The most influential discussion talks and lectures I had had been about NGOs and the humanitarian crisis, the lecture and discussion on climate change, human trafficking, and human rights. In the unit on human trafficking I learned that education gives women, men, and children more empowerment, and thus reduces the risk of being trafficked. Additionally, men are more likely to stand up and protect potential victims due to a change in perspective on rights of women and children through education. Likewise, as a result of education, economic growth is promoted. With an increase in educated populations, you can produce more productive members to society. Despite the billions of dollars generated every year due to human trafficking, trafficking deprives countries of human capital. With human trafficking, the poverty cycle is reinforced. Therefore, the more value we place on potential victims through higher education, the more in value on economies is the likely end result. Human trafficking also leads to the breakdown of social structures contributing to the cutting of cultural ties and the disintegration of families and communities when victims are being pulled away from their families. Additionally, one of the Sustainable Development goals suggests that everyone be provided legal identities because so many victims of human trafficking are those that walk around with no sort of identification that allows the laws of the land to protect him or her, and thus can avoid the risk of being kidnapped and trafficked. I learned about the Sustainable Development Goals and how they are co-laboring with the ‘Walk Free Foundation’ of Australia as a post-MDG goal. The organization aimed to end modern slavery globally with its beginning in Australia.
I really enjoyed the lecture about human rights. The speaker shed light and helped me to better understand what all the human rights were. He showed the class the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was interesting to hear about the right to asylum and the right to migrate wherever and whenever. This right was very controversial concerning whether the United States should admit Syrian refugees. The issue of the right to migrate was very pressing when the discussion of the class switched over the climate change and the idea of their being climate refugees. I learned of environmental issues being a human rights issue, and that our consumption of energy and production of greenhouse gases is a huge factor that negatively impacts the environment we live in. From what I understood from the lecture is that our activities violate human rights. How we choose to exist in this world has deeply affected countries and Island nations like Kiribati. From the way we choose to manufacture our goods, or which way we choose to drive our cars, we are essentially denying the people of Kiribati their human rights such as the right to a healthy and hospitable environment, and the right to food and water. The primary victims of harm to their environment are those of marginalized and impoverished communities with limited to no ability to participate in decision-making and public debate on environmental issues in order to achieve redress. Their involvement is necessary due to the traditional knowledge of the Indigenous people have. What I learned when researching my country, Australia about the topic of climate change and human rights, I learned that the Aboriginal people are victims of economic marginalization. It was the drive for profit that altered how much carbon dioxide we breathe, the warmth of the climate, and sea levels, etc. This in turn caused severe weather. More waves came crashing against the shores, eroding the land, salinating the soils and more; pushing the indigenous people to the status of displaced refugees. And the exploitation of their homelands continues. In particular, to the indigenous, nature is life. Australia ought to recognize that when it strips nature, the environment from them; it is stripping away their right to life. When you take away one’s lands, waters, and natural resources, it is said to commit cultural genocide. The essence of the Aboriginal culture is in their lands. Also, I discovered through my research that given partial efforts made by Australian government, the native title is still being intentionally excluded from opportunity to address the indigenous disadvantage. There have also been reports of dying infrastructure like housing and sewage that further exposed the indigenous to greater risks of diseases from flooded debris and insects like malaria and dengue fever.
I loved the discussion of controversial work of NGOs. From the discussions I realized that if human rights were clearly woven and realized under rigid and enforceable international law, then aid organizations would be punished for violating the rights of those conflict-affected populations like the right to food, the right to water, and the right to security, etc. However, until ethics can overcome politics, human rights will never be wholly realized, aid organizations will continue to serve the victims of war crimes and the abusers of these same exact crimes. The same reason that violations of human rights as an effect of climate change is the exact same reason why the operations of aid organizations were highly undermining and contradictory, and that reason was MONEY.
Global warming is serious ongoing problem in the world. People who are in urban area might know about the problem but mostly they do not take it seriously since they never experienced. Currently, earth is losing its “fresh water-bank” every second due to global warming and it directly affects people who are leaving in the Arctic. Rapid climate change caused unbelievable breakdown of Inuit’s society in Arctic, where have the highest suicide rates in North America. Ice and snow are their highways that bring them out to the supermarkets and key environment which link them each other and to other society. Due to losing ice and snow, land scape has eroded, contaminated drinking water, the coastal losses and causing animal species extinction. Currently, many or marine species dependent on sea ice, including polar bears, birds, and walrus are declined. On December 7, 2005, 63 Inuit from Canada and Alaska filed a legal complaint to defend their culture and their way of life. The purpose was not asking for the world to take a complete economic backward step but using appropriate technologies that limit the pollution which causing Arctic melting. Inuit people want to want to defend right of their culture, rights to lands traditionally used and occupied, and their rights to residence and movement (Moore, D.K., & Nelson, P, M. (2011).
Australia & Oceania 