This course has significantly changed my perspective on human rights. I now understand that Human rights issues are not only legal matters, they are deeply connected to politics, history, anthropology, geography and most importantly the structure of power.
To begin with one of the most influential concepts I learned in the course HRSJ 5010 ‘Foundations of HRSJ’ was intersectionality. Before this course, I only understood the term at a basic level. However, now I realize that human rights violations are never isolated, they are deeply interconnected with issues such as race, gender, class, nationality. When assessing any human rights issues, these intersecting perspectives must be considered.
For one of my assignments titled, ‘Work opportunities of women of color in the USA’, I used the intersectionality framework to show that in USA, women of color have the lowest work opportunities, compared to other groups of people.
The intersectionality framework explains how both gender and race shape these inequities. These issues are also tied to the historical aspect of colonialism, which continue to produce systemic discrimination against women of color. As a result, although many women are employed at the entry level, their representation in the leadership positions almost disappear as someone move up to the hierarchy level. These patters are deeply structural. Kimberle Crenshaw (1991) explains the impacts of structural discrimination disproportionately affect those who are marginalized with multiple identities.
My work :
Another course, HRSJ 5260, Capitalism and global inequality, also changed my understanding and showed that global economy system are deeply connected with issues of human rights. I learnt that, resource extraction, climate change, labor exploitation, illicit economy are some significant factors that push certain groups of people to be marginalized.
In one of my very short assignments (VSA) on illicit economy, I argued that illicit economy functions side by side with capitalist system. Due to global market policy, states have limited surveillance system to monitor their borders. It is also very expensive to do so, as a result, illicit activities, based on drug trafficking, human trafficking, sex crimes, corruption grow under the umbrella of capitalist system (UNODC Research, 2025). In fact, the Capitalist system earns profits from illicit economy. For example, some OECD countries had 1.33 percent of GDP from money laundering in the year 1997, that increased to 1.74 percent by 2006 (Storti. C., et al, 2012). Therefore, the illicit economy is a byproduct of capitalist system which has this contradiction in itself. In one side Capitalist system makes rule to control illicit economy, but on the other hand it earns profit out of it. So, I understood that economic issues, such as corruption, human trafficking, drug problems, sex crimes are not separate human rights issues.
My work:
Reference
- Crenshaw, K (1991), ‘Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity poliics, and violence against women of color, Stanford Law Review, 43 (6), 1241-1299
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Research, (2025)
- Storti. Claudia Costa, & Grauwe. Paul De (2012), ‘Illicit Trade and the Global Economy’, The MIT Press.