What does the term Human Rights mean to you?

We all know what Human Rights are!

An image or a word enters our mind whenever we hear the phrase. Wars; discrimination; genocide; nasty people beating up other people; people being put in jail for no apparent reason; religious prosecution; something about the UN.

What I want to know is: What do YOU think of?

You see, for the longest time, I didn’t think of anything more then: other people in some other country who had life rougher than I. I lived in a civilised country, and was educated, and I had nice parents. Humans Rights were the concern of other people. I never wanted to, or thought, I could save the world. All those things that happened in Israel and Palestine, Zimbabwe, Bosnia, Iraq: Well that was just unfortunate.

The child I once was watched, on her television, as the Berlin Wall fell. A few days later, a girl in her class brought to school, a piece of the wall. Her father had been in Berlin that night. The teacher stood over her class, telling them how this had been a momentous occasion; how lucky they were to see a piece of history. The children sat in front of the grey lump entranced.

A few months later Nelson Mandela was released from prison. People said that this was an historical occasion.

But that day the child had no idea who Nelson Mandela was. And the conversation that followed went something like this:

Child: Who’s that (pointing at television screen)?

Father: Civil rights activist who stands up for equal rights for black people in South Africa.

Child: Why are they all cheering

Father: Just been released from jail. The prison is on an island.

The child pictured Alcatraz and thought to herself. That’s good then. Being in jail on an island can’t be very nice.

And then one day, and I’m not quite sure how this happened, the child became an adult. And in the intervening years more wars had been fought; communist nations had fallen and were divided; planes had flown into buildings; bombs had exploded on trains; borders were taken down between North and South.

And while all of this happened on the periphery of her life, the child, who had become an adult, story had taken her to Peru.

One afternoon I was sitting at my kitchen table, holding a two-month-old baby; chatting away to the baby’s fifteen-year-old mother. The mother was talking about the baby’s father. He was in jail for killing a cow. She said she didn’t mind. She said she wouldn’t go back to him.

For many years she had lived in a children’s shelter. Determined always not to end up like her mother: alcoholic; physically, emotionally and psychologically abused by her husband. And then at 13, she had announced that she was leaving. Not long after she was living with a much older boyfriend.

She had explained to me many times, although I had never asked, that no one had ever loved her. He had said that he did. And as time went on he had started hitting her repeatedly and she had gotten pregnant.

She would go back to him of course, as we both knew, that day, she eventually would. With him she had a home, and food to feed herself and the baby. Without him she had nothing.

So that’s what it means to me. It’s the historical events, and the great, and the not so great, people; the news worthy wars and abuses. It’s the fifteen-year-old sitting at my kitchen table. Crying. Asking what she’s going to do? What’s going to happen to her? What chance is there for her? and who cares?

What does it mean to you?