As we celebrate Human Rights Day today, I reflect on the words of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said a few days earlier on the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, “To eradicate contemporary forms of slavery, we need new strategies and measures that can unite all actors. While Governments bear the primary responsibility, the private sector has an integral role to play.” Couldn’t this same argument be made in regards to human rights?
Governments certainly play a large role creating, implementing and changing strategies to protect human rights. With that said, we as global citizens, the private sector, have a responsibility to hold our governments and our peers responsible for protecting the inherent dignity of each and every one of God’s children.
So today, on this international day which celebrates Human Rights, let us pray that we can be an instrument for God in helping our world to achieve these rights and let our actions speak as loud as our prayers.
Unbound, an online journal of Christian social justice has an issue that focuses on indigenous rights.