Human Rights Council (HRC)

Topic Update!

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Human Rights Council
Eric Wong
HRC@bruinmun.org

 
Dear Delegates,

 
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to BruinMUN 2011’s Human Rights Council. My name is Eric and I will be your committee chair for BruinMUN 2011. I am from Huntington Beach, California, which is actually not too far away from UCLA. I have been participating in MUN since my freshman year of high and continued when I came to UCLA two years ago. I am currently a member of the Class of 2012 with a plan to major in Environmental Science. After graduation, I hope to go to medical school and become a great doctor one day. Aside from my involvement in academics and MUN, I am also volunteer coordinator at UCLA Santa Monica Hospital and as a Tutor/Mentor with Watts Tutorial Program.

 
The United Nations Human Rights Council was formed to address issues that deal with poor treatment of human rights in specific nations as well as transnational problems. Tackling issues like defamation of religion or displacement of indigenous populations are some of the major issues that they have tackled in the past and continue today. And though it has a shaky record in terms of its membership, its ultimate purpose is to make the world a better place for everyone.

 
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has named Belarus “the last remaining dictatorship in the heart of Europe”. Surrounded by democratic nations like Poland and Lithuania, the country has only had one president since it’s formation in July 1994. President Aleksandr Lukashenko has consolidated all of the power into his office and turned in the nation into a “republic in name, although in fact a dictatorship”. Lukashenko has crushed any descent by severely restricting freedom of speech, press, and peaceful assembly. And in a continent filled with some of the world’s most successful democracies, Belarus continues to defy the odds.

 
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for a wide variety purposes from sexual exploitation to forced labor. And while the majority United Nations members have made pledges to combat this severe issue, it still continues to remains one of the world’s biggest human rights issues. It spans every border and creeps into every nation. And while the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons has helped significantly reduce the number of incidence of human trafficking, it still remains a prevalent problem today. Human trafficking is one of the last remaining forms of slavery today and tackling it would mean finally ridding the world of human slavery.

 
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact me via email. I will make every possible effort to answer your question as promptly as possible. I am really excited to some of your unique solutions to these two very important topics. I hope that when we finally meet at BruinMUN 2011, we can have an unforgettable experience together.

 
Sincerely,

Eric Wong
Human Rights Council, Chair

 
Topics

Download Topic Synopsis! (pdf) Updated June 1. Document is password protected.

Topic A: Human Rights in Belarus
The history of the current regime in the Republic of Belarus started with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. As Belarus split off to form its own nation, a national constitution was adopted in March 1994. After two-round elections for the presidency, political newcomer Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with 80% of the vote.

Since his election, Lukashenko has work steadily towards consolidating power towards his current office to slowly turn the government into an authoritarian dictatorship. He has crushed all of his political opponents, severely restricted any freedom of speech and press, and directly targeted Jews with anti-Semitic policies. These actions along with others over the past decade have landed him among the top violators of human rights violators according to several watchgroups and democratic governments. The UNHCR itself issued a report in 2006 that stated that the Belarusian political system is “incompatible with the concept of human rights”. And even as the United States and the European Union have moved to target Lukashenko and his government with harsh sanctions, he continues to rule Belarus with an iron fist.

Among the worst violations of human rights that Lukashenko has been accused of is his treatment of political dissidents with imprisonment and maltreatment. Besides simply limiting their basic right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, he has targeted any Belarusian who publicly criticizes his actions. In a 2005 report, Amnesty International blasted the actions of his government, which had imprisoned a woman who had published a satirical poem against Lukashenko as well a scientist who published his findings on individuals who had contracted cancer following the disaster at the Chernobyl power plant. The world watched as Lukashensko cracked down on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters who dared to challenge his authority in a fraudulent election that year. Belarus is one of the few remaining dictatorships in the world that manages to continually threaten its citizenry on a daily basis.

 
Topic B: Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for a wide variety of purposes ranging from child prostitution to forced labor. As long as human trafficking continues, slavery will still continue to be a daily reality for thousands of individuals. One of the biggest actions taken multilaterally was the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000. The first protocol of its time, it denounced all forms of trafficking while outlining actions that states must take in order to combat the practice. It defined human trafficking as: “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”. To date, 117 countries have ratified the protocol.

Perhaps the greatest form of exploitation associated with human trafficking is sexual exploitation. Every year, hundreds of thousands women and children are moved between and within countries for sex work through coercion, deception, and bondage. The result is that victims often suffer psychological problems and are excluded and stigmatized if they ever reintegrate to society. If they ever do escape the bonds of their captor, they usually wind up homeless, drug addicts, and have low-self esteem due to the damage of their time in captivity. It is considered one of the worst forms of human trafficking because of the enormous toll that it takes on its victims and the horrendous things done to them.

Human trafficking happens on every continent and in many countries. Because the victims are moved between national borders, there is no country that is completely immune from the issue. That is why it is important to address the misconception that this problem only exists within third world nations with weak governments. According to the United States department, there is an estimated 600,000+ men, women, and children who remain in this modern form of slavery today. Of those, approximately 50,000 are within the United States alone. Major sources of trafficked persons include Thailand, China, Nigeria, Belarus, and Ukraine. So while it is an issue that is being tackled on an international level, it remains a prevalent issue for every nation.

 
Contact Your Chair: HRC@bruinmun.org