AUTHOR: Muriëlle van Hagen Dozens of Rohingya villages in Myanmar were surrounded and set on fire, in August 2017. People were shot, tortured, raped, or burned alive, leaving behind only corpses and ash. This was all part of an ethnic cleansing campaign by Myanmar’s military, in an attempt to permanently erase the Rohingya community from the country—causing over 740,000 to …
AUTHOR: Jessica Giovanella On the 8th of May, 2025, the Lithuanian Parliament voted in favour of the recent decision to leave the Ottawa Convention, a convention banning anti-personnel mines. Lithuania is not an isolated case, as Finland also started withdrawing from the Convention in April 2025. Those withdrawals seem to follow a global trend. Indeed, the defence ministers of Lithuania, …
AUTHOR: Muriëlle van Hagen Two-year-old Whitney was abducted from her bed while she was sleeping. Nine-year-old Harry was snatched from his home, and 30-year-old Jenifer never returned from a bike ride. These are only three examples of people with albinism in Malawi who were later found murdered, with parts of their bodies cut off. This is both a sad and …
AUTHOR: Inês Alves Tomé For over 40 years, Iran has been suffering from gender apartheid. During this time, the Iranian government has been implementing a regime in which some parts of the population, in particular women, are discriminated against and extremely excluded from participating in normal society. Unfortunately, this discrimination which Iranian women face on a daily basis is still …
AUTHOR: Sara B. Gero Coltan is an essential material for renewable technologies, however, the mining industry behind them is linked to human rights abuses, including war crimes committed by armed groups, and land conflict. Currently, there are over 100 armed groups operating in the DRC, most of them smaller, local militias who attempt to protect their own communities after decades …
AUTHOR: Caterina Loreto When Ireland introduced the Direct Provision system in 2000, it was pitched as a short-term solution, an emergency measure to house people seeking asylum. Fast-forward more than two decades, and this “temporary” system is still in place, still heavily criticised, and still failing many of the people it was meant to protect. What began as a stopgap …
AUTHOR: Sara B. Gero Four years ago, in 2021, Hungary passed its ‘Child Protection Law’, which was also nicknamed as the Pedophile Law by government officials, and as ‘Propaganda Law’ by NGOs. This legislative package outlaws the portrayal of different sexual orientations, sex characteristics and gender identities in the media, and in schools and churches, as well as near these …
AUTHOR: Jessica Giovanella February 2025. France proposes a bill to ban all ‘ostensibly religious’ clothing and symbols during competition. France already sparked controversy around the hijab before the Paris Olympics of 2024 when it refused that women athletes participate with a hijab. The Olympic games were supposed to be the first Gender equal Olympics, but instead discriminated against Muslim women. …
AUTHOR: Inês Alves Tomé For over 40 years, Iran has been suffering from gender apartheid. During this time, the Iranian government has been implementing a regime in which some parts of the population, in particular women, are discriminated against and extremely excluded from participating in normal society. Unfortunately, this discrimination which Iranian women face on a daily basis is still widely …
AUTHOR: Maria Inês Afonso Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, following the withdrawal of United States troops from the region, approximately 1.4 million girls have been deprived of their right to education. This right is enshrined in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a commitment made by all 193 United Nations member states. Why, then, …
