BORN FREE 

ONLY TO PAY TO LIVE

As of late 2025 the global debt exceeded $337 trillion.

 HOMELESSNESS 

Currently, there are no less than 150 million homeless people globally (the total population of United Kingdom and France combined), including 28 million children who are homeless due to bloody conflicts, with that same amount having to leave their homes in pursuit of better lives. [1]    

Countless other families and individuals are not accounted for throughout the world as different countries have greatly varied definitions of homelessness. 

Due to these inconsistencies, the counts given may be vastly under what the true value is.  

Persecuted, harassed, criminalized, and fined for being homeless, millions of homeless humans are treated as less than animals and go without shelter, although many state and/or city ordinances provide shelter for stray animals.

HOMELESSNESS & HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

DEPRIVATION OF SHELTER: CRUEL & UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

In one comprehensive report, author Andrew Huff found the deprivation of shelter as cruel and unusual punishment. (SOURCE)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly, states that depriving one of shelter meets the criteria of torture. (SOURCE)

CANNOT PROVIDE ADEQUATE SERVICE TO THE HOMELESS IF THEY ARE VASTLY UNDERCOUNTED

Due to these inconsistencies, the counts given may be vastly under what the true value is. 

For instance, if United States homeless counts are truly off by at least 50%,[6] one could conjecture that worldwide counts of homeless individuals may also be off by at least 50% (yielding 225 million individuals).  

Since 1984, the United Nations (U.N.) has held that deprivation of shelter meets the criteria of torture.[9] 

POVERTY A Worldwide EpidemicWhere Billions Suffer & Die Every Year

Despite over 160 States throughout the world partied to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), numerous countries severely impacted by poverty, famine, and war, which are rich in natural resources to abolish or alleviate these, have failed to do so because the governments have fallen into corruption. [9] [10] 

Almost half of the world’s population (4.2 billion, equating to approximately the population of China, India, and the United States combined) live in poverty as of 2022.  

“The World Bank estimates international bribery exceeds US $1.5 trillion annually, or 2% of global GDP and ten times more than total global aid funds. [11] 

Other estimates are higher at 2-5% of global GDP.” [12] 

As a proximate cause of Corruption- and in its aftermath- war, death, sickness, poverty, and homelessness have spread across the world.  

These adversely affect billions of societies’ most vulnerable citizens, grossly and recklessly disregarding their lives and their basic human rights and needs. 

As the wealthiest (the top 1%) enjoy a perpetually corrupt and inhumane carousel ride of luxury off the suffering and misery of billions of the world’s most vulnerable citizens- the impoverished- human rights have and continue to be grossly violated, and the masses are enslaved to sickness and poverty. 

Globally, an estimated 8.5% of people (682 million) live in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $2.15 per day. 1.8 billion people subsist on $3.65 a day, 23% of the global population. (SOURCE)  

Three hundred eighty-five million children live in poverty, and over 22,000 children die daily around the world due to poverty.3.1 million innocent children (almost the populations of Mongolia or Armenia) worldwide die from starvation, an appalling rate of 8,500 per day (SOURCE).In the US, 37.9 million people are enslaved to poverty as of 2021, about .005% of the world’s population.   

This yields a poverty rate of 11.6%. (SOURCE)The United States poverty population amount is a little less than California’s general population. (SOURCE) 

According to the UN, more than 4 years’ worth of progress toward eliminating poverty has been erased due to COVID-19 (SOURCE) 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic along with the ongoing war in Ukraine, over 160 million people have been dragged down into poverty (SOURCE). In addition, over 34 million people find themselves undernourished, including 1 in 8 children (SOURCE).  

Globally, 663 million people are undernourished (8.9% of the world’s population) (SOURCE). Inequality is greatly inflated, as billionaires’ wealth ballooned by $3.9 trillion from March 18 to December 31, 2020, whereas the number of people living on less than $5.50 per day may have increased by 500 million (SOURCE). 

Poverty & Starvation 

There is a recorded estimate of 3 billion people(almost ½ of the world’s population) living in poverty, earning less than $2.50 a day.[1] 

One billion of those are children,[2] 22,000of whom die each day.[3] 

In the United States alone, there were 38.1 million individuals in poverty[4](0.5% of the world’s population), which equaled the population of Iraq, the State of California, or even the city of Tokyo, Japan.  In 2017, 40 million people struggled with hunger in the United States. 

The USDA defines "food insecurity" as the lack of access, at times, to enough food for all household members.  

In 2017, an estimated 15 million households were food insecure.[5]
[1] https://www.compassion.com/poverty/poverty-around-the-world.htm[2] https://www.unicef.org/social-policy/child-poverty[3] https://www.fh.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Poverty_Fact_Sheet.pdf[4] https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts#:~:text=Recent%20estimates%20for%20global%20poverty,according%20to%20the%20World%20Bank.[5] https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-hunger-us

ORGAN HARVESTING 

If you could harvest every organ and chemical in your body, you could make a $45 million. But in reality, as Medical Transcription estimates, the average price of a human dead body is more likely to fetch around $550,000 (with a few key body parts driving up the price)

.https://medicalfuturist.com/how-much-is-life-worth#:~:text=If%20you%20could%20harvest%20every,parts%20driving%20up%20the%20price).

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) provides technical and legislative assistance to bolster criminal justice responses to human trafficking for organ harvesting. To support criminal justice practitioners, UNODC has published the Toolkit on the Investigation and Prosecution of Trafficking in Persons for Organ Removal.

UNODC is developing research and capacity-building programs, along with guidance, to enhance national capabilities in addressing human trafficking for organ removal and organ trafficking and is ready to provide capacity-strengthening to interested States.

  PEACE

According to historical data, there has not been a time when the entire world was completely at human peace, as conflicts have been nearly continuous throughout recorded history.

The world has only experienced 8% of peace since it's existence. about 268 years out of the last 3,,400 years of recorded history

ACTIVE STATE=BASED CONFLICTS

Since 2014  Global peacefulness has deteriorated every year, with 100 countries deteriorating over the last decade.

There are currently 59 active state-based conflicts – the most since the end of WWII, with 152,000 conflict-related deaths recorded in 2024. 

There has not been a time when the entire world was completely at peace, while some periods, like the 19th-century peace between 1829 and 1846 or the post-World War II "Long Peace" (characterized by no major wars between great powers), were relatively peaceful, no era has been free from all conflict. 

 
SAFEST COUNTRY

Iceland is the safest country in the world, a position it has held for over a decade according to the Global Peace Index. This ranking is due to its extremely low crime rate, lack of ongoing conflict, and strong social cohesion. Other countries frequently ranked as very safe include Ireland, Austria, and New Zealand.   

The United Nations (UN) does not officially publish a singular, definitive ranking of the "most unsafe country" in the world. Instead, it issues various reports highlighting severe humanitarian crises, conflict zones, and human rights situations in specific countries, which align with external indices that rank global peacefulness. 

According to independent analyses that use UN data and other sources, such as the 2025 Global Peace Index (GPI) from the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the countries considered least peaceful are primarily those experiencing ongoing conflict and political instability.  

MOST UNSAFE COUNTRIES
 

• Yemen
• Sudan
• South Sudan
• Afghanistan
• Syria
• Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
• Russia
• Ukraine 

PEACE WRITTEN IN BLOOD

More than 37 million people globally have died while fighting in wars since 1800. This does not consider civilians killed due to the fighting, deaths from hunger and disease that result, and deaths from smaller conflicts which are not construed as war. 

War makes people’s lives insecure, lower their standards of living, destroys the environment, and can even be an existential threat to mankind if fought via nuclear weapons, as happened in World War II when the United States dropped two on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Most wars have killed thousands of people, though bigger wars count into the hundreds of thousands, or in some cases millions. The Chinese Civil War and the Vietnam War both killed between one and two million soldiers, World War I saw over seven million deaths, and World War II more than twenty-one million. The latter two wars constitute three-quarters of all deaths in wars since 1800, and the top ten largest wars account for 90%. 

Global Child Abuse

Dignity-Violence, Child Abuse & Exploitation · 

Globally in 2014, 1 billion children aged 2–17 years experienced all types of abuses (physical, sexual, emotional, or multiple types of violence). 

A quarter of all adults report having been physically abused as children. 

One in five women and one in 13 men report having been sexually abused as a child. 

In 2000, it was estimated that 1.8 million children were being sexually exploited in prostitution and pornography.  

Around 1 million children are thought to enter prostitution every year.[4]· 

Each year, over 1.6 million people worldwide lose their lives to violence. [5]

Violence is among the leading causes of death for people aged 15–44 years worldwide, accounting for 14% of deaths among males and 7% of deaths among females. 

Globally, an estimated 815 000 people killed themselves in 2000.[6] 

Between 500 million and 1.5 billion children are estimated to experience violence annually.[7] 

In each year as many as 275 million children worldwide are estimated to witness domestic violence.[8] 

Moreover, violence places a massive burden on national economies, costing countries billions of US dollars each year in health care, law enforcement and lost productivity. 

[1] https://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/national-statistics-on-child-abuse/#:~:text=Nearly%20700%2C000%20children%20are%20abused,which%20there%20is%20national%20data[2] 

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children and Families Administration on Children, Youth and Families Children’s Bureau. Child maltreatment 2018. January 2020.[3]

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/research-data-technology/statistics-research/child-maltreatment; https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-child-abuse/[4] https://www.unicef.org/media/media_45451.html#:~:text=There%20is%20a%20lack%20of,estimated%20to%20witness%20domestic%20violence.[5] 

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/67403/a77019.pdf;jsessionid=5ECEF312B5CE0ED1AD1EE37D3973A627?sequence=1[6] https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#:~:text=Globally%20800%2C000%20people%20die%20from,in%202017%20were%20from%20suicide.[7] https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/vacs/onebillion-

children.html#:~:text=Over%20half%20of%20all%20children,years%20%E2%80%93%20experience%20violence%20every%20year.[8] https://www.unicef.org/media/files/BehindClosedDoors.pdf_________ 

Globally in 2014, 1 billion children aged 2–17 years experienced all types of abuses (physical, sexual, emotional, or multiple types of violence). 

A quarter of all adult’s report having been physically abused as children. 

One in five women and one in 13 men report having been sexually abused as a child. 

In America, nearly 700,000 children are abused each year[1] and in 2018, an estimated 678,000 children, or almost 9.2 in every 1,000 children in the United States, were abused in 2018, according to the Children’s Bureau.[2] 1,770 children died from abuse and neglect. 

Four children die due to abuse each day in the US- of these, 70% are under 3 years old.[3] · 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 are estimated to have experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence and exploitation involving physical contact. 

In 2000, it was estimated that 1.8 million children were being sexually exploited in prostitution and pornography. 

Around 1 million children are thought to enter prostitution every year.[4]· 

Each year, over 1.6 million people worldwide lose their lives to violence. [5]

Violence is among the leading causes of death for people aged 15–44 years worldwide, accounting for 14% of deaths among males and 7% of deaths among females. 

Globally, an estimated 815 000 people killed themselves in 2000.[6] 

Between 500 million and 1.5 billion children are estimated to experience violence annually.[7]  

In each year as many as 275 million children worldwide are estimated to witness domestic violence.[8] 

Moreover, violence places a massive burden on national economies, costing countries billions of US dollars each year in health care, law enforcement and lost productivity. [1] 

https://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/national-statistics-on-child-abuse/#:~:text=Nearly%20700%2C000%20children%20are%20abused,which%20there%20is%20national%20data[2] 

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children and Families Administration on Children, Youth and Families Children’s Bureau. Child maltreatment 2018. January 2020.[3] 

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/research-data-technology/statistics-research/child-maltreatment; https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-child-abuse/[4] https://www.unicef.org/media/media_45451.html#:~:text=There%20is%20a%20lack%20of,estimated%20to%20witness%20domestic%20violence.[5] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/67403/a77019.pdf;jsessionid=5ECEF312B5CE0ED1AD1EE37D3973A627?sequence=1[6] https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#:~:text=Globally%20800%2C000%20people%20die%20from,in%202017%20were%20from%20suicide.[7] https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/vacs/onebillion-children.html#:~:text=Over%20half%20of%20all%20children,years%20%E2%80%93%20experience%20violence%20every%20year.[8] https://www.unicef.org/media/files/BehindClosedDoors.pdf

THALIDOMIDE CHILDREN  

First developed in 1952 by a Swiss pharmaceutical company known as Chemical Industry Basel (CIBA), thalidomide was originally intended to be a tranquilizer. However, it was abandoned a year later, as its intended use on animals was found to have no effect on them. Thalidomide was then acquired by a German company Chemie Grünenthal, who began working on discovering and improving the compound into a suitable drug. After testing toxicity in several animals, it was introduced in 1956 as a sedative. It was never tested on pregnant women. (“Thalidomide”) 

Researchers found that thalidomide was able to inhibit morning sickness, launching it on October 1, 1957, under the name Contergan. It was believed to be a “wonder drug” for insomnia, coughs, colds, and headaches.  

The issue was, during this period, medication use during pregnancy wasn’t controlled strictly. These drugs were also not tested thoroughly to see how they may adversely affect fetuses. While thalidomide was being developed, scientists were not of the idea that drugs taken by pregnant women could pass across the placental barrier and harm the developing baby. 

Pregnant women, by the thousands, took thalidomide to relieve symptoms they were experiencing. Soon, reports of abnormalities in babies born to women who took thalidomide during pregnancy began to surface. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 embryos were affected, of which about 40% died at or shortly after birth.  

Surviving infants were reported to have limb, eye, urinary tract, and heart defects, among others. The severity and location of deformities depended on how far into the pregnancy the mother was when she began treatment:  

Day(s) into Pregnancy        Effects on Fetus 

20                               Central brain damage 

21                                        Eye damage 

22                               Ear and facial damage 

24.                                       Arm damage 

Up to day 28                       Leg damage 

It is believed that after 42 days of pregnancy, thalidomide had no effect on fetuses. Numerous reports on the malformations of babies helped raise awareness of the side effects of the drug. These birth defects ranged from phocomelia, dysmelia (a congenital disorder of limbs resulting from disturbances in embryonic development), amelia (the lack of one or more limbs), bone hypoplasticity (where bones are underdeveloped due to an inadequate number of cells), and other congenital defects that affect the ear, heart, or internal organs. Shortening of the arms was the most common malformation in thalidomide children. (“Thalidomide Scandal”) 

“Thalidomide.” Wikipedia, 8 Sept. 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thalidomide&oldid=1244724296. 

“Thalidomide Scandal.” Wikipedia, 6 Sept. 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thalidomide_scandal&oldid=1244331025. 

In the last decades, disabled needs have grown as county and city official shun their duty of care under law to provide services and care to them. 

This same system which is purported to restore individuals to self-care and self-sufficiency, instead leaves its disabled clients impoverished, sick, and homeless to die on the streets, as United States taxpayers' dollars is sent to foreign countries in aid for war to kill people, including children. 

Services are catered more for immigrants coming to the country versus those who already lived here, including homeless, disability, and medical services, making wait times for appointments and proper housing inexcusably long.

According to the CDC, more than one in four adults (28.7%) in the US have some sort of disability. 

At least half of America's homeless population have some sort of intellectual or physical disability, and those with disabilities experience homelessness two and a half times greater than for those without disabilities. 

It is estimated that anywhere from six to seventeen percent of those without shelter have a developmental disability, potentially including cerebral palsy.

ENSLAVED TO DRUGS & ITS AFTERMATH 

Worldwide, it is reported that 35 million people suffer from drug use disorders, while only 1 in 7 people receive treatment.[1] 

MENTAL HEALTH

Globally, over 264 million people are affected by depression, about 45 million people affected with bipolar depression, 20 million people affected by schizophrenia, and approximately 50 million people have dementia.[6]

At C4TWC, we envision a world where every person has access to the resources, they need to live a healthy, happy, and fulfilling life, irrespective of their disabilities, past, religion, personal identity (including gender, orientation, etc.), or any other demographic that has been used to divide our species. 

Pollution and Its Effects 

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal. 

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia. 

The Earth’s surface has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19thcentury ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. 

Greenland lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 127 billion tons of ice per year during the same time period. 

The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. Spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and that the snow is melting earlier. Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century. 

The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and is accelerating slightly every year.[1] 

The extreme marine heatwave known as The Blob lasted more than 350 days and expanded across much of the North Pacific Ocean. It was the biggest, longest marine heatwave in decades.[2]

[1] https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/[2] https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/09/24/With-global-warming-marine-heatwaves-like-The-Blob-could-be-commonplace/8141600971855/ 

Throughout the world, prejudices against certain races and ethnicities have and are leading to oppression, genocide, and racism, to name a few. Those who hold prejudice against various races tend to believe that anyone of a certain race or ethnicity collectively shared the same inherited characteristics, which are deemed to be inferior to their own race.

Racism has been apparent throughout human history.

During the 1930s, German National Socialists held the belief that Jews, Blacks, Roma (Gypsies), and those with physical and mental disabilities as inferior. In 1935, the collective Nuremberg Race Laws (the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor) fleshed out the racial theories that formed the foundation of the National Socialist ideology and provided framework for the legal systemic persecution of Jews in Germany, and eventually any occupied territories. 

Together, these laws eventually were extended to Black people, Roma, and Sinti living in Germany, and influenced allied countries or those dependent on Germany to adopt their own versions. Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Vichy France, and Croatia were some of the nations which created similar antisemitic laws. 

Because of these laws, individuals were deprived of their rights, herded to ghettos and concentration camps across the occupied lands, and starved, experimented on, or exterminated in what was considered “ethnic housekeeping.” The genocide included Soviet prisoners of war, Poles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, men accused of homosexuality, and others, claiming millions of lives. 

In 1950, the Population Registration Act of South Africa required all inhabitants to be classed and registered per their racial characteristics, a part of the apartheid system that was in place until 1991. Within this, people were placed within classifications of Black, White, Colo(u)red (mixed), and eventually Indians (South Asians from former British India and their descendants). 

Characteristics of the individual’s appearance, residence, and other aspects were all considered when separating colored people from whites. Various acts denied Whites the ability to marry or have sexual intercourse with anyone of another race. 

Refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and internally displaced individuals also find themselves victims of discrimination, racist attacks, xenophobia, and ethnic and religious intolerance.

Decisions on how to treat an individual when those of different races are treated differently can raise a question of the racial classification the individual would belong to. Definitions of skin color, common language, and other classification possibilities can lead to discrimination of individuals or groups. Racism can lead to forced displacement of racial, religious, and ethnic groups. Discrimination can lead to inequalities in aspects such as land ownership, political representation, education, employment, and even citizenship in the case of Liberia for non-black individuals.

Racism can occur at the workplace, as 88% of Black people in Britain report, along with 79% believing police unfairly targeted black people with stops and searches, and 80% somewhat or “definitely agree” that the biggest barrier to attaining education for young Black students was racial discrimination. Housing and medical care also can be impacted by racial discrimination.

Ethnic Cleansing

“… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas,” [noting that in the former Yugoslavia] “’ethnic cleansing’ has been carried out by means of murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extra-judicial executions, rape, and sexual assaults, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property. Those practices constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention.”

-Security Council Resolution 780

The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group.”

Deportation, forced fleeing, property destruction, and actions such as murder, rape, and more can lead to depopulation of a particular group, aligning with genocide, though scholars don’t agree about what events would fall under the dark banner of ethnic cleansing. 

Examples throughout history include Alexander the Great’s takeover of Thebes in 335 BCE, the expulsion by the Spaniards of the Moriscos between 1609 and 1614, the pushing out of Indigenous Americans  by American Settlers, and the Holocaust which occurred in World War II. 

A specific crime of ethnic cleansing is not identified in any international treaties, though in a broad sense, it is defined as a crime against humanity within the statutes of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Gross human rights violations which are integral to stricter meanings of ethnic cleansing are treated as separate crimes which fall under public global law of crimes against humanity and even genocide. Some argue that murderous ethnic cleansing can be quite related to democratic creation and the rise of nationalism. 

One of the first cases of ethnic cleansing was the resettlement of the Neo-Assyrian Empire between the 9th and 7th centuries BC. Ethnic cleansing, mass killings, and deportations in the then-Italian territories during and after World War II, known as the foibe massacres, were committed by Yugoslav Partisans and OZNA. 

Local Italians and Slavs (mainly fascist and collaborationist forces members and civilians opposed to the new Yugoslav officials; also against Italian, German, Croat, and Slovene anti-communists). These victims were pushed toward Italy, Australia, South Africa, and the Americas. In the 1980s, ethnic cleansing was common during all parts of the Lebanese conflict versus Lebanese Shia citizens and Palestinian refugees. 

The wars of Croatia, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina found ethnic cleansing to be a common phenomenon; intimidation, forced deportation, and murder of whichever ethnic group was not wanted along with destruction of religious centers, cemeteries, and historical and cultural buildings of these groups were among the actions of the group becoming the majority. 

Genocide

“Ethnic cleansing is also a warning sign of genocide to come. Genocide is the last resort of the frustrated ethnic cleanser.”

-William Schabas

The most extreme form of ethnic cleansing is genocide, where the focus switches from simply forcing a population which is being persecuted from a certain territory to the intent to destroy this group of individuals. There are many genocide scholars who criticize the distinguishment between ethnic cleansing and genocide, citing forced deportation inevitably results in the ruination of a group and that this fact would be known ahead of time by the perpetrators. 

Officially, genocide is considered violence targeting people due to membership of a certain group, aiming to destroy a part of a population. Even during prehistoric times, genocide has occurred throughout human history. Most have occurred during times of war, particularly in situations of imperial expansion and consolidation of power. 

When one thinks of genocide, most would think immediately of the Holocaust, and is broadly considered to be the peak of just how evil humanity can be, referred to as the “crime of crimes.” The term came to be in the early 1940s, just as the atrocities of the Holocaust were being discovered. 

The genocide of European Jews and other “undesirables” during the second World War, the Holocaust, led to approximately six million Jewish deaths (2/3 of Europe’s Jewish population), and most likely a total of almost 21 million men, women, and children. Those who were disabled, elderly, ill, critics, from countries whose populations were considered “inferior”, and many other designations were slaughtered by mass gassings, shootings, or simply worked to death, starved, or succumbed to disease because of the inhumane and cruel conditions they were imprisoned in. One million souls lost were children under 18, too young to understand what was going on, let alone why. (NAZI GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER)  

Several years later, the criminalization of genocide was brought to the fledgling United Nations, a proposal that was met with opposition as States worried their own policies- leading to countries of power securing changes that would yield the convention unable to be enforced and that it would apply to their geopolitical adversaries’ actions but not theirs.

Two years later, the UN General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention, and three years after that, it went into effect. 

“… any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, facial, or religious group, as such: 

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Genocide Convention definition of genocide

The succinct “intent to destroy” is the mens rea prerequisite of genocide, though how to prove this required intent and what it means to destroy a particular portion of the population “as such” has been hard for courts to figure out. It has also been difficult to the legal system to decide what portion of a group can be targeted before the Genocide Convention would take effect. Unfortunately, the convention is unable to retroactively prosecute any genocidal events that occurred before 1951. 

Criminal tribunals were established by the UN to prosecute people for genocide and other crimes globally after the failure to prevent the genocides of Bosnia and Rwanda. The international Criminal Court was established in 2002, with some of the more powerful nations such as the US, Russia, China, and India not joining. 

Men, especially younger adults, are more prone to be killed in attempt to curb any resistance, while various forms of sexual violence can affect both males or females, though women are more likely to be targeted; often this is done to disrupt the reproduction of the group being oppressed.

-----

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Nazi Racism: An Overview.” Ushmm.org, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2019, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-racism-an-overview. Accessed 19 Nov. 2025.

---. “Nuremberg Race Laws.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia, 11 Sept. 2019, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nuremberg-laws. Accessed 19 Nov. 2025.

Wikipedia. “Population Registration Act, 1950.” Wikipedia, 13 Aug. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_Registration_Act. Accessed 19 Nov. 2025.

Wikipedia Contributors. “Ethnic Cleansing.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Nov. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing. Accessed 21 Nov. 2025.

---. “Genocide.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide. Accessed 21 Nov. 2025.

---. “Racial Discrimination.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Mar. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_discrimination. Accessed 20 Nov. 2025.

SOCIAL MURDER

Social murder is a phrase that describes unnatural deaths that result from political, social, or economic oppression. It is also defined as the knowing causing of the inevitable premature death of members of an oppressed class by deliberately and structurally exposing them to potentially lethal conditions.  

The term was first used in 1845 by philosopher Friedrich Engels in his book The Condition of the Working-Class in England. Engels used the phrase to describe how the ruling class, or bourgeoisie, were responsible for the premature deaths of English workers due to their living and working conditions. Engels argued the bourgeoisie were aware of these conditions and were therefore committing social murder.  

European Colonization of the Americas Killed 10 Percent of World Population and Caused Global Cooling - The World from PRX. https://theworld.org/stories/2019/01/31/european-colonization-americas-killed-10-percent-world-population-and-caused. Accessed 12 Oct. 2024. 

NAZI GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER. https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.CHAP1.HTM. Accessed 12 Oct. 2024. 

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As of 2018, there were 10.74 million people incarcerated, about 1.36% of the world's population. 

“International human rights law recognises the right of incarcerated individuals to access decent work,” the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Tomoya Obokata, said during the recent presentation of his latest report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Obokata’s report spotlighted the often overlooked and widespread exploitation of incarcerated people globally, with many subjected to substandard working conditions and forced labour.

World prison exploitation includes low-wage labor, sexual exploitation, and inhumane conditions, often driven by private companies profiting from incarceration and inadequate government oversight. These systems exploit inmates through practices like forced labor, excessive fees for necessities, and a lack of vocational training that hinders rehabilitation and perpetuates a cycle of poverty and recidivism.  

“We the People,” as one united human race, ever evolving in our growth and love for one another, should open our hearts and leave not one life, not one beautiful soul from our Source of Creation, without shelter and love. For the cost of incarceration, “We the People” could and still can provide millions with homes and food.