What Can Be Done for the Girls of Chibok?

May 7, 2014 at 2:38 PM

This piece originally appeared in Al Jazeera English’s Opinion Section under the name: “Nigeria: A Serious Test of Stability.”

By Salil Shetty, Amnesty International Secretary General

As Nigeria takes centre stage hosting the World Economic Forum on Africa, events in recent weeks have tarnished its image as a country that has come of age.

In April, as Africa’s most populous nation assumed the presidency of the United Nations Security Council and chairmanship of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, news came that Nigeria had also outstripped South Africa to become the continent’s largest economy.

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Nigeria: Bring Back Our Girls!

By Adotei Akwei

May 2, 2014 at 11:06 AM

Nigerians attend a demonstration to demand government to rescue schoolgirls abducted by suspected Boko Haram militants two weeks ago (Photo Credit: Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images).

On April 14, 234 school girls between the ages of 16 and 18 were abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok in Northern Nigeria by the Islamist armed group Boko Haram.

Boko Haram, which is opposed to any form of western education, has waged a brutal insurgency destabilizing different states in the northern part of the country at various points since 2009 with bombs, attacks on schools and the killings of thousands of individuals. Amnesty estimates that 2,300 people have died as a result of the armed conflict since 2010, with 1,500 being killed between January and March of 2014 alone.

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UPDATE: Partial Victory on Mozambique Rape Laws, But the Fight Isn’t Over

By Sarah Hager

March 28, 2014 at 8:00 AM

A woman wears a blood-stained wedding dress as she takes part in a protest against a law that allows convicted rapists to be freed from prosecution if they marry the victim (Photo Credit: Jinty Jackson/AFP/Getty Images).

Pat yourselves on the back, stamp your feet, give a (potentially) inappropriate shout of glee wherever you happen to be at this moment, or at the very least, indulge in a slow clap.

35,544 Amnesty USA activists stood with the women and girls in Mozambique who marched in the streets of Maputo to demand the revocation of a proposed revision to the criminal code allowing a rapist to avoid punishment if he married the survivor.

The Mozambique government listened and it has been removed from consideration!

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Talk is Cheap: It’s Time For Real Action on North Korea

By Guest Writer

March 18, 2014 at 1:25 PM

By Salil Shetty, Amnesty International Secretary General

The resounding victory for Kim Jong Un in North Korea’s parliamentary elections this past week reflects the “absolute support” of people in the country, according to state media.

However, it’s doubtful such support includes the hundreds of thousands of people – including children – that languish in political prison camps and other detention facilities. Or those that have been the victims of crimes against humanity as documented in a chilling U.N. report made public last month.

Indeed, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry report was unprecedented, stating: “The gravity, scale and nature of these violations…does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”

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What is Behind the Latest Unrest in Turkey?

By Howard Eissenstat

March 13, 2014 at 1:36 PM

Berkin Elvan funeral attracted large crowds to mourn the death of the 15-year-old, who was hit by a teargas shell when he went to buy bread for breakfast during the Gezi Park protests in June 2013 (Photo Credit: Burak Kara/Getty Images).

A National Tragedy

Once again, Turkish streets are filled with voices of protest. And once again, those voices are choked with tear gas and buffeted by water cannon. The scenes on television and social media seem terribly similar to those which shocked the world during the Gezi protests this past June.

In fact, the immediate catalyst for these protests is directly tied to the terrible costs of police repression during the Gezi protests.

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The Word Secretary Kerry and Israel’s Prime Minister Couldn’t Bring Themselves to Say

By Sunjeev Bery

March 13, 2014 at 12:49 PM

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This post was originally published in The Hill under the title: “Call An Occupation An Occupation.”

In his speech on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said much of what one might have expected at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But what was most telling was the one word he didn’t utter: occupation.

It wasn’t just Netanyahu who steered clear of the word. So too did U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in his comments the night before. It is this act of repeated omission that adds so much confusion to the simple question of what concerned Americans must do to advance human rights in the region.

As a major supplier of arms and military aid to Israel, the U.S. government is not just a convener of “peace talks” and negotiations. It is also a major investor in the status quo, a state of affairs in which millions of Palestinian civilians face the risk of brutal violence from Israeli security forces simply for peacefully exercising their human rights. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

On the Ground in the Central African Republic

By Guest Writer

February 23, 2014 at 12:00 PM

Amnesty International’s Donatella Rovera and Joanne Mariner report on the latest massacre in a town West of Bangui, where they saw the remains of dozens of men and women littering the streets and found an 11-year-old girl who had miraculously survived it all.

As if the unfolding horror in the Central African Republic could not get any more shocking, the scene we witnessed in a remote town north-west of Bangui, left us stunned.

We arrived in Bouguere on Feb. 13 to investigate a massacre that had taken place some three weeks earlier. More than 40 people had been killed by anti-balaka militias and most of the town’s Muslim residents had fled.

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Closing Morocco’s Rape Loophole is Just the First Step

By Guest Writer

January 31, 2014 at 3:00 PM

Zohra Filali holds a picture of her daughter, Amina, the week after she committed suicide. Amina took her own life by drinking rat poison in March 2012 after being forced to marry the man who allegedly raped her.

By Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program. This post originally appeared in the International Business Times.

Amina Filali was just 16 years old when, in the depths of despair, she decided to take her own life.

Several months earlier the teenager from Morocco had been forced to marry a man whom she said had raped her.

In March 2012, Amina lost all hope. She swallowed rat poison in her hometown of Larache and died shortly afterwards.

Up until last week, men accused of rape in Morocco were able to escape prosecution by marrying their victim, if the girl was aged under 18.

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Months After Riots, Indian Refugees Are Still Suffering

By Guest Writer

January 28, 2014 at 3:00 PM

14-year-old Feroze Khan breaks down after hearing his parents talk about his younger brother who died in Malakpur camp due to cold. More than 50 children and many old age people have died because of cold and lack of medical facilities in the relief camps set up for Muzaffarnagar riots victims (Photo Credit: Raj k Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images).

NOTE: This blog has been updated due to changing circumstances on the ground.

By James Mutti, India Country Specialist, Amnesty International USA

The riots that killed over 50 people and engulfed the northern Indian district of Muzaffarnagar in August and September of 2013 have been over for months.

But for tens of thousands of mostly Muslim refugees forced from their homes in the violence, the injustice continues today. Those guilty of murder, rape, arson and other violent crimes continue to walk free, and dozens of young children have frozen to death in squalid, make-shift refugee camps.

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THIS EXISTS: Law Allows Rapists to Escape Prison If They Marry Underage Victims

By The Editors

January 22, 2014 at 2:30 PM

Amina Filali committed suicide by swallowing rat poison in March 2012. She was 16 years old. Her desperate act showed the depth of her pain and despair: she must have felt that nobody was there to help her.

We soon learned that Amina had been raped in her small Moroccan town, by a man she was then forced to marry. Imagine being married to your rapist, to be forced to see that person all the time – it would be devastating.

He married her because Moroccan law allows rapists to escape prosecution by marrying their victim, if she is aged under 18.

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Human Rights Now Blog

Tag Archives: Children’s Rights

What Can Be Done for the Girls of Chibok?

On the Ground in the Central African Republic

Closing Morocco’s Rape Loophole is Just the First Step

THIS EXISTS: Law Allows Rapists to Escape Prison If They Marry Underage Victims