• Healthcare Access
    Lack of access to health care—whether to basic services or specific medicines—is commonplace worldwide. While governments have an obligation to progressively realize the right to access health care, they must ensure that existing services are provided without discrimination, and that health care services respect a range of other rights, including the right to physical integrity, autonomy, confidentiality and informed consent.

  • Tanzania: Police Abuse, Torture, Impede HIV Services
    Jun 18, 2013
    Tanzanians who are most at risk of HIV face widespread police abuse and often can’t get help when they are victims of crime, Human Rights Watch and the Wake Up and Step Forward Coalition (WASO) said in a report released today.
  • Syria: Agencies Should Send Aid Where Most Needed
    Jun 11, 2013
    Insufficient levels of humanitarian assistance are reaching opposition-controlled areas in northern Syria, despite their proximity to the Turkish border and dire medical, food, and other humanitarian needs. Human Rights Watch visited Raqqa governorate in April 2013, and Aleppo, Idlib, and Latakia governorates between December 2012 and April 2013.
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Health care access

  • Tanzania: Police Abuse, Torture, Impede HIV Services
    Jun 18, 2013
    Tanzanians who are most at risk of HIV face widespread police abuse and often can’t get help when they are victims of crime, Human Rights Watch and the Wake Up and Step Forward Coalition (WASO) said in a report released today.
  • Syria: Agencies Should Send Aid Where Most Needed
    Jun 11, 2013
    Insufficient levels of humanitarian assistance are reaching opposition-controlled areas in northern Syria, despite their proximity to the Turkish border and dire medical, food, and other humanitarian needs. Human Rights Watch visited Raqqa governorate in April 2013, and Aleppo, Idlib, and Latakia governorates between December 2012 and April 2013.
  • Ukraine: New Breakthrough for Incurably Ill
    May 15, 2013
    Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers’ approval of new regulations on access to pain medicines will dramatically expand healthcare services for patients with incurable illnesses and reduce unnecessary suffering, Human Rights Watch said today.
  • Zambia: Safety Gaps Threaten Copper Miners
    Feb 20, 2013
    Workers in the copper mining sector in Zambia remain vulnerable to abuse. New Human Rights Watch research found that the government of President Michael Sata, who promised to prioritize labor rights when he took office in September 2011, has made some improvements in supporting the oversight of the mines, but there remains inadequate enforcement of national labor laws designed to protect workers’ rights.
  • Ukraine: Breakthrough for Cancer Pain
    Feb 13, 2013
    Ukraine’s recent registration of oral morphine, a strong pain medication used most frequently to treat severe cancer pain, is a major step toward improving end-of-life care, Human Rights Watch said today.
  • The disabled often are denied information about sex and HIV
    Dec 1, 2012
    Over a billion people — 15 percent of the world’s population — live with a disability. These numbers should confer power and authority in decision making about all aspects of their lives, including to HIV and AIDS. Yet people with disabilities have been largely ignored in the global response to HIV.
  • Colombia: Obstacles to Care for Abused, Displaced Women
    Nov 14, 2012
    Colombia’s laws on violence against women are not adequately protecting victims displaced by the armed conflict. Approximately two million internally displaced women and girls face high rates of rape and domestic violence. Daunting obstacles impede displaced victims’ access to healthcare, justice, and protection services.
  • Zimbabwe: Police Raid Threatens Broader Crackdown
    Nov 9, 2012
    The Zimbabwe government’s raid on a civil society group raises fears of a broader crackdown on perceived opposition activists ahead of elections due in 2013.
  • More than lies about rape
    Aug 31, 2012
    Voices from across the political spectrum condemned the Missouri Senate candidate for Senate, Todd Akin, for his recent offensive and scientifically inaccurate reasoning to deny rape survivors’ access to abortion. 
  • South Sudan: Arbitrary Detentions, Dire Prison Conditions
    Jun 21, 2012
    Flawed processes, unlawful detentions, and dire conditions in South Sudan’s prisons reflect the urgent need to improve the new nation’s fledgling justice system.
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