Unethical practices of government

Our world news today informs us repeatedly that the world is plagued by war, hunger, injustice and suffering with little hope that current political and cultural systems will bring about suitable resolution. There remains widespread human rights violations including the sale of children, forced child prostitution, forced child labour, displaced persons, slavery, racism and religious intolerance, torture, violence against women, domestic and sexual abuse, arbitrary detention and imprisonment, involuntary disappearance, and mass exodus. While governments have power to play a meaningful role in abolishing these injustices, it is governments that perpetrate or acquiesce in systematic human rights violations, especially against women, children, and the elderly, citing customs and rigid concepts of privacy as justifications for the subordination of these peoples. It is commonplace for soldiers to rape and otherwise physically abuse women as a tool of war or political repression. Women are forced into prostitution, raped in prisons and jails, while courts turn a blind eye to violence and discrimination. Whole ethnic and religious communities are also subjected to unthinkable torment, as governments turn a blind eye. The children of many nations suffer appalling abuses and represent a huge and voiceless population seldom represented in the international human rights arena. Street children are tortured or killed by police, or imprisoned in inhumane conditions. Because of their vulnerable condition, young people are often used as soldiers, and bonded labourers.