Rights Respecting Responses to COVID-19: Daily Brief

How to meet the COVID-19 challenge in rights-respecting ways; campaign to free migrant children from Greece detention centers; Asia could still see explosion of COVID-19 cases; Poland trying to push through abusive abortion law; Hamas authorities arrest Gaza activists for chat with Israelis; millions of migrant workers stranded in Gulf lockdown; COVID-19 lockdown threatens livelihood of Nigeria’s poor; and the dangers of using big data to track the spread of the pandemic.

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In a new COVID Checklist laying out 40 questions to ask of governments globally, Human Rights Watch offers a vision of a response to COVID-19 that protects public health and respects human rights. The checklist mentions good practices by governments around the world but also spotlights places where governments can & should be doing more.

A campaign to free hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children from detention centers in Greece calls on the Greek government to move these kids into child-friendly housing where they are better protected from infection amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Those parts of Asia not hit early by the coronavirus could still see an explosion of cases. A rights-based approach to addressing this public health crisis could help keep the region’s population safer.

While Poland remains under a COVID-19-related state of emergency that bans group gatherings, the government is trying to push through laws restricting legal access to abortions and sex education. Similar government efforts to restrict sexual and reproductive health and rights had previously been met by mass demonstrations.

Hamas authorities routinely arrest and torture critics and opponents. Now they have arrested 7 Palestinian activists for a video chat with Israelis about life in Gaza amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

As Gulf countries have imposed lockdowns and other restrictions in response to COVID-19, millions of migrant workers have found themselves locked down, laid off and stranded, with no place to turn for help.

Millions of Nigeria’s poor are hit devastatingly by the COVID-19 lockdown, lacking the food and income their families need to survive. The government ought to combine public health measures with efforts to protect the most vulnerable.

 

And lastly, the coronavirus pandemic has spurred interest in big data to track the spread of the fast-moving pathogen and to plan disease prevention efforts. However, while the capacity of big data to help curb the coronavirus outbreak is, at best, uncertain, its risks to privacy are immense.

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