Human rights
Within our section on human rights, we cover overlooked and underreported struggles across the globe. Our unflinching reports, investigations and in-depth features seek to expose human rights abuses carried out by states and corporations.
Here we highlight the stories of those standing up to the might of authoritarian regimes, transnational corporations and wealth to fight for the planet, and the people who inhabit it.
Tackling Canada’s opioid crisis
Karin Goodwin reports from Vancouver on how reconnecting with their Indigenous culture is helping women heal.
Letter from Shapajilla: The Storyteller
Stephanie Boyd reports from an Amazonian village where traditional ways of life are changing with modern times.
Agony Uncle: Am I contributing to gentrification?
‘I was pushed out due to rising rents; now I'm inflicting the same on others. What should I do?’ Our in-house ethics advisor chips in.
Migrant deaths: tragedy – or murder?
Nanjala Nyabola asks why migration policies have become so deadly, and what it will take to change them.
Housing is a circus
A new aerial cabaret show explores the housing crisis and the debts of home. Amy Hall reports.
Spotlight: Ivey-Camille Manybeads Tso
Grace Livingstone talks to filmmaker Ivey-Camille Manybeads Tso about racism and the power of people coming together
Vaccines alone won’t stop malaria
Malaria vaccines are welcome, but they won’t be enough to stop its disease, argues Rosebell Kagumire.
The Ogiek won reparations, now they want results
One year after a court ruling, the Ogiek are still waiting for reparations. Amy Hall reports on a case that could change the lives of Indigenous people across the region.
Returning Indigenous ancestors home to New Zealand/Aotearoa
For centuries, museums have held human remains as artefacts. Hana Pera Aoake explored what can be learned from the programme driving the push to bring Māori and Moriori ancestors home?
Africa is beginning to hold social media companies to account
A court case shows the continent’s demand for social media companies to be accountable for their impact offline, columnist Resebell Kagumire writes.
On your watch
Asma Hafiz reports on the intrusive surveillance being forced on often lower caste sanitation workers in many Indian cities.
Out of the shadows
Our new columnist Rosebell Kagumire illustrates the dangers faced by migrant workers in the Gulf States.
What if…we decolonized mental health services?
Husna Ara rethinks our collective response to distress.
‘They’ve never experienced being a refugee’
Who is better placed to cover forced migration than refugees themselves? Bairbre Flood reports on the journalists putting refugees’ voices at the heart of the conversation.
Climate change? It’s everyone’s problem
It’s naive to assume that rich countries will escape the impacts of a changing climate, argues Nanjala Nyabola.
Standing firm against fracking
The Mapuche people in Argentina are saying no to an influx of transnationals trying to frack their lands. Grace Livingstone reports.
The war in Ukraine has hit Africa’s food security
Russia’s invasion has triggered cost rises and staple shortages. Ugochi Anyaka-Oluigbo examines the crisis faced by low-income countries.
Switzerland wants to deport a boy with half a heart
Danieli is trying to access life-saving surgery – but his family could be forced to leave before he is able to get it. An outrageous situation, says Amy Aves Challenger.
Abandoned: Abolition in education
England’s schools funnel its most marginalized young people towards the criminal justice system, writes Zahra Bei. But educators and young people are reimagining what’s possible.
Inside the ‘arsenal of peace’
As volunteers prepare aid for Ukrainian refugees, Simone Lai reports from Italy’s largest arms factory – which still works 24-hours a day, but for social justice.
A child’s right to be forgotten
Roxana Olivera tells a cautionary tale of her dogged attempts to get an abusive, intrusive photograph – taken without its subject’s consent – removed from the internet.
Must we ration compassion?
Europe’s response to accommodate people fleeing Ukraine illustrates how sanctuary for all refugees is possible. Jun Pang and Nadia Hasan write.
Migration: Europe’s Achilles’ heel
Europe’s moral imagination does not go as far as ensuring the safe movement of people, writes Nanjala Nyabola.
The interview: Muhanned Qafesha
Human rights activist Muhanned Qafesha talks about the life-and-death battle to defend Palestine from illegal demolitions and settlements.
‘Anti-nationalism’: the spectre haunting Indian higher education
Highly networked rightwing students, acting with political patronage, are stifling academic freedom, writes Sruti Bala.
‘Our whole truth will come out’
Roxana Olivera reports on the indigenous women who could make legal history by holding a Canadian mining company to account for its operatives overseas.
‘Fortress conservation’ is driving us from our homes
Pranab Doley, an Indigenous activist from the Mising people, condemns the militarization of the conservation industry in India and beyond, and its threat to the land’s best protectors.
Contempt for migrants is being enshrined into British law
Offshore detention facilities, redefining the category of ‘refugee’ and legal exemptions for border guards. If allowed to pass, Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders Bill spells dark days ahead for asylum seekers in the UK. Miles Ellingham reports.
Beaten back
The vicious game of hounding asylum-seekers in Europe continues in defiance of international law, Katie Dancey-Downs reports.
A silver lining
Immunization expert Christopher Morgan is optimistic that the great push for Covid-19 vaccines will produce other global health benefits. He talks to Amy Hall.
Solidarity on Glasgow’s south side
Conrad Landin reports from a vigil in memory of Stanislav Tomas, a Roma man who died following a brutal arrest by police in the Czech Republic.
Let the people protect the forests
Want to restore and protect the world's forests? Then uphold the rights of the people who live in them, says Danny Chivers.
The kids are not alright
Joe Ballesteros investigates the pandemic-compounded crisis in educational provision for England’s most marginalized children.
The nuts and bolts
Pay attention. Thomas Abraham gives a quick lesson on how the Covid-19 vaccines work.
How to end vaccine apartheid
Rich nations vaccinate a citizen every second while the majority of the poorest nations are yet to give a single dose. How can we end vaccine apartheid? Experts and campaigners weigh in at a New Internationalist live event.
