Thanks to the efforts of the international community and human rights activists, the protection of human rights has substantially improved in the last decades. Respect for human dignity and non-discrimination, which imply equal rights and opportunities for all, are now being instilled in the minds of people. Human rights have become an integral part of the international and national political agenda along with the growing conviction that human rights violations still occurring in various parts of the world should not go unpunished.
However, despite indisputable achievements, the state of implementation of human rights standards in the world is still far from satisfactory. Sixty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights many millions of children, especially girls, have no access to education, decent housing continues to be just a dream for hundreds of millions of families, and the right to health and the right to food are not ensured properly for almost one third of the world population. Lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation takes a heavy toll on human rights in a number of countries.
Despite all these efforts at national and international levels, discrimination and gender inequality persist. While widespread poverty continues to be the major obstacle to the attainment of all human rights for all, other threats and dangers, such as terrorism, organized crime, corruption, deterioration of the environment and climate change, challenge the progress in the advancement of human rights.
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