Devastating Impact of Rising Food Prices: Daily Brief

Rising food prices around the world are having a devastating impact. According to last week's global security update from the World Bank, an increasing number of people are going hungry. Previous reports from Human Rights Watch have documented the looming food crisis in Africa, even before the war in Ukraine, as well as the lack of social security protections necessary to face those rising prices in the Middle East and Europe. It is urgent that governments act to protect everyone’s right to food, both by ensuring food systems are sustainable and by protecting people from rising costs, through better markets regulations and strengthened universal social protection systems.

Three years ago, on August 5, 2019, the Indian government revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special autonomous status. Repression persists to this day, as authorities continue to restrict free speech, harass journalists, activists, and curb basic rights. The government’s repressive policies and failure to investigate or prosecute alleged security force abuses have increased insecurity among Kashmiris. Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch reminds us that, instead of trying to project normalcy in Kashmir, “Indian authorities should ensure justice for security force abuses and end policies that violate the fundamental rights of Kashmiri people.”

The Commission for International Justice and Accountability has released the findings of a four-year investigation on the genocide against the Rohingya people. The report was handed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as new evidence of Myanmar's expulsion of the Rohingya population, and its efforts to hide military operations from the international community. The 25,000 official documents shed a new light on Myanmar’s campaign to expel the country’s Muslim minority, demonstrating their systematic demonization and the military's role in creating militias that took part in operations against the Rohingya. While Myanmar is not a party to the ICC, the prosecutor is investigating those crimes, including deportation, because the Rohingya population fled to Bangladesh, which is a party to the court. Justice efforts for the Rohingya community also include an International Court of Justice case on Myanmar’s alleged genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, with a focus on military operations launched in October 2016 and August 2017.

American women's basketball star Brittney Griner, detained in Russia since February, was sentenced yesterday to nine years in prison by a Russian court on drug trafficking charges after she was arrested with a vaporizer containing cannabis liquid. The extreme sentence looks political. 

While African Union member states have the obligation to ensure that girls who become pregnant can continue and complete their education, free from discrimination, and in spite of many governments adopting measures that protect that right, thousands of girls across the continent still face barriers to education each year. To ensure that they fulfil their international and regional human rights obligations in eliminating gender disparities at all levels of education, states should review their existing protections, recognize the burdensome “re-entry” conditions, and replace them with “continuation policies”. These help tackling the new barriers and responsibilities they face. However, good policies are only the first step, and to ensure girls return to school until they graduate, implementation, monitoring, and enforcement of these policies will be crucial. 

In case you missed it live, you can still listen to the latest recording in the series of conversations with Ken Roth, HRW's outgoing executive director. Taking stock of his thirty years of experience in the fight for human rights, Ken Roth, along with Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, discuss the state of human rights in the United States.