A UN committee, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, drafted the document that defined and universally granted the basic rights to all human beings, terming them the equal and inalienable rights of every human being. The Declaration, known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The UN, formed in 1945 to replace the defunct League of Nations, was the first to put up a formal global setup to define human rights. Individual countries had their own codes concerning human rights before the UN stepped in, but with the horrors of the Holocaust still fresh in the world's collective conscience, the UN's authoritative intervention became crucial. Here's the list of human rights described in the UDHR. Human rights are a sanctum of the civilized world. The interpretation of these rights is subject to the legislation of respective regions, but the UN does its best to ensure that these human rights are made available to each and every human being on the planet. These rights revolve around and highlight the importance of preserving justice, peace, mutual respect and, above all, dignity. ►► Violation of human rights ranges from wars and genocides to workplace harassment and all that falls in between. The Declaration of Human Rights was, in fact, drafted on the backdrop of the terrible genocide of Jews by Nazis. ►► Starvation, lack of medical facilities, lack of food, torture, human trafficking etc. all come under the heading of human rights violations. When the freedom to speak, express, write, move around one's own country or city are curbed and put under restriction, it constitutes human rights violations. Laws that do not allow interracial marriages, inter-caste marriages, same-sex marriages also violate human rights; although very few countries legally forbid interracial marriages, same-sex marriages are still illegal in most countries. Even in this age of seemingly liberal societies and sophisticated mentalities, same-sex couples have to fight protracted legal battles just to be together with one another, women are molested on a frighteningly regular basis and children are forced into labor without concern for their education or well-being. ►► One of the most rampant examples of human rights violation is crimes against women. In a dominantly patriarchal modern world, women are often meted out humiliating treatment. Female infanticide is still rampant in many countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. There are many countries where women are not allowed to exercise the right to education or the freedom to choose the man they want to marry. ►► Child abuse is another form of human rights violation, wherein children are forced into labor and/or abused physically, mentally or sexually. Child labor is a human rights violation that takes away the freedom and the joy of childhood from children. The child laborers are, more often than not, denied proper education, so as to maximize their output, and usually underpaid and overworked. ►► Human rights violations also include seemingly banal issues, such as employment discrimination, banning the rights of an individual to wear what they please etc. Violations of the aforementioned fundamental rights of all human beings, occurring anywhere in the world, are not just a taunt to the piece of paper holding the Declaration of Human Rights, but to the very basis of humanity itself.