Human Rights in the News: May 2024
/Welcome to the May 2024 edition of Human Rights in the News, Woven Teaching’s monthly collection of important human rights stories from around the world.
The silhouette of an asylum-seeking man using his phone against a sunset (Credit: Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez)
US: Digital Metering System Exposes Migrants to Harm
Human Rights Watch | 1 May 2024
Under the Biden administration, the U.S. has implemented further restrictions on asylum seekers. Customs and Border Patrol now processes asylum seekers using the CBP One mobile app, but does not provide enough appointments through the app to meet the demand for asylum seekers at U.S. ports of entry. This forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, often for several months.
Children (with faces blurred) who were seen harvesting jasmine during the BBC’s investigation
Luxury perfumes linked to child labour, BBC finds
Ahmed ElShamy and Natasha Cox | BBC Eye Investigations | 27 May 2024
Luxury retailers Lancôme and Aerin Beauty are in hot water after a BBC investigation revealed that the jasmine used in their perfumes were produced by child labor in Egypt. “[t]he handful of companies that own many luxury brands are squeezing budgets, resulting in very low pay. Egyptian jasmine pickers say this forces them to involve their children.”
A Myanmar police officer at a checkpoint in Rakhine state (Credit: AP Photo)
UN human rights office decries beheadings, other violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state
AP News | 24 May 2024
The UN human rights office has warned of disturbing new reports describing violence against Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Evidence indicates that Myanmar’s military, as well as the Arakan Army (the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement), are involved in the violence. The Rohingya were also the targets of genocide in 2017, when more than 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
Bertha Oliva, whose husband was disappeared in 1981, stands in front of photos of 200 detained and disappeared Hondurans (Credit: Michael Fox/Under the Shadow)
‘They’ve hidden the past from us’: New bill in Honduras seeks to rectify 1980s human rights violations
Michael Fox | The World | 29 May 2024
In the 1980s, Honduras was the staging ground for U.S.-backed covert operations in Latin America. Trained by the United States, Battalion 316 carried out a campaign of state-sponsored terror against Honduran civilians. The Committee of the Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, an organization composed of family members of people detained and disappeared by Battalion 316, has put forward a bill for reparations to the victims of the Honduran government’s violent 1980s policies.
Displaced Palestinians inspect their tents destroyed by Israel’s bombardment (AP Photo, Jehad Alshrafi)
Israeli strikes kill at least 37 Palestinians, most in tents, near Gaza’s Rafah as offensive expands
Samy Magny and Wafaa Shurafa | AP News | 28 May 2024
Israeli air strikes in Rafah have killed at least 37 people, most of whom were sheltering in tents. The most recent attacks follow shelling earlier in the week that set massive fires in the tent camp. The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to halt operations in Rafah.
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