Human Rights | WPN World People News

Four years ago, a long-awaited law to protect women and girls from violence, the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW), was finally passed in Afghanistan. In a country where many women and girls are forced to enter and stay in abusive marriages, it seemed a ray of hope. However, in January, a provision in Afghanistan's draft criminal procedure code became the latest in a series of attempts to roll back the already fragile legal protections for women and girls.

A prominent international natural resource transparency group has damaged its credibility by approving membership for Ethiopia. On March 19, 2014, the governing board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which promotes openness over oil, gas, and mining revenues, admitted Ethiopia as a candidate country despite harsh government repression that has crushed Ethiopia’s once vibrant independent organizations and its independent media.

A young boy from a Quranic school begs for change from a driver stopped at a gas station, in the Medina Gounass suburb of Dakar, Senegal, Sept. 24, 2013.

The arbitrary arrest and detention of prominent human rights defenders is an attempt to silence criticism and divert the spotlight from ongoing abuses, leading global and Asian human rights monitors said in a joint statement.

The sun sets near the Egypt-Israel border on April 30, 2013, sealed off since early 2013 by a five meter high Israeli fence. Trafficking victims told Human Rights Watch that throughout 2012, Egyptian border guards or unknown men fired at them as they approached the border.

Syrian refugees arrive in Lebanon earlier this year after fleeing their homes in western Syria. The number of Syrian refugees has passed 2.563 million.

Taliban threats and violence against campaign workers and election officials risk undermining Afghanistan’s presidential election slated for April 5, 2014, Human Rights Watch said.

The government of Thailand should ensure that a group of 220 ethnic Uighurs are not forcibly returned to China and have urgent access to refugee status determination proceedings by the United Nations refugee agency, Human Rights Watch said. The group of Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim, Turkic minority that originates from western China, was discovered on March 13, 2014, in a jungle camp in Thailand’s Songkhla province.

A major global initiative to encourage governments to better manage natural resource revenues should reject Ethiopia’s bid for membership due to its harsh restrictions on civil society, Human Rights Watch said.

Millions of children across the globe have their rights violated, but only a few are able to seek recourse to improve their situation in a timely, fair and effective way, UNICEF said.