This year marks the 70th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that standardizes the freedom, equality and dignity that global leaders should achieve for all people.
To celebrate, Hofstra hosted a day-long symposium in the Guthart Cultural Center Theater that included lectures from activists and student performances. The event was co-sponsored by the Hofstra Cultural Center, the Institute for Peace Studies and the Center for Civic Engagement and was directed by Linda A. Longmire, a professor in the Department of Global Studies and Geography.
Kari Jensen, also a professor from the Department of Global Studies and Geography, led the symposium’s first panel and discussed human trafficking in the New York metropolitan area.
Crystal DeBoise, the co-executive director of the Sharmus Outlaw Advocacy and Rights (SOAR) Institute, spoke about how her team learned to identify victims of human trafficking and her experiences advocating for legislation that vacates convictions for trafficked individuals.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘Well, we’ll give people therapy, we’ll do this,’ but if there’s concrete, really concrete things, that are obstacles forcing someone not to move forward, those have to be removed,” DeBoise said.
Makini Chisolm-Straker, a doctor of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and the co-founder of Health, Education, Advocacy, Linkage (HEAL) Trafficking, discussed trafficking as a public health issue.
As a clinician, she provides a safe space for victims of trafficking to open up, and she connects them to community resources. “If you want to do anti-trafficking work, do the thing that you love,” she said as advice for students. “If you’re doing it from love and curiosity and true honesty and the willingness to change, even if it’s uncomfortable, you’re probably doing anti-trafficking work.”
“[Dr. Chisolm-Straker’s] point in terms of harm reduction was pretty big,” said Savith Collure, a junior economics and public policy double major who attended the discussion. Collure looked forward to learning more about the biggest issues DeBoise faced when passing sex-trafficking legislation.
The second panel, which focused on women advocating for peace on a global scale, was moderated by Janet Gerson, education director of the International Institute on Peace Education. Gerson described how international legislation can abolish violence against women and advance the status of women in society.
Panelists Agnieszka Fal-Dutra Santos, a program coordinator and peacebuilding policy specialist with the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, and Blanche Wiesen Cook, distinguished professor of history and women’s studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center, joined Gerson in speaking fondly of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325.
According to the website for the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, this resolution encourages all member states of the U.N. to “increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts.
It also calls on all parties to conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, in situations of armed conflict.”
Grete Kraus, a senior psychology and philosophy double major, attended the panel on women’s activism after learning about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on a trip to the United Nations. “It’s very important to how we interact with and treat others,” Kraus said. She was struck by the correlation between the diversity of the people involved in creating peace agreements and how successful these treaties ultimately were.
Cook, an acclaimed biographer of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, also delivered the symposium’s keynote address, in which she spoke about Roosevelt’s instrumental role in developing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The final event of the day was a student performance called “The Ideals and Realities of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Amy Trotta, the event coordinator, was surprised by the turnout for the symposium. “The thing that struck me so much was how many students are participating and how engaged they are,” she said.
For her part, keynote speaker Cook encouraged those in attendance to take up the cause of human rights. She told students, “Be an activist. We have a lot of fun.”
