Human rights are the rights that each individual is entitled to possess regardless of their caste, creed, and color. These human rights include right to live free from all types of discrimination, the right to respect, equality and the right to have property etc. The rights of all humans are protected by law through customary law, treaties and other different forms of international law. These human rights have gained recognition at international level by the governments of almost each state centered on the principles of justice and equivalence.
The “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” is a document that agrees upon different sets of human rights applicable on each individual and is approved by United Nations. There are several treaties or conventions that ensures the essential rights of every individual e.g., The Convention on the Elimination of All kinds of Racial Discrimination (CERD), The United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT), The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (CSR), The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPCG) etc.
The principle of international law that is being violated is the human rights violation in Myanmar which was previously known as Burma. After its independence from the British control, Myanmar faced numerous problems because of its diverse ethnic groups. There are 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar including Buddhists, Bamar, Kachin, Rakhine, Kayah, Chin, Kayin, Shan and many more.
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There is ongoing ethnic conflict and human rights violation in Burma. The cause or reason of human rights abuse in Myanmar is because of ethnic conflicts which resulted in civil war, and militarization which resulted in 1962, where government control was taken over by military forces.
There are Buddhist majority and numerous minority groups in Myanmar which resulted in ethnic conflict because of growing inequality of rights among these ethnic groups. Myanmar like many other states is responsible to give equal rights to all of its individuals but there are numerous human rights violation in Myanmar which includes torture, racial discrimination, rape, murder, forced dislocation and environmental devastation etc. There is increased ethnic cleansing movement across the country.
Human Rights Violation of Rohingya People
One of the recent cases of human rights violation in Myanmar is of Rohingya individual. There is extreme violation of human rights of Rohingya people, one of the ethnic Muslim minority group in the country. They have their own culture and language, different from other people of Myanmar. The Rohingya people are living in the Buddhist majority state which is known as “Rakhine”. The government of Myanmar denies the Rohingya individual as the citizens of Myanmar and they have been deprived from Burmese citizenship. They are not treated equally as other people of Myanmar and they do not have any social or political rights.
It is usually said that the Rohingya people are laborers of Indian Bangladesh so the Rohingya people were considered as illegal Bengali immigrants by the government of Myanmar and these people were not accepted by the native people of Myanmar. The Rohingya people were even excluded from the census of 2014. The government did not give them citizenship of Burmese and termed them Bengali. The lives of Rohingya people became worse after 1962, when military forces took control from the government. Due to militarization, the rights of Rohingya people were being violated. They are still facing serious oppression in Myanmar. The Rohingya people have been termed as “the world’s most persecuted minority” by the UN. They faced problems in gaining their essential rights e.g., free movement, education, expression etc.
Myanmar have signed several treaties for human rights protection, but it rarely follows them. State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) have signed Genocide Treaty, according to which the state isn’t allowed to hurt any of its citizens by direct violence or by structural oppression however SLORC by its large killings and other different types of torture, completely violates it. Prostitution Treaty is signed but is not ratified by Myanmar.
It doesn’t lawfully obliges Myanmar but it’s not supported its pledge to reduce trade of harlotry. The SLORC violates its duties recognized by customary law. Myanmar have signed UN Slavery Convention which doesn’t permits any slave traffic. However SLORC violates this convention or treaty by forced slavery from the ethnic minority groups.
Under this regard SLORC is additionally a continuous violator of Labor Convention no 29. That describes that the state isn’t permitted to use forced slavery. Apart from these, Myanmar has also agreed upon and ratified United Nation Charter that indicates respect of human rights without any form of racial discrimination. But in Myanmar, the rights of Rohingya people are being violated.
Despite of these treaties and conventions, the government of Myanmar doesn’t fulfill any of its obligations however instead it says that it’s an internal matter .of the state within which no external actor is allowed to intervene. There are serious violation of the rights of Rohingya people in Myanmar.
Violence broke out at Rakhine state in 2016, when nine boarder police were killed in October. At that point military troops were directed to the Rakhine villages. The government defendant the armed Rohingya group for this occurrence.
This situation led military crushing within the areas where Rohingya lived and through this crushing many of the human rights were violated involving illegal killing, rape etc. but they somehow even their violations of human rights as most of the international community remained silent on this issue. The UN declared it as an example of “Ethnic cleansing”. The residence of the area says that the troops are indiscriminately killing unarmed Rohingya men and women that is the direct violation of law on human rights.
Myanmar have never seen a political stability in its history that is why it had been unable to provide its citizens especially its diverse ethnic groups with complete social and political rights. This large scale abuse and human rights violations in Myanmar could be a result of presence of various ethnicities at the constant time. To take control of the territory international law concerning human rights is completely violated without any sense of accountability.
