highlight the complex interplay between human rights and culture with specific reference to gender-related cultural practices which have the potential to violate the human rights of people
The tension between cultural practices and human rights often arises when traditional customs or beliefs conflict with internationally recognized human rights standards. Cultural practices are rooted in a community's history, values, and identity, and can vary significantly across societies. Human rights, on the other hand, are universal principles intended to protect the dignity, freedom, and equality of all individuals, regardless of cultural background.
Hello teacher, Human rights refers to the rights that a person has because he is a human being and respects human dignity. We cannot think of a person independently of the culture in which he lives, grows up, and finds himself. Therefore, human rights violations and especially human rights perceptions can be shaped by the cultural codes we bring from the past. Family structure, the meanings we attribute to gender roles, our democratic attitudes and values, and the media can play a role in shaping our perceptions of human rights. Indeed, human rights are universal by definition. On the other hand, the views that establish human rights are not the common product of cultures in which all people are represented; on the contrary, the emergence of human rights involves periods when certain cultures are quite dominant and are influenced by the culture in which it is resistant to change. Kind regards...
Thanks, Kgaowelo, for focusing on the way rights discussions can be used to undermine human rights.
The international human rights treaties are very clear and they exist in two tiers: one tier for protecting group/cultural/ethnic rights (e.g., the genocide convention back in 1948) and assuring sovereignty and protection of peoples in their environments (now in the sustainability agreements and those on indigenous peoples but really dating back to the UN Charter and ideas on sovereignty and survival of groups), and then the second tier, beneath it, for individual rights within each culture/ethnic group so as to assure the survival of the group (the conventions on children (CRC) and women (CEDAW) that come out of the overall human rights treaties.
What is happening recently is that the structure of human rights has been overturned by groups starting with individual rights, such as women's rights but also areas like "business rights" to use these in order to eliminate cultural diversity and environment and to promote a kind of leveling for globalization/global business. In other words, rights law is being abused in order to undermine peoples and the environment, reversing the hierarchy and international law that was the post-WWII consensus on international rights.
I have published a number of indicators that you can find on my ResearchGate site, such as an indicator on gender interventions, an article on "Measuring Human Rights" and others like "Why we need a Red Book for Endangered Cultures" and a piece analyzing the legal contradictions in the "SDGs", to assure that we don't undermine the international treaties and the goals of the international system for assuring that all rights are taken together rather than politicized as they have been over the past several years.
In some states in the southeast of the Mexican Republic, they defend the sale of girls under the argument that it is "a custom" of the place. Clearly and unfortunately it is a cultural practice that violates human rights, which is being combated.