• Europe’s Treatment of Minorities Endangers Our Core Values
    Commentary
    Jan 26, 2012
    To many friends of human rights in Europe, the Arab Spring has been the most thrilling period since the fall of the Berlin wall. Judging from their soaring rhetoric, European leaders share that enthusiasm. Europe has much to offer its friends in North Africa, the logic goes, when it comes to upholding rights for all.
  • An abhorrent trail of abuse
    Commentary
    Jan 24, 2012
    At least nine Cambodian women died last year while performing domestic work in Malaysia. And the grim reality is that, without strong action by the Cambodian and Malaysian governments to rein in exploitative recruitment and employment practices, more lives will be lost in 2012.
  • A chance for Congress to help Haitian women
    Commentary
    Jan 24, 2012
    Haiti desperately needs legal reform on gender-based violence. Haitian law prohibits domestic violence against minors but does not classify domestic violence against adults as a distinct crime. The penal code includes penalties for rape but does not address marital rape. Women and girls cannot seek protection orders from judicial officers.
  • New, unneeded obstacles to abortion
    Commentary
    Jan 22, 2012
    A federal appeals court this month upheld a Texas law that requires a woman seeking an abortion to undergo a sonogram, forces doctors to describe that sonogram in detail to her and then requires that she wait 24 hours before she can undergo the procedure.
  • Universal Periodic Review of South Africa
    Written statement
    Jan 20, 2012

    South Africa has failed to clarify its position on the 22 recommendations made during the first UPR cycle in 2008 – making the assessment of the implementation problematic.  South Africa should clearly communicate its responses and commitments on all recommendations made during its second UPR cycle. 

  • Hope for Haiti's Women
    Commentary
    Jan 17, 2012
    Women's rights is one example of huge problems and work ahead, and yet it also shows why no one should give up on Haiti. Groundbreaking work is being done to promote the rights of women and girls -- who have suffered immeasurably in Haiti's disasters and instability -- through new legislation.
  • Kuwait: End Police Abuses Against Transgender Women
    Press release
    Jan 15, 2012
    Kuwaiti police have tortured and sexually abused transgender women using a discriminatory law, passed in 2007, which arbitrarily criminalizes “imitating the opposite sex.” The government of Kuwait should repeal the law, article 198 as amended in 2007, and hold police officers accountable for misconduct.
  • Sweden: Letter to the Prime Minister Regarding Transgender Law
    Letter
    Jan 14, 2012
  • In Libya, Building the Rule of Law
    Commentary
    Dec 30, 2011

    When I first met Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, now the chairman of Libya’s Transitional National Council, in April 2009, he was the beleaguered justice minister in Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Libya, virtually the sole brave voice among senior officials demanding accountability from the country’s security services.

  • Libya: Make Urgent Justice System Reforms
    Press release
    Dec 22, 2011
    Libya’s transitional government should urgently enact desperately needed reform to promote human rights and the rule of law after 42 years of dictatorship and eight months of war.