Human Rights Magazine

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 ri...

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...

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 the...

In Canada, the last time housing was considered to be affordable, relative to income, was in 2004 The average price of a home in the Toronto area, the country’s most populated, is more than $1 million.  In Quebec too, where the housing market has been historically affordable, there has been a significant decline in affordability over recent years.  In Quebec’s largest city,  Montreal, new rentals...

Esther Dingemans is an expert in programmes that respond to conflict-related sexual violence. She worked for several years in humanitarian programmes on sexual and gender-based violence in several countries in Africa and the Middle East.  She is the executive director at the Global Survivors Fund and the Mukwege Foundation. In this episode, she was interviewed by Katie Coyle and Pamela Zambrano, t...

For this episode in the Pathways to Peace series, the focus is on the particular impact of violence and insecurity on women and girls. My guest is Reem Alsalem who, for 17 years until 2016, worked with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and then became an independent consultant in humanitarian action and refugee protection. She is now the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its ca...

The Kafala system is a form of worker sponsorship that allows private citizens and companies almost total control over the employment and immigration status of migrant workers. Lebanon has some 250,000 migrant domestic workers, most of them women from Africa and Asia. The labour laws do not provide them protections that other workers have, like a minimum wage or pay for overtime, limits on their w...

In February 2021, Myanmar military leaders removed the democratically elected party from power and took control of the government. In the year following, at least 1,700 civilians, including children, have been killed by the junta forces and some 10,000 arrested. Media outlets have been closed, and journalists arrested, beaten and tortured. Some have been killed.  Yet some independent journalists c...

The world's largest rainforest is in trouble.  Trees are being cut down at the fastest rate in years, for their wood and to clear the ground for crops supplying the global food industry. 75% of the forest is under stress with this level of deforestation, and with climate change impacts the trees take longer to recover from droughts and there are more fires. Much of the concern about the Amazo...

People who come to Canada as refugees or migrants without legal status can be held indefinitely in detention centers or provincial jails.  They may not have committed an offense and there is no trial, but they are treated as though they are criminals. Find out more in the new podcast episode by Serra Hasiloglu.  Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek Ma...

 Dan Smith is the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute .  With several years' experience with NGOs and international organizations he has written extensively on conflict and insecurity, and I encourage you to read his blog articles at dansmithsblog.com .   Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of bot...

This episode is the third in a series on Syria by Emma Beilouny. In this one, she gets insights from several people about the brutality of the Assad regime, and the possibilities for holding it accountable for its crimes against humanity.  Read the full article at upstreamjournal.org , with artwork by  Doğa Atabay, Emma is now also the host of a new podcast series, Ou en sont les femmes , in which...

Established in 1957 as an accommodation for families who were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Nakba, al-Yarmouk camp is considered the capital of the Palestinian diaspora as well as a symbol of resistance to Israel and was home to most Palestinian political parties’ headquarters.   Yarmouk’s population reached more than 200,000 Palestinians in the early 2010s and was the vibrant home to...

The number of Indigenous prison inmates in Canada is increasing, while the number of non-Indigenous inmates is going down.  Native people serve longer portions of their sentence and are less likely to be granted parole than other prisoners. In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Charlotte Lalonde speaks with several experts about why this is, and what needs to be done to correct what critics co...

In this episode, Emma Beilouny explores the impact of the economic sanctions placed on Syria in June 2020, in particular the impact on women and girls.  These sanctions are meant to punish the regime for its actions during the civil war, which began just over ten years ago, but they are having a devastating effect on the Syrian people. Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal maga...

My guest in this episode is William Schabas, the internationally respected expert on human rights law, genocide and the death penalty.  He is a professor of international law at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom and a professor of international law and human rights at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has served on several human rights commissions and fact-finding missions, and has...

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Amelia Coleman explores how simple, more efficient cookstoves are having an impact in Rwanda on women’s health as well as their rights and empowerment.  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,...

My guest in this episode of the Pathways to Peace series is Agnes Callamard, the well-known human rights expert who is now the Secretary General of Amnesty International.   She has had many roles, including that of the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions from 2017 to 2021. Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCui...

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights estimates that there are more than 100 million people in the world who are homeless,  people with no housing at all.  In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Florina Lupu examines the situation of homelessness here, in Montreal, the home city of the Upstream Journal and this podcast, in the context of the COVID pandemic, and with her guests explores...

In this episode of the Pathways to Peace series, Derek MacCuish speaks with Livingstone Sewanyana, the UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. The founder and executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative in Uganda, he is a lawyer with an extensive scholarly background in human rights, governance and access to justice.  Human Rig...

Gender-based violence targets women and girls in the largest forced displacement crisis in the world with almost 14 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance, 5 million of them women and girls of reproductive age. A rise in gender-based and sexual violence affects vulnerable groups, particularly women and girls, tearing families apart and destroying communities. Many Syrians are internall...

The editor of The Upstream Journal and Human Rights Magazine, Derek MacCuish, speaks with Sharan Burrow, head of the world's largest trade union federation.  The International Trade Union Confederation is acknowledged to be the global voice of working people. From her actions as a labour rights leader in Australia to her engagement at the global level, she has been a strong voice for workers...

The editor of The Upstream Journal and Human Rights Magazine, Derek MacCuish, speaks with Phil Bloomer, executive director of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre , an organization that reports on rights abuse allegations of more than 10,000 companies worldwide.  By providing the subsequent response by the companies, if any, the organization seeks a fair and balanced approach to transpa...

Mahima Kapur explores the issue of child marriage with a particular focus on the situation in the UK, and speaks with people experienced in the issue about what is needed to end the abusive practice. 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 impor...

The editor of The Upstream Journal and Human Rights Magazine, Derek MacCuish, speaks with John Morrison, CEO of the Institute for Human Rights and Business .  This episode is part of the series Pathways to Peace, in which we hear from people who have been deeply engaged in working for peace and human rights in their various aspects.   Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magaz...