Well, not just giraffes, ALL ANIMALS have been misunderstood, including humans. If we could just respect every sentient animal that would radiate into our society to increase moral and ethic health.
More advanced human rights just simply means more fair human rights, it has nothing to do with chronology or recency. There are plenty of examples of countries that had more advanced human rights in the past and regressed and made things worse over time.
Easy example: Russia had much better human rights for LGBT community not so long ago, however, it has regressed and gotten much worse over last 10-15 years.