Daily Brief Audio Series
We really should talk about “should,” shouldn’t we?
We use the word all the time in human rights work. It can seem like our favorite term, and you’ll find it on almost every page of our website. Russia should stop forcing Ukrainians from occupied regions into its military. The dangers of Italy’s refugee detention deal with Albania “should prompt EU action.” Global carmakers “should map their supply chains” and drop suppliers found to source parts from Xinjiang, China, to avoid forced labor.
I know some folks say it can all be a bit too much sometimes. This should happen, that should happen, the authorities should do these things… To some, it can sound like wishful thinking, especially when we’re talking about a government committing atrocities right, left, and center. Do abusive regimes ever have even a single thought about what they “should” be doing?
But over the years, I’ve grown to like the word “should.” If you read the pages of our website where it so frequently appears, we’re not using it in some pie-in-the-sky way. It’s not a reality-dodging “wouldn’t it be nice if,” but something else entirely.
Every time we say “should,” it comes after a long description of events and abuses we’ve documented and analyzed. Far from avoiding reality, we’re describing it in great detail. Then, we’re looking at international and national laws to see where authorities fall short.
The word “should” is about expectations. We expect authorities to follow the rules, to obey the law. We point out when they don’t and say what they should do instead.
Those who work in human rights are sometimes thought of as wooly-eyed idealists, but take it from someone on the inside: nothing is further from the truth. We know what the world is really like – maybe better than a lot of people, in fact. We know that inhumanity too often trumps human dignity. We document it and describe it every day. There’s no wool over these eyes.
But we demand better.
Because what else should you do? Just accept that everything is awful forever and ever?
And yes, we all know it’s like the Red Queen’s race in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. Like Alice, we keep running and running just to stay in place. But if we all stopped running – if we all stopped pushing for universal human rights, stopped expecting them to be recognized – we’d all be going backwards terrifyingly quickly.
So, we’re going to keep reminding people how things should be, how people’s rights should be respected, and how we should all work toward that aim.
Is Your Car Driving Repression?, Daily Brief February 1, 2024
Daily Brief, February 1, 2024
Are you thinking about buying a new car? Read this first.
You may already be aware of the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity in the country’s northwestern region of Xinjiang. Among the many serious abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim communities living there is forced labor.
There could be a rather direct line from this forced labor to the new car you’re looking at in the showroom. It comes via aluminum.
Aluminum is a key element in the manufacture of cars. The metal and its alloys are used in dozens of automotive parts, from engine blocks and vehicle frames to wheels and components of electric batteries. These parts are found in cars made in China, and they’re also exported to carmakers globally.
The source of this aluminum can be problematic.
Xinjiang’s aluminum production has grown massively in recent years. It’s now about nine percent of global supply. Most of Xinjiang’s aluminum is shipped out of the region and mixed with other metals to make aluminum alloys in other parts of China, including for the car industry.
The problem is, once an aluminum ingot has been melted and mixed with other materials, it is impossible to determine whether, or how much of it, came from Xinjiang. This is how aluminum tainted by forced labor enters domestic and global supply chains.
Like many industries in Xinjiang, aluminum producers are participating in Chinese government-backed labor transfer programs. That’s the forced labor system that coerces Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims into jobs in Xinjiang and other regions.
If you’re someone about to buy a new car, you would surely like to avoid being tied up in all this.
Unfortunately, global carmakers usually can’t tell you if their cars are built partly on forced labor from Xinjiang aluminum or not. The fact is, car companies often simply don’t know where it’s coming from.
More specifically, they too often don’t ask.
A new report details how major car companies – like General Motors, Tesla, BYD, Toyota, and Volkswagen – are failing to minimize the risk of forced labor being used in their aluminum supply chains.
Now, some may argue that, given the extreme level of repression and surveillance in Xinjiang, it’s impossible for companies to properly investigate allegations of forced labor there. Workers and other potential whistleblowers live under constant fear and threat. Of course, that’s true.
But businesses shouldn’t just resign themselves to the situation. They should instead map their supply chains and drop any supplier found to source parts or materials from Xinjiang. In short: they should assume anything aluminum coming from Xinjiang could be tainted by forced labor.
So, what should the potential car buyer do?
As with many issues involving human rights abuses and the products we buy, this is not really a problem that’s going to get solved on the level of individual consumers choices. It will take action by governments to pay more attention to companies’ respect for human rights in China.
The good news is, we’re seeing some places make a start. Several jurisdictions, including the United States and the European Union, have enacted, or are planning laws banning imports of products linked to forced labor. Governments should also pass laws requiring companies to disclose supply chains and identify potential links to human rights abuses.
If you want to know what you, as an individual, can do, it’s clear: support such government measures.
It’s fine to be a concerned consumer and think about the choices you make, but being an engaged voter may ultimately have more impact.
For more on this subject, tune in to our LinkedIn audio event today, 16h00 CET, 10am EST.
“There is no exit policy.”
In one short sentence, a staff member thus summed up the core problem at Asha Kiran, a government-run shelter for people with disabilities in Delhi, India. Most people languishing there have been abandoned by their families and have no choice but to remain institutionalized.
Conditions are grim for those trapped in Asha Kiran. Nearly 1000 men, women, and children are held in a facility meant to house 570. Overcrowding, poor hygiene, and a lack of adequately trained staff compound the problems.
Some are confined to a bed with limited to no activity, at risk of irreversibly stunted physical, intellectual, emotional, and social development. And most of them will live their entire lives there, in Asha Kiran.
A devastating twist is that Asha Kiran literally means “ray of hope.”
Institutionalizing a person with a disability without their consent is a form of arbitrary detention – essentially being jailed for no crime. Asha Kiran residents are detained behind locked gates, with little if any opportunity to go outside or even move around the facility. When my HRW colleagues visit, staff tell them very plainly: it’s like a prison.
And, of course, Asha Kiran is hardly an isolated case in India. There are hundreds of custodial institutions like this for people with disabilities across the country. Worse still, authorities are putting money into building new institutions and refurbishing existing ones to hold ever more people.
This approach runs contrary to India’s obligations under international law, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
What authorities should be doing instead is getting people out of these prison-like facilities by funding community-based services to support these people’s right to independent living.
But there is a “ray of hope” in this story, after all. The governing council of Asha Kiran, in its final meetings in 2023, formally recognized their obligations and resolved to make a change. They adopted landmark recommendations to create and implement an action plan to end this lifelong warehousing of people with disabilities.
The plan would involve developing voluntary, community-based assisted living services and other forms of support to enable people with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities to live independently in their communities.
The Delhi government now needs to act swiftly on these critical recommendations of the governing board.
Ultimately, the “ray of hope” here is that human rights principles might be upheld, and the dignity of these people will finally be recognized and respected.
Let’s throw children suffering from infectious diseases out into the city streets – does that sound like a good idea to you?
That’s what authorities are doing to kids in Marseille, France’s second largest city, apparently unconcerned by the brutal immorality of what they’re doing, let alone the public health issues.
To understand this breakdown in human decency, let’s focus on one case, that of a teenage boy we’ll call “R.”
Born in West Africa, R. ended up in Marseille, where initially he was able to stay in emergency accommodation in February 2021. There, he waited for an all-important age assessment, that is, whether the regional authorities in the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône considered him a child or an adult.
While housed there, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis by the national tuberculosis control center. Now, tuberculosis is preventable and curable, but it can be fatal without treatment. In fact, after COVID-19, tuberculosis is the second leading infectious killer globally today.
Naturally, then, the national tuberculosis control center told the departmental authorities about R.’s diagnosis and requested he be sent to their facilities for treatment. However, despite numerous reminders to the department over several months, R. was never redirected to receive that treatment.
Instead, in April 2021, his age assessment declared him not a child, and he was turned out on the streets with no anti-tuberculosis treatment nor follow-up care.
These age assessments in France are often pivotal like this, but the decisions are super dodgy. In nearly 75 percent of cases, the assessments are overturned on appeal. Unfortunately, this review by the courts can take months, even years. In the meantime, children are ineligible for emergency accommodation – that is, they’re often forced to live homeless, on the streets.
They also can’t access services, such as education, legal assistance, the appointment of a guardian, and universal health protection.
Which brings us back to the teenage boy, R. Untreated, his tuberculosis spread to his bones and spinal cord. In November 2021, R. abruptly lost sensation in both his legs. Doctors performed an emergency arthrodesis – a joint fusion – and inserted metal plates in his vertebrae.
To this day, R. continues to experience severe physical pain, he’s lost 60 percent of his mobility, and there are movements he will never simply be able to do again. His nightmare could have been avoided had the authorities acted ten months earlier, when R. had his initial diagnosis.
The mean-spiritedness, the shamefulness, the shortsightedness of the authorities’ actions are appalling, but what’s even worse is that R.’s case is not unusual.
A new report documents how the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône, which includes Marseille, is failing to provide unaccompanied migrant children the protections they need and to which they are entitled.
They force children to sleep in the streets for days or weeks with tuberculosis, HIV, post-traumatic stress, or undetected pregnancies while they wait for their age assessment appeals – which, again, are successful in three out of four cases.
Officials should stop trying to hide behind the too-often bogus bureaucracy of age assessments. They should assume these folks are kids – because most of them are – and treat them humanely, not throw them out on the streets.
When this newsletter looked at Haiti’s living nightmare in September, we noted international security support may be necessary to help stem the horrific breakdown of public order. We did not say this lightly – past interventions left a trail of abuses – but the situation was so bad, the world needed to re-examine its well-warranted reluctance to get involved.
The situation in Haiti has only deteriorated since.
For years, the people of Haiti have suffered a severe political, humanitarian, and security crisis, and things got even worse with the assassination of the country’s president in 2021.
There’s been a surge in killings and kidnappings, rampant sexual violence, and a severe food crisis. Criminal groups prevent the delivery of humanitarian assistance to people in dire need of food, medicine, and other aid.
In October 2023, the UN Security Council authorized the deployment to Haiti of a Multinational Security Support mission, to be led by Kenya. However, the mission’s deployment has been stalled.
Another complication has now arisen with a ruling by Kenya’s High Court on Friday that blocks the government from deploying police officers to Haiti. The government is appealing.
With extreme violence and the collapse of public order engulfing them, Haitians are wondering how long they’ll have to wait.
The UN Security Council discussed Haiti again last week, and HRW’s executive director Tirana Hassan addressed the body. After reminding Council members of the desperate plight people are facing in Haiti, she explained the need for the international mission to be driven by a human-rights-based approach – and she detailed what that would look like.
Of course, given the deadly mistakes of past interventions in Haiti, the deployment will need diligent oversight. The Council should also support investigations into any allegations of abuse and ensure accountability of anyone found guilty.
And although ending the country’s violent chaos may be the most immediate concern, any lasting peace and security will need to do more than that. People need well-coordinated humanitarian and development assistance and a transitional government that can credibly work with international partners to ensure the rule of law until free and fair elections can be organized.
For too long the victims of criminal groups and their backers, the people of Haiti deserve to see strong measures put in place to ensure justice and accountability for past crimes.
And, of course, the international intervention needs to curb the illicit flow of arms and ammunition to criminal groups in Haiti.
Haitians are facing terrifying levels of violence – unprecedented even for a country with as troubled a recent history as Haiti.
As Tirana says: “Each day that passes without a meaningful increase in international support that addresses all aspects of the crisis puts more lives at risk.”