On International Human Rights Day

[A cross-post from Democracy Guest List]

Sam Bo is the Phnom Penh celebratory elephant. Here he is celebrating International Human Rights Day.

On the 59th anniversary of the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this day last year, I was in a massive parade and street party in Phnom Penh attended by fellow human rights enthusiasts like chaipei players, NGO employees, and elephants. I had arrived in Cambodia a week beforehand and really just barely shaken my jetlag and didn't quite grasp the significance of the day. Until 32 young Cambodian women explained it to me. And now, in glancing over these 30 articles, it's frustrating how few of these rights my girls at the Harpswell Foundation are guaranteed.

But of course, these rights are intended to be implemented on an international level, and as Yes! Magazine's downloadable PDF poster makes clear, we've still got quite a ways to go in this country.

However. The Harpswell students and I developed our own, localized call for rights, based on a document called Chbap Srei in Khmer, which translates to Girl Law or Rule in English. Over a two-week period, we collaborated a revision of the traditional text that circumscribes proper roles for women in Cambodian culture. Our version calls for basic human rights, gender equity, the eradication of corruption, and funding for cultural production. (You can read more about it there to the left. I'm selling a few for cheap here with endpapers I'm not satisfied with but they're going fast; there are also these to check out. Final release slated for February 2009!)

Among those New Girl Laws that seem particularly apt today, in Chicago, on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as written and agreed to by 32 young Cambodian women:

• Women should hold positions of power in high society and in politics.


• Women and men should be given free health care and preventative health education.


• Corruption laws should be established, enforced, and respected.


• Funding should be established in support of cultural production.


• Laws as written should be enforced by everyone, including lawmakers.


• Be patient.