I was inside a brothel in Cambodia and the owner brought two little girls into the room. The first was 7 years old and the second was 5 years old. They had been trafficked from Vietnam and were now for sale at $30 USD an hour. I negotiated with the owner, capturing everything he said and did on the covert camera I was wearing in the hope that it might later be used to facilitate his arrest and their rescue.
I paid him a generous deposit for a future transaction and then with my evidence gathered, I went to leave. The 7-year-old stepped forward, said something to my translator and then looked at me with a forced smile. It was clear that she was afraid and that she was doing everything she could to appear confident. When I asked what she said, I was told that she wanted me to choose her. When I looked confused, my translator learned toward me and whispered that she was trying to protect the 5-year-old. She was her little sister.
During my eight years inside the human trafficking industry, this multi-billion-dollar global business we now call Modern Slavery, I met thousands of people who had lost everything, including any recourse to or respect for their human rights. And yet many of these same people embodied an inherent dignity and interior freedom that was not bestowed upon them by anyone else — and was truly beyond the ability of anyone else to take away.
Human Rights
I recently attended a conference seeking to address the Modern Slavery present in our own lives through the goods and services we consume via global supply chains. We discussed the desire to respond, as many nations already have, by focusing on the more obvious symptoms of the problem. We agreed that our shared goal must be to meaningfully address the cause of Modern Slavery, namely a mindset or way of seeing the world that is blind to the connectedness and inherent interdependence of all people, and a business model that elevates profit above people and planet.
We searched for a solid foundation upon which this approach to Modern Slavery could rest. At our unique time in human history and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the obvious and somewhat inevitable temptation was to build our response upon the foundation of “human rights”.
There is indeed much to be gained by doing so. We can all be grateful for the work of the United Nations post World War 2, to formulate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a “global road map for freedom and equality that seeks to protect the rights of every individual, everywhere.” As the milestone document in the history of human rights, it still “sets a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations”.
The UDHR outlines 30 rights and freedoms that “belong to all of us and that nobody can take away from us”. The rights that were included continue to form the basis for international human rights law and paved the way for the adoption of numerous human rights treaties. According to Google, the UDHR is the most translated document in the world, available today in more than 500 languages. 1948 was the first time in history that countries agreed on the freedoms and rights that deserve universal protection, “in order for every individual to live their lives freely, equally and in dignity.”
Beyond Human Rights
As a former human rights investigator who has seen some of the worst that humans can do to one another, I hesitate to say what I am about to say. I have my own biases and blind spots, my own shadow and my own ego. This blindness gives me pause, and I hope some degree of humility, as I question the ongoing role of the UDHR, the global human rights movement and the rights-based mindset it has spawned. While absolutely necessary in 1948 and in the years that followed World War 2, the human rights-based framework upon which we have sought to create a better world has some severe limitations and unintentional consequences that now unwittingly threaten to undermine their very foundation.
Externally Imposed
The UDHR articulated the rights and freedoms that “belong to all of us” and that are now enshrined in international human rights law. The problem with this is that like any policy, rule or law created by a government or intergovernmental organisation, they are external to us, a framework into which we are invited, encouraged, and in many cases required to participate. The human rights they espouse and protect are therefore only as strong as our support for them, our allegiance to them, and our willingness to agree with and abide by their influence on our lives. In practice, our human rights are therefore only as strong as the laws that represent them, the enforcement that applies them and the judicial systems that recognise and adhere to them.
Since 1948 the world has certainly witnessed some amazing progress and positive improvement in the progression of humanity as a species. The growing recognition of the human rights of minority groups, the disabled, the disenfranchised and the dispossessed, has resulted in shifting mindsets, greater protections, and significant cultural change. While we still have a long way to go, people in many nations have a greater ability to speak, act and live without fear of persecution and otherwise unfair treatment by their community or by the state.
However since 1948 the world has also continued to bear witness to the proliferation of war, the destruction of indigenous cultures, the violation of our planet and its resources, and the ongoing stigmatisation and genocide of people groups. Our world is still held hostage by the power and privilege of the few over the many, endemic gender-based violence and a plethora of ideologically based systems of terror that seek to infest our communities, our families and our minds. The systematic rape of women and children remains one of the most profitable businesses in the world. The human rights that “nobody can take away from us” remain a cruel joke for millions of people, empty words that they will never understand, much less experience in their lifetime.
Human Rights as Weapons of Mass Destruction
The 30 rights and freedoms set out in the UDHR have not been enough to fundamentally change the way we see ourselves and others. The idea of “universal human rights” is an ideology itself, and however much we agree with and buy into its precepts, a human rights-based approach on its own remains powerless to transform the hearts and minds of those who refuse to agree with it, or who will be socially, economically and/or politically disadvantaged by doing so. Perhaps even more insidiously, human rights themselves have now been weaponised, pitting one side against another, each one citing their own “human rights” as the very reason for their hatred and disregard for those who oppose them.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the shallow and often infantile ways in which we seek to uphold our human rights. Both those in support of vaccination and those opposed to vaccination have been vilified, demonised and dehumanised, each side clinging to their human rights as the ultimate validation for their views and version of truth, then using those “rights” as the very means by which to accuse, abuse and assault one another.
Confirmation bias, complexity bias, conspiracy bias and other forms of unconscious prejudice trap us all in various states of illusion and deception. None of us are immune. Modern psychology confirms that we do not see the world as it is, but rather as we are. Our egocentricity blinds us to any other interpretation of reality. We are addicted to the control that we think we have over the life that we think we are living. In this context, our human rights have become weapons of mass destruction, fuelling our fears and our agendas in ways that those who created the UDHR could never have foreseen or imagined.
Negatively Framed
The UDHR and the corresponding human rights legislation it produced around the world, is aimed at giving all people equal opportunities and preventing unfair treatment on the basis of personal characteristics. Through the introduction of various laws and regulatory frameworks, human rights legislation addresses discrimination on the grounds of sex, marital status, religious belief, colour, race, ethnic or national origins, disability, age and so on. Such an approach necessarily results in negatively framing those things we are against in an effort to ensure they do not happen.
The problem with this, as author Simon Sinek says, is that it is comparatively easy to rally people against something because our emotions run hot when we are angry or afraid. Being against is about vilifying, demonising or rejecting. Being against focuses our attention on the things we can see in order to elicit reactions. And being against creates a common enemy and sets up a winnable or “finite game”, falsely leading us to believe we can defeat it once and for all. This perception impacts how we see the very challenges we are facing, and therefore influences our thoughts, ideas and actions in how we choose to respond.
As a framework that is necessarily supported by laws and regulations, a rights-based perspective on its own is therefore ultimately powerless to unite us around what Sinek calls a “just cause”; something we stand for and believe in, not something we oppose. Having the United Nations agree and declare in 1948 that we all have universal human rights, has [sadly] not universally ignited the human spirit, sparked our imaginations nor filled us with sustainable hope and optimism. We remain wanting as a species, desperately weary and in need of something truer and deeper, something we cannot fight for or against, but only affirm, surrender to and rest in.
Inherent Dignity
As it turns out, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is itself founded upon this deeper truth, this deeper reality that has the potential to both heal and reconnect us all. The preamble to the Universal Declaration opens with these words; “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights [my emphasis added] of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world…” It would seem that we have gravitated toward the second half of this sentence and to our profound detriment, have overlooked the first. We have not had the eyes to see and therefore recognise our own and others’ inherent dignity.
Einstein said we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. Taking this logic further, we therefore cannot solve our current problems with the same eyes, the same way of seeing the world, as when we created them. In order to see beyond our confirmation bias, to be conscious of our prejudices and to recognise our interdependence with each other and the planet, we need the vision of those who preceded World War 2 and the 1948 UDHR. Indeed we need the insight and intuition of those who predated the industrial revolution and the age of colonial imperialism. If human rights require the rule of law and government regulation to embody and enforce, recognising inherent dignity requires another lens altogether.
An Indigenous Mindset and Lens
Those of us we who are adept at living on the planet and in separation and isolation from each other, now more than ever need to learn from those who are adept at living with the planet and who can more easily recognise each other’s inner nobility. First Nations people collectively carry with them the wisdom acquired by their ancestors who learned how to recognise and live within the inherent interconnectedness of all things.
South Africa drew upon this indigenous wisdom as it transitioned from a system of apartheid and oppression through a process of restorative justice and reconciliation. Ubuntu is a way of seeing the world that recognises that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye. The common meaning of Ubuntu is “I am, because you are”. It honours the fact that we are all connected. This way of seeing was critical to the success of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and to the possibility of a new nation based on equality and inclusion.
This way of seeing was celebrated and popularised in the 2009 epic science fiction movie — Avatar. Set in the 22nd century when humans are colonising a planet called Pandora, they meet a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora called the Na’vi. The Na’vi greet each other by saying “I see you” as a way of recognising their mutual interdependence, revealing their respect and honouring their inherent dignity. In the spirit of Ubuntu, the literal translation and deeper meaning of this greeting is, until you see me- I do not exist.
For many people, myself included, all of us products of the industrial and technological revolutions, this way of “seeing” feels as far away as Pandora, and as fictional as a sci-fi movie. If I am honest, it even feels somehow insulting to my sense of independence and autonomy, values I inherited from my own ancestors and came to accept and embrace as my birthright. Yet I sense that unless I can somehow learn to recognise the interconnectedness of all things (which quantum physics, neuroscience, biology, ecology and all manner of scientific disciplines now asserts is the case), then I will continue to see others as entirely separate from me and as a threat to my own culturally approved definition of individual success.
As a Pakeha Kiwi I am indebted to the Māori lens and the concepts of mana and kaitiakitanga. Mana is the inherent dignity and status of all things, is enduring, indestructible and inherited at birth. Kaitiakitanga means guardianship and protection, and is a way of seeing and honouring the deep kinship between humans and the natural world. Through this indigenous lens, people are not superior to the natural order but rather are highly esteemed stewards of it.
There is growing recognition among the sustainable business industry and those seeking to address universal challenges such as Modern Slavery, biodiversity collapse and climate change, that the indigenous lens can help us recognise the sacred nobility we all carry within us as well as our deep connection to each other and to the planet upon which our very survival depends. As such it has the potential to unlock our biases, transform our vision, and reveal an alternate path.
Paradox
Unlike human rights, the paradox of human dignity is that the more we fight for it, the less we have. The wisdom embodied by First Nations peoples affirms that human dignity is not something we can ever increase or decrease by human effort. Human dignity is something we can only surrender to, rest in and trust. The beauty and the power of anything “inherent” is that it is automatically imbued and embodied by everyone. It is a gift, complete grace, and there are no terms and conditions. “Inherent” means our dignity is inbuilt, natural, innate, integral, intrinsic. It accompanies us at birth.
The more we allow ourselves to trust this is so, humbly letting go of our certainties and our certitudes, our egocentric ways of seeing and acting, the more clearly we reflect and embody human dignity. This is the starting place for a response to Modern Slavery, to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to all the challenges that confront us — one that rests in our inherent freedom and dignity as human beings. This is where all modern abolitionists ultimately began, from William Wilberforce to Mahatma Gandhi, from Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela. It is what Thomas Merton described as our true self, Martin Buber coined as I-Thou relationships, Thich Nhat Hanh exposed through mindful awareness and Rumi revealed through sacred poetry.
Both Rights and Dignity
The UDHR was created on the foundation of both human rights and human dignity. When we assert our rights at the expense of our own inherent dignity, we harm ourselves and erode our own self image. Equally when we assert our rights at the expense of someone else’s inherent dignity, we undermine and invalidate the very foundation upon which those “rights” are based, leaving us hollow, disconnected and lost.
When we demean and dehumanise others for any reason (e.g. choosing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or to remain unvaccinated) and use our rights to justify our slander and cruelty, we expose our own ignorance and folly. Any notion of human rights without equal recognition of inherent human dignity, is an empty abyss devoid of meaning and value. Only inside authentic relationship, living out of our shared inherent dignity and honouring that same dignity in others, can freedom be found and a more hopeful future be created.
Inner Freedom
I returned to the village in Cambodia several weeks after my first visit. This time I was accompanied by a team of police officers who were acting on the evidence I had collected. I knew where the two sisters lived, and I was desperate to find them. The operation did not go as planned and there were several delays before we could get to the house in question. Even as I entered the building my heart broke as I could tell we were too late. The open back door and the coy expressions on the faces of those present communicated everything. We spent all day searching the village, but we failed to locate the 7-year-old and her 5-year-old little sister. I never saw them again.
Much later I heard that some of the children who were previously for sale in that village had been murdered. The criminals profiting from their slavery learned that many of the children had been recorded by my camera and that their names and faces were now known to the authorities. The quickest way to ensure that their business continued, and that any evidence that could lead to their imprisonment was destroyed, was to eliminate the key witnesses.
I don’t know what happened to the two sisters and whether they were among those murdered. I still struggle to come to terms with it and I don’t know that I ever will. I also don’t know what to do with the fact that it may have been my video footage that contributed to their deaths. I don’t know what to do with the fact that my efforts to protect and enforce their human rights may have been the very thing that took their few remaining rights away completely — and with gut wrenching finality.
What I do know, is that they had indeed lost any recourse to or respect for their human rights. They may even have lost their lives. But their love for each other and the inherent dignity and interior freedom they embodied was truly beyond the ability of anyone to take away. That belongs to them forever.
