Livewire – Amnesty International blogging for human rights

Demonstrating against the abortion ban in Nicaragua, 28 September 2011 (c) Fondo Centro Americano de Mujeres

By Stephanie Schlitt, Amnesty International’s Researcher and Policy Advisor on Gender

Today, at the United Nations General Assembly, the UN’s expert on the right to health, Anand Grover, will present a ground-breaking report. The report exposes how states are putting women’s and girls’ lives and health at risk through criminal laws and other misguided legal restrictions that deny girls and women access to sexual and reproductive health information and services and the ability to make decisions about their sexual and reproductive lives.

The report concludes that restrictions on abortion and contraception, the criminalization of pregnant women’s conduct (such as making drug use when pregnant a criminal offence), as well as restrictions on access to information on sexual and reproductive health violate girls’ and women’s rights to sexual and reproductive health. This report supports earlier UN expert findings that such laws place states in breach of their international human rights obligations. Continue reading ‘Rights – not criminalization – for girls and women, says UN health expert’

Security forces enforcing a curfew in Srinagar in 2010. © Shome Basu.

By Alaphia Zoyab, Online Communities Officer for Amnesty International

Amnesty International has written an open letter to all the members of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) legislative assembly. Our key message is that they raise their voice on human rights.

The current assembly session began on 26 September and there are at least four major areas of human rights concerns that we want the members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) to pay attention to.

I’d like to highlight two areas here – unmarked graves and juvenile law reform in J&K. Continue reading ‘“Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead…..”’

A women's centre lawyer supports Connie, a young victim of sexual violence between the ages of nine and 14, as she tells her story to AI delegates. © Amnesty International

By Jeremy Bloom and Vittorio Infante from the Central American team,

In Leon, a department in northwest Nicaragua, we visited the Centro Mary Barreda. Here they do amazing work supporting and protecting girls and women survivors of sexual violence and that have contracted HIV, as well as running educational prevention programmes in schools for children and teachers.

Nearly two years ago Amnesty International visited the centre to listen to the girls talk about their experiences, in particular what they experienced when they sought assistance, refuge and protection from the state.

We visited Mary Barreda to thank the girls for their amazing bravery in sharing their stories with us, and to demonstrate just how powerful their words have been. They have moved people in governments and international institutions as well as ordinary people all over the world to take action and demand justice and end sexual violence. Continue reading ‘Visiting brave girls and women survivors of sexual violence in Nicaragua’

A women's centre lawyer supports Connie, a young victim of sexual violence between the ages of nine and 14, as she tells her story to AI delegates. © Amnesty International

Por Esteban Beltrán, Director de Amnistía Internacional España

Una niña de cuatro años bailaba con su traje de princesa, una adolescente te enseñaba como se había pintado las uñas de color morado fantasía, otra te recitaba en voz alta, orgullosa, un poema sobre la libertad que había escrito en su diario. Todas ellas, al final de la reunión de Amnistía Internacional con sobrevivientes de violencia sexual en Nicaragua, habían regresado a lo que siempre debieron ser; niñas.

Y eran niñas de nuevo porque ya no se sentían, al menos en ese preciso instante, solas para siempre ni estigmatizadas de por vida por funcionarios públicos o familiares o amigas por haber sido violadas.

Empezamos a hablar nosotros, les contamos que miles y miles de personas, sin conocerlas, conmovidas por su indefensión, por su coraje para emprender una vida sin miedo, les mandaban miles de mensajes para que se supieran acompañadas, miles de firmas para conseguir que el Presidente de la República, Daniel Ortega, permitiera que ellas eligieran, sin coacción, si querían o no tener un niño después de ser violadas. Continue reading ‘Con niñas víctimas de violencia sexual en Nicaragua’

نجت ملاك مصطفى شامي من الاتفجار الذي قتل شقيقها وشقيقتها. © منظمة العفو الدولية

إعداد فريق العفو الدولية في مصراتة

بعد رحلة استمرت 36 ساعة على متن قارب صيد كثير الترنح يشق طريقه متحديا أمواج البحر الأبيض المتوسط، وصلنا إلى مصراته، وهي مدينة يمكن أن ترى فيها وتشعر بتأثير الحصار المفروض عليها منذ أكثر من شهرين والقصف الثقيل والقتال في كل حي وشارع ومنزل تقريبا.

بدأنا بزيارة منطقة الرويسات السكنية الواقعة جنوبي شرق وسط مصراته. هناك في 13 أيار/مايو سقطت عدة صواريخ غراد داخل المنازل والشوارع والمتاجر عند الساعة 12:45 بعد الظهر، مخلفة وراءها آثار المعاناة والدمار.

Continue reading ‘

العائلات التي دمر القصف حياتها في مصراتة

‘