Speaking at the ‘Dealing with Drugs II’ conference in Warsaw on Thursday, High Commissioner Volker Türk highlighted the urgent need for a human rights-based approach to drug regulation, pointing to record numbers of drug-related deaths and increasing drug use disorders. The conference, which builds on January’s ‘Dealing with Drugs I’...
A Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) volunteer was among multiple civilians killed in the incident, OCHA said in a news release. The attack also damaged several SARC ambulances and other humanitarian objects and left two bridges impassable. “As a result, all humanitarian operations at border crossings [between Syria and Lebanon]...
Titled “Take the rights path to end AIDS,” the report outlines how stigma, discrimination, and punitive laws hinder progress in the fight against HIV. Despite significant advancements in HIV treatment and prevention, human rights violations continue to block access to essential services. In 2023, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses,...
The latest incident comes amid growing international concern over the use of capital punishment in the country since 2021, when the Taliban swept back into power 20 years on from the allied invasion that ended their rule, in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks in the United States....
In an appeal for help, the World Food Programme, WFP, said that more than 27 million people’s lives from Lesotho to Zimbabwe have been devastated, leaving 21 million children malnourished. A record five countries have declared a national disaster because of the drought and requested international assistance: Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia,...
“What we’re hearing is that amongst the 22 people who were killed were 12 women and two children,” said Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). “We understand it was a four-storey residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind,...
Speaking at the awards ceremony of the UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights for 2023, Mr. Guterres stressed that rights defenders themselves were in need of greater protection. “The world needs leaders of countries, corporations, political parties, religious and civil organizations and beyond, to speak out against antisemitism,...
Close to nine million people need humanitarian assistance and reports suggest that some 4,000 people have been targeted and killed because of their ethnicity. There are now concerns that Darfur is returning to the years of brutal fighting and increasing atrocities last witnessed two decades ago that left some 300,000...
“This is a pivotal day. We are here to rebuild a foundation of hope – hope that we need now, perhaps more than ever, at this sombre moment in history,” Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said, addressing participants which included leaders from Poland, Slovenia, Estonia, Greece Senegal, Colombia...
Eleanor Roosevelt played a key role as a member of the US delegation to the United Nations in the two-year-long process that led to the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She famously said that the “real change which must give to people throughout the world their...
The event, organized by the UN human rights office (OHCHR) and the New York City Mayor’s Office, was a call to action to youth. “Positive change is possible when we unite in action. By being here, you’re responding to the call for action,” Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant Secretary-General for Human...
The region has been under the control of opposition Houthi forces since the internationally recognized Government were driven out of the city in 2015. WFP said that despite negotiating with the authorities for nearly a year to provide a more limited aid programme that would reach around 6.5 million in...