Archive for ‘Latin America & Caribbean’

22/09/2025

New Industry Requirements Could Disrupt Abusive Armed Groups’ Trade in Gold

Human Wrongs Watch

22 September 2025 — Deep in the forest in Venezuela’s Bolivar state, residents live in fear of horrific violence at the hands of armed groups involved in the illicit gold trade.

6d6011bb-58f5-49ea-8cf3-22df52914f29

A gold miner carries a sack of rocks to a grinding mill at a mine in El Callao, Bolivar state, Venezuela, April 29, 2023. © 2023 Matias Delacroix

During a 2020 investigation, a 17-year-old boy told Human Rights Watch how he witnessed members of a Venezuelan armed group amputating both hands of a miner they accused of stealing gold. Summary executions and forced child labor by armed groups is still happening today.

read more »

22/09/2025

Outsourcing Cruelty: Trump’s Mass Deportation Machine

Human Wrongs Watch

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Sep 19 2025 (IPS)** Thousands of Afghans who fled to the USA when the Taliban took over in August 2021 now face the prospect of deportation to countries they’ve never been to.
 

Credit: Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters via Gallo Images

People who risked everything to escape persecution, often because they helped US forces, now find themselves treated as unwanted cargo under the Trump administration’s anti-migration policy.

Trump’s expanded deportation programme targets an estimated 10 million foreign-born people who live in the USA but lack proper legal documentation.

read more »

18/09/2025

Europe’s Dependence on Foreign-Trained Doctors and Nurses Has Cross-Border Ripple Effects

Human Wrongs Watch

By the World Health Organization (WHO)*

16 September 2025 — WHO/Europe’s new report “Health workforce migration in the WHO European Region: country case studies from Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Ireland, Malta, Moldova, Norway, Romania and Tajikistan” offers a timely and comprehensive analysis of health worker mobility across the Region.
.

read more »

17/09/2025

Greece’s Latest Assault on Civil Society

Human Wrongs Watch

By Eva Cossé, Senior Researcher for Europe Human Rights Watch*

16 September 2025 — Greece’s Migration Minister Thanos Plevris recently announced his intention to adopt new measures to silence criticism of the government’s migration policies.

decd4bbf-2156-413c-8463-b1bec81cba90

A group of newly-arrived migrants board a ferry in Souda, on the island of Crete, Greece, July 11, 2025. © 2025 Nicolas Economou/Reuters

The move, which came in the wake of a victory by civil society groups at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), is part of the Greek government’s broader assault on civil society and is likely to worsen the already hostile environment for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), particularly those working on migration.

read more »

17/09/2025

Most of This Population Wants Immigrants, But Not the Government

Human Wrongs Watch

*

PORTLAND, USA, Sep 15 2025 (IPS)** Most of the population in this country wants immigrants, but the current government does not share the same sentiment.
.

Opinion polls show that the majority of the U.S. population holds positive views on immigration. Credit: Shutterstock.

The country in question is the United States, often referred to as a nation of immigrants, home to more immigrants than any other country worldwide, having received over 100 million immigrants since its founding in 1776.

Opinion polls show that the majority of the U.S. population holds positive views on immigration.

read more »

16/09/2025

United Nations’ Humanitarian Work ‘Underfunded, Overstretched, and Under Attack’

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — “Underfunded, overstretched and under attack” is how the United Nation’s top aid official has referred to the UN and the support it is providing to the humanitarian sector.

A child stands amidst the ruins left in the aftermath of the devastating October 2023 earthquakes in Herat, Afghanistan.
© WHO/Zakarya Safari | A child stands amidst the ruins left in the aftermath of the devastating October 2023 earthquakes in Herat, Afghanistan.

The international community is currently dealing with multiple humanitarian crises across the world, including conflict-driven crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.

Other crisis hotspots include Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar and the Sahel.

read more »

16/09/2025

NGOs on a Virtual Blacklist at UN High-Level Meetings of World Leaders

Human Wrongs Watch

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 2025 (IPS)* – When the high-level meeting of over 150 world political leaders takes place September 22-30, thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their accredited UN representatives will either be banned from the UN premises or permitted into the building on a strictly restricted basis– as it happens every year.

This year will not be an exception to the rule.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in over 100 countries promoting adherence to, and implementation of, the United Nations nuclear weapons ban treaty. Credit: ICAN

read more »

15/09/2025

The United Nations Turns 80: a Miracle It Has Lasted So Long

Human Wrongs Watch

SANTIAGO, Chile, Sep 12 2025 (IPS)** At eighty, the United Nations is bogged down by structural limitations and political divisions that render it powerless to act decisively – nowhere more clearly than in the Gaza genocide.
 

 

There is only one treaty in the world that, despite its limitations, binds nations together: the United Nations Charter. Representatives of fifty nations wrote and ratified the UN Charter in 1945, with others joining in the years that followed.

The charter itself only sets the terms for the behaviour of nations. It does not and cannot create a new world. It depends on individual nations to either live by the charter or die without it.

read more »

15/09/2025

Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value

Human Wrongs Watch

By the United Nations*

female medical worker smiling

Women in the health and care sector face a larger gender pay gap than in other economic sectors, earning on average 24 per cent less than their male peers. PHOTO:ILO

The International Equal Pay Day, celebrated on 18 September, represents the longstanding efforts towards the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value.

It further builds on the United Nations’ commitment to human rights and against all forms of discrimination, including discrimination against women and girls.

Across all regions, women are paid less than men, with the gender pay gap estimated at around 20 per cent globally.

read more »

10/09/2025

Attacks on Schools Surge by ‘Staggering’ 44% over the Past Year

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Attacks on schools in conflict zones around the world have increased by a “staggering 44 per cent” over the past year according to the United Nations, resulting in the death, abduction and trauma of thousands of teachers and students. 

.

Schools in Gaza have been turned into shelters for people affected by the conflict.
© UNRWA | Schools in Gaza have been turned into shelters for people affected by the conflict.
.
Over 41,000 incidents of violence against school-age children were reported by the UN in 2024.
.
Countries with the highest levels of violations in were Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, notably the Gaza Strip, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia, Nigeria, and Haiti.

read more »