Migrants drowning at sea after being turned away from shore. Children detained with adults and at risk of physical and sexual abuse. Workers cheated out of wages and confined to their workplace. Authorities extorting bribes. Governments denying health care benefits to those who might most need it.

Many governments’ policies toward migrants worldwide expose them to human rights abuses including labor exploitation, inadequate access to health care, and prolonged detention in poor, overcrowded conditions.

Normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba was widely seen as exactly the kind of high-value, low-hanging fruit that would be ideal for a president elected under the banner of "change." But a scathing new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, "New Castro, Same Cuba," will make lifting sanctions against the Castro regime-on travel, remittances, trade-more difficult for President Obama.

Human Rights Watch submits a statement to the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee for its hearing, “Is it Time to Lift the Ban on Travel to Cuba?” Human Rights Watch believes lifting the travel ban represents an essential step towards ending a US policy that has failed for decades to have any impact whatsoever on improving human rights in Cuba.

Raúl Castro's government has locked up scores of people for exercising their fundamental freedoms and allowed scores more political prisoners arrested during Fidel Castro's rule to languish in detention. Rather than dismantle Cuba's repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active.

On November 6, Cuba’s most prominent blogger, Yoani Sánchez, together with blogger Orlando Luís Pardo Lazo, were abducted by three men. Sánchez and Pardo were forced into an unmarked vehicle, beaten, and threatened by their captors before being released onto the street.

In a crucial vote this week, the Organization of American States could decide whether to lift Cuba's almost 50-year suspension from the key regional body. Such a move would be bad for civil society in Cuba and bad for the OAS.

The Organization of American States should not lift the suspension of Cuba as a participating full member until it ends its systematic denial of fundamental freedoms for Cubans.