The Many Challenges Facing Human Rights Organizations

Sushma Raman discusses the hard work of ensuring security, justice, and equality for all

While human history is replete with examples of repression and the struggle against it, it wasn’t until 1948 that the world came together to declare in one voice the sanctity of each individual’s dignity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a triumph of the post-war period, and while the world is by most measures a far better place today than in 1948, the declaration’s adoption was not the end of the fight for human rights, but just the beginning.

Eleanor Roosevelt holds up a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (courtesy of the FDR Museum)

Ensuring security, justice, and equality for all people has been a constant struggle, and standing on the front lines are a kaleidoscope of organizations — Inter-governmental, governmental, NGOs, and even for-profit corporations — operating everywhere from the international to the local level, addressing myriad examples of inequity and injustice.

This week on PolicyCast, we sit down with Sushma Raman, the Executive Director of the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights, to discuss some of the challenges these organizations face today. From growing numbers of government crackdowns, to pressures exerted by private corporations, and even basic difficulties with fundraising.

Download on iTunes, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, or MP3.