The mortal choice which every German had to make—whether or not he knew he was making it—is a choice which we Americans have never had to confront. But personal and professional life confronts us with the same kind of choice, less mortally, to be sure, every day.
—Milton Mayer, 1955
The preceding chapters of this book have examined the concept of human rights and various documents that seek to guarantee the application of those rights by governments. Without government and other support of human rights, little progress can be made in actually incorporating them into the policies and practices of everyday life. In order to apply human rights to social work policies and practices, social workers should understand that knowledge alone is not sufficient to apply human rights. In addition to acquiring specific knowledge of the terms and definitions used in human rights, social workers need to understand how to translate human rights into the social work profession, which requires an understanding of government agencies, clients, and social work concepts.
Everybody Supports Human Rights
A curious aspect of human rights is that few governments or individuals would openly oppose human rights or denigrate the importance of human rights. No president of the United States would ever state, in public at least, that he or she is violating human rights principles. The head of a social work agency would never want to be accused of violating an individual’s human rights. Social workers do not want to violate the human rights of their colleagues or clients. The National Association of Social Workers’ policy statement on human rights aligns the social work mission with that of human rights:
The aim of the human rights edifice created during the past half century, which includes United Nations’ declarations and treaties; . . . is to root out oppression and to establish conditions in which human beings can meet their needs, develop their humanity, and flourish. This aim is closely akin to social work’s mission. (NASW 2009, 204–5)
Social workers should
- Promote U.S. ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as critical UN treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
- Be especially vigilant about human rights violations related to children’s rights and exploitation such as child labor, child prostitution, and other crimes of abuse and take leadership in developing public and professional awareness regarding these issues.
- Advocate for the rights of vulnerable people and must condemn policies, practices, and attitudes of bigotry, intolerance, and hate that put any person’s human rights in grave jeopardy. The violation of human rights based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, immigration status, or religion provide a few examples.
- Support the right to a standard of living that is adequate for the health and wellbeing of all people and their families, without exception.
- Advocate for the elimination of the death penalty.
- Collaborate with governmental and nongovernmental organizations and other community groups to become a leading force for the health and welfare of all people, including the world’s most vulnerable.
Become partners with the United Nations in advancing human development and human rights, including economic human rights, and work toward closing the economic gap.
- Advocate for the elimination of torture.
- Advocate for U.S. homeland security and anti-terrorist policies that are consistent with human rights and ethics. (NASW 2009, 205–6).
In summary, NASW states that the struggle for human rights remains a vital priority for the social work profession in the twenty-first century.
The stigma attached to violating human rights looms large in the public consciousness, even if many people do not fully understand the concepts and definitions of human rights. When actually applying human rights to everyday existence, however, all types of obstacles arise. To apply human rights to social work practice, social workers must be aware of these obstacles and avoid merely giving lip service to human rights.
The following example illustrates the difficulty in defining a human right and subsequently realizing that right:
Human rights instruments state that government must not discriminate against individuals on the basis of gender, race, age, religion, and other standards. Discrimination in all its forms presents a formidable barrier to the application of human rights. To realize this human right of an existence free from discrimination, governments generally enact laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of the above standards, especially in respect to the workplace. Yet how effective are those laws in accomplishing a neutral, nondiscriminatory workplace or other environment?
To give substance to antidiscrimination laws existing in the United States, federal and state governments have established watchdog agencies such as the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission and various Departments of Human Rights to investigate complaints of discrimination. Yet filing a complaint with one of these entities can be intimidating and, without adequate legal resources, futile. An employer will usually devote significant resources to contest any complaint of discrimination—after all, discrimination is bad business and creates a negative impression among staff and public. Even if an employee can weather the storm and convince the government investigator that evidence of discrimination exists, the employer can then offer to settle the matter and escape any consequence whatsoever. The charge of discrimination generally is obliterated from governmental files after a relatively short period of time, usually one year. In other words, to avoid any finding of a human rights violation, the employer simply offers the victim compensation that should have been provided in the first place. A settlement may often cost the employer less than what it should have been providing, in which case the employer actually ends up benefiting from the investigative process.
Many governments, companies, groups, and individuals do take human rights obligations seriously and consciously try to prevent discriminatory practices from ever occurring. Nonetheless, the lack of education and resources, and the inclination to play politics and inflate economic results, can easily blur the desire or need for ensuring human rights. All these factors can affect social workers when they try to apply human rights to practice.
The Case of Wal-Mart:
Cutting Prices Versus Cutting Wages
Possibly no other icon of U.S. business represents the dilemma of human rights principles than the large retailer Wal-Mart, which symbolizes “bargains” and “roll-backs” and just about everything positive for the individual pocketbook. In practically every country where Wal-Mart does business, it thrives on the low-cost formula (with Germany being a notable but rare exception to Wal-Mart’s success).
Roll-backs, though, come with a price: low wages and costly health benefits. Wal-Mart may offer its customers great deals, but its employees can have a hard time making their own ends meet, especially when health care options offered by Wal-Mart take out a substantial amount from the employee’s pay check (Lichtenstein 2009). In fairness to Wal-Mart, many service industry jobs pay no more or even less than Wal-Mart and may not even offer a health care plan. Still, it is Wal-Mart, with its enormous financial might, that bears much criticism for its employment policies.
A human rights approach by Wal-Mart and other large retailers would help ensure that employees receive a living wage, including benefits. This would cut into Wal-Mart’s net profit of many billions of dollars. But at least Wal-Mart could then legitimately claim that it recognizes the importance of economic human rights and is trying to satisfy its human rights obligations.
Foundation of the Social Work Profession
Historically, the social work profession has challenged inequities among individuals and groups. Social work originated from humanitarian and democratic ideas, which prompted the profession to challenge discrimination and the unequal distribution of resources. This core value of challenging inequities and promoting democratic ideals now forms part of the social worker’s code of ethics.
The profession focuses on both the individual or group and her or his environment with the acknowledgment that environment plays a key role in fulfilling an individual’s needs (Compton and Galaway 1994). Social workers try not only to help individuals, but they also try to bring about change on a broader, more global level (Goldstein 1992). This dual focus distinguishes the social work profession from other helping professions, like psychology and nursing, which generally address individual issues but without a mandate to challenge environmental impediments to resolving those issues.
The Changing Face of Social Work Ethics Around the World
In 2004, at a major gathering of the International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International Federation of Social Workers in Adelaide, Australia, there was a major shift in social work ethics: human rights became the dominant theme.
In its “old ethical document” from 1994, the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) did not even mention human rights as a social work principle (IFSW 1994). Ten years later, with its adoption of a “new ethical document” at the Adelaide conference, the IFSW definitively announced that social work was a profession based on human rights principles (IFSW 2004). The 2004 document incorporates human rights documents and principles into the definition of social work and its core mission. Social work units in individual countries belonging to the ISFW (e.g., NASW) are expected to follow the ISFW ethical document and educate social workers on the new ethical standards.
Because the foundation of the social work profession centers on assisting those in need, the profession has developed interventions for that assistance. These interventions are closely tied to human rights.
Major Interventions in the Social Work Profession
The social work profession has established various interventions to promote its dual focus: assisting individuals and attempting to bring about change with respect to social problems. These interventions include challenging oppression, empowerment, and the strengths perspective. By understanding these interventions, social workers can more easily recognize the link between their profession and human rights.
Challenging Oppression
Social workers have traditionally considered the oppressed and marginalized as part of their constituencies. Oppression is an unjust use of authority or power over an individual or group. The different forms of oppression may be based on race, ethnicity, class, wealth, gender, age, and sexual orientation. Each form of oppression creates a unique injustice and an inequitable power structure that allows it to both exist and perpetuate. Common to each form of oppression is the individual’s or group’s social reality (Appleby, Colon, and Hamilton 2007). Oppression, like racism or sexism, frequently appears in both individual and institutional acts.
Repeated exposure to oppression may lead to internalized oppression, in which a person or group has internalized negative self-images projected by the external oppressor. Individuals often experience rage from internalized oppression, whose repression can lead to self-destructive behavior or destructive behavior toward others (Shulman 2008).
Social workers have the responsibility to challenge individual and social relations that create and maintain oppression (Pinderhughes 1989). They must try to reduce oppressive power structures, which require both micro-and macrolevel skills (Simon 1994).
Challenging oppression clearly is related to exercising human rights. Humanitarian and democratic ideals are anathema to oppression, which stems from inequitable distributions of power. In the struggle to reduce oppression, social workers must promote human rights.
Empowerment
Another intervention used by social workers that is tied to human rights is empowerment. This intervention examines circumstances that contribute to differential treatment concerning ethnicity, age, class, national origin, religion, and sexual orientation. The empowerment tradition responds to the individual’s and group’s experiences of oppression (Saleebey 2005). Empowerment focuses on how an individual is treated in society and is given access to resources and power (Cowger 1994; Roche and Dewees 2001). Reducing inequitable power structures is a foundational basis for empowerment (Lee 2001).
Two interdependent and interactive dynamics characterize empowerment. Personal empowerment resembles the clinical notion of self-determination, in which clients direct the helping process, take charge and control of their personal lives, get their “head straight” by learning new ways to think about their situation, and adopt new behaviors that result in more satisfying and “rewarding outcomes” (Cowger 1994, 263). Personal empowerment also is related to opportunity, for without opportunity the process of self-determination becomes difficult. For instance, an individual who has no medical coverage and no legal or economic means to obtain that coverage will find it difficult to adequately meet his or her health care needs.
The social empowerment dynamic recognizes that an individual’s characteristics cannot be separated from the context in which the individual exists (Cowger 1994). An individual’s behavior or traits are connected to those of others through social involvement (Falck 1988). An individual with resources and an opportunity to play an important role in his or her own environment can more easily shape outcomes. For example, a person who has influence in the community may persuade medical practitioners to provide low-cost or free medical services to those without health care benefits. Without that contextual influence, this person would most likely find it difficult to persuade medical practitioners to provide those services.
Personal empowerment and social empowerment are mutually inclusive. When an individual achieves personal empowerment, he or she also achieves social empowerment (Cowger 1994). Helping individuals and groups empower themselves to overcome inequitable treatment is a key part of the social work profession. This empowerment tradition goes hand in hand with the achievement of human rights, which center on equitable treatment for everyone, regardless of status.
Strengths Perspective
The strengths perspective is another social work intervention closely related to human rights, which states that an individual’s or group’s strengths are central to the helping relationship. This intervention acknowledges that structural injustices have isolated many individuals and groups from necessary resources and fair treatment. The strengths perspective focuses on resiliency and ways in which people cope despite many obstacles and injustices. Without the strengths perspective, social workers may fall in to the trap of viewing an individual or group as being pathological and may focus on “what is wrong” with that individual or group.
By acknowledging the strengths of individuals and groups, social workers are better positioned to tie human rights principles to a particular situation. For example, when confronted with an HIV-positive person who has been injecting heroin with used needles, a social worker using the strengths perspective would focus on other elements of that person’s circumstances. By learning about his background and own personal obstacles, the social worker would seek his strengths, which the social worker could use to address the human rights issues related to his circumstances.
The social work profession’s interventions are essential to promoting the link between the profession and human rights. The interventions just described are in no way the only interventions that promote human rights. All the profession’s interventions relate to human rights issues and address ways in which to apply human rights to practice. In addition to understanding interventions and their role in human rights, social workers can relate human rights to practice by focusing on the connection between the NASW’s code of ethics and human rights.
Mission of the Social Work Profession
The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human wellbeing and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of all people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.
—NASW 1996
In applying human rights to practice, social workers should understand the concept of human rights and be familiar with human rights documents, particularly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition to human rights documents, ethical documents by the U.S. organization known as National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) can help social workers better understand the connection between their profession and human rights.
NASW Code of Ethics
Professional ethics are at the core of social work. The profession has an obligation to articulate its basic values, ethical principles, and ethical standards. The NASW Code of Ethics sets forth these values, principles, and standards to guide social workers’ conduct. The Code is relevant to all social workers and social work students, regardless of their professional functions, the settings in which they work, or the population they serve.
—NASW 1996
The National Association of Social Workers has drafted its own code of ethics for U.S. social workers to follow (NASW 1996). While many provisions of the code pertain to individual conduct, such as confidentiality and personal interaction with clients, other provisions contain numerous examples of human rights and can serve as a point of departure for connecting the profession to human rights.
The code’s provisions encourage social workers to work toward fulfilling the human rights of clients. While the code never specifically mentions the term human rights, its language does resemble that of important human rights documents.
The concept of ethics refers to a set of principles that help an individual or group to determine the correct course of action, or what is morally necessary in a particular situation, considering all aspects of that situation (Reamer 1995). The development of the first social work code of ethics began with the Flexner Report, which in 1915 raised the concern that social work could not be considered a profession unless it had a code of ethics. The first NASW code, ratified in 1960, was only one page long and listed fourteen broadly worded “proclamations” (Congress 1999). For instance, it was every social worker’s duty to give precedence to professional responsibility over personal interests; respect the privacy of clients; and offer appropriate professional public service.
In 1979, the NASW code incorporated procedures to enforce certain parts of the code, so that social workers now were required to cooperate in implementing the code and abide by any disciplinary ruling (Congress 1999). As part of its revision in 1996, the code expanded social workers’ ethical responsibilities to the broader society. The 1996 code also adopted an international perspective by stating that “social workers should promote conditions that encourage respect for cultural and social diversity within the United States and globally” (Congress 1999, 27). Since 1996, NASW has made minor revisions to the 1996 code but has not replaced it.
Criticism of the NASW Code
The NASW Code of Ethics provides general guidance in handling numerous situations. The code also explains responsibilities arising from ethical obligations, including human rights issues that social workers have an obligation or responsibility to pursue. Some have criticized the code by stating that those in power have written the code in order to regulate their conduct with clients (Ife 2008; Witkin 2000). Because those in power can dictate enforcement and interpretations of the code, clients may not receive adequate consideration when ethical issues arise.
This criticism would apply to any code of ethics for any professional group. Regulatory boards for lawyers and doctors undoubtedly want complaints about lawyers and doctors to be resolved without damaging the profession. Nonetheless, ethical guidelines do apply and professionals ignore them at their peril. A social worker charged with an ethical violation must, at a minimum, answer the charge and defend his or her action. The regulatory board overseeing the ethical charge may indeed favor the member over the complainant, but discussion of the issue is forced into the open. Although this may not result in “adequate compensation” to the complainant, the regulatory board at least must consider the issue.
Like any professional code of ethics, the NASW code has drawbacks, particularly when overseeing ethical violations that involve a client. Yet, within a broader human rights framework, the code provides a worthy frame of reference for the profession.
Ethical Principles of NASW Code
The NASW’s code cites six values, each of which translates into a separate and worthy ethical principle:
1. The value of service translates into the ethical principle that a social worker’s primary goal is to help people in need and to address social problems.
2. The value of social justice translates into the ethical principle that social workers should challenge social injustice. Efforts by social workers to effect social change focus primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice. Challenging social injustice promotes sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression in the context of cultural and ethnic diversity.
3. The value of the dignity and worth of the person translates into the ethical principle that social workers should respect the inherent dignity and worth of every single individual. Social workers should treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, with special consideration for an individual’s cultural and ethnic diversity.
4. The value of the importance of human relationships translates into the ethical principles that social workers should recognize the central importance of meaningful human relationships in everyone’s life.
The Importance of Group Ethics
The importance of social workers acting ethically cannot be understated. In their pursuit of human rights, social workers must create an environment in which ethics flourish. However, in a group context, individual virtues may actually take a backseat to the overall professional situation in which social workers find themselves.
According to Randy Cohen, who has studied ethics, group dynamics can often dictate how the individual acts:
In his profound and moving book, The Face of Battle, the British military historian John Keegan considers the question of why, when faced with the horror and suffering of combat, most soldiers don’t simply run away. He concludes that they are motivated not by high ideals of patriotism, not by ideology, not by anything one would identify as ethics. Keegan sees these soldiers standing fast so as not to be the least worthy among those assembled. And by that, he does not mean the entire army, but those few men nearby. Keegan suggests that even under the most extreme and appalling conditions, most of us will behave about as well as our neighbors. (Cohen 2002, 22)
The same tendency to act in the same way as their neighbors could also lead to soldiers running from battle, if that is what other, nearby soldiers are doing.
This tendency to follow the crowd also applies in other situations, where something
similar has been observed in the early careers of police officers. If a rookie cop is assigned to a corrupt station house, he stands a good chance of being corrupted himself. Put the same young officer in a clean station, and there’s a very good chance he’ll turn out to be an honest cop. His or her personal ethics hardly come into it. (Cohen 2002, 22)
Cohen’s point is that individual ethics generally are insufficient to create an ethical environment:
Just as individual ethics can be understood only in relation to the society within which it is practiced, it is also true that individual ethical behavior is far likelier to flourish within a just society. It might be argued that to lead an ethical life one must work to build a just society. . . . Every community is dynamic—Sparta or the precinct house. We not only live in it, but by our actions we create it. And as important, our community exists not only in the world but in our minds. It forms our values even as we shape its structures. (Cohen 2002, 22)
Attention to ethics clearly relates to the pursuit of human rights, but the focus of ethics should be on the environment, as well as the individual.
5. The value of integrity translates into the ethical principle that social workers should behave in a trustworthy manner. They should act honestly and responsibly while promoting worthwhile ethical practices by the organizations with which they are affiliated.
6. The value of competence translates into the ethical principle that social workers should develop and enhance their professional expertise and competence to the best of their abilities within their own areas of social work practice.
From these values and implied ethical principles derive concrete ethical standards that apply to the professional activities of all social workers. The code expresses these standards as social workers’ ethical responsibilities to various groups, clients, colleagues, their profession itself, and the broader society (NASW 1996).
Social workers’ ethical responsibilities include both those that are enforceable and those that are aspirational. Ethical responsibilities that relate to human rights tend to be aspirational and are not specifically enforceable. The aspirational nature of ethical responsibilities concerning human rights pertains to the more general difficulty of legally enforcing human rights. The basis for fulfilling human rights relies to a great extent on education and goodwill, so even with supportive laws, human rights remain tenuous and dependent on the aspirations of individuals and groups.
International Federation of Social Workers
Alongside the NASW Code of Ethics is a more globally oriented set of principles, the ethics of the International Federation of Social Workers. Whereas the NASW code does not specifically refer to human rights, the IFSW’s ethical statements take their core principles from human rights. Together, the NASW’s and IFSW’s ethical statements mandate the use of human rights within the social work profession.
In 2004, drawing on the available literature, feedback from colleagues, and commentary on the international definition of social work, the IFSW identified the core purposes of social work in various parts of the world:
- Facilitating the inclusion of marginalized, socially excluded, dispossessed, vulnerable, and at-risk groups of people.
- Addressing and challenging barriers, inequalities, and injustices in society.
- Forming short- and longer-term working relationships with and mobilizing individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities to enhance their well-being and their problem-solving capacities.
- Assisting and educating people to obtain services and resources in their communities.
- Formulating and implementing policies and programs that enhance people’s well-being, promote development and human rights, and promote collective social harmony and social stability, insofar as such stability does not violate human rights.
- Encouraging people to advocate with regard to pertinent local, national, regional, and/or international concerns.
- Acting with and/or for people to advocate the formulation and targeted implementation of policies that are consistent with the ethical principles of the profession.
- Acting with and/or for people to advocate changes in those policies and structural conditions that maintain people in marginalized, dispossessed, and vulnerable positions, and those that infringe on the collective social harmony and stability of various ethnic groups, insofar as such stability does not violate human rights.
- Working to protect people who cannot do so themselves, for example, children and youth in need of care and persons with mental illness or mental retardation, within the parameters of accepted and ethically sound legislation.
- Engaging in social and political action to influence social policy and economic development and to effect change by critiquing and eliminating inequalities.
- Enhancing stable, harmonious, and mutually respectful societies that do not violate people’s human rights.
- Promoting respect for traditions, cultures, ideologies, beliefs, and religions among different ethnic groups and societies, insofar as these do not conflict with the fundamental human rights of people.
- Planning, organizing, administering, and managing programs and organizations dedicated to any of the purposes just listed. (IFSW 2004)
Both the NASW and IFSW rely on human rights principles to carry out their missions, a reliance on human rights that forms the core of social work today.
Applying Ethics to Human Rights: Case Studies
After understanding the strong connection of ethical standards to human rights, social workers can then take the crucial step of applying human rights to the profession through ethical principles and responsibilities. Because social workers practice in many different settings with diverse individuals and groups, analysis of the particular setting is important. The following case study illustrates this point.
Maya is forty years old, with three children ages five, seven, and eleven, and has been living with a white Anglo male for the past three years. Maya immigrated to the United States from an Asian country four years ago. The children’s father has little contact with them. One of Maya’s children has a serious illness, and Maya has incurred large medical debts from the cost of treating the illness. Maya has worked regularly as a secretary, earning $25,000 a year, but now she is unemployed. Maya’s partner has become physically abusive, but she has stayed in her relationship with him, partly for economic reasons. However, she recently went to a women’s shelter with her children because she fears her partner. Maya now feels that she has few options. If she returns to her partner, she will fear for her safety and that of her children. But if she does not return, she will have nowhere else to go and insufficient resources to obtain shelter on her own.
This case study represents both human rights issues and ethical responsibilities for a social worker. To form an appropriate intervention for the client (Maya), the social worker needs first to identify the relevant human rights issues and then to connect those issues to her ethical responsibilities. The intervention process would follow these guidelines:
Human Rights Issues
• No one should be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). The physical abuse of Maya clearly falls within the prohibition against cruel and degrading treatment.
• Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security (article 3). Maya has a human right to feel safe as a person.
• Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of herself and her family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care, and necessary social services (article 25). Maya should have available adequate medical care, food, and housing for both herself and her family.
Maya’s circumstances pertain to the preceding human rights. The next step is to connect those human rights to ethical responsibilities.
Ethical Responsibilities
• Social workers should understand culture and its function in human behavior and society (NASW 1996, 1.05a). A social worker should familiarize herself with, and be sensitive to, Maya’s cultural issues.
• Social workers should promote the general welfare of society and advocate for living conditions conducive to the fulfillment of basic human needs (NASW 1996, 6.01). A social worker should advocate for Maya’s basic need for food, medical care, and housing.
• Social workers should work to prevent the domination or exploitation of, and discrimination against, any person or group based on national origin, sex, or ethnicity (NASW 1996, 6.04d). In Maya’s situation, a social worker should intervene to protect her against physical abuse from her partner, as this abuse appears to be linked to gender and ethnicity.
• Social workers should try to improve social conditions in order to meet basic human needs and to encourage respect for cultural and social diversity (NASW 1996, 6.04c). A social worker viewing Maya’s circumstances could view the situation as one involving not simply individual issues but also broader structural issues.
This case study illustrates the technique of connecting human rights to social work ethics. By seeing and analyzing particular circumstances through the prism of human rights and ethical principles, social workers can readily recognize the importance of human rights to their profession.
Additional Case Studies
All the following case studies raise issues regarding human rights and ethics. Analyze each by referring to the following questions:
1. What human rights issues are relevant to the case study? Cite specific provisions within human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration and international conventions.
2. What ethical issues are involved? Cite specific parts of the NASW’s code of ethics.
3. Is there a link between the ethical issues and human rights issues? If so, what is it?
4. What controversy or conflict might arise from the human rights and ethical issues relevant to the case study? For instance, are there issues of cultural relativism that might conflict with human rights?
CASE STUDY 1
Stephanie, age eighty-six, lives by herself in a home she has occupied for fifty years, but she now finds it difficult to take care of herself and does not want to leave her home. Stephanie’s grown children are now considering placing her in a nursing home. As a social worker, you have been asked to assess Stephanie’s ability to remain at home and outside the nursing home.
CASE STUDY 2
Raymond, currently age fifteen, joined a gang at the age of ten. The gang is involved in all types of criminal activities, including drug dealing. Recently, the police arrested Raymond, and he was convicted as an adult of a serious drug offense. He is now serving a ten-year prison sentence in an adult facility. As a social worker employed at the prison where Raymond is serving his sentence, you provide counseling for him.
CASE STUDY 3
Reah has recently gotten off public assistance and now works at two different jobs. She has three children, ages four, five, and seven. While Reah earns more income than she received from public assistance, her overall government benefits, including housing and health care, were greater. Reah and her children live in a low-income area with a high crime rate. Schools in the area have significantly fewer resources than those in most other areas. Reah has begun counseling with you to help cope with her depression.
CASE STUDY 4
Jenny and Alice are a lesbian couple that would like to adopt a child. As a social worker, you have performed a home study and recommended approval of the proposed adoption. But during the legal adoption proceedings, the judge refuses to allow the adoption, saying that he did not believe homosexuals could be fit parents.
CASE STUDY 5
Mark has lost his job and is currently unemployed. He is fifty-seven years old and has few prospects for new employment. Mark has a spouse, Judith, but they have no children living at home. Mark currently receives $300 every two weeks in unemployment benefits, which will expire in six months, but has no medical coverage. Judith has only a part-time job with no benefits. The couple has always relied on Mark’s health care benefits from his employment to cover their medical needs. Judith has diabetes and needs regular medical care. As a social worker, you are employed by the local public benefits office. Mark and Judith come to your office for assistance.
CASE STUDY 6
Anna is a Hispanic woman employed as an accountant by a large accounting firm. For the past three years, Anna has received significantly lower merit increases than all of her colleagues. She files a complaint with the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission against her employer on the basis of discrimination. Anna and her employer settle the complaint, but six months later her employer dismisses her, saying that she did not work as hard as the others. Anna comes to you, a social worker, for counseling in coping with the situation.
CASE STUDY 7
A ten-year-old girl in an Islamic country is married to a thirty-year-old man, which is not uncommon in that particular country. The girl is worried about becoming pregnant and possibly dying from childbirth. You work for an international family–planning agency in the country. A group of local women comes to you for assistance in challenging the cultural tradition of girl brides.
CASE STUDY 8
Azza, an Ethiopian immigrant who moved to the United States thirteen years ago and now lives in Florida, plans to take her ten-year-old U.S.-born daughter back to Ethiopia in a few months to have her circumcised. “They say it helps us control our emotions,” she says. The thirty-five-year-old mother is confused about whether or not she want to put her daughter through the procedure, first saying that she and her husband are not sure what they are going to do, and finally saying that it is up to him and the Ethiopian doctors to decide.
Conclusion
Human rights issues, such as freedom from physical abuse and a right to medical care and housing, are social workers’ ethical responsibilities. By emphasizing the human rights aspect of social work, social workers can enhance their own fulfillment of ethical responsibilities.
Social workers who connect human rights issues with ethical principles can also better identify issues that go beyond individual circumstances. From a human rights perspective, a social worker would not view domestic violence as simply an issue involving the dynamics of the individual or couple but also as a national or international issue. If it is a human right to be safe and secure, then this right would apply to everyone at any place anytime, irrespective of circumstances. Ethical principles in the social work profession support this view of domestic violence as a structural issue that social workers should address on a broad scale.
Individuals alone may not always be capable of overcoming oppression, especially when obstacles arise from broader structural difficulties. Adopting a human rights and ethics perspective can help social workers more readily identify structural difficulties in planning appropriate interventions. By recognizing structural difficulties as human rights and ethical issues, social workers can only enhance the primary mission of their profession.
Questions
1. Discuss a human rights issue you have experienced in your social work practice.
2. How do human rights principles relate to different interventions used in social work practice?
3. Why is it important to analyze power structures when applying human rights to a particular situation?
4. How is the NASW’s code of ethics similar to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? How does it differ from the declaration?
5. What are the difficulties in applying human rights to social work practice?
6. Discuss the human rights concept of universality in relation to social work ethics. Is universality compatible with social work ethics?
7. How does the social work profession differ from other helping professions?
8. Can social work practice benefit from a human rights perspective?
References
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Congress, E. 1999. Social Work Values and Ethics: Identifying and Resolving Professional Dilemmas. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Cowger, C. 1994. Assessing client strengths: Clinical assessment for client empowerment. Social Work: Journal of the National Association of Social Workers 39 (3): 262–67.
Falck, H. 1988. Social Work: The Membership Perspective. New York: Springer.
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