Children, indigenous people, and disabled people most likely to have human rights violated

Data shows which human rights are met and which are violated for those living here. Photo / File

Māori, Pacific people, disabled people, children and those in poverty remain the biggest sufferers of human rights violations in New Zealand.

Two major areas were people living in New Zealand had their rights violated were the right to freedom from torture and the right to food.

How the country was rated for each human right and how it compared to other countries around the world was published in the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI).

The HRMI tracks the human rights performance for more than 200 countries and the 2020 report on New Zealand contains some poor results.

The right to freedom from torture in New Zealand was rated to be slightly behind that of a "fair" score and hadn't improved in the past three years.

HRMI strategy and communication lead Thalia Kehoe Rowden said the trend was sliding but it wasn't sharp enough to be sure there was a definite trend down.

"It's definitely not getting better," she told the Herald.

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The freedom from torture means to avoid pain and suffering, and physical and mental suffering intentionally inflicted on someone.

People with specific medical conditions, indigenous people and those of particular races were those experts deemed at risk of having the right violated the most.

Specific medical conditions included people with mental health and intersex children in this year's report in particular.

"That's people being concerned at intersex children [who] are being operated without consent for instance," Kehoe Rowden said.

"People with disabilities come up over and over again ... [Māori and racial minorities] have been at the top every time.

"Mental health, I imagine, is about people who are treated when they are sectioned or when they have mental health issues and are in custody and are not treated well."

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In regards to the right to food in New Zealand, the country was deemed to be at 85.5 per cent of what should be possible at its level of income.

And while that was deemed to be a fair score, it had declined significantly from 90.3 per cent in 2015. The right to food security had dropped by the same amount.

People with low social or economic status, the homeless, street children or homeless youth, and indigenous people were most at risk of having this right violated.

Year after year, those who often had their human rights violated were Māori, Pacific people, disabled people, children and those in poverty, Kehoe Rowden said.

"The trends haven't changed over the years, and that's Pacific and Māori people are disproportionately at risk of rights violations," she said.

"People with disabilities and people with low socio-economic status are definitely not having their rights met, particularly when it comes to the rights to food and education, housing and work."

By deciding to enforce human rights, governments of countries had an obligation to create the conditions where all people could thrive, Kehoe Rowden said.

New Zealand rated in the top "good" category for three rights: to freedom from death penalty, from disappearance, and right to assembly and association.

Overall, the quality of life was deemed to be performing at close to average when New Zealand was compared to other high-income countries.

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Its safety from the state score of 7.8 suggested a significant number of people were not safe from one or more of the following: arbitrary arrest, torture, disappearance, execution or extrajudicial killing.

Compared to a small group of 11 high-income OECD countries, New Zealand was performing at close to average for safety from the state.

New Zealand's empowerment score of 7.7 was also performing close to average compared to the 11 high-income countries.

It suggested people were enjoying their civil liberties and political freedoms but many at the same time were not.

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The data set for 2020 included annual data on five economic and social rights for 197 countries from 2007 to 2017.

It also included annual data on eight civil and political rights for 33 countries for the years 2018 to 2019, or 2017 to 2019 depending on the country.

New Zealand's HRMI rights tracker results for 2020 can be found here.