Examples Of Discrimination In The Armenian Genocide

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Discrimination refers to unjustifiable behaviour towards a group of people, whether it be due to their age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or ethnical orientation. Correll et al (2010) defines discrimination as ‘behaviour directed towards category members that is consequential for their outcomes and that is directed towards them, not because of any particular deservingness or reciprocity but simply because they happen to be members of that category. ’ Everyone has a right to equality before the law and to be protected from discrimination. Despite this, people all around the world are discriminated against every day. Such discrimination has even resulted in policies of ethnical cleansing and genocide. Genocide is the organised killing of a people for the express purpose of putting an end to their collective existence. That is, to wipe a certain category of people out as if they never existed. An example of this is the Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century. It represents a major tragedy of the modern age, in which almost an entire nation was destroyed. In 1915, as World War I raged, the Turkish government administered a plan to ‘massacre and expel’ Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian people were subject to deportation, abduction, torture, massacre and starvation. 2 million Armenians were living in the Ottoman Empire and by the end of the early 1920s – when the massacres and deportations finally ended, 1.5 million