Human Rights in the News: April 2025
/Welcome to the April 2025 edition of Human Rights in the News, Woven Teaching’s monthly collection of important human rights stories from around the world.
Seal of the US State Department (Credit: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
The State Department is changing its mind about what it calls human rights
Graham Smith | NPR | 18 April 2025
The Trump administration is scaling back the State Department’s annual reports on human rights around the world. The reports, meant to inform congress on foreign aid and other decisions, will be stripped down to include only that information which is legally required. “People who specialize in human rights work told NPR they worry about the effect the cuts will have on the documents' influence within the international community.”
Palestinians holding pots and bowls (Credit: Abed Rahim Khatib / Anadolu / Anadou via AFP)
Türk calls on world to prevent total humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights | 29 April 2025
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is urging the international community to act to “prevent the total collapse of critical life-saving support in Gaza.” Since the beginning of March, Israel has blocked food, fuel, and other vital goods from entering Gaza. The statement also notes that Israeli forces have continued to target “civilian objects indispensable to the survival of the population” such as water trucks and sanitation systems.
“Make America Great Again” hats (Credit: AP)
Trump’s first 100 days supercharged a global ‘freefall of rights’, says Amnesty
Mark Townsend | The Guardian | 28 April 2025
Amnesty International has recently released its annual report on the state of human rights in 150 countries. It notes that “growing inaction over the climate crisis, violent crackdowns on dissent and a mounting backlash against the rights of migrants, refugees, women, girls and LGBTQ+ people could be traced to the so-called Trump effect.”
Victoria McCloud, a transwoman and former judge (Credit: Avalon)
Britain’s first transgender judge takes UK to European court over controversial definition of a woman ruling
Millie Cooke, Kate Devlin | Independent | 29 April 2025
Britain’s Supreme Court has recently ruled that the word “woman” only refers to biological sex under the country’s anti-discrimination law. The ruling will have wide-ranging ramifications for trans women’s rights to use public bathrooms and other single-sex spaces. The UK’s first openly transgender judge is bringing action against the government in the European Court of Human Rights.
Incarcerated people sit head-to-back on the floor of CECOT, El Salvador’s mega prison for alleged gang members (Credit: Britannica)
UN experts slam US move to 'deny due process' to migrants deported to El Salvador
Nina Larson | AFP | 30 April 2025
Experts at the United Nations have stated that they believe the United States is intentionally denying due process rights to the hundreds of Salvadorans and Venezuelans that have recently been deported to a Salvadoran prison. Other outlets have called the deportations “enforced disappearances.”
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