The heat wave hitting the Sun Belt’s homeless population is being met with new rigor. “The community responded,” says Jacki Taylor of the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness. “And not just in Phoenix. There’s been a statewide effort to reach out and help care for our men, women, and children on the streets.” Read more>
Archive for the 'Human Rights' Category
Women lawyers force big rights gains in Uganda
June 14, 2007This spring, a small group of lawyers helped overturn laws that gave men more rights than women. In April, the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-U) achieved its most significant legal success to date when the nation’s Constitutional Court overturned key parts of the adultery law – which allowed married men, but not women, to have an affair. It also scrapped parts of the Succession Act, which gave more rights to husbands than wives when a spouse dies. But more important for many of the lawyers here is the ability to improve the individual lives of the women they advise. Read more>
Unions fight against abuse of migrant laborers
June 11, 2007Mexican and US organizers are risking their lives to prevent guest workers from being swindled by unscrupulous ‘recruiters.’ The Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) is working to protect migrant laborers from the thousands of unscrupulous recruiters who prey on them as they try to navigate the guest-worker program to earn a living in the US. But interfering in the recruiters’ lucrative trade is proving difficult – and deadly. Read more>
Charles Taylor’s trial puts dictators on notice
June 4, 2007“The greatest message that [Taylor's trial] sends is not for Sierra Leone alone but for Africa and the world that the days of impunity are finished, that if you commit these crimes, whoever you are, you will face justice,” says John Caulker, executive director of Forum of Conscience, a group based in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown. Read more>
Anti-illegal immigrant law blocked
May 23, 2007A federal judge Monday blocked enforcement of a voter-endorsed ordinance that would have prevented apartment rentals to most illegal immigrants in the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch. The temporary measure will be revisited in 10 days. Read more>
Iraqis finding a haven in Sweden
May 20, 2007Nearly 9,000 Iraqis, more than half of all those who arrived in Europe from the war-torn country in 2006, made their way to Sweden, which for decades has offered refugees and asylum seekers government aid and generous family reunification plans. In contrast, the U.S. may accept as many as 7,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of this year. Read more>
Gay New Yorkers’ marriages are valid
May 16, 2007The marriages of more than 170 gay couples from New York who wed in Massachusetts before last July are valid because New York had not yet explicitly banned same-sex marriages, a Massachusetts judge ruled. Read more>
Chad demobilizes child soldiers
May 11, 2007The government of Chad signed a deal with the UN to demobilize child soldiers, a positive first step in what will be a complicated process. Until now, authorities in Chad have denied that their military has child soldiers. Read more>
Governor of Oregon signs a domestic partner bill
May 10, 2007Starting January 1, Oregon will add some of the benefits of marriage to gay couples, including the ability to “enter into contractual relationships that carry many of the benefits offered to married couples.” Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who had supported the legislation, signed it and an additional bill that will outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.
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Woman honored for role in desegregation
May 9, 200760 years ago, four Latino families challenged segregation in California public schools and won. The case led California to desegrate its schools several years before the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court case.
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