USA – Hundreds of Lawmakers and Organizations Demand State Dept. Stop Excluding Women’s Rights From Human Rights Reports

Hundreds of Lawmakers and Organizations Demand State Dept. Stop Excluding Women's Rights From Human Rights Reports
Nearly 100 civil society organizations, 129 members of Congress sent letters to Secretary of State Pompeo this week

by Andrea Germanos, staff writer, Common Dreams
Friday, October 05, 2018

Trump's State Department this week is facing backlash and calls to reverse course on its decision to omit from its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices the entire reproductive rights section and to weaken its reporting on gender-based violence—a decision critics said amounted to showing that women and girls' "rights don't matter" to the current administration.

With their eyes on preventing the upcoming 2018 reports from containing the same "highly problematic" omissions as the 2017 ones, nearly 100 civil society organizations (pdf) and 129 members of Congress (pdf) sent letters to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanding the inclusion of information on denials of these fundamental human rights, including lack of access to contraception, unsafe abortion, and violence in accessing healthcare services.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/05/hundreds-lawmakers-and-organizations-demand-state-dept-stop-excluding-womens-rights


How Trump’s abortion gag rule policy impacts the global AIDS crisis

How Trump's abortion gag rule policy impacts the global AIDS crisis

By Rory Smith, CNN
Tue July 31, 2018

(CNN)New findings presented last week at the 22nd International AIDS Conference reveal how President Donald Trump's expansion of the so-called global gag rule -- which restricts US health assistance funding to non-US NGOs that offer abortion services -- is likely to have widescale negative effects on the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Four hundred seventy non-US NGOs working in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS across the world might be subject to the expanded global gag rule, according to new data presented at the conference. These organizations received $900 million from fiscal year 2013 to fiscal year 2015.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/31/health/trumps-gag-rule-effects-hiv-aids-intl/index.html