ASSIGNMENT

TOPIC: HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL WORK

Submitted by : Submitted to :

Joseph Lalmuanpuia Dr. H. Elizabeth

2nd semester, Roll no : 13

Mizoram University
 Human rights are those rights that belong to all people; humanity is their only prerequisite.
Human rights are unlike the rights that citizens possess due to birth or naturalization in any
particular country: human rights are universal and internationally guaranteed; they focus on the
inherent dignity and worth of all human beings, and they can neither be given nor taken away;
also—and critically—they impose obligations on states (and other large actors, like corporations)
to respect, protect, and fulfill them. In the modern world, they also represent a body of law, a
bureaucracy, and a field of practice. In rhetoric and in practice, they can be powerful forces of
social justice.

Scholars and historians acknowledge evolving expressions of the idea—human rights

—taking root from the philosophies of the major religions, gaining ground with the revolutionary
movements of the 18th and 19th centuries demanding rights for citizens, and, certainly, drawing
strength from the policies of the League of Nations.At the end of World War II and with the
founding of the United Nations (UN), however, there was an urgent clamor of voices: an
international call for a global pact that might prevent the atrocities and colossal war like the ones
the world had just experienced.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The result of this call was the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), unanimously adopted by the U.N. member states in
1948(UN, 1948). The UDHR asserts the existence of inalienable human rights that all humans
possess and places new limits on the ways in which leaders can treat their citizens, challenging
the “natural right of each sovereign to be monstrous to his or her citizens”. Though there is still
no perfect consensus among countries or individuals as to the ideal enumeration of human rights,
sixty-five years later there remains enormous international support for the UDHR. Indeed,
portions of the UDHR are cited in the majority of national constitutions that have been drafted
since its adoption, and “governments often cite the UDHR in their negotiations with other
governments, such as when pointing out obligations that must be met”

Human rights represent one of the most powerful ideas in contemporary discourse. In a world of
economic globalisation where individualism, greed and becoming rich are seen as the most
important things in life, and where at the same time the formerly secure moral positions for
judging our actions seem to be declining into a morass of postmodern relativism, the idea of
human rights provides an alternative moral reference point for those who would seek to reaffirm
the values of humanity.

The idea of human rights is one of the most powerful in contemporary social and
political discourse. It is readily endorsed by people from many different cultural and ideological
backgrounds and it is used rhetorically in support of a large number of different and sometimes
conflicting causes. Because of its strong appeal and its rhetorical power, it is often used loosely
and can have different meanings in different contexts, although those who use the idea so readily
seldom stop to ponder its various meanings and its contradictions. This combination of its strong
appeal and its contradictions makes the idea of human rights worth closer consideration,
especially for social workers and those in other human service professions.

The idea of human rights, by its very nature, implies the search for universal
principles that apply to all humans, whatever their cultural background,belief system, age, sex,
ability or circumstances. Such universality has been absent from many of the more traditional
understandings of human rights,simply because not everybody has been thought of as ‘human’.
The universality of human rights must not be confused with a static,unchangeable notion of
human rights. Because human rights must be seen as constructed, rather than objectively
existing, the important thing is the process of dialogue, discussion and exchange tha t seeks to
articulate such universal values. Whose voices are privileged in the human rights discourse,and
whose are not? How can other voices be heard, and are there other ways in which human rights
might be conceptualised? Are some rights privileged over others, and does the way in which we
have conceptualised human rights value some sorts of human action and marginalise others?
These and other questions will be considered in later chapters, alongside a discussion of how
social workers can be part of this ongoing discourse as human rights are constructed and
reconstructed in a continuing discursive process.

Human rights as a central concept for social work leads both to a more collectivist
view, where human rights are seen as good for the society as well as for the individual, and to a
necessary link between a concern for the individual private world of the ‘client’ and a concern
for a healthy, participatory society. Human rights practice belongs in both and is required to link
both in a holistic understanding which breaks down the conventional macro/micro dualism that
characterises much of the social work discourse. Social work which is committed to human
rights must incorporate community development and social action approaches alongside
individualised service provision; it must see each as a necessary complement to the other if
human rights are to be protected and realised.

To identify some of the key issues in the construction of human rights for social
work practice, and in the linking of the definition of rights with practice reality. It is a must to
achieved through a combination of deductive and inductive approaches, the former relying on
constructions of human rights (whether formalised or not) that inform practice, while the latter
requires that the human rights issues inherent in the world of practice be identified and analysed.
Such processes are a necessary prelude to the development of a human rights-based praxis. The
inductive approach means that rather than relying on previously determined human rights ideas,
it is the definition of human rights that itself emerges from praxis. Thus the process of social
work becomes a part of the discourse of human rights, and at a fundamental level social work
helps to articulate and define human rights. The particular value of this is that it means the
human rights discourse is informed by praxis rather than only by ideas and debate, and it
becomes a discourse that is more firmly grounded and informed by people’s struggles against
oppression and disadvantage.

To provide an overall picture of what it means to think about achieving human rights
through social work practice. Many of these practice principles are not new and have been
discussed by social workers for example feminist social work, radical social work, critical social
work, postmodern social work, and counter-oppressive practice. Similarly, most of the social
work skills involved in such practice are not new. Human rights-based social work does not
necessarily require social workers to be doing much that they are not already doing, though the
emphasis on particular activities, the purpose of various practice methods, and the overall
framing of the social work task may well be different skills, of course, will vary with context,
and hence it would be both inappropriate and misleading to spell out specifically ‘how to do’
human rights-based social work. Practice principles represent the limits to which one can be
prescriptive, and the actual processes and methods to be used will vary with different workers,
different organisational locations, and different cultural and political contexts. There is another
level, however, where human rights principles inform social work practice. The emphasis in this
article has been on social work as a means to achieve the realisation of human rights. But as we
have seen, means and ends cannot be so easily separated, and it is therefore important to examine
the impact of human rights principles on the practice of social work itself.

Human rights principles apply as much to how social workers do their work as to what they do.
They must therefore be concerned with the processes of social work practice and education, as
well as with their outcomes. Social work practice or education that does not reflect human rights
principles in its own structures and processes, even though it may ultimately seek human rights
goals, is not only contradictory but is likely to be counter-productive, given the necessary
connection between means and ends. This chapter has identified a number of issues that are
raised by a human rights perspective when we consider the processes and structures of the social
work profession, and has shown that often the conventional language, structures,processes and
educational practices of social work are counter to human rights principles.

It is therefore important that social workers who claim a commitment to human

rights should be critically reflective of their own practices, as well as analysing their clients’
problems from a human rights perspective. It is not enough to be a dedicated human rights
activist; one also has to be able to apply the analysis to one’s own day-to-day actions. Some of
the ideas in this article might be seen as arguably more radical than those of the remainder of the
assignment. This is because, for social workers,to apply the critique to social work itself brings
the analysis much ‘closer to home’ and defines social work as potentially part of the problem
rather than only as the means to the solution. Applying a human rights perspective to client
outcomes is one thing, but to apply it to social work itself is quite another. After all, it is easier,
and more comfortable, to apply a radical critique to something else (such as oppressive structures
or institutions) than to one’s own practice. This suggests that as well as promoting action to
change oppressive structures within society, a major task for those seeking to bring about radical
change through social work is also to apply the analysis to social work itself.

Given the depth and breadth of the human rights that now comprise international law, it seems
likely that advocacy on behalf of these many rights is an intricate and comprehensive exercise
that will require social workers to acquire new knowledge. Also, given that social work is
“primarily a locally based profession”, human rights advocacy in social work must also look
different in different places, as human rights are observed differently and different human rights
violations occur in different cities, states and countries. Thus, human rights advocacy in social
work emerges as a distinct and complex activity. Still, this dissertation argues that advocacy is
just the tip of the iceberg in terms of human rights methods for social work. Limiting human
rights practice to advocacy greatly minimizes the potential for social workers to participate in
human practice. Applying a human rights-based approach to social work may help social
workers to better understand advocacy in the human rights context, and may also prompt social
workers—and CSWE—to expand their list of rights-based practice behaviors.

Though social work scholars have argued that social work is a human rights profession,social
work’s impact in the larger field of human rights has, as yet, gone largely unnoticed. This
dissertation is meant to provide greater definition to the scope of human rights practice within
social work, to provide the profession with more tools to describe and measure human rights
practice, and therefore to contribute to social work’s growth and importance as a human rights
profession. Further, greater guidance on the particulars of human rights practice may encourage
more social workers to practice from a human rights perspective and therefore to challenge the
structures that lie behind the injustices social workers encounter every day.
Reference:

1.Ife,jim (2008),Human rights and social work, Cambridge University Press,The Edinburgh
Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

2. Mc Pherson,Jane(2015), Human Rights Practice in Social Work: A Rights-Based Framework

and Two New Measures, A Dissertation submitted to the College of Social Work in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

3.Clapham,Andrew(2007), Human rights, a very short introduction, SPI Publisher Services,

Pondicherry, India.

4.Maschi,Tina(2016),Applying a Human Rights Approach to Social Work Research and

Evaluation, Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland