Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 20 June

In today's brief: The US House fails to pass the Farm Bill. The US State Department downgrades Uzbekistan to the lowest possible human trafficking ranking. Three political activists killed in Mexico. An important condom law goes to the New York State legislature. On World Refugee Day HRW called on Ecuador to fully respect the rights of refugees. The Farm Bill included an amendment that said anyone ever convicted of a certain set of “serious and violent” crimes would be shut out of the food stamp program, affecting tens of thousands of low-income households... Every autumn over a million Uzbek adults and children are forced to harvest cotton for weeks on end, often in abusive conditions on threat of punishment... The decision to downgrade Uzbekistan in a human trafficking ranking is based on its use of forced and child labor in harvesting the country’s cotton crop. Sanctions could include travel bans... The day before three activists were killed in Mexico, 11 members of the organization had filed a formal complaint with the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office, expressing the fear that the mayor and the police chief of Iguala municipality might have them killed in retaliation for their activities... New York state has an opportunity to pass a condom law that would protect public health... Human Rights Watch published a new report on Bahrain today, examining fresh laws that signal yet another round of repression in the Gulf state. The US State Department’s annual Global Trafficking in Persons (GTIP) report placed China, Russia and Uzbekistan in the lowest category: "Tier III". The Obama Administration now has 90 days to decide whether sanctions should follow for these "worst offenders".