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Landmark Decision on Colombia Abortion Rights

Decriminalization a Victory for Health and Dignity

Colombia’s Constitutional Court has delivered a major victory for women’s reproductive rights by decriminalizing abortion on all grounds up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion after 24 weeks will be legal in Colombia under exceptions in place since…
Abortion rights activists celebrate in front of Colombia’s Constitutional Court in Bogota, Colombia, February 21, 2022.
News

Lebanon’s Women Have Fought for Change – and Should Get It

Reform Personal Status Laws, End Child Marriage

The leading role played by women in Lebanon’s protests should come as no surprise. Lebanese women have long been leaders in the country’s protest movements. Indeed, they have often borne the brunt of the sectarian system of governance that today’s…
Women shout slogans and wave the Lebanese flag during a demonstration in down town Beirut.
News

A Child Bride’s Attempted Suicide in Lebanon

Parliament Should Pass Law Ending Child Marriage

The tragic case of a 16-year-old child bride who attempted suicide should prompt Lebanon’s parliament to finally pass a law ending child marriage in the country. Media and other reports say the girl jumped from the roof of…
The parliament building in downtown Beirut, Lebanon October 27, 2016.
News

Colombia: Amicus Curiae on Access to Abortion

Honorable Cristina Pardo Schlesinger Justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia Rapporteur of Case T-6.612.909   Case: T-6.612.909 Subject: Human Rights Watch amicus curiae brief …
News

Lebanon’s Failed Mother’s Day Gift

New Citizenship Law is Discriminatory and Flawed

This week, Lebanon’s foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, announced he would be submitting a draft law to recognize the right of Lebanese mothers married to non-Lebanese men to equality in passing on their nationality to their children.…
Women and men marching in Beirut, Lebanon on Sunday March 11, 2018 in honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2018.
News

Lebanon Deports Domestic Worker Rights Organizer

Crackdown on Activists Undermines Fight for Rights

Lebanon marked International Human Rights Day on Saturday by deporting Sujana Rana, a Nepalese migrant domestic worker involved in the struggle for the rights of migrant domestic workers. Her arrest and deportation suggests…
Sujana Rana being deported to Nepal from Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport.
News

Dispatches: Zika Warnings Versus Realities Women Face

The rapid spread of the Zika virus has raised concern among public health officials across the Americas. The World Health Organization warned Sunday that the virus is likely to spread further across the region. At first glance,…
A woman walks away from her apartment as health workers fumigates the Altos del Cerro neighborhood as part of preventive measures against the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases in Soyapango, El Salvador January 21, 2016.
News

Dispatches: Broken Promise to Colombia’s Women

In 2011 an unknown attacker raped “Monica,” a human rights defender supporting victims displaced by the country’s protracted armed conflict. She immediately reported the rape to authorities, but they didn’t help her get access to health care. More than a…
A home in the rural area of Municipality San Carlos Antioquia abandoned by persons displaced by violence, with graffiti of a woman’s body left by armed groups.
News

Dispatches: Protecting the Victims of Colombia’s Bloody Conflict

Isabel P. (pseudonym) was sexually assaulted in 2011 by a man she believed had ties to a criminal gang that had emerged from one of the many paramilitary groups involved in Colombia’s bloody, five decade conflict. When she filed a criminal complaint, she…
News

Dispatches: A Victory for Colombia’s Sexual Violence Victims

Last week, Colombia’s senate passed an important bill that is a major step in aiding and protecting sexual violence survivors – especially those who are raped or assaulted by guerillas, paramilitaries, Colombian forces, or others in the context of the…
News

Protecting Working Women Worldwide

As told by Nadim Houry, director of Human Rights Watch's Beirut office It was 2008, and along Hamra Street, one of Beirut's main thoroughfares, women's rights demonstrators had placed a series of identical cutouts shaped like women's bodies. Painted red…
News

Protecting Lebanon’s Domestic Workers

From Lebanon’s advocacy campaign to June’s international convention

As told by Nisha Varia, senior researcher in the Women's Rights Division Each poster in the ad campaign featured a woman in the uniform typically worn by housekeepers and nannies, complete with ruffled apron. Below the image were facts about abuse of…

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