The Illegal Practice That Generates $44 Billion a Year For Perpetrators

December 2, 2013 at 8:45 PM

There are more than 300,000 migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, with about half from Indonesia (Photo Credit: Amnesty International).

I had no time to myself – I worked long hours from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. with no rest day. My employers didn’t allow me to leave the house without someone accompanying me. When it was bed time, I had to wait for everyone to sleep because I slept in the family bathroom.

This 30-year-old woman from Tulungagung told Amnesty International her story in 2012.

In an extensive new report, filled with heartbreaking testimony about exploitative recruitment, physical and sexual violence, lack of food, excessive hours and restrictions on religious practices, Amnesty International examines the experiences of Indonesian domestic migrant workers trafficked to Hong Kong.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

The Company That Forced Its Employees to Work For 9 Months Without Pay

By Guest Writer

November 18, 2013 at 12:00 PM

Migrant construction workers in Doha © Amnesty International.

By Conor Fortune, News Writer

“Everything Was Hopeless.”

This is how Rahul summed up his first stint as a migrant worker in Qatar when he recently spoke to Amnesty International.

Stuck thousands of miles from his native India in a land where he couldn’t speak the language, he faced the worst predicament of his working life.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

The Dirty Secret Behind Cairo’s Development Dreams

By The Editors

November 14, 2013 at 1:29 PM

12 million Egyptians live in informal settlements. Thousands inhabit the tombs of bygone nobels in Cairo’s City of the Dead pictured here (Photo Credit: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images).

Egyptian lawyer Abdel Nasser Ahmed Mohamed Alsayed still struggles to live with the memories of the day he was forced out of his house in Old Cairo.

It was March 2009. Riot police showed up, beat him and threw his belongings out the window. Lorries then took his furniture, books and everything he worked hard for to ‘October 6 City’ and dumped them on the street.

The Egyptian authorities gave Abdel Nasser a small flat, 45 kilometres outside Old Cairo, but he never got a contract, so he now faces being evicted again.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Will You Stand with Malala?

By Cristina Finch

October 8, 2013 at 10:55 AM

Malala Yousafzai, a 16-year-old Pakistani education and women’s rights advocate, was shot in the head and neck during an assassination attempt by a Taliban gunman on October 9, 2012. A year later, stand with Malala and take action to stop violence against women and girls (Photo by Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images).

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the Taliban’s attempted assassination of Malala Yousafzai. Malala, then a 15-year-old girl in Pakistan, bravely stood up against the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education and was shot by Taliban gunmen hoping to scare her and others like her into silence. The Taliban’s efforts failed and Malala survived. She has refused to be silent about girls’ human right to education – and instead, has become an internationally recognized spokeswoman for it.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Maternal Health: When Will America Wake Up?

By Guest Writer

September 17, 2013 at 1:50 PM

NCBH was regarded as a national model for its innovative and compassionate care practices (Photo By BSIP/UIG via Getty Images).

By Nan Strauss, Former Amnesty International USA Researcher

With just three days notice, the North Central Bronx Hospital (NCBH)’s Labor and Delivery service was shuttered after thirty-six years providing quality maternity care to 1500 women and babies a year. The award-winning midwife-led program at NCBH was regarded as a national model for its innovative and compassionate care practices, meeting the needs of at-risk women in an under-served community.

Eliminating NCBH’s successful program will reduce the quality of care and options available in this under-served community. The woman-centered, midwifery model of care practiced at NCHB is especially effective in addressing the health disparities faced by women of color and low-income women, but will no longer be an option in the area.

The closure will make it more difficult for low-income women to access care, increasing travel time and costs, and will end community-based care in the area. Surrounding hospitals that will be forced to absorb the additional 1500 births each year are already stretched thin.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Let’s Be Clear – Israel’s Long-Running Settlement Policy Constitutes a War Crime

By Edith Garwood

August 14, 2013 at 3:25 PM

An ‘Israeli only’ by-pass road that links Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, sitting below an Israeli settlement outside of Jerusalem (Photo Credit: Edith Garwood).

ALL Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are illegal.
Israel’s long-running policy of settling civilians in occupied territory amounts to a war crime.[1]

This needs to be clearly said now, without ambiguity. The United States government, as sponsor of the current ‘peace talks’ between Israel and Palestinians, must uphold rule of law and human rights. Despite the fact that the U.S. has historically taken the same position as the international community that Israeli settlements within the OPT are illegal, they have chosen to prevaricate in recent years, using words like ‘unhelpful’ or ‘illegitimate’ to describe settlement building by Israel.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

The Other Side of the Olympics: Rio de Janeiro’s Pacification Program

By Guest Writer

August 6, 2013 at 2:12 PM

Officers with a special operations force known as BOPE patrol the streets of the violence-plagued Mare complex. Brazilian authorities have stepped up a pacification drive, in part to prepare for Rio de Janeiro to host the World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics (Photo Credit: Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images).

By Salil Shetty, Secretary General at Amnesty International

When listening to the people of Maré discuss what is soon going to happen in their communities, their fear is palpable. Partly spurred by the upcoming role of Rio de Janerio as host to both the World Cup and the Olympics, the police are undertaking a program of “pacification.”

One of several community leaders I met with today said it best, “Impunity is the mother of all violence.” I was listening to people from Maré speak about their experiences living in Rio de Janerio’s largest favela. They spoke of intertwined communities that have been established in Rio as long as their more famed sisters – Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon.

But their stories were not of beautiful beaches, famed dance clubs or glamorous bars and restaurants. Their stories were of working class Brazilians trying to survive the twin threats of violence at the hands of criminals, and indifference or violence by the police.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Loud and Clear: Women’s Rights, In Action!

By Lisa Schechtman

June 23, 2013 at 12:36 PM

Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda (right) attends the 2008 Benefactrix Ball presented by YMCA at the Beverly Hills Hotel (Photo Credit: Leon Bennett/WireImage).

As we reflected on 50 Days of Action for Women and Girls and its themes, including early marriage, violence against women, and sexual and reproductive health, we got to wondering: What does all this integrated human rights talk look like in practice?

So we turned to a woman who walks the talk and leads change herself, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda. Take a look at her examples of women’s participation in claiming their own rights. Then take action on an issue important to you, and join us on Facebook and Twitter to stay connected. (Don’t forget to join the World YWCA’s efforts, too!)

In your experience, what does participation mean in the context of women’s rights in your country?

For women to participate, it [is] important that they know and are aware of their rights, have the social empowerment to engage and the space to exercise their voice. Women’s community groups, organizations and networks…have provided the platforms for such participation.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Participation Rights Are Women’s Rights!

By Lisa Schechtman

June 7, 2013 at 3:30 PM

Healthcare and nutrition are some of the many ways that women worldwide invest their time and income in their families, well surpassing the amount of contribution from men (Photo Credit: Amnesty International).

Worldwide, women invest 90% of their income in their families and communities; men, only 30%-40% of theirs. It’s a great stat for women’s rights advocates, because it helps us tell this story: when women participate, things change.

For example:

When designed with women’s input, safe drinking water and sanitation programs function better and last longer. This, in turn, can give women back their time for work, school, or literacy training, and let girls just be girls.

SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Human Rights Now Blog

Category Archives: Poverty and Human Rights

Loud and Clear: Women’s Rights, In Action!