SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
At the direction of a top State Department aide, the department's annual human rights report will be stripped of language relating to women's reproductive rights and discrimination. (Photo: Marc Nozell/Flickr/cc)
Rights Advocates Decry 'Unconscionable' State Dept Decision to Cut Women's Rights From Annual Report
"This development is a transparent attempt by the Trump administration to not only de-prioritize reproductive rights, but effectively erase them from the broader conversation on human rights."
Feb 21, 2018
Human rights groups on Thursday denounced the State Department's plans to re-frame its upcoming global human rights report, paring down its focus on women's reproductive rights and discrimination--saying the decision is clear evidence that the rights of marginalized groups are insignificant to the Trump administration.
"Reproductive rights are human rights," said Tarah Demant, Amnesty International USA's director of gender, sexuality, and identity, in a statement. "This development is a transparent attempt by the Trump administration to not only de-prioritize reproductive rights, but effectively erase them from the broader conversation on human rights. We must not let this attack on basic rights go unchallenged."
At the direction of a top aide to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, department staffers are cutting down passages regarding women's access to contraception and abortion and how women's rights around the world are affected by their communities' views on family planning, as well as a section regarding discrimination based on gender, race, and ethnicity.
The document is expected to de-emphasize the effects of non-government entities on marginalized groups around the world, focusing less on how people have been impacted by discriminatory attitudes and more on what governments are doing to lessen discrimination.
In past years, the department's human rights report has covered incidents involving hate speech and hate crimes directed at religious and racial groups as well as LGBTQ communities, but this is expected to be absent or nearly absent in this year's report.
"For instance," writes Nahal Toosi at Politico, "the Roman Catholic church's influence over attitudes toward gays and lesbians in a particular country might be dropped."
The report has also detailed reproductive rights abuses including forced sterilization and abortion in China and India.
"Unmet needs for contraception, deaths related to unsafe abortion, maternal mortality, and coercive family planning practices" in India were all included in last year's report by are expected to be stripped from the upcoming document.
This year, the term "reproductive rights" isn't expected to appear in the report, with the section on the issue re-named "Coercion in Population Control."
"The decision to strip language highlighting violations of women's rights from the State Department's Human Rights Report is unconscionable," said Brian Dixon of the Population Connection Action Fund. "But it's not surprising. This administration--and this president--always side with abusers rather than their victims--especially when those victims are women."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Human rights groups on Thursday denounced the State Department's plans to re-frame its upcoming global human rights report, paring down its focus on women's reproductive rights and discrimination--saying the decision is clear evidence that the rights of marginalized groups are insignificant to the Trump administration.
"Reproductive rights are human rights," said Tarah Demant, Amnesty International USA's director of gender, sexuality, and identity, in a statement. "This development is a transparent attempt by the Trump administration to not only de-prioritize reproductive rights, but effectively erase them from the broader conversation on human rights. We must not let this attack on basic rights go unchallenged."
At the direction of a top aide to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, department staffers are cutting down passages regarding women's access to contraception and abortion and how women's rights around the world are affected by their communities' views on family planning, as well as a section regarding discrimination based on gender, race, and ethnicity.
The document is expected to de-emphasize the effects of non-government entities on marginalized groups around the world, focusing less on how people have been impacted by discriminatory attitudes and more on what governments are doing to lessen discrimination.
In past years, the department's human rights report has covered incidents involving hate speech and hate crimes directed at religious and racial groups as well as LGBTQ communities, but this is expected to be absent or nearly absent in this year's report.
"For instance," writes Nahal Toosi at Politico, "the Roman Catholic church's influence over attitudes toward gays and lesbians in a particular country might be dropped."
The report has also detailed reproductive rights abuses including forced sterilization and abortion in China and India.
"Unmet needs for contraception, deaths related to unsafe abortion, maternal mortality, and coercive family planning practices" in India were all included in last year's report by are expected to be stripped from the upcoming document.
This year, the term "reproductive rights" isn't expected to appear in the report, with the section on the issue re-named "Coercion in Population Control."
"The decision to strip language highlighting violations of women's rights from the State Department's Human Rights Report is unconscionable," said Brian Dixon of the Population Connection Action Fund. "But it's not surprising. This administration--and this president--always side with abusers rather than their victims--especially when those victims are women."
Human rights groups on Thursday denounced the State Department's plans to re-frame its upcoming global human rights report, paring down its focus on women's reproductive rights and discrimination--saying the decision is clear evidence that the rights of marginalized groups are insignificant to the Trump administration.
"Reproductive rights are human rights," said Tarah Demant, Amnesty International USA's director of gender, sexuality, and identity, in a statement. "This development is a transparent attempt by the Trump administration to not only de-prioritize reproductive rights, but effectively erase them from the broader conversation on human rights. We must not let this attack on basic rights go unchallenged."
At the direction of a top aide to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, department staffers are cutting down passages regarding women's access to contraception and abortion and how women's rights around the world are affected by their communities' views on family planning, as well as a section regarding discrimination based on gender, race, and ethnicity.
The document is expected to de-emphasize the effects of non-government entities on marginalized groups around the world, focusing less on how people have been impacted by discriminatory attitudes and more on what governments are doing to lessen discrimination.
In past years, the department's human rights report has covered incidents involving hate speech and hate crimes directed at religious and racial groups as well as LGBTQ communities, but this is expected to be absent or nearly absent in this year's report.
"For instance," writes Nahal Toosi at Politico, "the Roman Catholic church's influence over attitudes toward gays and lesbians in a particular country might be dropped."
The report has also detailed reproductive rights abuses including forced sterilization and abortion in China and India.
"Unmet needs for contraception, deaths related to unsafe abortion, maternal mortality, and coercive family planning practices" in India were all included in last year's report by are expected to be stripped from the upcoming document.
This year, the term "reproductive rights" isn't expected to appear in the report, with the section on the issue re-named "Coercion in Population Control."
"The decision to strip language highlighting violations of women's rights from the State Department's Human Rights Report is unconscionable," said Brian Dixon of the Population Connection Action Fund. "But it's not surprising. This administration--and this president--always side with abusers rather than their victims--especially when those victims are women."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy