Human Rights Issues of 2011

In 2011, people around the world fought for their human rights, and governments either helped or harmed the cause.  These are some of the major human rights issues that caught our attention in 2011:

World Hunger: Over 925 million people still do not have enough food to eat.  World hunger has been aggravated by climate change, growing more grain for ethanol, lack of money to buy food, seed, or farming implements to grow the food, war, HIV/AIDS, rising gas prices, lack of rights to use water sources, and the farm subsidies that wealthy farmers of Western countries receive to grow more and saturate the market, leaving poorer farmers in other countries unable to sell their harvests.  The economic depression of the United States has also increased the number of children who go to bed hungry at night.

Arab Spring: People across North Africa and the Middle East protested against their repressive governments, and some were successful in overthrowing them.  While the Western world believed that Arab Spring was all about establishing democracy, there is a growing fear that secular dictators will be replaced by Islamists, who have potential to take more freedoms away from the people--especially from women.

Occupy Wall Street: On September 17, 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) began in the United States.  Inspired by the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the Occupy Wall Street movement is a people's movement that protests against the increasing influence of corporations and financial institutions over the democratic process and the common good.  OWS gave birth to the slogan "We are the 99%!", calling attention to the fact that 1% of the nation holds most of the wealth and power.  For the most part, demonstrations have been non-violent, but police and National Guard have pepper sprayed, beaten, tear-gassed, and trampled demonstrators with horses, even though the police and military are also part of the 99%.  OWS has expanded to all states of the union, and if nothing else has made Americans reflect upon their attitudes toward work, wealth, power, and the right to demonstrate against the government.


"LGBT Rights are Human Rights":  A conversation about LGBT civil rights in the United States has begun, starting from the top.  

On February 23, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a memo to Congress which set out the Department Of Justice's position that classifications in laws and government policies based on sexual orientation should be subject to a heightened standard of constitutional review due to the long history of discrimination against LGBT people, among other factors.  The main purpose of this memo, to reconsider the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), started a conversation on the federal level but did not result in a repeal.

On April 6, 2011, Rep. Barney Frank introduced the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA, H.R. 1397) to the 112th Congress House of Representatives to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  Various representatives have tried to get ENDA passed since 1994, without success; the Civil Rights Act still does not include sexual orientation or gender identity under their non-discrimination policy.

On September 20, 2011, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell took effect. The repeal followed decades of research demonstrating that open service by LGBT people does not impair military readiness or cohesion.  While gay and lesbian people can now serve openly in the military if they so choose, many still do not feel comfortable doing so, and gay and lesbian enlisted people still will not receive federal or military benefits for their partners. 

On December 7, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a historic speech before the United Nations, stating that it is a violation of human rights to commit discrimination or violence against people because of their sexual orientation.  While the federal government of the United States still does not recognize same-sex marriage, and it allows the states to determine whether or not to include sexual orientation or gender identity in their anti-discrimination laws, as well as give each state the freedom to determine how they will address LGBT issues or not in K-12 environments, being LGBT is not a legal reason to imprison someone, stone them, or put them to death in the United States, as it is in many other countries in the world.  Thirty seven out of fifty three African nations have made it illegal for gays to exist.  The United Kingdom has threatened to cut their aid to African nations who do not abolish these laws.  Meanwhile, Russia and the former Soviet republics, many Middle Eastern nations, Latin American nations such as Ecuador, and southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia go uncriticized by the West for their anti-LGBT legislation.