Human Rights Magazine

Host Derek MacCuish:  My guest today in the Pathways to Peace series of interviews is Stephen Rapp, who is widely respected for his decades of work for justice and accountability in areas of conflict and war crimes.

In 2001, he joined the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as part of the effort to prosecute those responsible for the genocide of 1994, and he headed the trial team that achieved the first convictions in history...

There are an estimated 130,000 Tibetan people living in exile in India, Nepal and Bhutan. Most are in Dharamsala, India, where they continue their traditional customs and language with support from outside.  But decades have passed since China occupied their homeland, and the communities have a new challenge. In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Dina Lowe explores their changing situation. 

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Across the world, corruption costs trillions of dollars that should have gone into social and environmental progress. Corruption steals from efforts to reduce poverty, to improve social services and to build schools, hospitals and roads. It leaves little room for democracy and systems of justice.

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Sofia Gobin explores the concern with corruption in Brazil.

Human Rights Magazine is produce...

Every year, about 11,000 people who work in farming in India are listed as having killed themselves. The actual number is probably much higher, and in recent years the number of suicides is increasing. High levels of debt, the impacts of climate change and  government policy are all factors in the despair of small-scale farmers. In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Aditya Sathe explores the reasons behind the poverty of India’...

Indigenous communities throughout the world usually take water directly from rivers, ponds, streams, wells or springs. This  often requires people – mainly the women of the community  - to carry the water from sources distant from their homes.

A recent report to the UN Human Rights Council stated that one of the biggest barriers to indigenous peoples’ access to water and sanitation is that many countries deny the very existence of t...

Mira Cohen explores the situation for Wayuu people who live in an arid peninsula in northern Colombia. La Guajira region, a rapidly desertifying region shared by northern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela, has been home to the Wayuu indigenous people for centuries. With the presence of one of the largest open-pit coal mines in the world contaminating their land and regional government corruption, Wayuu must take matters into thei...

Greece is a destination country for many refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. The majority of these refugees come from Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Eritrea

Greece currently hosts about 50,000 refugees. They may have expected that Greece would be a gateway to the rest of Europe, but most of them can expect to remain in the country, since they can no longer legally travel deeper into Europe.

S...

As this podcast episode, and its companion article on Upstream Journal were being prepared, the Peace Research Institute in Oslo announced the nomination of Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Sarah Elobaid takes a close look into the work of the Emergency Response Rooms and their impacts, with guests who have direct experience with these youth-led networks...

In this episode, we take a somewhat different approach to our focus on human rights, and look not at a social situation but rather look at technological possibilities. Artificial intelligence is rapidly emerging as a new tool, as computer technology accelerates in the ability of machines to learn and emulate human thinking. Listen as Charlotte Power explores the impact that AI may have on human rights, especially in humanitarian wo...

In 2023, more than 650,000 people in America were identified as being without permanent shelters, and that’s a record number, the most since counts were started in 2007, and a 12 percent increase over 2022. 

Oregon has double what would be the national average of people without a permanent place to call home. 

In this episode, Tawnya Layne explores why so many are homeless, and possible short-term and long-term solutions,  in her hom...

The use of children in combat roles is not new in Myanmar. Both the government and some resistance groups have child soldiers, with tragic results. Hundreds of children have been killed and tortured by the Myanmar army in recent years. In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Yiwen Li speaks with several experts about the issue.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, ...

President Museveni of Uganda has retained power since 1986, using violence, arrests and media suppression to maintain the military dictatorship. In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Nkwesi Banage talks with experts about the dynamics of politics and elections in Uganda, and how Museveni has successfully kept power for decades.

(Photo: A Ugandan military police officer chases a journalist who was covering Bobi Wine when he had t...

The Fulani people are part of an ethnic group across the Sahara, Sahel and West Africa, comprising between 25 and 40 million people. About 10 million of them are pastoralists, and so they are part of the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world. Almost all are Muslims.

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Pauline Goemans explores the discrimination that Fulani people face in Ghana, and why that discrimination has increas...

Ce podcast cherche à capturer la complexité du combat féministe au Maroc dans une ère de réforme politique et juridique.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your fri...

The garment industry is Cambodia’s largest employer, with more than 850,000 workers. The three largest markets are the European Union, the destination of 40% of the production, followed by the United States at 30% and Canada at 9%. So, if we purchase clothing made in Cambodia, how concerned should we be about whether there were inadequate wages and rights abuse where the clothing is made?

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Ma...

Many refugees are fleeing conflict or poverty, but many are also seeking to escape from a society in which, because of their sexual identity and/or preference, they face violence and possibly death every day. In this podcast episode and the related article (at upstreamjournal.org), Julia Israel speaks with several guests about what it means for these people as they seek refuge in Canada.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upst...

A look into the particular role of women in the resistance to the brutal military regime in Myanmar. Produced by Ruolan Ma, it follows on the podcast episode and article she did last year on the country and the role of journalists there. 

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is im...

Canada provides universal healthcare, but people with autism and their families struggle significantly against many barriers and a lack of service. Support is commonly offered following a diagnosis, but what happens when an individual either cannot get one, or is considered too old for one?
Host Emma Nahmiach speaks with experts about the lack of sufficient support for neurodiverse people, and why diagnosis for children (which ...

The cost of tea for consumers is really low, given the volume of tea that is grown, half of it produced in China by some 80 million people.

But it is workers in places like South Asia that have significant problems, where there is a long history of worker exploitation dating to colonial times. Tea workers throughout the region suffer from widespread child labor, gender discrimination, and wage theft because they are usually low cast...