Human Rights Day

Human Rights Day is celebrated each year on December 10th in an effort to spread awareness and promote equality for every human being. First established in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly declared and adopted Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Available in more than 500 languages, it is the most popular document in the world (1). 

This year, the theme of Human Rights Day is dignity, freedom and justice for all, maintaining that health is a fundamental human right for all people. The right to health is based on ensuring that everyone has access to affordable, quality healthcare as well as other basic human rights such as food, education, housing and access to clean water. 

Human Rights Day helps recognize that everyone is entitled to the right to health regardless of race, sex, language, gender, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, geographical location, religion, political or other opinion, nationality or social origin, property, socioeconomic or other status (2). 

Famous human rights quotes: 

“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” – Nelson Mandela 

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. [...] Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." – Eleanor Roosevelt 

“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” – John F. Kennedy 

“A right delayed is a right denied.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Sources: 

“Human Rights Day.”, United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/observances/human-rights-day 

“Human Rights Day 2022.”, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2022/12/10/default-calendar/human-rights-day-2022