4 Ways the Blockchain Technology Will Aid in Ending Human Right's Violations While blockchain technology is revolutionizing the way we think about and protect our financial information and personal data as a whole, it is also becoming evident that the technology’s potential applications outside of just that realm are vast and growing by the day. The use of blockchain technology is already beginning to change how industries like real estate, insurance, and healthcare do business. Blockchain technology is and will continue to reach far and wide through various sectors of the business world to help us protect and secure, but it has the potential and shows great promise in aiding the planet by reducing some of the world’s most significant issues, crippling human right's violations across the globe. Here is a quick overview of just a few of the ways that blockchain technology is coming to the aid of humanitarian efforts across the world today.
Track Aid Given to Refugees The global refugee crisis stands to be one of the greatest quandaries of our era and one of the most difficult for our world leaders to begin to solve. Though many issues need attention and care to eradicate the crisis as a whole, one solution crafted with the help of blockchain technology that allowed the United Nations to bring aid to many of those in need. The United Nation's World Food Program (WFP) recently tested a pilot program of giving Syrian refugees cryptocurrency-based vouchers to use in markets. The resulting test showed that most refugees were using the funds to purchase food items like olive oil and pasta. Many detractors claimed that these refugees were wasting the funds, but data from the original trial showed enormous success in giving the refugees the ability to purchase what they were in need of as the program had initially set out to do. With the success of the initial trial of 10,000 refugees, the WFP is looking to expand the program to more than 100,000 refugees living in Jordan. If that trial sees similar results to the pilot program in Syria, the UN’s World Food Program will have succeeded in aiding every single refugee currently living in Jordan. By cutting costs and controlling the financial risk of the global efforts, blockchain technology shows potential for organizations like the World Food Program to make significant strides forward in so many different humanitarian efforts around the world.
Stop Slave Labor Practices Some industries are notorious for using slave labor to stay competitive, but with the advent of blockchain technology, we could see reform to labor practices to prevent slave labor from being a factor in production at all. The seafood industry in southeast Asia is a prime example of this practice, where some fishermen are held hostage at sea and forced to work long hours for little to no pay. Those who show the slightest bit of discord about their treatment are murdered and thrown overboard, so the practice has stayed hidden from the general public. Massive supermarket chains like Walmart, Safeway, and Costco fuel this practice by demanding cheaper access to seafood products and as an everyday consumer purchasing these products, we are unwittingly fueling these practices overseas.
The blockchain could revolutionize the industry by tracing the origins of the food that we buy in grocery stores and revealing precisely where it came from along the supply chain before it wound up in the supermarket freezer. By exposing this type of data to the public, dubious suppliers would be made transparent, and slave labor could be reduced simply by the way you choose to spend your hard-earned dollars. These efforts are extending beyond the seafood and fishing industries as other large companies with long and complicated supply chains are taking note of how useful blockchain can be.
Stop Conflict Diamond Sales Though many efforts have been taken by diamond-producing states in Africa to make sure that diamond purchases were not financing violent rebel movements seeking to undermine legitimate governments, there is still a market for conflict diamonds (blood diamonds) that finance warlord's efforts to create instability in Africa. Industry titans banded together in Kimberley, South Africa to create the Kimberley Process, which utilizes blockchain supply management to make sure that diamonds sold around the world aren't financing insurgents in the countries where produced. 99.8% of the world's diamond trade adheres to this process.
How You Will Help Blockchain’s efforts to stop human rights violations hinge on the concept of transparency along every point in the chain and verifying every single action that takes place to directly prevent grey market practices from becoming so pervasive that industries exist and flourish as a result of the continual practice of specific human right's violations. As blockchain technology readily allows retailers and consumers to interact with businesses in full transparency, consumers will have a hand in stopping and eradicating these human right’s violations across the globe as it will force these applications to become widely adopted and finally address industry abuses altogether.
--ADAM JIWAN,Spring Labs