Basic human rights

‘Human Rights’ issue, mostly focusing on political dimensions of various countries, has become the most fashionable topic nowadays. United Nations founded in 1945, with 51 countries, express their views with a commitment to maintain international peace and security, conditioning the world to believe them as ‘peace builders and peace keepers’.

In the present context however, it has become debatable whether this democratic institution has been able to maintain its pristine policies with regards to Sri Lanka. Of late, UN has taken a keen interest on Sri Lanka, interestingly with some concealed agendas. There are offenders and defenders in this human rights game.

Let’s leave their politics and their vested interests aside for a moment, and get down to basics of our own domestic day-to-day life.

Human rights cases do not necessarily surround on abductions, torture or murders, but pivot purely on denial of one’s fundamental rights - to live and work according to the norms of a society. If security guards, at this point, are taken as an example, what brings to my mind is the plight of some unfortunate workers who have to put up with untold miseries to make a buck.

This pathetic plight stems from Negombo where inhuman conditions of working - 12 hour shifts, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, go on, under pitiable conditions, to protect a foreign gentleman who is an investor in this country.

In the absence of a kiosk, or a temporary hut at this foreigner’s residence, which encompasses beyond an acre, men in security uniforms have to sit in a chair under tree shades in the hot sun and get drenched in torrential rain. This should come under blatant violation of human rights.

Can the foreigner alone be blamed for such a misdemeanor in this scenario ? After all, he has contracted out a security firm for services demanded by him.

My friend, Perera, who drove towards Matara the other day, tells me how Galle - Matara stretch of the road has been excavated by some authority, ruined the road side and left it as a sore thumb!

So is the situation in some parts of Borella where pavements have been dug up in a similar fashion and left afterwards in a despicable manner leaving uneven, sharp edges of bitumen, making pedestrians to do tangos while walking on them while their slippers doing pole-vaulting.

At the time of writing this column CEB is once again digging Borella (Cotta Road) to lay cables and has damaged pavements. Isn’t restricting free movement of people or exposing them to hazardous conditions yet another form of human rights violation?

What can one expect these days entering a bank or post office building? Blatant violation of human rights by people where ‘winner gets it all attitude’ displayed as hands poking from all sides to draw attention of cashiers disregarding even customers who are being served.

I certainly sympathize with the staff at a prominent bank in Borella operating inside a supermarket, which is open till 8 pm. Here, the tolerant, voiceless and helpless staff is being taken by the management for a ride in denying their basic rights of proper working conditions.

Providing a desk and a chair to an office staff becomes mandatory, but caged in a narrow strip of office accommodation, which resembles a chicken pen two cashiers, manager, assistant manager and few other staff share this contemptible office. Manager and assistant are sometimes have to engage in ‘ musical chairs’ with only one table and chair to share.

Two chairs opposite manager’s table for customers use - near the very entrance of the Supermarket) hardly gives customers any privacy. At times, bank staff occupying these chairs denies public access to them.

Pressurized cashiers have to deal with the constantly overcrowding counter where the so-called the ‘Red Carpet Service’ offered to bank’s ‘Inner Circle’ customers become a joke as no such customer can get even near a cashier unless the staff members are familiar with the inner circle lot!

Two or three money counting machines, one squeezed in between the two cashiers, and one on the Bank Safe (behind cashiers), yet another on the floor display the highest standards of service offered by the Bank Management to both its staff and customers.

It’s a pity that banking staff of this branch are reduced to nothing, yet the management seems to expect an efficient service from them with ever increasing targets thrust upon them.

I have never seen in any office where office staff members are made to stand and work throughout the day, cooped up in ‘dungeon’ like atmosphere. This is a deplorable situation and a direct violation of basic human rights.

Human rights violations exist in every society. Naturally, it tends to strike every one’s nerve centre. In this back drop, it is rather unfortunate to see how some managements, who are only hellbent on increasing their profit margins deny basic human rights to their own staff who help them make millions and billions of profit margins.

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