Know that many personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but must be understood in terms of public issues—and in terms of the problems of history making. Know that the human meaning of public issues must be revealed by relating them to personal troubles—and to the problems of the individual life. (C. Wright Mills, 1959, p. 226)
When students consider entering the field of human services, they often do so because they want to help people meet their basic needs by counseling them, helping them obtain much-needed services, and teaching them to learn new ways of meeting their needs in the future. In other words, most students think of direct clinical practice with individuals and families when considering a career in the human services profession. But many times the “personal troubles” a client is encountering are being caused by some external source—an injustice that is structural or systemic such as the school system that offers no bus service and therefore inadvertently contributes to low-income students’ truancy rates, or a government social welfare policy that inadvertently punishes single mothers who work part-time by cutting their benefits, or a “three-strikes” law that sends a young man to jail for 25 years for a third, yet relatively minor, offense. How does the human service professional combat harmful policies that punish when they should reward or unfair legislation that hurts certain segments of the population?
The human services profession is grounded in the notion that people are a part of larger systems and to truly understand the individual one must understand the broader system this individual is operating within. The discussion of Bowen’s Family Systems Theory in chapter 4 is a good place to start in understanding how systems work, noting that there is a reciprocal dynamic involving both the individual and the system, where each has an impact on the other. Hence, an individual can receive years of counseling, but until structural deficiencies are addressed, they will continue to experience difficulty in some manner.
It is important, then, for human service professionals to recognize that people can be helped by approaching problems on various levels. By way of comparison, if as a human service professional you were committed to eradicating violence within society, you might choose to work with victims of domestic violence in the hope that counseling them might help your clients recognize the signs of abuse and avoid engaging in abusive relationships in the future. This approach would involve micro practice—practice with individuals. You might also decide to facilitate treatment groups for batterers believing that the greatest likelihood of change can be accomplished by addressing the perpetrators of violence in a group setting where each group member can learn from the other. This approach would involve mezzo practice—practice with groups.
But, if you decided to address the problem of violence by working with an entire community, locally, nationally, or perhaps even globally, by creating a new program in your agency, by conducting a public awareness campaign to educate the population about the prevalence of violence, or by lobbying for the passage of antiviolence legislation, then you would be conducting macro practice—practice with communities and organizations.
Macro practice involves addressing and confronting social issues that can act as a barrier to getting one’s basic needs met on an organizational level by creating structural change through social action. The most basic themes involved in macro practice include advocating for social and economic justice and human rights for all members of society to end human oppression and exploitation (Weil, 1996). There are several ways social change is accomplished through macro practice, including program development, community development through community organizing, policy practice, and international or global advocacy.
Thus, although direct clinical practice is important, working with entire systems to promote positive structural change on all fronts is equally important. Some human service professionals work solely in macro practice in administrative positions or policy practice conducting no direct practice whatsoever, but a great many human service professionals who are involved in micro practice are also involved in macro practice on at least some level. For instance, when I worked as a victim advocate for a local state’s attorney’s office, I counseled victims of violent crime. But I also served on a domestic violence advisory coalition that evaluated community concerns and interagency coordination.
Why Macro Practice?
Human service professionals might ask themselves why they should be concerned about what is happening to people in an entire community, in a different part of the country, or in a completely different part of the world. But a foundational value of the human services profession is a commitment to social justice and human rights achieved through social action and social change. This is particularly relevant to human service professionals living in the United States in light of the fact that many clients in need of human services assistance have emigrated from countries where they were victims of oppression and human rights violations. This requires an understanding on the part of the human service professional of the wide range of global abuses related to social injustice and human rights abuses, as well as recognizing how these abuses have implications on direct practice with individual clients.
Human service professionals must also be aware of the history of social injustices and human rights abuses that have occurred within U.S. borders as well as including developing an awareness of what groups are most likely to be targets of discrimination and oppression. For instance, Calkin (2000) discussed the abuse and oppression of minorities and the poor within the U.S. criminal justice system and the importance of human service professionals accepting a call to social action:
Moment by moment in the practice process, there are opportunities to recognize and support, or to ignore, the power that people bring or could bring to their lives and communities. There are opportunities to act respectfully toward someone for whom that is so uncommon, or not to—and to acknowledge when we really can’t understand, to acknowledge the errors of sensitivity we make so often. Human services organizations and professionals can easily be seduced into colluding with violations of human rights, ranging from disrespect toward people already struggling with mental illness or substance abuse to acceptance or resignation in the face of deprivations of basic human rights. (p. 2)
This foundational commitment to social justice is so integral to the human services profession that the professional obligation to social action is reflected in the ethical principles of the discipline. For instance, the National Organization for Human Services (NOHS) (1996) ethical standards reference the human service professionals’ responsibility to society, which includes remaining aware of social issues that impact communities, and initiating social action when necessary by advocating for social change. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) (1999) ethical standards go one step further by expanding the social workers’ responsibility to the international level stating that “[s]ocial workers should promote the general welfare of society, from local to global levels, and the development of people, their communities, and their environments” (p. 26).
Unfortunately, the human services profession has gradually moved away from its original call to community action, turning instead to a model of individualized care (Mizrahi, 2001). This is likely due to an increased focus on the increasing popularity of individual psychotherapies within all the mental health professions in the 20th century. This doesn’t mean that macro practice or social advocacy has ceased. Rather, as those in the human services fields have pulled away from community work, other disciplines have moved in to fill the vacuum, such as urban and public planners and those in the political sciences. This pattern has resulted in the human services profession often being out of the loop of community building and organizing efforts (Johnson, 2004). Concerns have also been expressed regarding the trend of neglecting the subject of macro and community practice in human services and social work educational programs, thus compounding the tendency for human service professionals to avoid macro practice because many recent graduates feel ill equipped to enter into social advocacy or policy practice on an organizational level (Polack, 2004).
This movement away from macro practice is apparently an international trend as well because studies generated outside the United States have made some similar observations. For instance, Weiss (2003) cited examples of how many human service professionals in Israel do not feel competent addressing social issues on a community or global level because the majority of their training focused on practice with individual clients. Weiss encourages those in the human services professions both in Israel and abroad to reengage in policy-related activities and social advocacy on a macro level.
The reality is that social issues such as poverty and human exploitation must be addressed through advocacy efforts for social change on a macro level as well as a micro level to create much-needed structural changes. Influencing changes in social policy that affects public aid (such as welfare reform legislation), mental health care (such as mental health parity laws), and even domestic violence issues (such as policies that mandate cooperation between criminal justice agencies and battered women’s shelters) are an integral aspect of human services that directly affect clients’ daily lives.
Vulnerable and Oppressed Populations
Before beginning any discussion on social advocacy efforts it is important to identify populations that are often the target of social injustice, oppression, and human rights violations. It is challenging to comprise a comprehensive list of vulnerable populations because there is some shifting in oppressed people from era to era. For instance, chapter 5 discussed how children although still quite vulnerable are no longer considered an oppressed group in the same way that they were around the turn of the century when poverty and harsh economic conditions led to thousands of children flooding the streets of New York, leading to a significant reduction in sympathy toward orphaned children. Yet children, although still vulnerable, are no longer commonly considered an oppressed group in the United States.
In essence, vulnerable populations can include any group of individuals who are vulnerable to exploitation due to lifestyle, lack of political power, lack of financial resources, and lack of societal advocacy and support. Currently vulnerable populations, those groups who may be at increased risk of social oppression and injustice in need of advocacy, include ethnic minorities, immigrants (particularly those who do not speak English), indigenous people, older adults, women, children in foster care, prisoners, the poor, the homeless, single parents, lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgendered individuals, members of a religious minority, and the physically and intellectually disabled. In addition, in many regions of the world certain groups of individuals are selected and oppressed due to their ethnic background, religious heritage, and caste (their level of status within society, which in many regions of the world is a level one is born into), and although these individuals may not be in the minority as far as numbers, they typically have little to no political power and are subject to mistreatment and exploitation.
Mobilizing for Change: Shared Goals of Effective Macro Practice Techniques
Macro practice is a multidisciplinary field shared by those in the human services, social sciences, political sciences, and urban planning disciplines. Within the general field of macro practice, models have been developed to frame the various ways of approaching social concerns on a broad level. Although there is a very broad range of theories and models of macro or community practice, most models have at their core the basic goal of societally based social transformation where a community on any level (local, national, or global) incorporates values that reflect human dignity and worth of all its members.
Within most macro practice models empowerment strategies are used that focus on social and economic development, creating liaisons between community members and community organizations, political and social action, which will likely involve advocating for policy changes that address injustices and inequalities within society (Netting, Kettner, & McMurtry, 2009). Various aspects of macro practice will vary depending on the area of concern and the vulnerable population being targeted, but virtually all models of macro practice include a focus on community development, which can refer to the development of a geographic community, such as a neighborhood or city, or a community of individuals, such as women, immigrants, or children.
Common Aspects of Macro Practice
Community Development
Community development dates back to the settlement house movement when Jane Addams and her colleagues worked with politicians, various community organizations, political activists, and community members to create a better community for all members. Addams was personally concerned with child labor, compulsory education, rights of immigrants, and voting rights for woman (women’s suffrage). By engaging residents, community leaders, local politicians, and other community organizations Addams was able to develop a sense of community cohesion, which resulted in several laws being passed that benefited the members of her community, including those who resided in the settlement houses.
Community development in Addams’s day is similar in many respects to today, where effective community building depends on the participation of community organizations and community members working together to address issues that are of concern to the entire community (Austin, 2005). The actual issues involved could be anything from addressing crime in the community to educational concerns such as low state test scores, developing an after-school program to combat juvenile delinquency, bringing new businesses to the community to create jobs for community members, or rallying community leaders to develop more open spaces, including parks in densely population neighborhoods.
A community development approach is empowering because the mutual collaboration of several agencies and area organizations provides support for community members in ways not possible through human service agencies alone. Another empowering aspect of community development is that the collaboration process can create a sense of collective self-sufficiency that often leads to civic pride for community members. In fact, effective community development is based on the conviction that any community is capable of mobilizing “economic, social, and political resources to support families” (Austin, 2005, p. 109).
There are several necessary components of successful community development including diversity among group members, a sense of shared values among members, positive and collaborative teamwork, good communication, equal participation of all team members, and a good network of connections outside the community (Gardener, 1994). Good community development also depends on the ability to secure enough funding to support group members’ activities and efforts. Good networking skills are also essential as are good technology skills because so much of networking in contemporary society is accomplished through e-mail and other technological means (Austin, 2005; Weil, 1996).
Community Organizing
Community development depends on the efforts of community organizing efforts, which in turn depends on the efforts of community organizers. The first step in community organizing is to create a consensus on what the community needs, in particular what negative issues the community is facing or areas of needed improvement. Once community members agree on the problems to be addressed, community organizers set about to recruit members to join in the effort to create change. It is important to once again note that the term community does not necessarily refer to a geographic community, but might also refer to a community of people, such as women, victims of domestic violence, prisoners, or foster care children.
Community organizers can be professional policy makers or licensed social workers, or they can be individual people with a particular passion and calling for social action. A school-teacher who gets a group of his students together to remove graffiti from public buildings is a community organizer. The single mother of three who organizes a voluntary after-school tutoring program for the kids in her neighborhood is a community organizer. The father of a child victim of sexual abuse who organizes a campaign to increase prison time for sexual offenders is a community organizer. The licensed social worker whose agency is hired to canvas a neighborhood in an antidrug educational campaign is a community organizer.
Community organizing efforts usually begin around a problem or concern of many people in a community. Once a problem has been identified, community organizers must conduct research to define the issues, understanding how the problem or issue developed and what if any forces exist to keep the problem in place. For instance, the community activist who is organizing efforts to increase the labor rights of undocumented immigrants will likely encounter opposition by factory owners who rely on the paying untaxed low wages to undocumented workers. Thoroughly researching this issue will enable community organizers to identify constituents in the community who will support their cause as well as those who will oppose it. Research will also enable community organizers to identify additional harm done by unfair labor practices not initially identified that might increase the strength of any collating forces.
Once the problem has been identified and research has been conducted, a plan of action must be determined based on the research conducted. Community organizers might decide to picket factories who they perceive abuse undocumented workers; they might decide to distribute press releases and have a press conference to gain media involvement, organize a work walkout, or conduct a letter-writing campaign to local political leaders. Successful community organizers also organize fund-raising efforts to support their social activism. Sources of fund-raising can include a number of strategies including a direct request for donations, auctions, fund-raising dinners, membership fees, or government grants.
Policy Practice
Policy practice is a more narrow form of community practice where the human service professional works within the political system to influence government policy and legislation on a local, state, federal, or even global level. The form that policy practice takes depends in large part on the issues at hand, but certain activities in policy practice are consistent despite the issue. This is a relatively new field within human services, with few researchers focusing on policy practice prior to the 1980s. It remains an often neglected area of practice, both within human services and social work education and within human services practice setting. One reason for this may be that effective policy practice relies on a broad range of skills that reaches far beyond the clinical realm (Rocha & Johnson, 1997).
Policy activities center on either reforming current social policy or initiating the development of new policy that addresses the needs of the underserved and marginalized members of society with the primary goal of social justice through social action and advocacy. Policy practice is based on the belief that many problems in society, such as poverty, are structural in nature and can be addressed through making structural changes within society (Weiss, 2003).
Although various approaches to policy practice have been defined within academic literature, Iatridis (1995) has defined several skills necessary for effectively integrating social policy practice into direct service or micro practice. The first skill involves the human service professionals’ ability to understand the nature of social policy including what it is, how it is developed, its influences and effect on society as well as how social welfare policies are most often implemented. The second skill involves the ability and willingness to view direct practice from a systems perspective, where individual practice is seen as a part of a greater whole. In other words, human service professionals engaged in policy practice must be able to link issues confronted in direct service to structural problems in society (i.e., institutionalized racism, laws that oppress certain groups) by using a P-I-E paradigm (Person-in-Environment), a concept addressed throughout this text relating to the importance of viewing social issues such as poverty on a societal as well as an individual level. Another equally important skill involves the human service professionals’ commitment to improving social justice within society by working toward a more equitable distribution of the community’s resources.
Those who engage in policy analysis research various social issues in an attempt to determine the short- and long-term effect of new policies and legislation. Policy activists and analysts might focus their attention broadly on social injustices in general, or they may focus on more narrow issues such as the quality of mental health delivery systems, or the focus may be extremely narrow such as the social injustices confronted by those seeking mental health care. Human service professionals engaging in policy practice must be able to identify key trends and issues, as well as becoming familiar with legislation or pending legislation that will affect the area of concern. Let’s assume you are involved in policy practice working for an agency concerned with the older adult population. The federal administration’s policies regarding Social Security funding would be a matter of great concern to you. Yet if you were involved with policy practice advocating for the rights of the children of undocumented immigrants, you’d be very concerned about possible legislation that would prohibit these children from attending public school. Regardless of the area of concern, policy analysts must be able to identify the “ripple effect” of new policies and legislation to identify their potential harm or benefit to their target population as well as the entire community.
The Global Community: International Human Services
The world is getting smaller, not in terms of population, of course, but in terms of globalization—the increase in international connectedness among all countries and, consequently, all people. No longer are countries completely isolated either in their financial economy or political climate. In the world’s new globalization each country is connected to every other country through increased ease in communication, the development of a global economy (international financial interdependence, mutual trade, and financial influence), and increased international migration combining to create a situation where the political state of one country influences the economic and political climate of another (Ahmadi, 2003).
Although many consider the term globalization to refer solely to matters of economics where businesses can sell goods and trade services as if there were no geographic borders, it also reflects the increased awareness, communication, and cooperation among social advocates. In fact, social reform on a global level is more possible now than ever before. Consider the impact the Internet has had on the exchange of information between relatively remote communities and on regions wrought with oppression. Although limits can be placed on information exchange, the Internet has made global awareness of social issues as easy as pressing a few buttons. Of course that is a somewhat simplistic statement, but the importance of the Internet cannot be underscored both in regard to direct communication and in regard to global awareness of social issues through website publication. For instance, Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org) includes a comprehensive list of human rights abuses and concerns occurring throughout the world. Within this website, individuals can obtain detailed information on the types of abuses currently occurring throughout the world, as well as instructions on how to take steps to assist in the global campaign to stop such oppression and abuse.
This increased ease in global communication has meant that human service professionals in one part of the world can quickly communicate with human service professionals in another part of the world sharing valuable information and coordinating efforts and services. In fact, there are several international organizations that exist for this very purpose. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) is an international organization founded in 1956 that works with other international human services and human rights organizations to encourage international cooperation and communication among human service professionals around the globe. The IFSW has members from 80 different countries throughout the world including countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America.
The International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) is a support organization and information clearinghouse that works to “develop and promote excellence in social work education, research and scholarship globally in order to enhance human well being” (www.iasswaiets.org). The IASSW also supports an exchange of information and expertise between social work educational programs.
The International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW) is an independent organization founded in 1928 in Paris, which is committed to social development and works with the United Nations (UN) on matters related to social development, social welfare, and social justice throughout the world. The work of the ICSW is an excellent example of community development at work using networking and international liaisons with other organizations to achieve its goals. According to its website,
[T]o achieve its mission, ICSW advocates policies and programmes which strike an appropriate balance between social and economic goals and which respect cultural diversity. It seeks implementation of these proposals by governments, international organisations, non-governmental agencies and others. It does so in cooperation with its network of members and with a wide range of other organisations at local, national and international levels. ICSW’s main ways of pursuing its aims include gathering and disseminating information, undertaking research and analysis, convening seminars and conferences, drawing on grass-roots experiences, strengthening non-governmental organisations, developing policy proposals, engaging in public advocacy and working with policy-makers and administrators in government and elsewhere.
The ICSW mission captures the way in which macro practice occurs through a comprehensive network of agencies and organizations on all levels of society to achieve the global mission of eliminating social injustice.
Even professional counselors whose training has traditionally leaned more in the direction of clinical practice have recently been encouraged to venture into global matter by advocating for social justice. Chi-Ying Chung (2005) made several recommendations to professional counselors to get involved in international human rights work, suggesting that they apply their training in multicultural counseling and competencies to the international arena to combat human rights abuses.
Although the human services profession exists worldwide, and concerns about specific social issues such as violence and children’s rights are shared among all countries, the nature of the social issues and the function and role of the human service professional will vary depending on the political and economic conditions unique to each country. Human service professionals around the globe have many shared values but have differences in values as well. For instance, in the United States, self-determination is very highly valued in all the human services, particularly the social work profession, but not only is self-determination not considered a core value of the profession in other countries, in Asia, Africa, and even Denmark the concept of self-determination is considered either unimportant or dangerous as it detracts from the value of community and cooperation (Weiss, 2005).
Overall, though, human service professionals in virtually every country place a high value on the protection of human rights, social justice, and the end to human oppression in whatever form it might be taking within that particular region. For instance, a primary concern of the human service professionals in South Africa relates to issues of race emanating from its former system of apartheid. School social workers are commonly used to teach positive race relations among the students in South African public schools. Race issues take on a different form in the United States related to our history of slavery and mass immigration.
HIV/AIDS Pandemic
AIDS, a life-threatening disease found disproportionately in sub-Saharan Africa, has had a dev astating effect on families, particularly children. The life expectancy has dropped from 61 to 35 years of age in many African countries having a profound effect on children and their childhoods, with an estimated 12 million children having been orphaned due to one or both parents dying of AIDS (Ansah-Koi, 2006; Dhlembeu & Mayanga, 2006; UNAIDS, 2008; UNICEF, 2004). In fact, in Zimbabwe alone United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF, 2004) estimates that 30 percent of all children have been orphaned due to AIDS. Many developing countries have neither the funding nor the capacity to place child welfare issues as a priority (Dhlembeu & Mayanga, 2006). Women bear the primary burden of this disease with regard to both stigma and the brunt of caregiving, despite the fact that they are being infected at far higher rates than men (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 2004).
Human service professionals in South Africa as well as other countries in sub-Saharan Africa must contend with the devastating impact of the HIV virus, including the very complicated and far-reaching implications of so many children being orphaned as a result of deaths due to AIDS. This situation is further complicated by the fact that many of the child welfare agencies are ill equipped to handle the vast number of orphans, many of whom are not being well cared for and may be infected with the HIV virus as well.
Several human services agencies exist solely to care for these orphaned children. Other agencies focus their efforts on education and testing. This public health crisis has far-reaching implications that must be addressed internationally if there is going to be any real remedy that will positively affect the lives of those infected and those at risk of infection.
Crimes against Women and Children
Crimes against women and children are of concern to countries throughout the world, and human service professionals, including social workers, psychologists, and professional counselors as well as human rights workers, are involved in advocacy, counseling, and political activism on all levels to create international awareness and social action to put a stop to atrocities such as government-sanctioned honor killings, punitive sexual assaults, exploitation and harassment, and discrimination that strips women and children of their basic human rights.
Female Genital Mutilation
Another issue often confronting human service professionals in all of Africa involves female genital mutilation (FGM), or “female circumcision,” where historical tradition and tribal culture prescribes that a girl’s external genitalia, typically including her labia and clitoris, be cut away in a rite of passage ceremony celebrating her entry into her womanhood. It is estimated that nearly 100 to 130 million girls have undergone FGM, which can cause serious health risks including lifelong pain, infertility, and death (World Health Organization, 1998). FGM is rarely performed by a physician, but is frequently conducted by a village leader with no pain medication. Girls are often tied down and subjected to this surgery, which is intended to ensure chastity and purity. There has been a recent backlash among women in some African countries who are discouraging FGM in their communities, although this practice is still quite prevalent in many rural regions. Human service professionals are conducting educational campaigns to influence local leaders who have the power to discourage this practice, as well as influencing many Western countries to add those escaping FGM to qualify for refugee status.
Human Sex Trafficking
Human service professionals in many Asian countries must contend with numerous human rights violations, the most prevalent and disturbing of which includes the human trafficking of women and children for the purposes of slavery, forced marriage, and the sex trade. For instance, according to the Human Rights Watch (HRW, 2002), approximately 10,000 women and girls are “recruited” from Burma to Thailand brothels each year. The most recent U.S. Department of State (2008) Trafficking in Persons report states that government corruption and the involvement of public officials in the human trafficking trade makes matters even more challenging for human rights workers who are attempting to achieve social justice for these women and children.
The U.S. government estimates that there are approximately 800,000 individuals who are victims of human trafficking worldwide, the majority of whom are females under the age of 18. In fact, young girls are the most sought after targets of large criminal organizations that are in the business of trafficking human beings. Although people can be sold for various reasons, including forced servitude and child labor, the majority of human trafficking involves forced sexual slavery, where young women and girls are forced to become prostitutes. Girls are sold into sex slavery by family members in need of money, are kidnapped, or are lured into the sex trade with promises of modeling contracts or domestic work in other countries. Many of these girls are kept in inhumane environments where they are forced to have sex with up to 10 men a day. Many contract the HIV/AIDS virus and are cast out onto the street once they become too sick to be useful (U.S. Department of State, 2008).
Young girl endures female genital mutilation in Somalia. (Source: http://www.global-sisterhoodnetwork.org/content/view/1470/59/)
© Ulrike Kotermann/epa/CORBIS All Rights Reserved
Much of the effort of human service professionals in countries with high rates of human trafficking, including India, Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, is focused on rescuing these women and children and ensuring that they are delivered to safe communities where they will not be exploited again. Complicating intervention strategies is the fact that many government officials in these Asian countries either look the other way when confronted with the illegal sex trade or openly contribute to it by protecting criminal organizations responsible for human trafficking. Human rights organizations have reported that many police officers, members of the military, and other government officials in Thailand often arrest victims who attempt to escape, putting them in prison on charges of prostitution, a clear act of retaliation, rather than helping them to escape (HRW, 2004).
Street Children
Human service professionals in Central and South American as well as Eastern European countries must contend with the significant problem of thousands of homeless street children roaming the streets in search of food and shelter. The problem of street children is growing around the globe leading several human rights organizations to call human service professionals to action. Street children are sometimes orphans, but are often children who have parents but who have left home due to poverty or lack of supervision. In many Eastern European countries, including Romania, the problem of street children is a direct result of political policies resulting from families having a large number of children with the promise of government provisions, only to be left in terribly vulnerable positions when these governments failed, leaving parents with no means for providing for their exceptionally large families. Street children are at risk of abuses by older children as well as police and government officials who often physically abuse children as young as five (HRW, 2002). Children have even been murdered by the police with no official response. Drug abuse is also rampant within the street children population, who often sniff glue to keep warm and abate hunger pains.
Human service professionals have organized agencies that reach out to these children by finding homes for them, either with religious organizations or through international adoption. International human services agencies work with local agencies to bolster aid efforts, including lobbying government officials to address this issue by funding child welfare efforts.
Child Labor and Economic Injustice
Child labor is a social justice issue across the globe, but is a particular concern in Asian, African, and Latin American countries, where children as young as four are required to work up to 12 hours per day in jobs that put them in both physical and psychological danger. Child labor abuses include children in India who plunge their hands into boiling water while making silk thread and children as young as four years old in Asia who are tied to rug looms for many hours a day and forced to make rugs.
Of the 120 million children forced into full-time labor, 61 percent reside in Asia, 32 percent in Africa, and 7 percent in Latin America (HRW, 2004). International human rights organizations such as HRW, Amnesty International, and UNICEF work diligently to protect children’s rights, including lobbying of international policies and legislation that protect children as well as funding human rights efforts in specific countries allowing for intervention at the local level. But the problem of child labor, particularly in sweatshops in the Global South (Central and South America, Southeast Asia, India, and the Southern region of Africa), remain a serious problem impacting the entire world both socially and economically.
For instance, Polack (2004) discussed the impact of hundreds of billions of dollars in loans made to countries in the Global South by countries in the North (England, Spain, France, the United States, etc.). Polack argued that the cumulative impact of these loans to some of the poorest countries in the world has been devastating to the poorest members of these countries because these loans (1) financed large-scale projects, such as hydroelectric plants, that either benefited the North or displaced literally millions of people pushing them even further into poverty, (2) financed military armaments for government regimes that oppressed the countries’ most vulnerable and poorest residents, or (3) lined the pockets of corrupt leaders of many countries in the Global South, resulting in increased oppression of the country’s least-privileged members.
Very little if any of this loan money has benefited the majority of the citizens of these countries; rather, it has harmed them and in fact continues to harm them by increasing the poverty within these already devastatingly poor regions. In an attempt to repay this debt many countries of the Global South exploit their own workers to make loan payments. For example, countries in South America have sold sections of rain forest formerly farmed by local residents to Northern timber companies, and other countries have been forced to privatize and then sell utility services formerly provided by the government, resulting in dramatic increases in the cost of utilities. These developments have resulted in many Northern companies making millions of dollars literally at the expense of the poorest residents of these debt-ridden countries.
One of the most devastating impacts of what has now evolved into trillions of dollars of debt for these Southern countries is the evolution of the sweatshop industry, large-scale factories that develop goods exported to the North. Some of the poorest people in the world, including children, work in sweatshops throughout Asia, India, and Southern Africa, where horrific abuses abound. This occurs legally in many of these countries because in a desperate attempt to attract export contracts, many countries in Asia as well as India created “free-trade” agreements or free-trade zones for Western corporations allowing them to circumvent local trade regulations such as minimum wage, working hour limits, and child labor laws, if they would open factories in their impoverished countries.
Polack (2004) suggests that literally every major retail supplier in the United States benefits from these sweatshop conditions such as extremely low wages, extremely poor working conditions, physical and sexual exploitation without retribution, excessively long working hours (sometimes in excess of 12 hours per day with no days off for weeks at a time), and severe retribution such as immediate termination for complaints or requests for better working conditions. Child labor is the norm in these sweatshops with most sweatshop owners preferring adolescent girls as employees because they tend to be more compliant and are more easily exploited.
Although local and international human rights advocates work diligently to change these working conditions, at the root of the problem of child exploitation is economic injustice rooted in generations of intercountry exploitation. Thus, there is significant complexity not easily confronted without government involvement, which is often slow in coming when large corporations are making millions of dollars with the system as it currently operates. For instance, as labor unions have become the norm in the United States, many companies such as Nike and Wal-Mart moved their factories to Asia and Central and South America, where millions of dollars can be saved in wages and benefits cuts (National Labor Committee, n.d.). Addressing the issue of child labor and economic injustice will take the lobbying efforts of many international human rights organizations working with the media to create public awareness where buying power is often the only tool powerful enough to influence sweatshop owners and large retail establishments.
Case Study 15.1: Testimony of Mahamuda Akter MNC Garment Factory, September 2002
My name is Mahamuda Akter. I am 18 years old. I’ve only had the chance to go through fifth grade. I was 13 when I began working in the garment factories. For the last two years I have been working at the MNC factory in the Chittagong Export Processing Zone, where we sew clothing for Wal-Mart. I am a sewing operator.
Until September 5, we were working on Ozark Trail shirts. Before that—for six or seven months—we worked constantly on Sportrax athletic clothing. Now we are sewing Faded Glory shorts. Depending upon the type of garment we are working on, my job is to join the collar, or to sew either the pocket or the hem of the sleeves. Attaching the collars is very complicated since you must match the patterns of the fabric. The supervisors scream at us to do 40 pieces an hour. But it’s impossible. Working as fast as we can, I can only finish 30 collars in an hour.
The supervisors tell us we have to meet Wal-Mart’s target. There is constant pressure on us to work faster. They beat us. They slap our faces or slap us on the back of the head. They grab us by the hair and jerk our heads. They push and shove us.
I was beaten several times in August and September. My supervisor, who is a man, slapped my face and cursed at me that I was a son of a bitch and that my parents were whores. They use vulgar and filthy words, they made me cry. Many of us girls cry, but they make you keep working.
I work on Line “D.” In July, the supervisors kicked one of the girls on our line, yelling that she had made a mistake. They threw her against the wall and her mouth was bleeding. They took her to the office and fired her that afternoon.
Another thing they do as punishment is to make a girl stand on a bench in front of all the other workers, forcing her to hold her ears and pull them down. It’s a shameful insult. They do this especially to the young girls and it makes them feel terrible.
There are 4,000 workers in our factory. Eighty-five percent of us are women. We have lots of helpers who are 10 to 12 years old.
Our regular work schedule is from 7:30 AM to 10:00 PM. But they often force us to work until 3:00 AM. In August, I had to work 13 nights till 3:00 AM. In other sections it was even worse, and they had to work 20 to 25 nights to 3:00 in the morning. We work seven days a week. In August we had just one day off. For the year, I think I got a total of 15 days off.
When we work through to 3:00 AM, we get three breaks, a half hour for lunch from 1:00 to 1:30 PM; ten minutes from 7:00 to 7:10 PM, and an hour off for supper from 11:00 to midnight. After the 3:00 AM shift, we sleep in the factory. It is so crowded that we sleep sitting on our benches slumped over our sewing machines. There is no place to even lie down on the floor. At 5:00 AM they ring a loud bell to wake everyone up, so we can get ready to start work again. We wash our faces, use the bathroom, eat something and go back to work. Sometimes we are forced to do these 19½-hour shifts three days in a row.
We are exhausted. Many times the workers faint. The supervisors throw water on their faces and they have to get back to work. They also play loud music to keep us awake.
I earn 2,100 taka a month, which is $35.60. I’m told this comes to 17 cents an hour.
We are not allowed to talk at work, and if we are caught we are punished. You need permission to use the bathroom. When we work until 3:00 in the morning for example, we can use the bathroom just three times in the entire shift.
We have a daycare center at the factory, but it is a joke. It is just for show to the buyers. It is never really used.
We are not allowed sick days, or national holidays, or any vacation.
They also cheat us on our overtime wages. They keep two sets of time cards. The phony one is for Wal-Mart. It says that we work just from 7:30 AM to 6:30 PM, in other words, that we work two hours of overtime a day. It also says that we receive every Friday off. That’s a lie.
None of us have ever heard of the Wal-Mart Code of Conduct. Before the Wal-Mart buyers come to the factory, the factory is always cleaned. The supervisors tell us to lie if the buyers ever question us—we are supposed to say that we work just to 6:30 and that we have one day off a week. The buyers always walk around with the manager. Everyone is so frightened, no one dares complain. Sometimes the buyers ask us to smile and they take a picture. They usually come around 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. They never come at 10 PM or 3:00 AM.
I live in one room with three other girls who are co-workers. We must pay 1,150 taka rent each month. We cannot even afford a fan or a TV. We share one water pump, an outhouse, and one gas stove with 20 other people.
Every day we eat rice, rice with lentils or with mashed potatoes. Sometimes we have an egg at night. I’m always hungry. I weigh 79 pounds. Maybe once in a month we can eat beef.
We work so hard, but it is not right that they mistreat us so and pay us so very little.
I am afraid of getting old. Living and working like this, by the time you are 20 you are already old, and your health is failing. When you reach 30, they fire you. It is not just. I have no savings. I have nothing.
I would like a better life for myself and the other girls.
Source: National Labor Committee.
Even older adults in developing countries are often forced to engage in arduous and dangerous labor practices in order to survive.
Jorge Santizo
Indigenous People
Protecting the rights of indigenous people is a common concern of human service professionals practicing in countries such as the United States, Australia, and many Central and South American countries. Indigenous populations are often forced to engage in harsh and dangerous labor practices, such as working in fields sprayed with insecticides, transporting supplies on their person, or begging, in order to survive.
The human rights issues pertaining to indigenous peoples of Australia, primarily comprised of Aborigines, are similar in nature to those in the United States, where the historic immigration of Europeans displaced the indigenous tribal communities. In addition, both countries engaged in an official campaign of discrimination and cultural annihilation as indigenous tribes were forced off their lands and onto restricted areas, where they were unable to practice traditional methods of self-support. Both Native Americans in the United States and Aborigines in Australia were subject to the mass forced removal of children, who were mandated to attend schools where they were forced to abandon their cultural heritage and native language.
The 36-year civil war in Guatemala, which ended in 1996, involved what many human rights organizations consider the genocide of indigenous populations, or what is commonly referred to as the “disappearance” of indigenous populations. The UN Truth and Reconcilation committee estimates that up to 200,000 people were killed by government forces (HRW, 2008).
Jorge Santizo
Many indigenous Indian populations in Guatemala often consist of widowed-mothers because of the Guatemalan civil war that ended in 1996.
Jorge Santizo
In response to the intergenerational trauma that has resulted from physical and cultural genocide, many indigenous people have experienced a decimation of their population as well as extreme poverty, forced migration, and marginalization often manifesting in physical and mental health problems. Human service professionals work with indigenous people in reconciliation efforts to restore them to a level of self-sufficiency and cultural pride. Several movements are underway within indigenous tribal communities intended to move them toward wholeness and a life without substance abuse, depression, and the brokenness in families that has so often been the result of social ills.
One program within a Native American community was developed by a tribal member who suffered from alcoholism for years and who received inspiration and input from tribal elders who shared wisdom regarding traditional cultural laws for authentic change. The four laws of change became known as the Healing Forest Model, which is based on the philosophy of the Medicine Wheel, a Native American concept that addresses the interconnectedness of everything in life. According to the teachings of the Medicine Wheel, the pain of one person creates pain for the entire community thus there are no individual issues or concerns. This community concept of healing is very consistent with a model of macro practice, which posits that there are no such things as individual problems but instead people make up communities and therefore all individual problems become community problems. This philosophy may be counterintuitive to North Americans, who as a society place an exceedingly high value on individuality, oftentimes at the cost of community. Yet many believe that the key to reclaiming physical and mental health in indigenous culture is through such a community practice approach (Coyhis & Simonelli, 2005).
Refugees
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) there are approximately 42 million displaced people who have been forcibly removed from their homes and communities due to civil war, conflict, political and cultural persecution, natural disaster, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
The Immigration and Nationality Act defines “refugee” as:
(A) any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, or (B) in such circumstances as the President after appropriate consultation (as defined in section 207(e) of this Act) may specify, any person who is within the country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, within the country in which such person is habitually residing, and who is persecuted or who has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. (Sec. 101(a)(42))
Individuals may become refugees through a variety of circumstances. In the last two decades there have been between 17 and 25 civil wars at any one time leading to civil unrest and instability in several developing countries. In the midst of a civil war innocent civilians are often forced to flee in search of safety, a phenomenon referred to as forced migration. If civilians flee but do not cross international boundaries, they are referred to as internally displaced persons (IDPs), but if they are forced to flee into another country, then they often receive the legal designation of refugee. Refugees may live in secret, in a country with closed borders, thus are considered by the host country as illegal immigrants. Life as an illegal immigrant is lived on the fringes, in constant fear of detection, detainment, and repatriation. In other situations refugees are warehoused in refugee settlements or camps. Most refugee camps are managed by the UNHCR, and despite such management, they remain a place of great risk and despair. In many refugee camps refugees are not allowed to leave and are often considered a serious risk to the host country. Most refugee camps are established in “border” regions and may remain in close proximity to war that caused the displacement in the first place. The majority of refugees in protracted situations develop a sense of significant despair as their situation lingers on for generations, as with the Burundi, who have been in refugee camps in Tanzania since the early 1970s. Those refugees fortunate enough to be selected for resettlement in the United States often face years of challenges as they struggle to survive in a complex society, often underemployed and socially isolated (Hollenbach, 2008; Loescher, Milner, & Troeller, 2008).
Human service professionals often work with refugees in a variety of practice settings, including refugee resettlement agencies (contracted with the U.S. Department of State), schools, and mental health agencies. Macro practice involves advocacy and policy practice effecting changes in policies that create additional challenges to an already immensely vulnerable and traumatized population.
Torture and Abuse
Countries in Eastern Europe as well as countries in Northern and Western Africa are overwhelmed with the repercussions of war and genocide where human service professionals and human rights workers deal with numerous human atrocities such as torture, war crimes, and the crisis of thousands of refugees. But the problem of abuse and torture is truly worldwide, and as much as members of industrialized countries would like to believe that human torture is a problem known only to lesser developed countries, the physical and sexual torture of the Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison is a clear reminder that human torture occurs on all soils at the hands of people from the most “civilized” of countries.
Countries in the midst of war are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses involving torture because war seems to have an diminishing effect on human compassion and empathy. Human torture and abuse can include anything from random physical abuse to the systematic abuse and even murder of groups of people common in genocide, prisoner of war camps, and refugee camps. Many of the abuses documented in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan included sexual assault, government-sanctioned gang rapes of women who brought disgrace on their countrymen, and physical torture such as the cutting off of limbs for minor infractions (U.S. Department of State, 2001).
Most if not all victims of wartime atrocities such as rape and torture, many of whom are being revictimized in refugee camps, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychiatric conditions related to grief and loss. Human service professionals work with victims of torture on all fronts—some within refugee camps, and some in other countries who have accepted victims on refugee status. The psychological issues involved are vast and in addition to the disorders mentioned earlier include depression, anxiety, and adjustment disorders. Most human service professionals in developing countries and former Soviet bloc countries are employed by the government and deliver broad-ranging services on a community level focusing on the manifestation of a history of war, as well as the ramifications of transitioning from a communist society to a democracy. For instance, a relatively significant portion of human services in Croatia is focused on postwar issues as well as the care of Bosnian refugees and other war victims, focusing on trauma recovery and helping victims to manage the comprehensive impact of war on the individual and families (Knežević & Butler, 2003).
Throughout the Bush/Cheney administration several advocacy organizations, including Amnesty International, HRW, and the International Red Cross, cited numerous egregious examples of torturing prisoners suspected of involvement in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks or of being a supporter of “enemy combatants.” Both former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney defended their policy of using “enhanced” interrogation techniques, denying that such practices constituted a violation of the Geneva Convention, a collection of international humanitarian laws that among other remedies provides parameters on how prisoners of war are to be treated.
In 2006 the HRW submitted a report to the Human Rights Committee detailing numerous human rights violations occurring under the Bush/Cheney administration in violation of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), including the secret and indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and at undisclosed locations abroad. According to the report most of these prisoners have not been charged with any crimes and have thus been denied due process. Other human rights violations include the use of torture as an interrogation technique, such as sleep deprivation, isolation, sexual humiliation, and water boarding (which gives the subject the sensation of drowning). Federal legislation that was enacted in 2005 supported the use of information obtained from torture and also “precludes detainees at Guantanamo Bay from bringing any future challenge to their ongoing detention or conditions of confinement before the courts” (UNOHCHR, 2006, p. 10), including torture, and cruel inhuman and degrading treatment. The following case studies were included in an HRW report submitted to the United: Nations Human Rights Committee:
Consider the cases of Kahled el-Masri and Maher Arar. El-Masri, a German citizen, states that he was seized in Macedonia in December 2003 and eventually transferred to a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan where he was beaten and held incommunicado for several months. In May 2004, he was flown to Albania, deposited on an abandoned road, and eventually made his way back to Germany. El-Masri states that one of the detaining officials admitted that his arrest and detention was a mistake. El-Masri filed a suit in U.S. federal court against the former CIA Director George Tenet and the corporations and individuals allegedly involved in his rendition. He alleged violations of his due process rights and the international prohibitions against arbitrary detention and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The U.S. government, however, moved to dismiss, arguing that discovery in the case would require revealing “state secrets.” Despite the fact that the case had been widely reported in the U.S. and international media. The court agreed and on February 16, 2006, dismissed the case. El-Masri plans to appeal the ruling. If he loses, he will have no avenue for seeking relief and compensation for the 5-month period of physical and psychological abuse. Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was detained by the United States in September 2002. U.S. immigration authorities held him for two weeks, during which time he was unable to challenge either his detention or imminent transfer to a country likely to torture him. Relying on diplomatic assurances from Syria, the United States then flew Arar to Jordan, where he was driven across the border to Syria and detained there for ten months. Arar reports that he was beaten by security officers in Jordan and tortured repeatedly, often with cables and electrical cords, during his confinement in a Syrian prison. Arar sued former Attorney General John Ashcroft and others involved in his detention and rendition for compensation for the physical and psychological harm suffered in Syria. The United States asserted a national security privilege. The district court agreed and dismissed the case, reasoning that it could not second-guess the government’s claims that the need for secrecy was paramount and that discovery about what happened in the case could have negative impacts on foreign relations and national security. Arar, like el-Masri, is denied a remedy, even though the facts of his case, like in the el-Masri case, are widely reported. In both cases, the U.S. government has shut down any inquiry into practices that appear to violate international prohibitions on non-refoulement and use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Violations of non-derogable rights cannot and should not be justified or shielded from review on grounds of national security. (UNOHCHR, 2006, p. 10).
Some of the most egregious policies have been passed during times of crisis when people are scared and willing to sacrifice civil and human rights for the sake of security. Yet as human service professionals we must advocate for human rights in all situations, and resist the temptation to dehumanize any group, which tends to make it far easier to justify such horrendous mistreatment.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Rights
Individuals who have nontraditional sexual orientations, including lesbian women, gay men, bi-sexual men and women, and transgendered individuals (those who have undergone surgery to physically become the opposite gender) have long been the victims of abuse, discrimination, and at the very least a tremendous amount of misunderstanding. Homophobia is defined as irrational fear of homosexuals or of homosexual behavior. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) individuals are subjected to homophobic sentiments and outright discrimination and violence in all parts of the world. Until recently the majority opinion of those in Western culture was that LGBT individuals were either morally perverse or mentally ill. In fact, it wasn’t until 1987 that all references to homosexuality were completely removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Acts of harassment and violence against LGBT individuals based on their sexual orientation are prevalent all over the world causing significant distress, depression, and even suicidal ideation (Huebner, Rebchook, & Kegeles, 2004). LGBT youth are at risk of discrimination in school and community settings in both the United States and the United Kingdom, although many school districts now use policies designed to protect adolescents whose sexual orientation are known to others in the school or community (Ryan & Rivers, 2003). LGBT individuals are commonly the victims of direct or subtle discriminatory practices, verbally abused and harassed, and the victims of violence, sometimes even murder, solely because of their sexual orientation.
Although abuse and discrimination against LGBT individuals is assumed to be far worse in developing countries, this is not always the case. In many regions of the world the line between heterosexuality and homosexuality is quite thin, particularly compared to Western cultural norms. This contention is based on the practice of male-on-male sexual activity commonly practiced in many parts of the world when one or both men are married. For instance, in Bangladesh married men often frequent male prostitutes but do not necessarily consider themselves homosexual. They are rarely victims of harassment or abuse because they do not violate gender stereotypes, which essentially means that men continue to act like men and women continue to act like women (Dowsett, 2003). The relevance of this is that in many parts of the world violence against LGBT is based more on behavior that is contrary to traditional gender stereotypes than it is on their sexual activities.
Yet in many regions of the world homosexual behavior is considered a criminal act punishable by anything from a prison sentence to death. Homosexuality is considered illegal in South Africa, and LGBT individuals are often the victims of human rights abuses, including punitive rapes. In addition, they are often unjustly blamed for the HIV/AIDS crisis currently occurring in Africa (Graziano, 2004). LGBT individuals in Saudi Arabia are subject to public floggings and imprisonment for even suspected homosexual behavior. In Egypt vice officers travel through towns in vans arresting in excess of 100 men at a time for suspected homosexuality. Many of these men were arrested because they knew what the word gay meant, a North American word assumed to be known only by homosexual men. Men arrested on suspected homosexuality are then subject to severe beatings until they agree to sign arrest papers admitting to their homosexuality. Signing these papers means a lifetime of certain harassment and refusing to sign them means certain death. In Jamaica LGBT individuals are often the target of horrible human rights abuse, oftentimes fueled by the police who often invite bystanders to attack men suspected of homosexual behavior. One incident reported to a human rights organization involved a man suspected of being gay who was attacked by police and ultimately beaten and stabbed to death in the middle of the street by bystanders who joined in on the beating. Police in Jamaica also commonly stop individuals suspected of being LGBT on the streets searching them looking for any sign of homosexual activity such as condoms or lubricants. If these items are found, the men are often beaten and arrested (HRW, 2005).
Several countries in Eastern Africa, including Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria are currently considering anti-homosexuality laws that would make homosexual activity illegal and punishable by brutal penalties, including death. What is particularly disturbing about this recent anti-homosexuality trend in Eastern Africa are reports that some U.S. Evangelical leaders are behind the effort to criminalize homosexuality, based upon a belief that the “homosexual agenda” threatens the traditional family (Gettleman, 2009). Human rights organizations have expressed outrage in response to the reported link between anti-gay legislation in Africa and the U.S. Evangelical church for a variety of reasons, chief among them the potential for dictatorships with poor human rights records to use such legislation to silence (either through long-term incarceration or death) anyone who opposes their autocratic rule (HRW, 2009). One might question whether any such organized efforts emanating from any developed country is a form of neo-colonialization, reflecting significant ignorance of the history of the region as well as paternalistic attitudes common during colonial rule of African countries. Regardless, such misplaced advocacy has a great possibility of significantly increasing human rights abuses against an already marginalized population.
Human service professionals and human rights workers around the globe are working tirelessly to reduce crimes against LGBT individuals through the passage of policies and legislation designed not only to protect individuals whose sexual orientation is not traditional, but also to decriminalize homosexual behavior in all countries. The recent passage of the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (P.L. 111-84) in the United States, signed into law in October 2009 by President Obama makes it a federal crime to assault individuals because of their sexual orientation, gender or gender identity. The passage of this highly contested legislation has been lauded by civil rights organizations as a significant step forward in this fight for equality and protection of the LGBT population (Human Rights Campaign, 2009).
What might be one of the most important issues to consider is that regardless of whether one considers homosexuality a lifestyle choice, a genetically predetermined orientation, a nontraditional sexual orientation no better or worse than heterosexuality, or an act of perversion and immorality, violence against someone based on their sexual orientation is never permissible under any conditions, thus even those human service professionals who because of religious faith or cultural tradition believe that heterosexuality is the only physically and psychologically healthy lifestyle, should be called to action to ensure that all individuals, despite their sexual orientation, are treated with compassion and dignity.
Macro Practice in Action
Local advocacy organizations such as the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) lobby for governmental policies and laws that protect victims of crime, including sexual assault. Mothers against Drunk Driving (MADD) has been instrumental in lowering the legal alcohol limit for driving to 0.08 from 0.10, as well as establishing stiffer penalties for alcohol-related crashes. Amnesty International advocates for human rights and social justice for oppressed individuals around the world, releasing annual reports of human rights violations within each country. The passage of one domestic violence law can protect thousands of women. An antidrug educational campaign can convince thousands of adolescents to stay off drugs. One press release can lead to a boycott that can increase wages for thousands of young women in sweatshops in India. Direct practice with individuals can change the lives of a few people, but macro practice can change the lives of an entire community or a whole country. The power of macro practice should serve as an impetus for all human service professionals to consider embracing macro practice on some level, whether that means conducting voter registration drives in politically underserved areas, conducting a letter-writing campaign in support of legislation designed to protect a vulnerable population, or working on behalf of an international human rights organization that works tirelessly on behalf of exploited children, abused women, or traumatized refugees. Such positions offer significant rewards to those human service professionals willing to develop multidisciplinary expertise through education and experience that when combined with the networking power of other organizations can create positive change for all members of society.
Supporters of same-sex marriage organized a very successful and well-attended series of rallies held across the United States in response to the passage of an amendment to the California Constitution that defined a valid marriage as being between a man and a woman. The legislation was placed on the ballot after the California courts legalized gay marriage. The LGBT community and their many supported flooded the streets in cities across the nation demanding equal rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Social Action Effecting Social Change
One of the most dramatic forms of social change occurred during the 2008 presidential campaign when millions of Americans, many of whom had not been previously politically active, including many disenfranchised groups, advocated for now President Barack Obama, the country’s first African-American president. President Obama’s message of real change for the country—one that promised for human rights, and a renewed commitment to social justice led to a grassroots movement that many believe was something this country has never seen in previous elections. Political affiliations aside, what is important for our purposes is the recognition that virtually all people have the power to affect social change on a broad scale when they are motivated and well organized.
It is sometimes easy to see all of the problems in our world and respond with a feeling of futility, yet what many human service professionals soon realize is that making the world a better place is possible, particularly for those with a passion for meeting the needs of the most vulnerable members of society in a way that reflects empathy, compassion, justice, and respect for human dignity.
Rally against California Proposition 8 barring gay marriage in New York City 2008.
Tricia Serfas
Suggested Readings
Hokenstad, M. C., & Midgley, J. (Eds.). (2004). Lessons from abroad: Adapting international social welfare innovations.Washington, DC: NASW Press.
Langer, L. L. (1991). Holocaust testimonies: The ruins of memory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rosenfeld, L. B., Caye, J. S., Ayalon, O., & Lahad, M. (2004). When their worlds fall apart. Washington, DC: NASW Press.
Van Soest, D. (1997). The global crisis violence: Common problems, universal causes, shared solutions. Washington, DC: NASW Press.
Internet Resources
American Indian Movement (AIM): http://www.aimovement.org
American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org
AmeriCares—Humanitarian Lifeline to the World: http://www.americares.org
Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org
Anti-Defamation League: http://www.adl.org
Anti-Slavery: http://www.antislavery.org
AntiRacismNet: http://www.antiracismnet.org/main.html
Cultural Survival: http://www.culuralsurvival.org
Doctors on Call: http://www.docs.org
Doctors without Borders: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.com
Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org
International Federation of Social Workers: http://www.ifsw.org
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Introduction to Human Services. Through the Eyes of Practice Settings, Second Edition
Chapter 15: Macro Practice and International Human Services
ISBN: 9780205795024 Author: Michelle E. Martin
Copyright © Pearson Education (2011)
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