Human Rights And Social Work Essay

Human rights and social work.

In this introduction we eill focus on human rights in the context of social work practice. A human rights discourse has gained prominence and widespread recognition over the last half century, although defined in various ways. A simple way to describe human rights is as universal entitlements that belong to all human beings in respect of being human and regardless of such factors as national origin, race, culture, age or gender. It is a powerful discourse, which seeks to overcome divisiveness and sectarianism and unite people from all walks of life through asserting human values and the universality of humanity (ibid).

Human rights have been defined and understood in different ways throughout history, shifting and changing in response to changes in society and different social movments. Over time, perceptions of human rights have changed to encompass changes in the demographic make-up of societies. However, there are still individuals and groups of people at the margins of societies whose rights are not fully protected or realised.

For social work there are arguably challenges facing the incorporation of a human rights perspective into education, policy and practice. One is the view that the concept of human rights is a legal concept alone and the domain of lawyers. With its primary focus on international and domestic law. To ensure a broader and more inclusive understanding of human rights, social workers can widen the approach from the legal sphere through reconceptualising human rights frameworks to include the moral, political, policy and practice spheres of knowledge.

A second tension is moving social work from a discourse that privileges needs, care and service provision over rights. Human services delivery is often, framed within welfarist and needsžbased paradigms. Rioux and Zubrow in their work on disability provide some leads for reframing the approach to dealing with vulnerable people, which in the case of disability rights requires moving from a pathologising or biomedical lens to a reformulation of economic, social and political policy. This is not always an esay quest as human service rganisations can be resistant to change. Particularly in a global climate where neo-liberalism prevails. One way of overcoming the tensions is to see social work as contributin to the development of a ‚‘rights culture‘, wherein understandings of rights go beyond the legal frameworks of protection and enforcement and where concepts of rights transcend disciplines and become integrated in society at many levels. In tjis framework human rights are understood not as a panacea for all injustices but as a discursive and analytical tool to foster societal change.