Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

People’s Basic Rights are Important

State, in the modern sense, is a welfare or social agency and it must make efforts so as to ensure the rights of the individuals who live in it. Its primary objectives should not be only to preserve the law and order but also to provide conditions for ensuring the maximum good of the maximum number of people. It should pursue through its agencies the welfare of all the members of the society and try to make sure that the rudimentary requirements of citizens are provided to them with ease and convenience.
Today, most of the states in the world agree that the basic rights of human beings include both moral and legal rights, whereas the legal rights include the civil rights, like the right to life, right to family, right to property, right to freedom of speech and expression, right to form associations and move about freely, right to work, right to religion, right to equality and right to education, and the political rights, like the right to vote, the right to contest elections, right to public office, right to petition and the right to criticize government.
In the contemporary era when the world has been globalized and the politics has been internationalized, the theories and movements of rights have reached to all the corners of the world to provide the basic rights of the human beings. These endeavors try to facilitate human rights on the face of the barriers of economic and political incapacities and shortcomings of the national governments. These rights are basically monitored by the international bodies and work under the umbrella of United Nations Organizations. Though the international movements and organizations play their roles to make sure that all the human beings are given their rights, at the same time it is necessary for the human beings to have complete awareness about their rights so that they are not violated.
Individual awareness, in this regard, stands as the most important factor. Keeping in view a democratic setup it is imperative that the claim for rights must come from the individuals. Though the states can fulfill their responsibilities, it is not always necessary that they do so; therefore, the individuals have to rise to the occasion and make sure that they are provided such political, social and economic environments wherein their rights are guarded properly. In addition, individuals within a democratic political system can influence the policies of the government and even they have a huge role in the making of the government, mostly during elections; therefore, their aware roles guarantee that they favor a government which keeps in consideration their rights and requirements.
Though there have been both national and international endeavors to protect basic rights of human beings, still there are many human beings who suffer from the deprivation of their basic rights. Many governments in the world, like that of our country Afghanistan, still lack the basic democratic principles and the requirements of welfare state and therefore fail to provide the citizens their due rights. To be very specific about Afghanistan we can say that a so-called democratic government has been installed, which has taken oath to provide the people their basic rights, yet there are millions who remain unattended. Food, cloth, shelter, security and basic education are the requirements that should be provided to the people of Afghanistan, unfortunately, the government has not been able to make great achievements in that regard.
Poverty is widespread and unemployment rampant. The basic infra-structure is non-existent. People fall prey to social evils. The rate of crimes has escalated and the gap between the rich and poor seems to be widening with each passing day. Coupled with this problems is the absence of a mechanism for good governance. The government authorities and their policies have not been able to address the actual problems of the people, in fact, many of them are out of the access of government. There are many areas in the country that are never approached by the government representatives; therefore, they remain unattended.   
The weaker strata in particular are suffering from the consequences of the bad governance and lack of attention. Women are influenced the most. Their rights are being violated in different parts of the country and they are being victimized by the worst kind of violence. In fact, there are fears that certain achievements that have been made regarding the position and rights of women during the so-called democratic governments will soon be lost and the society may once again experience widespread discrimination against them.
At the same time, children are also undergoing the influences of the situation. They are not able to have the basic requirements to live alive and survive against different diseases. They are kept away from education and there is no guarantee about their future.

It is really important that the concerned authorities must pay full attention to the situation and solve some of the basic requirements of the people if it is serious about solving the main issues in the country; as most of the issues are related to the poverty, unemployment and lack of security.