The UNs involvement in Human Rights, specifically Africa :What does the United Nations do for Human Rights issues in Africa?

Human Rights in Africa

Introduction

In this I will discuss the activity of the United Nations in Africa . African countries are characterized by the economic instability and low level of the human rights culture . The attention of international community is constantly drawn to the issues of the violence , wars , infringement of the women 's rights , child abuse genocide and violence of the autocratic and Africa . Although there was a considerable progress in the human rights development in African countries over the last ten years , still the situation here is grave and

requires immediate actions

The main body , which is responsible for the establishment and support of the human rights in Africa as well as all over the world , is United Nations . In this I will focus in more detail on activity of the United Nations in the African region in general and in separate conflicts in particular . I will draw attention to the main achievement of the United Nations as well as to its main failures in providing the basis for the establishment of the human rights in African countries

Development of Human Rights in Africa

Human rights in sub-Saharan Africa continued to be assaulted during 1995 , despite improvements in some human rights conditions and new prospects for ending bloody civil wars . In the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda , a new government that put an end to the genocide was itself responsible for abuses this year , while Rwanda 's former government threatened to return to "finish " the genocide with its Zaire-based exile army . With the dismantling of apartheid and the extraordinary changes in South Africa , in contrast , tangible progress was made toward the development of a human rights culture (Andreasse , 1993

Although the situation with human rights differs from country to country , it is obvious that one of the main problems there is impunity There were a lot of cases when the abuses were unpunished and the governments were changed not by means of elections but revolutions and armed conflicts

Human rights culture in Africa is really endangered due to the existence of the numerous autocratic governments and continuous revolutions and armed conflicts . African countries are characterized by a high level of internal conflicts , like in case of such collapsed states as Somalia and Liberia , or as in case of Sudan and Angola , where civil wars took place Irrespective of the character of the conflict there was one common feature in them - they happened with impunity , which means that in these countries the notion of the human rights did not exist at all or was completely neglected (Clapham , 2007

On the other hand the weak protection of the human rights can also be explained by the weakness of the social and state institutions in general . For example in such states like Nigeria , Kenya , and Zaire this situation helped the political leaders to concentrate all power in their hands and thus establish their personal rule , which in fact contributed to the weakening of the human rights in the countries...