Human Rights | WPN World People News

Scores of children seized by armed men from a village in northern South Sudan two weeks ago remain forcibly recruited as child soldiers, despite intensive efforts to locate and free them.

Religious minorities are increasingly at risk in the Middle East.

Afghanistan’s new government should commit to including women on the negotiating team for any future peace talks with the Taliban, Human Rights Watch said on March 1.

At a health facility in Ségou, central Mali, a mother and her child are examined for signs of malnutrition.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with President Michelle Bachelet of Chile and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (right).

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) should exercise its constitutional powers and reject policies and legislative measures that contravene domestic and international human rights protections, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Congress Chairman Zhang Dejiang.

All Olympic host countries should ensure protection of human rights, including labor and free media protections, and implement anti-corruption measures in the lead-up to and during Olympic Games, the new Sport and Rights Alliance (SRA) said ahead of a key meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) this week on February 25.

The Syrian government has carried out hundreds of new indiscriminate attacks over the past year with air-delivered munitions, including improvised weapons such as barrel bombs. The attacks have had a devastating impact on civilians, killing or injuring thousands of people.

At least seven civilians, including three children, died in the joint Egyptian/Libyan airstrikes on the eastern city of Derna on February 16, 2015. Libya and Egypt should conduct speedy and transparent investigations into the deaths.

Algerian courts have sentenced nine labor rights activists to prison since late January 2015 for engaging in peaceful protests to support unemployed workers. One was sentenced to 18 months in prison for “unauthorized gathering.” The others received one-year sentences, six months of which were suspended for the same charge.