In Children of Men , the idea of human rights are often called into question, perhaps most noticeably with the illegal immigrants. Not only were citizens encouraged to live in a state of suspicion and mistrust of possible immigrants around them, illegal immigrants that were caught were also caged, sometimes tortured, and then deported. I believe that the film makes a powerful statement by comparing illegal immigrant prisons to what seem like prisoner of war camps, and in this way calls into question our own modern day real approaches towards illegal immigrants. I believe that the film cautions against a future in which we may forget the basic humanity and human rights of illegal immigrants in our real-life quest to protect our borders. I also believe that this is another example of dark realism within the movie.
I definitely agree with Chris when he says that the idea of human rights are called into question. I wanted to expand when he says that citizens lived in suspicion of illegal immigrants. I believe that people did not live in suspicion of illegal immigrants but also others around them. During the film I felt as if I could trust no one, especially when Julie is killed by someone she trusts.
I felt that the treatment of illegal immigrants was morbidly excessive and in no way compares to the treatment of immigrants today. Simply asking immigrants to leave is the exact opposite of putting them in cages and then transporting them to prison camps within your borders. The realism behind it, I believe, was the loss of morality. Humans simply did not care for anyone but themselves anymore and that is proven by having almost no positive interaction in the movie between humans besides with Jasper, Kee, and the pseudo-interaction between Julian and Theo.
Human rights have been compromised in the past, in the present and will most likely be taken away in events in the future. In some examples there were horrible and unthinkable ways that one human being took away the rights of another. The movie depicts humans getting their basic rights taken away from them by being caged, beaten, starved, and deported. It gives the audience strong feelings about how harsh humans can be to each other and ultimately shows the hate and fear that humans can bring upon each other.
I read an article on CNN about the recent camps in North Korea where they are sending citizens who do not cooperate with the law and for political reasons. (http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/16/world/asia/north-korea-un-report/). The article explains through detailed descriptions how prisoner’s rights are being taken away and inhumane things happening to them. For example, the article states that a security agent heard the cries of a baby and beat the mother of the child and made her drown her own baby. This is taking her human right of property and dehumanizing her. It is paralleled to the movie because in both the North Korean camps and the film there is a society with fear and higher authority than can do whatever they want to an individual. There is a disregard for rights of an individual and a violation of human rights.
Also in both cases, there is a fight for survival. People tried to get away from the regime and leave the country in Korea so they would have rights. In Children of Men, Clive and the pregnant women flee the UK they are trying to get away from the chaos of the prisons and authority.