How Abandonment Weakens Human Rights

The experience of abandonment has been examined from different lenses. Many works contribute to understanding its impact and deep connections with the human psyche, power, politics, morality, and law.

In Landscapes of Abandonment (2003), for example, Salerno delves into the diverse disciplinary frameworks on abandonment (including themes of separation, anxiety, loss, aloneness, etc.). In terms of impact, Selerno discusses the anxieties associated with abandonment and how they place limits on the path of self-actualization and social progress. The book calls for a closer look at abandonment including its description, meaning, and diverse manifestations in conscience, community, nature, and globalization (Salerno 2003: 5).

Aspects of Abandonment

In the field of human rights, the concept of abandonment is central to understanding some of the many challenges stakeholders face. Abandonment is defined as serious harm that cuts across parameters like age, income, place of residence, political status, gender, etc. At least four aspects of abandonment have been subject to most discussion. These include:

• the parties to the experience of abandonment
• the experience/incident of abandonment
• the impact or consequences of abandonment
• the diverse responses to such experiences

Each of the above dimensions is integral. To illustrate, in the case of refugees, for example, they are subjected to abandonment by countries and the international community (Mogstad, 2021). In cases concerning the elderly, abandonment involves “the desertion or willful forsaking of an elderly person or the permanent withdrawal of duties and obligations owed to an elderly person by a caregiver or other responsible person.” (Rzeszut 2017).

In terms of experience and impact, the displacement of communities is a form of abandonment. It involves the “separation from a place and, more specifically, the estrangement from home” which can be a “powerful source of human anxiety and can take many dramatic forms.” (Salerno 2003: 157). This and other types of abandonment are understood to lead to violent consequences (Davies et al., 2017) and thus call for intervention on the part of the state, society, communities, and individuals for the sake of survival, protection, and care of the ones being abandoned.

The Costs of Abandonment

Human rights studies highlight the adverse consequences of cases of abandonment. On the one hand, one can see the creation of human rights laws/standards to address abandonment concerns. On the other hand, human rights standards have been made less functional owing to abandonment-related fears.

Case-specific studies highlight the challenges posed by the fear of abandonment leading to non-reporting or withdrawal of complaints of physical and psychological violence. The following two studies can shed some light on this.

In an inquiry into the situation of domestic violence in South Africa, the inquiry group under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW 2019) found:

“Most victims do not report domestic violence or withdraw complaints because of shame, family or community pressure, etc. And many victims interviewed... experienced violence or abandonment by their mothers. They were also subjected to psychological violence with their partners isolating them from their families and friends, abandoning them and their children, etc.” (CEDAW 2019).

In another study on intimate partner violence (IPV), it was found,

"The degree to which individuals feel uncomfortable with closeness and the degree to which individuals worry about being abandoned have important implications for how they interact with their intimate partners and can contribute to understanding IPV. Women IPV victims with insecure attachment tend to be more tolerant of violence, so they are also more vulnerable to remaining in the abusive relationship because they tend to excuse the offender (Almeida et al 2023)."

This "fear of being abandoned" challenges the working of human rights laws and institutions. Vulnerable groups, as highlighted in several studies, continue to accept situations of violence owing to the fear of being abandoned. The fear directly obstructs the full and meaningful impact that laws dealing with elder abuse, domestic violence, forced marriage, etc. can have. The fear of being abandoned, in many ways, stands as one of the greatest costs borne by human rights.

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As claimed, abandonment will also continue to challenge the human rights-based systems in the times to come (Rygaard 2021; Bhagat 2023). This theme makes a compelling case to consider the extent to which human rights laws are shaped by experiences of abandonment and the extent to which the fear of being abandoned prevents individuals from exploring human rights protections.

To what extent can studies in psychology determine the appropriateness of legal responses to abandonment? The answer certainly requires more theoretical and empirical investigations and both the fields of psychology and human rights can contribute in this direction.