The DHR is riddled with inconsistencies and inner conflicts. It begins by saying that all of the listed rights are inalienable. The normal view of “inalienable” means “cannot be alienated” by anyone, including government. The DHR ends with articles describing the circumstances where the stated inalienable rights can be alienated by the United Nations or member governments. Rights are given and rights are taken away. The term “inalienable” in the introduction is an outright fraud.

Many positive rights are granted under the DHR, such as the right to food, water, shelter, education and so forth. Negative rights, such as the right to own property without confiscation, are also granted. Whenever you grant positive and negative rights together, there is an insoluble problem. In order to provide anything to anybody, it must first be taken from someone else. In order to take it from someone else, their property rights must necessarily be violated. The donor has no rights in the confiscated property. Inalienable property rights are a fraud under the DHR.

Compulsory education under the Declaration is to be directed at socializing our children, making good subjects of international government and furthering the activities of the United Nations. The silly notion of educating our children to help them to be more productive and prosperous never occurs to the writers of the DHR. Education under DHR is a fraud.

Article 29 (1) says that “Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.” This manifests itself in calls for compulsory community service for all citizens. There is discussion of that very thing in America today. If a person is compelled to do service against his or her will by anyone, including politicians and bureaucrats, that is a form of slavery or involuntary servitude. It is in direct conflict with article 4 of the DHR: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude…” Freedom doesn’t exist under DHR.

Article 30 ends the list. It says that “Nothing in the Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.” The net effect of that statement is that, if anyone tries to roll back government interference, to limit welfare, unemployment, social security or any other government program, they are guilty of humanitarian crimes under the Declaration. Their rights are not protected. They have no rights, under the DHR, to speak or write about the abolition of those programs, belong to organizations that promote their abolition or take part in rallies or hold seminars that speak out against them.

The bottom line is that the Declaration Of Human Rights is not a statement of inalienable rights, in any sense of the word. It is, rather, a comprehensive manifesto, aimed at promoting world socialism under the United Nations. The U.N. was founded on the idea that national sovereignty is an outdated notion and that an international government is needed to enforce peace and to provide for equitable distribution of the world’s wealth.

Article 22. “Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation, and in accordance with the organization and resources of each state, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.” As Karl Marx, the father of communism, said, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

The DHR is the socialist manifesto. This December 10th and for the whole year, people interested in maintaining free societies need to counter the United Nations propaganda with information on the reality of the document and the world socialist agenda of the United Nations.

The real extent of human trafficking is unknown due its clandestine nature and a lack of adequate data collection. The U.S. government has calculated that, around the world, between 2 and 4 million people are trafficked annually, but many human rights and migration specialists believe that this vastly underestimates the true scale of the problem.

Sex trafficking has become the most common form of trafficking in recent years, with young women and children accounting for the majority of victims. But men are trafficked, too, often to be sold into forced labor. Traffickers are often of the same nationality as their victims and commonly consist of organized crime gangs. Their victims may be directly abducted or deceived by promises of well-paid jobs, legal entry into western countries, educational opportunities or marriage. Once in the destination country, they are frequently subjected to extreme mental and physical brutality by their employers and prevented from escaping. If detected by the authorities, they are often themselves treated as criminals for entering or working in the country illegally.

The main source regions for the trade in people are those with less developed economies and high levels of poverty: South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union. In contrast, the destination countries for trafficked people are mostly in Western Europe, North America, the Middle East and other parts of Asia. Trafficking also occurs within country borders or to neighboring countries, a form which reportedly often involves young children.

International Shortcomings

The United Nations is now leading the fight against human trafficking; its Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children has been ratified by 119 nations to date. However, some 70 countries have not yet signed up while others are implementing the protocol ineffectively. Although overall numbers of prosecutions of offenders have increased in recent years, most escape with relatively minor penalties for their crimes, which fail to provide an effective deterrent to other traffickers. Moreover, there is little evidence that U.S. economic sanctions against countries that fail to cooperate in fighting trafficking, such as Burma, Cuba, Iran and North Korea, have much effect.

Since the economic rewards of trafficking outweigh the perceived risks of prosecution or the severity of the punishment, this inhumane trade is likely to increase. Moreover, in conditions of extreme poverty, potential victims will easily succumb to the promises of a better life or may simply make a calculated decision to try to better their lives by taking a chance on the unknown in a new country.

The lack of reliable data and information on trafficking presents one of the major barriers to the development of effective ways to tackle it. Even among those states that have signed the UN protocol, data collection and knowledge exchange on human trafficking is at best ad hoc. In the developed world, insufficient resources have been made available to improve the knowledge base, and data protection and other regulatory barriers have hindered information exchange between countries. In many of the poorer countries from which trafficked victims originate, resources are simply not available for statistics and research.

See Also

Laczko, F. & Gramegna, M.A. (2003) Developing Better Indicators of Human Trafficking.

International Organization for Migration, Geneva.

Seelke, C.R. & Siskin, A. (2008). Trafficking in Persons: U.S. Policy and Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2007). The Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2008). United Nations General Assembly urges stronger action against human trafficking.

U.S. Department of Justice (2007). Nature and Extent of Human Trafficking.

U.S. State Department (2008). Trafficking in Persons Report.