSR, when it reaped the benefits of having ethnic Georgians like Stalin and Beria in the highest ranks of Soviet leadership. Others argue that the United States and EU are complicit in facilitating these abuses. 

When Georgia first initiated efforts to join the Council of Europe as a member state, it became a signatory of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which is “the first legally binding multilateral instrument concerned with the protection of national minorities.” To date, Georgia has violated nearly every article listed under Section II of the convention. Due to continued Western interest in the region, however, European countries have largely turned a blind eye to Georgia’s violations, allowing the oppression of ethnic minorities to continue. 

Moreover, Article 38 of the Georgian Constitution holds that citizens shall be afforded the same rights regardless of ethnicity, and in accordance with international law “shall have the right to develop freely, without discrimination and interference, their culture.” 

Ethnic minority mistreatment in Georgia, therefore, constitutes a direct violation of both domestic and international law, revealing a consistent pattern of illegal state-sanctioned abuse and systematic suppression which continuously stunt its Western ambitions. 

Armenian Exclusion and Cultural Genocide

The second-largest ethnic minority in Georgia, Armenians have played a significant role in its sociopolitical environment from antiquity to modern day. Despite sharing a Christian heritage and a border to the South, the relationship between Armenia and Georgia remains complex, tainted by geopolitical realities, conflicting alliances and cultural tensions. 

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Georgian government’s treatment of ethnic Armenians significantly deteriorated, fueled by xenophobic sentiment and widespread suspicion amidst pro-Russian separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. 

Free to govern as they wished, independent Georgia began targeting ethnic minority rights in the Armenian-majority Samtskhe-Javakheti and other minority regions through “Georgification,” adopting nationalist policies of exclusion from educational and employment opportunities. 

Georgian universities in minority-populated areas began teaching only in the Georgian language; and in 2005, a national entrance examination was established which tested Georgian language and literature for acceptance to universities, among other subjects. Moreover, private institutions that teach in minority languages like Armenian are not accredited in Georgia. Because most ethnic minorities living in minority regions, like the Armenians of Javakheti, speak their minority language, they are forced to seek higher education in their kin-states instead, having been deprived of educational opportunities in Georgia due to the imposed language barrier. 

For example, after Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh fled to Kakheti during the first Nagorno-Karabakh War in the 1990s, several Armenian villages were completely Georgified. Georgians would not employ them due to their ethnicity, they could not gain admission to universities and receiving an education in Armenian proved to be an obstacle. Georgia’s discrimination against ethnic minorities extended to localities at the grade school-level, too. The number of schools in minority-populated regions is relatively low, and although most schools in Javakheti are taught in Armenian, the teaching of Georgian language and literature has been mandated and enforced in recent years. 

To the frustration of the Armenian community, for example, Armenian literature is excluded from school curricula, and Georgian-language teachers in Armenian schools receive a higher salary. Exclusion from educational and employment opportunities guarantees that Armenians in Georgia have no future unless they assimilate. 

Furthermore, in Tbilisi, the ongoing destruction of Armenian churches and burial grounds in attempts to erase evidence of Armenian presence remains a significant human rights concern. Using the Georgian Orthodox Church as an extended arm of the state, the Georgian government has carried out a program of Georgifying or destroying Armenian cultural sites in attempts to rewrite history. 

The Church declares Armenian churches, often marked by khachkars and other features unique to Armenian Apostolic churches, are Georgian, thereby empowering authorities to seize and destroy evidence of its origins. The government and Orthodox Church then either reclaim the church as Georgian, effectively rewriting history, or destroy it to build a Georgian one over it, sometimes over Armenian burial grounds. Modern technology and photographic records of the targeted Armenian churches now provide evidence of these violations. 

It appears that Georgian authorities often erase, pressure and rob the culture of ethnic minorities within their territory. 

The Human Cost of Autonomy: Abkhazia and South Ossetia

Georgian violations of ethnic minority rights in Abkhazia and South Ossetia escalated severely after the collapse of the USSR. 

Many of the same obstacles facing the Armenian community in Samtskhe-Javakheti, namely exclusion from equal opportunities and forced assimilation, were true for ethnic Abkhazians and Ossetians living in the autonomous republics, escalating tensions in these regions while Georgia was still part of the Soviet Union. However, the events leading up to the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, its course and its aftermath have worsened human rights violations against ethnic minorities, which have now come to be characterized by violence, ethnic cleansing and hostility. 

Briefly delving into the history of the conflict, the “Abkhaz and South Ossetians wanted to preserve, and remain within, the Soviet Union considering their survival as ethno-cultural communities distinct from the Georgian majority to be in acute danger in an independent Georgian state.” When Georgia declared its independence in 1991, fighting broke out first in South Ossetia and then in Abkhazia, prompting a war with pro-Russian separatists on one side and Georgian militia and government forces on the other. 

According to the timeline of the UN Refugee Agency, tensions first rose during the perestroika period under Gorbachev. Georgian authorities would dictate that anyone living in Georgia had to become Georgian, subjecting ethnic minorities in the autonomous regions to oppression. “As Georgians increasingly organize[d]to assert their nationalism under Zviad Gamsakhurida, the Abkhaz in turn mobilize[d]to protect their identity and status.”

Some scholars argue that the Georgians created such an oppressive environment where resistance by the Abkhazians and South Ossetians was justified. They were faced with an existential threat: ethnic minorities could assimilate and become Georgian, or leave.

Faced with growing pressures by Georgian authorities, the separatist movement unfolding in Abkhazia and South Ossetia prompted other ethnic minorities to join the resistance. In Abkhazia, for example, the Armenian population outnumbers the Abkhaz and there is a significant Russian population. In one instance, the 80-year-old mother of an Armenian community leader in Abkhazia was assaulted and burned with a lamp by Georgian militia. The Georgian forces committed inhumane, gross violations of human rights, turning the Armenians against them.

During the period of fighting, human rights violations by Georgian and Abkhaz forces were documented by Human Rights Watch, corroborating the claim that the majority of abuses were committed by the Georgian side. Once Abkhaz forces gained control of Abkhazia and fighting ultimately died down, however, hundreds of thousands of displaced persons were denied a chance to return, the majority of whom were Mingrelian Georgians. 

Fast forwarding to the 2008 flare-up of the conflict, after successfully reintegrating the autonomous republic of Adjara into Georgia, Saakashvili set his sights on Abkhazia and South Ossetia next. Although a tactful combination of diplomacy and threat of force seemed to work in Adjara’s case, where the population was ethnically Georgian but religiously Muslim, the same strategy was difficult to implement in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where it was a matter of ethnic conflict.

Unlike Armenian and Azerbaijani ethnic minorities, who have kin-states bordering Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia had no such option. Faced with the threat of Saakashvili, who had the full backing of the United States and Europe, the separatists appealed to Russia for aid. Russia deployed troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia to fight on behalf of the rebels, acting opportunistically to eliminate Georgia as a viable candidate for NATO.

Moreover, reports emerged that the Georgian side had been the one to instigate the conflict. Sir Anthony Brenton writes, “As confirmed by an exhaustive EU investigation after the event, it was the Georgians who fired first. They attacked Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, killing some.” According to Brenton, who was the British ambassador to Moscow at the time, “It was then politically impossible for the Russians not to react as they did.” Saakashvili did not deny these allegations. 

It appears that Georgian President Saakashvili, enjoying the full backing of the West and a recent success in Adjara, was determined to pick a fight with Russia. Days later, when Russian tanks were rolling towards Tbilisi with no signs of slowing down, Saakashvili would come to regret that decision. 

Since the war in 2008, which saw Russian military intervention on behalf of Abkhazian and Ossetian separatists, the situation has remained unresolved by international standards. Though Abkhazia and South Ossetia have gained de facto independence and recognition from a handful of countries, including Russia, the majority of the international community sees the regions as Russian-occupied. 

The case of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is a powerful example of how continued discimination, oppression and abuse of ethnic minorities can escalate quickly into an ethnic conflict with geopolitical implications. For Georgia, the unwillingness to uphold protections for minority rights ultimately cost them their territorial integrity, thousands of lives and their ambitious NATO aspirations.  

The Case of the Exiled Meskhetian Turks

When discussing the rights of ethnic minorities in Georgia, one of the most prominent cases is that of a group which no longer presides in Georgia: the Meskhetian Turks. The history of the Meskhetian Turks paints a particularly painful picture of a people who have been in perpetual exile for almost a century. 

In 1944, when Stalin and Beria labeled the Meskhetian Turks an “untrustworthy population,” Soviet troops forcibly deported them to the Central Asian Soviet republics, effectively ethnically cleansing the Georgian region of Meskheti, today Samtskhe-Javakheti, of Muslims. Since then, the Meskhetian Turks have “survived a mass deportation from Georgia, interethnic programs in Uzbekistan, and ethnic cleansing in southern Russia.” Though Stalin’s policies were driven strictly by nationalism and paranoia, many speculate that his distrust of Meskhetian Turks stemmed from the close proximity of Samtskhe-Javakheti to Turkey, where Meskhetian Turks could pose a potential threat, in Stalin’s eyes, of subversion or collusion with Turkey. 

In the late 1980s, under Gorbachev’s perestroika, groups that had been displaced during the Soviet Union, including Meskhetian Turks and Crimean Tatars, expressed a desire to return to their homelands. The Georgian side, however, employed all possible methods to prevent the return of the Meskhetian Turks, because those regions had been largely resettled by Georgians.

One of the reasons Georgians most often cite for their refusal to accept the exiled Meskhetian Turk population is the unfounded claim that Armenians are opposed to the return of ethnic Turks in the region. Since the 1980s, Georgia has pushed the narrative that in addition to not having the resources to accommodate such a repatriation, the return of the Meskhetian Turks would instigate ethnic conflict between Armenians and Turks. Justified on these grounds, Meskhetian Turks “who returned spontaneously to Meskheti were sent back” by Georgia, and “[e]ven those who tried to visit their native lands as tourists were denied the right to do so.” 

However, the regions of Samtskhe-Javakheti which the Meskhetian Turks had formerly inhabited are populated today by ethnic Georgians. Very few Meskhetian Turks would return to regions where the majority of the Armenian population is concentrated, posing no real threat of ethnic tension. Although Georgian officials continued pushing this narrative, the official stance of the Armenian leadership in Javakheti confirmed that they had no objections to the return of the Meskhetian Turks.

As a result of Georgia’s uncompromising stance on the issue, which has remained constant despite multiple changes of administration in Tbilisi, the indefinite exile of the Meskhetian Turks remains a stain on Georgia’s human rights record and a testament to its oppressive treatment of ethnic minorities.

The Achilles’ Heel of Georgia

Georgia has long been revered as the bastion of democracy in the South Caucasus. With powerful ambitions to join NATO, Westernize their institutions and establish strong ties with the United States and European Union, Georgia has been the West’s partner of choice in the post-Soviet region time and time again. 

However, Georgia has a weakness. 

Unlike most modern Western democracies, Georgia is unwilling to compromise when it comes to the question of ethnic minority rights. In recent decades, Georgian authorities have not taken any steps to address the discriminatory, xenophobic and oppressive policies against ethnic minorities. The commitments they made to the Council of Europe remain unfulfilled, facilitated by Western complicity in turning a blind eye to Georgia’s abuses. 

Moreover, the state of ethnic minority rights in Georgia seems to only be deteriorating, as tensions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain unresolved; ethnic minorities continue to be subjected to forced assimilation, erasure of history and exclusion; and displaced populations remain in exile. 

Recent history has come to show that Georgia’s discriminatory policies towards ethnic minorities remains an obstacle in its path towards Westernization and progress. Armed conflict with Russia, a war sparked by Georgia’s inability to respect minority rights in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, effectively prevented Georgia from realizing its hopes to join NATO — and Saakashvili’s position as instigator of the conflict put Western allies in the difficult position of having to re-evaluate the value of partnership with Georgia. 

Georgia’s uncompromising stance on the return of Meskhetian Turks in exile and its discriminatory policies towards Armenians and Azerbaijanis highlights nationalistic and xenophobic attitudes which, at least on paper, are frowned upon by the Western world. The systematic erasure of Armenian culture and history also raises serious human rights concerns regarding cultural genocide, a particularly sensitive issue when it comes to a group previously subjected to genocide. 

The solution is clear. If Georgia is holding onto hopes for integration into Western frameworks in the future, it must first change its position on ethnic minority rights and take the necessary steps to afford all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity, equal protection under the law as guaranteed under its Constitution. 

Because if Georgia does not learn from its mistakes, the next time ethnic tensions explode in the oppressive environment it has created, it may cost Georgia much more than its territorial integrity and a NATO alliance.

An ally of strategic importance for the West, India has taken on the title of the “world’s largest democracy,” presented as a beacon of “freedom” in the Indo-Pacific region to counter the authoritarian leanings of China. However, for much of its history and even more so under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist government, marginalization, more so than democracy, seems to be at the heart of Indian political society. 

The Origins: British Imperialism, The Post-colonial State and the Rise of the BJP 

Contrary to popular belief, the Indian caste system in its most widespread and rigid form is a product of colonialism. In fact, fueling caste and religious strife were instruments of British power and authority — by creating divisions among the people, there would be no united front to rise up against them. Even with eventual Indian independence from Britain, the religious divide between Hindus and Muslims proved difficult to reconcile and led to India’s partition into the separate nations of India and Pakistan, and later, Bangladesh. 

While a formal ban of the caste system was passed in 1948 and other political strides have occurred since the modern state has carried on its predecessors’ legacy of marginalization under the veil of post-colonial democracy. 

This sets the stage for the rise of Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While India is incredibly diverse, Hindus make up 80% of the country’s population, and to Modi and BJP members, India is “fundamentally a Hindu rashtra (nation).” The BJP is guided by a “core philosophy of Hindutva (Hindu-ness)” at the expense of the country’s other minority groups, an idea they have consistently expressed in Parliament and in other public forums. 

The BJP is not solely a party of religion — they are strongly pro-business and believe in robust foreign and national security policies. Before his ascension to prime minister, Modi served as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat, which saw tremendous economic growth and investment under his tenure. So in 2014, in the midst of an economic downturn, Modi ran for prime minister on a promise to bring the same prosperity he did to Gujarat to the rest of the country. 

From his initial rise to the national stage, Modi’s skills as a public speaker and his inspiring life story helped him construct a charismatic public persona and gain the strong base he still holds today. Throughout his first term, 88% of the Indian population, or nearly nine-in-ten Indians, held a favorable opinion of Modi. And even as his political message shifted — from capitalist to religious fundamentalist; from populist to authoritarian — his followers have stuck by him. 

Marginalization as a Political and Societal Tool 

Modi has expressed anti-Muslim tendencies as early as his tenure as chief minister of Gujurat, but it has only amplified in his time as Prime Minister. This sentiment is not only voiced in his rhetoric but is prevalent institutionally. Modi’s re-election in 2019 was the “first time in independent India where the ruling party does not have a single Muslim representative in Parliament despite the population of Muslims in India being 190 million.”

Later that year, the Modi administration passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) that made religion a basis for granting citizenship for the first time in Indian history. The law “specifically fast-tracks asylum claims of non-Muslim irregular immigrants from the neighboring Muslim-majority countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.” Along with a plan for a national citizenship verification process aimed to identify “illegal migrants,” there are fears that if deemed illegal by the BJP government, “millions of Indian Muslims, including many families who have lived in the country for generations, could be stripped of their citizenship rights and disenfranchised.” 

Modi has defended the policies as not being discriminatory, saying that “Muslims are a part of our nation, and they have equal rights and duties as others.” However, he has not taken an initiative to “rein in his party members and supporters who routinely vilify Muslims, or press state governments to prosecute those responsible for abuses.” 

This is in conjunction with a rise in lynchings against religious minorities orchestrated by “cow vigilantes,” or religious zealots aiming to enforce beef bans, as the cow is considered a sacred animal in Hinduism. During Modi’s first term, 44 people were killed in these cow-protection attacks — 36 of whom were Muslim. Police stalled the prosecutions of the attackers, and BJP lawmakers publicly supported the attacks, going as far as offering financial and legal support to perpetrators. 

More recently, in 2021, hate speech and attacks against minorities in their places of worship have skyrocketed. There were at least 300 acts of violence against religious minorities in the first nine months, but very few of the perpetrators have faced any consequences and no arrests have been made. 

Instead, state governments have reinforced these ideas by passing several new laws. On Dec. 23, the lower house of parliament in the state of Karnataka passed the Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion bill, which would prohibit conversion from Hinduism to another religion.“Violators” could be met with fines or even incarceration.  

A few days later, on Christmas, Modi’s government blocked the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa and a significant source of funding for churches in India, from receiving foreign contributions. That same day, BJP lawmaker Tejasvi Surya publicly called for a ghar wapsi (“return home”), or the conversion of Christians and Muslims “back” to Hinduism. 

The national government has not condemned the attacks against minority groups. Modi, who has not held a press conference in years, and the Indian Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah, have both not commented on the recent uptick in religiously motivated hate crimes. 

Even with these authoritarian trends, Modi has mostly maintained his popularity — aside from fluctuations due to the economic impacts of COVID-19. He has been able to create a base across age and socioeconomic groups, with surprisingly strong support from millennials. India has one of the largest millennial populations, making up over 400 million of its population, and according to polling data from the 2019 election, nearly 40% of those ages 18 to 35 voted for the BJP. For millions of Indians, 

Modi represents a shift from the “English-speaking, Western-educated technocrats who shared little in common with the country’s largely-agrarian and vernacular-speaking population” towards leaders “who speak, pray, and look like them.” His promises of social mobility for the middle class and empowerment of the country’s large labor force have only reinforced his popularity. 

While a polarizing and controversial figure to many, he does have significant support among non-resident Indians (NRIs) living in Western countries. This can be attributed to his numerous high-profile visits from the United States to Australia, which has generated large turnouts – over 20,000 NRIs from across North America attended a Modi-led event in Madison Square Garden in 2014, and he garnered a crowd of over 50,000 in Houston in 2019. Modi’s “sustained and substantive engagement” with the Indian diaspora has been a key focal point of his foreign policy, and his “universal” vision has helped him develop a similar base of support abroad as he did at home. 

What Comes Next? 

Marginalization is not new to India, but under Modi, religious tensions and attacks on minorities have soared to unprecedented heights. Through political and legal means, the BJP’s Hindutva rhetoric has left the livelihoods of millions hanging in the balance. But in Modi’s pursuit of a Hindu rashtra, India is losing its strategic leverage in South Asia, and its traditional role of promoting harmony in the region is steadily weakening. 

Yashwant Sinha, former Indian foreign minister, commented that “[t]he openly partisan approach to communal issues has created a very peculiar situation for us as far as that moral high ground in neighborhood policy is concerned.” 

Aparna Pande, director of the India initiative at the Hudson Institution, similarly noted, “If you are pushing a nationalist narrative, it is difficult to then ask your neighbors to not do the same… You will then see every country in South Asia becoming more nationalist and, forget about anything else, that creates a strategic challenge for India.” 

The coming year will be crucial for Modi and the BJP to take a stand against religiously motivated attacks, if not to promote human rights but to protect the country’s security interests. 

Will the “world’s largest democracy” survive? Only time will tell.