Human Rights | WPN World People News

Refugees who have been finding shelter in Chad for the past ten years or more continue to require food assistance and their food security situation remains precarious, a joint assessment by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme (WFP) has found.

As violence continues to escalate across Syria, the number of children living under siege has doubled in less than one year. Nearly 500,000 children now live in 16 besieged areas across the country, almost completely cut off from sustained humanitarian aid and basic services.

To mark International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women International Development UK Secretary Priti Patel has set out a new package of UK support to protect women and girls in some of the world’s poorest countries from harmful practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), child marriage, and domestic abuse.

Israeli authorities should revoke plans to forcibly displace Bedouin Arab residents from the village of Umm al-Hiran in Israel’s southern Negev desert to build a new Jewish community there, Human Rights Watch said on November 24.

Transparent. Photo: Belinda Mason, Silent Tears "Violence against women and girls is a human rights violation, public health pandemic and serious obstacle to sustainable development." Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General

Authorities in Marrakesh, Morocco should drop charges against two teenage girls suspected of same-sex conduct, Human Rights Watch and the Aswat Group for Sexual Minorities, a Moroccan group, said on Nov 25. The two girls, ages 16 and 17, face up to three years in prison for allegedly kissing each other.

Israeli authorities should revoke plans to forcibly displace Bedouin Arab residents from the village of Umm al-Hiran in Israel’s southern Negev desert to build a new Jewish community there, Human Rights Watch said on Nov 24.

Kazakhstan’s new trade union law, adopted after unresolved labor strikes in 2011, has made it more difficult to organize independent unions in the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Nov 23. Changes to the labor and criminal codes have contributed to an environment hostile to worker activism.

European Union governments’ policy responses to migration undermine refugee protection and human rights and diminish the EU’s moral standing, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Nov 23.

Government and rebel forces in and around South Sudan’s southern town of Yei have committed serious abuses against civilians in recent months, Human Rights Watch said on Nov 22. The abuses include killings, rapes, and arbitrary arrests by government forces and abductions by rebels. The abuses Human Rights Watch documented in Yei are just the latest example of attacks on civilians by both sides in the current conflict.