Human Rights

By Allan Metzger, Research Fellow

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A legal frame of the international law recognises that states or governments share responsibilities for the problems and fulfilment of basic economic and social rights. On the contrary, the needs for healthcare, education, housing, or a basic standard of living all of which are fundamental human rights are not fully met.

 

Taking into consideration the health facilities, the standard of care from health services is declining every day due to lots of factors: for example, lack of trained practitioners, no motivation for available practitioners, lack of instruments or modern machines in most of the hospitals, and even a good number of qualified staff are discouraged and so they have decided to leave the country and seek for jobs in other countries where salaries and conditions of service are lucrative and encouraging. It is also evident that most hospitals are very expensive and not many people can afford the charges which have caused the high increase of the so called untrained pharmacists and drugs sellers all around.

 

With the educational sector, a good number of school-going children in Freetown and in some parts of the country reported that the present educational system is very expensive and has caused a high percentage of dropouts. It was also confirmed by some of the parents that school charges are higher than when it was not free education. The 6334 educational system has caused a huge number of boys and girls idling all around the country because the educational sector failed to put proper mechanisms in place before embracing the 6334 system.

 

I talked to one Jeneba Sesay, with regards the economic activities in their community.  She told me that to survive, they have to break and sell stones, engage in other domestic chores such as doing some laundry for people. A good number of young men are unemployed, some are found in the market square carrying goods for people. Because the rate of unemployment is so high, people find it difficult to care for their families and as such the economic situation in their homes is deplorable.

 

Because of the low standard of living, income falls to such a level that people have to reduce the number of meals per day. People sell their valuable household items in order to survive.

 

The right to housing is also violated in this part of the continent. To date, as I write this article, people are still internally displaced. One cannot imagine a normal person in a war-free country to residents in places like Bormeh, Kroo-Bay and in other slums around in Freetown. That tells me, there is a violation of the right to housing. In many other countries, there are mechanisms put in place like the low – cost housing project, in order to relocate people from the slums and also provide shelter for its citizens.

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About Author

Allan Metzger is a Sierra Leonean by nationality, an International Trade Expert and a Research Fellow. He has worked in various disciplines as a humanitarian, an Economic Researcher and a Freelance Writer. In the media part of his life, he has worked as a Reporter and Presenter for ABC Television Africa, Sierra Leone, a staff writer for CRITIC Magazine International, a guest Writer for the Newday Magazine and he has also served as a Guest Writer for the Exclusive Newspaper all in Sierra Leone. He has covered stories as a JHR reporter at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He was the journalist who interview political party leaders on the aftermath of the Local Election in Sierra Leone in 2008. He has also published several articles in the Print and electronic media in Sierra Leone. Based on his expertise, he was entrusted with an EU Consultancy job for it research purposes. Allan is a member of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalist (SLAJ) and a Member of the Freelance Association in the UK. By discipline, he is an Economist, Researcher and a Writer. He got his discipline from the Writers Bureau College of Journalism and from the Cambridge College all in the UK. He has travel extensively in the Sub Sahara Africa countries, Switzerland and few European Countries. He also has sound knowledge of all key issues under EPA, WTO, ECOWAS/Common External Tariff (CET) – negotiations including Rules of Origin, Customs Regulations and compliance, Standards (SPS/TBT/MRL), Trade Facilitation, Competition, Investment, Public Procurement and other trade related issues

This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 6:43 pm and is filed under Human Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.