US Congress Should Protect Child Workers Harvesting Crops

As families across the United States prepare to gather for Thanksgiving this Thursday, too many children face danger cultivating and harvesting the foods that will end up on our tables. A new Los Angeles Times investigation has found children working back-breaking 10-hour shifts on farms across the US state of California. Many said they began working […]

Continue Reading

COP30 Measures of Climate Adaptation Progress Should Center Rights

As coastal communities around the world are already facing the sobering consequences of sea level rise, government negotiators at the just-completed United Nations climate summit, known as COP30, debated a critical question: how do we measure “successful” climate adaptation? There is no easy answer, as negotiations on how to measure progress toward a global goal […]

Continue Reading

India’s Sporting Ambition Needs Rights Safeguards

India will play host to the centenary Commonwealth Games in 2030 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat state, which is also the proposed host city for the country’s 2036 Olympic and Paralympic Games bid. India last hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2010 in New Delhi amid allegations of corruption, forced evictions, labor rights abuses, and trafficking of women […]

Continue Reading

Over 600 million children exposed to violence at home, UNICEF warns

Children’s exposure to intimate partner violence is highest in Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and Central and Southern Asia, reflecting deep regional inequalities and widespread patterns of abuse experienced by women worldwide. “Today, millions of women and children are living in homes where violence is a part of regular life,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “Women’s […]

Continue Reading

UAE: Political Prisoner Dead After Alleged Ill-Treatment, Torture

(Beirut) – A political prisoner died on November 19, 2025, in the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) notorious al-Razeen Prison after more than a decade of unjust imprisonment and torture allegations, Human Rights Watch and the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center (EDAC) said today. Ali Abdullah Fath Ali al-Khaja, 59, was found dead in his prison cell […]

Continue Reading

UN warns Myanmar’s planned elections will deepen repression and instability

Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN human rights office, OHCHR, told reporters in Geneva that voting is expected to begin on 28 December, in what he described as a military-controlled ballot conducted in an environment “rife with threats and violence” and actively suppressed political participation. Many major political parties have been excluded and more […]

Continue Reading

Central African Republic: Concerns Over Crucial Election

(Nairobi) – Concerns about irregularities, political interference, and security pressures risk putting the credibility and inclusiveness of key elections in the Central African Republic into question, Human Rights Watch said today. The vote, scheduled for December 28, 2025, will include presidential and parliamentary elections, but also municipal elections for the first time in decades. “The Central […]

Continue Reading

UN rights office condemns ‘apparent summary execution’ of two men in the West Bank

The shooting occurred on Thursday in Jenin and was apparently caught on film by a TV channel, OHCHR Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told journalists in Geneva. He said an internal review was announced following the incident, but statements made by a senior Israeli official sought to absolve security forces of responsibility, “raising serious concerns about the credibility of any future review or investigation conducted by any […]

Continue Reading

Russia: Government Designates Human Rights Watch “Undesirable”

(Berlin, November 28, 2025) – Russia’s designation of Human Rights Watch as an “undesirable” foreign organization, made public by the Ministry of Justice on November 28, is yet another mark of the Kremlin’s repression, Human Rights Watch said today. The designation bans the organization’s work in Russia. “For over three decades, Human Rights Watch’s work […]

Continue Reading

Mass displacement, trafficking fears deepen crisis in Sudan’s El Fasher

UN agencies say conditions are deteriorating further across North Darfur and neighbouring Kordofan, while independent human rights experts on Thursday warned that the collapse of protection following the city’s fall has sharply increased the risks facing women and children. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of El Fasher – the capital of Sudan’s North […]

Continue Reading