Much of evidence about shocking lack of human rights in Highlands was difficult to hear

I took a moment to reflect on these surprising questions. They pinpointed something often overlooked: human rights are about our everyday lives. They are in our homes, workplaces, hospitals and communities, in how we put food on the table, or how family members experience social care. Everyone should feel these rights are their reality.

Our beautiful Highlands and Islands might be remote, but human rights must be central to everyone's lives, wherever we live. Our report took evidence from people across the region, including community representatives, MSPs, crofters, teachers, health workers and carers. Much of it was difficult to hear.

Security, peace and dignity

It is unthinkable that, in 2024, human rights defenders were telling us people are forced to prioritise fuel over food. They can afford to drive to work, heat their homes, or provide a meal for the family. But they can't do all three.

As for the state of healthcare – imagine being pregnant and facing long bus journeys or drives on difficult roads to reach hospital when perhaps worried about your baby or alone. The right to accessible healthcare is protected in international law, but startlingly, it is not realised across Scotland in 2024.

On housing, the realities are equally challenging. The right to housing means the right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity. Our findings reveal this isn’t always the case.

For some in the Highlands and Islands, no home or temporary accommodation means living 'roofless' and relying on other’s goodwill. For local communities and economies, the lack of adequate and available housing means job opportunities are lost, because of combinations of no housing, no nearby education or healthcare services to support thriving communities.

No one left behind

When we started our work in the Highlands and Islands, we anticipated the Scottish Government would be introducing a Human Rights Incorporation Bill, which among other things would have brought the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights into Scots law.

Now this Bill had been delayed, it is perhaps more important than ever to shine a spotlight on what human rights mean in the lives of Scots, and keep a focus on them.

Going back to the question that human rights are as remote as the Highlands, perhaps Eleanor Roosevelt answered that best many years ago. Marking the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she said: “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person…"

We are grateful to everyone in the Highlands and Islands who spoke to us about their world and their everyday human rights. We are returning to the area in 2025 and we'll be expanding our monitoring model to other regions in the years ahead, to make sure no one in Scotland is left behind.

Professor Angela O’Hagan is Scottish Human Rights Commission’s chair

Read the full report, 'Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Highlands and Islands'