Advancing Human Rights

A Status Report on Human Rights in the United States

This report is a publication of the US Human Rights Network

December 2014

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Acknowledgments

We could not have completed this report without the generous support of the following individuals:

Author:

Salimah Hankins

Editor, Design, and Photographs:

Balthazar Becker

Balthazar Becker authored the chapters on “Criminal Justice & Mass Incarceration” and “Right to Life & Security of Person”

A Warm Thanks Goes to the Following Researchers:

Johnny Holschuh

(Environmental & Climate Justice; Criminal Justice) Kelsi Steele

(Marriage & Family; Reproductive Justice) Krystal Utara

(Immigration Policy; Voter Suppression)

Further research or help was provided by:

Ashley Ngozi Agbasoga, Emily Hwang, Tehmiena Lughmani, Afif Rahman, Kia Roberts, Omotorera Sotinwa, James Tourkistas, and Jara White.

Table of Contents

Overview 1

The United States and Human Rights Implementation 2

Environmental & Climate Justice 7

Immigration Policy 15

Criminal Justice & Mass Incarceration 24

Right to Life & Security of Person 30

Decent Work 41

Voter Suppression 48

Marriage & Family 54

Reproductive Justice 59

Healthcare 65

Education 71

Housing 77

Privacy 84

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OVERVIEW The year 2014 has been tumultuous for hu-man rights in the United States. We have seen continued criminalization and police violence directed at black and brown people, mass de-portations, militarized responses to protests, water shutoffs in Detroit, and reversal of women’s reproductive rights—all indications that the United States is far from its claim of human rights exceptionalism. This year has also been a time for impressive human rights organizing to hold the United States govern-ment accountable. The United States was re-viewed on its compliance with three human rights treaties this year. The reviews garnered unprecedented media attention nationally and internationally. Also in 2014, we saw renewed energy around human rights movement-building, be it to challenge police killings, call to action around climate change, or demand a living wage. This report provides a status up-date on human rights in the United States in the last year. We hope that you will use it to amplify the various human rights efforts in the United States.

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?

Human rights are rights that we all have simply because we are human. They are the basic claims that we have to dignity and re-spect without regard to our race, nationality, gender, gender identity, sexuality, age, religion, (dis)ability, language, income, immigration status, or other statuses. Human rights include civil, cultural, development, economic, envi-ronmental, political, sexual, and social rights. Examples of human rights include housing, health, education, food, water, freedom from discrimination, freedom from torture, and freedom of expression.

Commonly accepted human rights are ex-pressed and guaranteed in a body of interna-tional law. The Universal Declaration of Hu-

man Rights (UDHR), which was adopted by the United Nations on December 10th of 1948—now known as Human Rights Day—was one of the first documents to outline the full range of human rights. Since then, human rights law has developed to include numerous laws, treaties, and agreements that aim to pro-tect people around the world.

Human rights laws not only articulate basic rights and freedoms that all people and Peoples are entitled to, but also establish the role of government in advancing these protec-tions. It asserts that governments have an obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights of all people. This means that not only must governments refrain from violating hu-man rights itself, but they must also affirma-tively ensure that others are not violating our human rights and must provide all of the conditions necessary for people to enjoy their human rights. In recognition that govern-ments are increasingly compromised by the role of money in politics and governance, the human rights community has also highlighted human rights abuses occurring at the hands of transnational corporations. These kinds of profit-making entities in many cases not only violate human rights, but are increasingly er-roneously looked to as a solution. The re-sponsibility of business enterprises to respect human rights refers to all internationally rec-ognized human rights – understood, at a min-imum, as those expressed in the International Bill of Human Rights and “the principles con-cerning fundamental rights set out in the In-ternational Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.”

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THE UNITED STATES AND HUMAN RIGHTS IMPLEMENTATION The United States has historically been seen as a champion for human rights around the globe and was instrumental in the drafting of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)—the birth-document of legally en-shrined human rights around the globe. On the other hand, many individuals within the jurisdiction of the United States face egre-gious human rights violations in nearly every area imaginable. This and the failure of the United States government to support the full enforceability of human rights law ensures that the United States is not held accountable to the same human rights standards and laws that it insists on for other countries.

In addition to signing the UDHR, the United States has formally accepted and ratified three out of the ten core human rights treaties. The treaties that the United States has ratified include the International Cove-nant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Convention on the Elimina-tion of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). The United States has not ratified treaties that would ad-vance the rights of women, children, persons with disabilities, and migrant workers, or that would advance economic, social, and cultural rights.

In 2014, the United Nations human rights experts who oversee implementation of all three of the above human rights treaties have renewed the call for the United States to rat-ify core international human rights trea-ties including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Conven-tion on the Rights of Migrant Workers (ICMW), and the Convention on the Elimina-tion of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). While President Obama signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with

Disabilities (CRPD) in 2009 and the United States Senate considered its ratification on December 4, 2012, it fell 5 votes short of the super-majority vote required to ratify it. Sig-nificantly, the United States has also failed to ratify the International Covenant on Econom-ic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which along with the UDHR and ICCPR make up the international bill of human rights. This failure, coupled with the non-ratification of CRPD, CMW, CEDAW, and the CRC—all of which include substantive economic, social and cultural rights protec-tions, reflects a deeper failure to recognize and protect core economic and social rights (which the United States Constitution does not recognize).

Though the United States has long pro-claimed its commitment to complying with human rights standards, when it ratifies trea-ties it does so with qualifications known as Reservations, Understandings, and Decla-rations (RUD) that typically limit the en-forceability of the treaties. The government claims that domestic law is sufficient to meet the standards enshrined in human rights laws, but, as detailed in this report, domestic pro-tections falls short in a variety of ways that leave people vulnerable to human rights abus-es. Accepting some human rights and reject-ing others is problematic because “all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.” This makes it counter-productive for governments to pick and choose among human rights “those which they will honor while interpreting other hu-man rights as optional, dispensable, non-obligatory, or even as ‘unreal." Viewing hu-man rights as normative responses to experi-ences of oppression and domination provides the key to understanding how human rights function and how they hang together to form a unit.

Human rights must be interdependent because if they were not, tyrants and oppres-sors could simply employ a different tech-

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nique of repression to maintain their systems of oppression. We cannot enjoy civil and po-litical rights unless we enjoy economic, cultur-al, and social rights, likewise, we cannot avail ourselves of our economic, social and cultural rights, unless we can exercise our civil and political rights. Or, as Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said about the Greensboro Lunch Counter sit-ins, “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t af-ford to buy a hamburger?” Ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and other core human rights treaties without qualifications, would serve as an important step to combat-ing inequality and preventing the suffering created by economic downturns. By recogniz-ing the United States government's obligation to respect, protect and fulfill core human rights, we will ensure that like many people around the world, people in America can also enjoy the right to housing, education, health, work, and social security.

The constitutional and institutional structure of federalism poses unique challenges for the United States when it comes to interna-tional law obligations. The federalist system gives a sovereign federal government a set of powers while giving the state governments of 50 sovereign states another set of powers. In-ternational law obligations bind all countries, regardless of each of their internal governing operations. Because of this, federal, state, and local authorities share responsibility for im-plementing international human rights obliga-tions. Indeed, in its 2014 Concluding Obser-vations for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Human Rights Committee emphasized that the United States government must work at “federal, state and local levels, taking into account that the obli-gations under the Covenant are binding on the State party as a whole, and that all branch-es of government and other public or gov-ernmental authorities at every level are in a position to engage the responsibility of the State party”

The United States has repeatedly affirmed that state and local governments, who are on front lines of addressing “key human rights issues, are vital to comprehensive human rights implementation within and throughout the country.” Given this reality, no national institutionalized effort exists to “encourage, coordinate and support human rights educa-tion, monitoring or implementation at the state and local levels.” The federalist system does, in fact, present unique challenges, but the federal government itself has much to ad-dress regarding its mass surveillance and in-definite detention programs. These dilemmas, among many others, pose a threat to the cred-ibility of the United States government both at home and abroad.

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice in partnership with the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor launched a federal level, inter-agency Equality Working Group in March 2012 to coordinate federal agencies around human rights. In order to be effective, the Equality Working Group’s mandate “will need to be expanded to include all hu-man rights obligations, and it will need to be institutionalized.” It will also need to en-gage with state and local governments. The Office of the United Nations High Commis-sioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has long encouraged the growth of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), which are organ-izations that promote and monitor the im-plementation of international human rights standards at the national level. Although there are over 150 state and local civil and human rights agencies that enforce federal, state, and local human and civil rights laws, conduct re-search, issue policy recommendations, and engage in education and training, the United States does not have an NHRI.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) recom-mended that the United States government create a permanent coordinating mecha-

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nism such as a national human rights institu-tion to “ensure the effective implementation and monitoring of CERD at the federal, state and local levels.” The CERD Committee also raised concerns about the absence of a plan to combat racial discrimination and recommend-ed that the United States government adopt a National Action Plan to combat structural racial discrimination and promote human rights education. Combating institutionalized racism is key to fully implementing human rights in the United States. Human rights ed-ucation is a key component for building a cul-ture of accountability. There is currently no comprehensive national framework or plan for human rights education within K-12 edu-cation, higher education, or the training of educators. Where it exists, human rights edu-cation is often taught through a strictly histor-ical lens, without attention to its contempo-rary application.

Overall, the United States lacks strong struc-tures to hold the government accountable for its human rights obligations. However, there is a vibrant and growing movement afoot and communities are fighting back to protect the human rights of all people living in the United States. These include members and partners of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN). We are challenging the notion that human rights violations are primarily a con-cern of other countries. We reject the implica-tion that there are people who are not deserv-ing of human rights. We are working across movements and building power from the grassroots to ensure that people are always prioritized over profit. We are growing a hu-man rights movement led by people who are most directly impacted. We are demanding that the United States live up to its founding values as a nation, which holds that all people are created equal. This idea—the inherent dignity of all human beings—is the basis of the human rights movement.

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

The US Human Rights Network (USHRN) is a national network of organizations and indi-viduals working to strengthen a human rights movement and culture within the United States led by those most impacted by human rights violations. We work to secure dignity and justice for all. USHRN serves as an anchor to build the collective power of communities across the country and to ex-pand the base of a bold, vibrant, and broad-based people-centered human rights move-ment.

USHRN is the primary organization coordi-nating the participation of social justice and human rights groups in using the in-ternational human rights mechanisms to hold the United States government accounta-ble. In March of 2014, USHRN led a delega-tion to Geneva to testify before the United Nations Human Rights Committee regarding the United States’ implementation of the In-ternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Again, in August, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (hereafter, the Commit-tee) reviewed the United States government’s record under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Dis-crimination (commonly known as ICERD or CERD). During the review process, the Committee received reports and heard testi-mony from over 100 organizations. Among the civil society delegation were people direct-ly impacted by human rights violations, in-cluding Ron Davis and Sybrina Fulton, whose sons (Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin, re-spectively) were shot to death in Florida—one of many states with Stand Your Ground laws on the books. In November of 2014 before the Committee Against Toture (CAT), the parents of Michael Brown (the unarmed black teenager who was killed by police of-ficer Darren Wilson) testified about the killing of their sons and other black boys and men by police. During the same review, Martinez Sut-

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ton testified about the killing of his sister, Rekia Boyd, an unarmed Black woman shot and killed by police. Breanna Champion of We Charge Genocide (WCG), testified about the beating of her brother by police and the WCG delegation stood in protest of the mur-der of Dominique Franklin Jr. at the hands of the Chicago police. In addition, United States civil society submitted its alternative reports (those submitted through USHRN can be found here) and testimonies to give the CERD Committee an accurate picture of ra-cial discrimination in the United States.

SOME CURRENT USHRN CAMPAIGNS

2014 UDHR Campaign: The #udhr2014 campaign leads up to Human Rights Day, marked on December 10 to celebrate the United Nation's proclamation of the Univer-sal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Stories are posted on this page regularly until December 10, so check back often. To join the #udhr2014 campaign: Join the conversa-tion using #udhr2014, Share the videos and stories posted, Sign up for the UDHR Thun-derclap. Tell us your (or your organization’s) human rights story.

National Plan of Action for Racial Justice: The Once and For All campaign was launched on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (March 21) last year by the USHRN and the Human Rights at Home Campaign (HuRAH). The purpose was to call on the Obama Administration to estab-lish a National Plan of Action for Racial Jus-tice to comprehensively address persistent forms of racial discrimination and race dispar-ities in almost every sphere of life.

Human Rights At Home Campaign (HuRAH): Founded in 2008, the Human Rights at Home Campaign (HuRAH) is a coa-lition of human rights groups working togeth-er to demand human rights accountability on a governmental level. In 2014, HuRAH has

been working with the USHRN Taskforces on ICCPR, CERD, CAT, and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) to leverage all human rights reviews to organize for a human rights agenda in the United States including the adoption of a National Plan of Action for Ra-cial Justice. For more information, Join the HuRAH listserv

Member Initiated Action Teams (MIATs): MIATs provide members of the US Human Rights Network with the opportunity to initi-ate their own teams around human rights top-ics that interest them so that members can learn from one another, collaborate across constituency and region, and take action.

Environmental Justice & Reproductive Health Working Group is made up of non-governmental organizations across the United States working to identify companies and lo-cations manufacturing restricted and banned pesticides for use and export using the Free-dom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain information about them. Their goals are to use the information obtained to take action in stopping the production and export of these chemicals and to hold companies and states accountable.

Human Rights Defenders Member Initi-ated Action Team works to help United States human rights advocates to recognize themselves as Human Rights Defenders (HRDs), understand their protections under international human rights law, take advantage of international human rights mechanisms, and incorporate the HRDs framework into their advocacy.

International Decade of People of African Descent MIAT works to recognize and hon-or people of African descent for their politi-cal, cultural, social, economic, and spiritual contributions to the world. This MIAT also seeks to address the historical and continuous discrimination and racism faced by people of African descent that violate their human

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rights promulgated by the Universal Declara-tion of Human Rights and all of the United Nations treaties.

Land and Housing Action Group (Take Back the Land Movement Coordinating Committee) aims to challenge the housing crisis in the United States by coordinating support for homeowners and tenants facing eviction, residents of public housing; develop-ing creative strategies to address foreclosures and housing shortages; and creating a dis-course where housing and land are de-commoditized. The Action Group is inspired by the direct action initiatives of Network members Coalition to Defend Public Housing in Chicago, Take Back the Land in Miami, Survivors Village in New Orleans, and Picture the Homeless in New York City.

Political Prisoner and State Repression Working Group uses human rights standards to obtain amnesty and freedom of United States-imprisoned human rights defenders.

Sexual Rights and Gender Justice Work-ing Group aims to meaningfully and consist-ently integrate sexual rights and gender justice into the broader agenda of the domestic hu-man rights movement in the United States; increase the membership and participation of groups working on gender justice and sexual rights within the US Human Rights Net-work; develop the capacity of LGBT, repro-ductive justice, sexual freedom, sex worker, intersex, kink/BDSM and poly/non-monogamy activists to effectively use human rights language, standards and strategies in their domestic advocacy and organizing; and to build solidarity with sexual rights activists throughout the Inter-American region and the world.

Southeast Asian Freedom Network (SEA-FN) is a newly formed collective of grass-roots Southeast Asian organizing groups from around the United States that are aligned in radical transformation of our communities

and intersectional analysis that calls us to true solidarity with communities of color around us. Through deep sharing of experience and strategy, SEAFN has identified seven rising themes in Southeast Asian movement build-ing work that will guide us towards liberation, transformation, and solidarity.

We invite you to learn more about us at http://www.ushrnetwork.org/ and to join the movement.

WHY A STATUS REPORT

This report aspires to present a 2014 snap-shot of the status of human rights in the United States using plain language for the purpose of broad accessibility. The report is derived from research conducted by partners, allies, and journalists as well as original sources that include hyperlinks. It is by no means a comprehensive report. The focus is on domestic issues with an emphasis on eco-nomic, social, and cultural rights. Foreign pol-icy and international anti-terrorism measures, which are equally important human rights concerns, are not addressed. We invite you to respond to us with your thoughts at info@ushrnetwork.org.

Notes:

In this report, the following terms are used inter-changeably: Native American, Indigenous Peoples and American Indian to refer to persons who are “of some degree Indian blood and [are] recognized as an Indian by a [nation] village and/or the United States.” Hispanic and Latina/o to refer to persons or communities of Lat-in American origin or from Spanish speaking countries. LGBTQI, GLBT & LGBT to refer to those individuals who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Non-Gendered and Intersex. People of color and racial minorities to refer to people who are not white. Black and African American refers to people of African de-scent with varying ethnicities and immigration statuses including “descendants of Africans enslaved in the Unit-ed States as well as more recent immigrants from places such as Africa, the Caribbean, or the West Indies.”

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A healthy, safe, clean, and sustainable envi-ronment is necessary for, and dependent on, the fulfillment of a host of other human rights, including the rights to life, adequate health, adequate housing, food, sanitation, and water. Any successful approach to securing a healthy environment for all must be holistic, and prioritize the needs of groups that are most economically and politically marginal-ized.

The effects of climate change include, among other things, a rise in the temperature of the planet and oceans (known as global warming), rising sea levels, increased risk of drought, fire and floods, more heat-related illnesses and diseases, economic losses and stronger storms such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. Two days before Pres-ident Obama and world leaders attended a climate summit at the United Nations, an estimated “570,000 people took part in 2,700 simultaneous climate events in 161 countries around the world.” This People’s Climate March was the largest climate march in history and its purpose was to “demand action to end the climate crisis.” Frontline communities—people of color and poor communities who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change—led the march while and it was en-dorsed by over 1,500 organizations.

Environmental & Climate Justice ____________________

United Nations Human Rights Commission; in Resolution 2005/57

A democratic and equitable international order requires, inter alia, the realization of the right of every person and all peoples to a healthy environ-

ment.

____________________

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Climate Justice views climate change as an ethical issue and considers how its “causes and effects relate to concepts of justice, par-ticularly environmental justice” (which in-volves the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens) and social justice, “in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportuni-ties, and privileges within a society.” Climate Justice is a struggle over “land, forest, water, culture, food sovereignty, collective and social rights” and it examines issues of “equality, human rights, collective rights and historical responsibility in relation to climate change.” Led primarily by African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Peo-ples, the environmental justice movement “addresses a statistical fact: people who live, work and play in America's most polluted en-vironments are commonly people of color and the poor.” Communities of color, which are often poor, “are routinely targeted to host facilities that have negative environmental im-pacts -- say, a landfill, dirty industrial plant or truck depot.” The statistics provide clear evi-dence of what the movement rightly calls en-vironmental racism—the placement of low-income or minority communities “in proximi-ty of environmentally hazardous or degraded environments, such as toxic waste, pollution and urban decay.” People of color comprise more than half of Unite States residents exposed to toxic pollution, despite comprising 30% of United States population. African Americans are 79% more likely than whites to live in neighbor-hoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing greatest danger to health. Indige-nous Peoples, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders make up 69% of residents in neighborhoods where there are two or more polluting facilities lo-cated in a cluster. Three-fifths of Blacks and Latinos, and half of Indigenous Peoples, Asians, and Pacific Islanders live in communi-ties with uncontrolled waste sites.

The United States government has failed to address human rights concerns of commu-nities living near chemical factories and oil refineries, specifically in Richmond, California and West, Texas. The health impacts caused by the emission of toxic chemicals dispropor-tionately impacts low income communities and communities of color.” And in Westlake, Louisiana, an explosion at the Axiall Corpora-tion chemical plant injured 18 people and sent a cloud of smoke and chemicals toward, Mossville, a historic African-American com-munity located in Southwest Louisiana. Many of its residents have, since the accident, suf-fered from a number of severe health prob-lems due to toxic industrial pollution caused by nearby petrochemical factories. Descendants of slaves have made Africatown, in Alabama their home for gen-erations, but the nearby Scott Paper Compa-ny's pollution has led to high cancer rates. Residents say that they could “smell the odor from International Paper Compa-ny. It would be so bad you’d have to cover your mouth… it would smell like what you call ammonia now, it would be in the air so strong.” Recently, Canadian National rail cars began carrying tar sands oil into Mobile, Ala-bama and soon 120 car loads - totaling more than “2 million gallons every day - are ex-pected to transport the toxic sludge along those same tracks.” Residents and others fear that the tar sands would be shipped from storage tanks through a more than thirty-year old pipeline that runs under Africatown. Communities of color in Chicago also remain especially vulnerable to environmental injus-tices caused by polluting industries. In south Chicago refining tar sands has meant that a byproduct known as Petcoke is polluting the air and waterways. Communities of color in Bernalillo County New Mexico are facing significant public health and environmental challenges due to urban air pollution and unequal implementa-tion of air pollution laws by local regulatory agencies supervised by the Environmental

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Protection Agency (EPA). Also, in New Mexico, the radioactive and toxic pollution caused by the waste from uranium mining and processing continues to have adverse envi-ronmental and health effects, which pose ra-dioactive threats to predominantly Indigenous communities, in particular, the Navajo Na-tion. This waste is “chemically toxic, which further increases the health burdens on these communities.” Uranium mining and pro-cessing waste has also “contaminated untold amounts of water, perhaps the most im-portant resource in the desert southwestern [while] new proposed uranium mines promise to contaminate even more water sources.” Vietnamese Americans, many of whom are fishermen and women living mostly along the coast of Louisiana, are disproportionately af-fected by land and water contamination. After Hurricane Katrina there was “one landfill for all the toxic waste, which was situated one kilometre from the community, which seeped into the community and was colloquially re-ferred to as ‘cancer alley.” More than four years after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform exploded killing 11 workers and sending roughly five million barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, oil droplets from the massive disaster have spread over “1,235 square miles of the seafloor.” Yellowfin and Bluefin Tuna and Amberjack fish (large predatory fish) that were embryos, larvae, or juveniles when the spill occurred may be developing heart defects that reduce their capacity to catch food, which is likely to cause these fish to die-off. The United States Coast Guard reports that oil is still washing ashore from Florida to Louisiana. This disas-ter affected many of the same Vietnamese fishermen as Hurricane Katrina—this time by “making huge swaths of the Gulf off limits to fishing and potentially destroying their liveli-hoods.” According to preliminary results from a study conducted by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, “workers are carrying biomarkers in their bodies of chemicals contained in the oil spilled from the BP Macondo well.”

Climate change impacts women, according to a recent United Nations study, Gender and Climate Change, more severely than men. It predicts that the physical, economic, social, and cultural impacts of global warming will “jeopardize women far more then men. Just as Hurricane Katrina […] disproportionately affected women far more then men.” Women are more severely affected by climate change and natural disasters “because of their social roles and because of discrimination and pov-erty.” To make matters worse, they are also “underrepresented in decision-making about climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and, most critically, discussions and decisions about adaptation and mitigation.” In addition to other health issues related to environmental toxins, pollution can interfere with a woman’s ability to have children. The preliminary re-sults of a study of 500 women and children conducted by the National Institute for Envi-ronmental Health Sciences revealed that in the initial period of exposure to the BP Oil Spill, the participants reported experiencing many symptoms such as: “wheezing; tightness in chest; watery, burning or itchy eyes; burning in nose, throat or lungs; skin rash; severe headaches or migranes; nausea; excessive fa-tigue or tiredness; diarrhea; sore throat; and being unable to concentrate.” These women could have been exposed to fumes from the spill “in the air, from washing clothes, from participating in hunting and fishing trips” in areas contaminated with oil, or by visiting nearby beaches. The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation and to adequate housing both derive from the right to an adequate standard of living, which is protected under, among other things, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that is fully applicable to the United States. Increasingly water, which as a basic human right should be a public good, has been privatized. The result is that more people are finding their enjoyment of the right linked to their financial state. Thus, the City of Detroit is facing a major water crisis as a result of decades of policies that have put

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“corporate business and profit ahead of the public good and human rights.” In an effort to recover lost water revenues, the City of De-troit cut off water to thousands of residents. Indeed, “22,000 homes lost water between March and August, although 15,251 had ser-vice restored.” As of the end of October 2014, there were still “2,300 homes without water.” These residents have seen water rates rise by 119% within the last decade. The “burden of paying for city services has fallen onto the residents who have stayed within the economically depressed city” in which 80 per-cent of the population is African American. According to data from 2013, 40.7 percent of Detroit’s population lives below the poverty level and 99 percent of the poor are African American. Twenty percent of the population is living on $800 or less per month, while the average monthly water bill is currently $70.67. This is simply unaffordable for thousands of residents. These types of policies affect more cities than Detroit, for example, in Boston, Massachusetts, low-income communities and communities of color are more likely to re-ceive water shut-off notices. This is evidence of extreme and ongoing patterns of racial and economic inequality. Of particular concern are the facts that “residents in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods are more likely to be in arrears with respect to their monthly water bills and the city has “no publicly-stated mechanism to reduce water bills for those who cannot afford their water bills.” On October 18-20, 2014, the United Na-tions Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanita-tion visited Detroit at the invitation of civil society organizations. According the Special Rapporteur, “the scale of water shut-offs car-ried out by a contracted company since last year is an unprecedented level. The utility has passed on the increased costs of leakages due to an aging infrastructure onto all remaining residents by increasing water rates by 8.7 per-cent.” In addition, repeated cases of gross er-rors on water bills have been reported, which

are also used as a ground for disconnections. In practice, people have no means to prove errors and hence these bills are impossible to challenge. Without water, people cannot live a life with dignity—they have no water for drink-ing, cooking, bathing, flushing toilets, and keeping their clothes and houses clean. Ac-cording to one Detroit resident, "we're filling up our buckets to flush the toilet, to bathe with […]. We can't clean, we can't wash our-selves, it's really disgusting, and we need help. Half the people on my block have had their water turned off; we can't pay our bills.” De-spite the fact that water is essential for surviv-al, the city has no data on how many people have been and are living without tap water, let alone information on age, disabilities, chronic illness, race or income level of the affected population. Essential to the right to water is that it be safe, clean, and free of toxins. Actions that threaten the water supply of communities, such as “fracking”, can contaminate ground-water and drinking water from wells. Many chemicals used in fracking fluid have increas-ingly been found to be harmful both to the environment and to human health, yet “poor regulations and legislation governing fracking often allow accidents which contaminate sur-rounding water sources.” To give just one ex-ample for this greater problem: criminal charges have been filed against Exxon Mobile subsidiary XTO energy for illegally disposing of tens of thousands of gallons of waste from fracking in 2010. The contamination of natural water sources is also occurring because of mountaintop re-moval –“a mining practice where the tops of mountains are removed, exposing the seams of coal [and] where the earth from the moun-taintop is dumped in the neighboring val-leys”—which threatens to make ground water in West Virginia undrinkable. In January of 2014, a chemical spill in Elk River, West Vir-ginia resulted in 300,000 people being unable

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to use their water for five days. In Illinois, low-income communities and communities of color continue to endure health disparities as a result of environmental racism. In southern Illinois, the rapid expansion of the hydraulic fracking industry threatens rural areas, includ-ing Indigenous communities. Coal power plants continue to pollute waterways and pro-duce high rates of respiratory illnesses in nearby communities of color. The Keystone XL pipeline, would, if com-pleted, transport tar-sands oil (which is dirtier than other forms of oil production and releas-es more carbon dioxide) “1,700 miles across six states and hundreds of waterways, posing an unacceptable risk of spill, threatening sa-cred burial grounds, and potentially contami-nating the only source of water in the plains.” The pipeline would carry millions of gallons of crude oil from Alberta in Canada to Amer-ican refineries on the Gulf Coast. The pipeline would go through the Ogallala Aquifer, the source of drinking water for much of the Great Plains region, including the land of Sovereign Indigenous Peoples in South Dako-ta. A study published by the Stockholm Envi-ronment Institute in August of 2014 finds that the pipeline could produce four times more global-warming-fuelling pollution than esti-mated by the State Department. TransCanada, the company building the pipeline, has already begun shipping crude oil through its southern leg which is completed, but “the company is still waiting for the State Department to de-cide whether to issue a permit for the 1,179-mile northern leg that would carry predomi-nantly heavy oil from Canada’s oil sands , cross the border in Montana and run to the small town of Steele City, Neb[raska]. There it would connect with existing pipelines.” Ne-braska had given TransCanada "the ability to use eminent domain in order to take land for construction, and some landowners object-ed.” A lower court in Nebraska has stopped the pipeline from being built, but the Supreme Court of Nebraska will hear the case on whether the governor had authority to author-ize the pipeline in the first place. Despite

mounting pressure from environmental activ-ists, President Obama has announced that he will delay his decision until after the Nebraska Supreme Court case, meaning he will not make a decision until after the November elections. In November, the House of Repre-sentatives passed a Keystone XL Pipeline bill, but a similar bill was narrowly defeated in the Senate, but could likely pass in the next con-gressional session. As of December, President Obama has yet to make a decision on the pipeline. While politicians, environmentalists and others have been focused on the Key-stone XL Pipeline, Enbridge Inc. and its Unit-ed States subsidiary “have circumvented the pipeline permitting process. By the middle of next year, the Calgary-based company will be transporting 800,000 bpd of tar-sands oil from western Canada into the U.S.” Enbridge has pipelines already built in Canada and the United States and through a series of legal maneuvers, will connect them to start trans-mitting tar sands oil. Enbridge also had a role in the “largest inland oil spill in U.S. history, the result of a ruptured pipe in 2010.” Climate Justice is a struggle over, land, air, and water, but also the right of food sovereign-ty—particularly because the health of the former, greatly impacts the latter. Racialized policies in the United States have led to food insecurity including “inadequate distribution of healthy and nutritious food and food de-serts in the United States which “disproportionately impact the health and well being of many communities of color.” De-spite efforts across the country to eliminate food deserts, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, 23.5 million peo-ple in America live in food deserts (where in-dividuals’ choices about what to eat are se-verely limited by the options available to them and what they can afford) and/or food swamps (where residents are inundated with fast food chains selling inexpensive foods that have low nutritional values and are high in fat, sugar, and salt).

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Evidence suggests that many low-income communities, communities of color, and sparsely populated rural areas do not have sufficient opportunities to buy healthy, affordable food. Decreased access to healthy food “means people in low-income communi-ties suffer more from diet-related diseases like obesity and diabetes than those in higher-income neighborhoods” with easy access to healthy food, particularly fresh fruits and veg-etables. A multi-state study conducted in 2010 by PolicyLink found that eight percent of Af-rican Americans live in a census tract with a supermarket, compared to 31 percent of Whites. And a nationwide analysis found there are 418 rural “food desert” counties where all residents live more than 10 miles from a supermarket or supercenter—this is 20 percent of rural counties.” Predominately La-tino zip codes had only one-third the number of supermarkets of predominately White neighborhoods. By the end of 2013, 49.1 million people lived in food-insecure households which means “at times during the year, these households were uncertain of having, or unable to ac-quire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.” Also, 8.6 million children lived in food-insecure households in which children, along with adults, were food insecure. Some groups’ rates are much higher than the national average of 14.3 percent. Households with children head-ed by a single woman are at more than twice the national average at 34.4 percent of food insecurity. Black households are insecure at a rate of 26.1 percent, while Hispanic house-holds follow closely at 23. 7 percent. Accord-ing to a new report, 2.4 million (29%) LGBT adults experienced a time in the last year when they did not have enough money to feed themselves or their family. LGBT people are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity as “one in four bisexuals (25 percent) receive food stamps [and] 34 percent of LGBT wom-en were food insecure in the last year.” Thirty-seven percent of LGBT African Americans,

55% of LGBT Native Americans, and 78% of LGBT Native Hawaiians experienced food insecurity in the last year. Along with a lack of access to healthy food, food-insecurity is caused by a lack of money and other resources at times during the year. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) operates as a cushion for families who struggle to provide adequate food. Though Democrats and Republicans have struggled to agree on virtually every issue, both parties agreed, during a time of severe economic hardship, to cut $8.7 billion in food stamps over the next decade. In February of 2014, Congress passed and President Obama signed, the bipartisan FARM bill causing 850,000 already struggling households across the country to lose an average of $90 per month in food stamp benefits including more than 9 million elderly and disabled people. Meanwhile, the same bill (FARM)—a biparti-san bill which cut from the SNAP pro-gram $8.7 billion over 10 years and removes subsidies for small farmers, gives large handouts (in the form of subsidized crop in-surance) to wealthy corporate farmers at a time of record crop prices and federal deficits. In fact, the current farm bill expands the pro-gram to cost the government $90 billion over ten years, an increase of $7 billion. More than one 1 in 5 LGB adults aged 18-44 (21%), approximately 1.1 million, participated in the SNAP program through receipt of food stamps in the past year. More than 1 in 8 same-sex couples (13%), approximately 84,000 couples and 4 in 10 LGB adults age 18-44 raising children (43%), approximately 650,000, participated in SNAP. For Indige-nous Peoples, nutrition programs on reserva-tions are already underfunded. The programs in many instances “are the primary source of food for [Indigenous] families and their chil-dren.” According to recent federal data, SNAP in 2008 served an average of “540,000 low-income people who identified as Ameri-can Indian/Alaska Native alone and 260,000

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who identified as American Indian/Alaska Native and White per month.” Many people turn to food pantries to help, but they have suffered severe government cuts which sent millions of Americans off of the “Hunger Cliff” when automatic cuts in food stamps took effect, sending “a deluge of new hungry people to [food pantries], which are already strained.” Nearly half of New York City’s food pantries ran out of supplies after the SNAP cuts took effect. It is also harder for older and disabled people to fill in the “gaps left by the food stamp program, since going in-person to various soup kitchens and food pantries is not an option for many of them.” Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are a major threat to health, the environment, and small farmers. Amongst other things, ge-netic engineering disrupts the sequence of a food’s genetic code, which can give rise to potentially toxic or allergenic molecules or alter the nutritional value of the food that is produced. It also causes genetic contamina-tion of natural species. Patented GMO seeds marginalize small farmers by concentrating power in a few biotech corporations. For this and other reasons, 26 countries have banned GMOs. Many advocates argue that consumers have a right to know whether the food that they are consuming contains GMOs and should be labeled as such. In the absence of federal legislation on this issue, more than 60 bills have been introduced in over 20 states to require GMO labeling or prohibiting genet-ically engineered foods altogether. Maine, Connecticut, and Vermont have passed a GMO labeling laws and Vermont is being sued by the food industry because of this. Eight other states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey and Colorado are considering sim-ilar laws.

SPECIFIC HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITMENTS

MADE BY THE UNITED STATES In 2013 and 2014, President Obama an-nounced and implemented a number of exec-utive actions to decrease carbon pollution; increase U.S. preparation for climate change impacts; and coordinate international efforts in addressing climate change. President Obama also urged action against climate change at the United Nations Summit on Climate Change in New York in 2014. The President issued an executive order to: require Federal agencies to factor climate resilience into the design of their interna-tional development programs and invest-ments; develop new outlooks for risks caused by extreme-weather; provide meteorologists in developing nations tools and knowledge; and develop a public-private partnership on cli-mate data and information for resilient devel-opment. Obama has also used the Clean Air Act to curb emissions from Power Plants by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. In its 2013 report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the United States government said it would “Re-energize” the Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice. Regard-ing pollution/toxic waste and its impact on people of color, the Environmental Protec-tion Agency’s plan, the Plan Environmental Justice 2014, will develop stronger relation-ships with communities and increase the agency’s efforts to improve the environmental and health conditions of overburdened com-munities. Regarding food insecurity, the United States touted the Supplemental Food Nutrition Pro-gram for Women, Infants and Children which “contributes significantly to low-income women and children’s well being by providing low-income, high-risk pregnant and post-partum women, infants and children under five years old with nutritious foods, nutrition

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education, and health care referrals and screenings.” This has contributed to reducing incidences of pre-term births, low-birth weight, infant mortality, and the costs of health care.

Recommendations

The United States government should mobi-lize international will to adopt a binding in-ternational agreement on climate change at the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015; reduce national greenhouse gas emis-sions; and advocate for new carbon regula-tions and enforcement of existing regulations. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its 2014 Concluding Ob-servations, expressed concern that racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, as well as Indigenous Peoples, “continue to be disproportionately affected by the negative health impact of pollution.” The Committee called upon the United States government to ensure that federal legislation prohibiting en-vironmental pollution is effectively enforced at state and local levels. It also called on the government to “clean up any remaining radio-active and toxic waste as a matter of urgency.” The Committee also suggested that the gov-ernment investigate cases of environmentally polluting activities, “bringing those responsi-ble to account and making sure that those af-fected have access to appropriate remedies.” Regarding the water-shut offs in Detroit, the Special Rapporteur urges that the City of De-troit “restore water connections to residents unable to pay and vulnerable groups of peo-ple, stop further disconnections of water when residents are unable to pay, and provide them the opportunity to seek assistance that must be made available through social assis-tance schemes.” The Human Rights Committee, in its Interna-tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Concluding Observations expressed concern

regarding the “insufficient measures taken to protect the sacred areas of Indigenous Peoples “against desecration, contamination and destruction as a result of urbanization, extractive industries, industrial development, tourism and toxic contamination.” Regarding food insecurity, the United States government should incorporate the right to food as a basic human right and target gov-ernment programs towards low-income communities and communities of color. The government should also provide a larger budget for SNAP programs in the Farm Bill, provide affordable and healthy food for pub-lic school K-12 students and fund govern-ment surveys to collect information on dispar-ities in food security on the basis of income, ethnicity, race, gender, and immigration status.

Human Rights Groups Advancing Envi-ronmental & Climate Justice

Advocates for Environmental Human Rights • Coastal Women for Change • International Indian Treaty Council • New Mexico Envi-ronmental Law Center • Environment and Human Rights Advisory • Survivors Village • Moving Forward Gulf Coast, Inc. • Mvskoke Food Sovereignty Initiative • North Carolina Environmental Justice Network • Tonatierra • WE ACT for Environmental Justice • Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services • Alaska Community Action on Toxics • United Houma Nation • Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN) • The Mississippi Coa-lition of Vietnamese American Fisherfolk and Families • Public Interest Law and Advocacy Resource (PILAR) of Coastal Louisiana • Africatown Community Development Corp • EarthJustice • Praxis Project

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The fact that the United States does not have a comprehensive immigration policy cre-ates conditions in which immigrants are vul-nerable to a variety of human rights abuses and indignities. As a result, the human rights of undocumented immigrants (i.e individu-als who are out-of-status—do not have cur-rent green cards, work visas or other similar documentation) are not protected. This lack of protections put individuals and families at risk of separation, indefinite confinement, de-portation back to dangerous places, and even death. In a report released by the Pew Re-search Center in September 2014, there were 11.3 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States as of March 2013, “about the same as the 11.2 million in 2012 and un-changed since 2009.” The slowdown in new arrivals means “those who remain are more

Immigration Policy ____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 23, & 25

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the compe-tent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employ-

ment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to pro-tection against unemployment. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disabil-ity, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in cir-

cumstances beyond his control. ____________________

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likely to be long-term residents, and to live with their U.S.-born children.” Though the Obama Administration has re-cently decided to rethink its deportation poli-cy, the President has acquired the nickname “Deporter In Chief”, because of his depor-tation record which has likely hit and sur-passed the 2 million mark. In September of 2014, the Department of Homeland Security released its deportation statistics from 2013, which revealed that the Obama administration set a record for deportations, removing 438,421 individuals from the United States—up nearly 5 percent from the 418,397 remov-als in 2012. Moreover, the administration “has changed enforcement tactics to achieve these record-breaking removals.” The deportation machine is increasingly made up of out-of-court deportations and in 2013, summary removals reached “an all-time high of 83 per-cent of all removals—363,000 individuals removed without a court hearing.” Forty-four percent of removals (193,032) were “ex-pedited removals,” of those apprehended at or within 100 miles of a border without prop-er papers. Operation Streamline requires the federal criminal prosecution and imprisonment of all people who cross the United States.-Mexico border without the permission from the gov-ernment. This removes prosecutorial discre-tion to decide whether the immigrant should be deported through the formal removal pro-cess in the civil immigration system. The in-crease in petty immigration cases is the re-sult of zero-tolerance immigration enforce-ment programs and not an increase in mi-grants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Most Operation Streamline defend-ants are migrants from Mexico or Central America who do not have prior criminal convictions and who have crossed the border to find work or to reunite with family. This has caused a surge in case loads in 8 of the 11 districts along the border resulting in en masse hearings where as many as 80 defendants

plead guilty at one time, which deprives these individuals of their right to due process. A full 99% of Operation Streamline defendants plead guilty resulting in 80 new prosecutions per day in Del Rio, TX, 70 prosecutions daily in Tucson, AZ, there are 70 prosecutions dai-ly and 20 prosecutions a day in El Paso, TX. Many of these defendants complete the entire criminal proceeding in one day, including meeting with counsel, making an initial ap-pearance, pleading guilty, and being sen-tenced. Criminal Justice Act Panel attorneys serve as counsel for a majority of the defend-ants and are appointed to represent up to 80 clients in one hearing which virtually prohibits individualized representation. As a direct re-sult of Operation Streamline, Judge Robert Brack from New Mexico was named by ABC News in 2008 “America’s busiest judge” be-cause he sentenced 1,400 criminal defendants and the national average is around 75. These rapid deportations have a devastating impact on families and communities be-cause many of these families have mixed-statuses – a mixture of United States citizens as well as members with and without docu-mentation. Immigration and Customs En-forcement (ICE) last year “carried out more than 72,000 deportations of parents who said they had U.S.-born children.” As of 2011, there were at least “5,100 children in foster care due to a parent being deported or de-tained.” It estimates that another “15,000 children will enter the foster care system” within the subsequent five years. The likeli-hood of these children being reunified with family is slim. President Obama said the government is go-ing after “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after stu-dents, not after folks who are here just be-cause they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.” But records show that since President Obama took office, two-thirds of the roughly two million deporta-tion cases “involve people who had commit-

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ted minor infractions, including traffic vio-lations, or had no criminal record at all.” On-ly 20%—or about 394,000—of the cases in-volved people convicted of serious crimes, including drug-related offenses. Further, even if individuals have been convicted of drug of-fenses or violent crimes, the immigration sys-tem fails to take into account a criminal justice system that unfairly and illegally targets people of color. Race and ethnicity have often been a bed-rock component of American immigration “including the slave trade, the Chinese rail-road workers, and Hispanics in agriculture.” In 1790, Congress passed a law allowing the naturalization of free White persons, “a racial requirement for American citizenship which remained on the books until 1952.” The Immigration Act of 1917 designated Asia as a barred zone, “allowing only Japa-nese and Philippine immigrants. A barred zoned limits the number people allowed to come into the U.S. from a certain area.” Race was further embedded in immigration law in 1882 when Chinese were prevented from entry into the United States for decades by the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was not until the Immigration Act of 1965, which was en-couraged and only made possible by the Civil Rights Movement, was “race-based immigration admission...replaced by criteria that involved skills, profession or by family relation to U.S. citizens.” Nearly 41 million immigrants lived in the United States in 2012—“a historical numeric high for a country that has been a major des-tination for international migrants throughout its history.” Of the foreign born population in the United States in 2012, 48 percent reported their race as white, 9 percent as black, 25 per-cent as Asian, and 16 percent as some other race; more than 2 percent reported having two or more races. In 2012, 46 percent (18.9 million) of immigrants reported having His-panic or Latino origins. The top five U.S. states by number of immigrants were Cali-

fornia (10.3 million), New York (4.4 million), Texas (4.3 million), Florida (3.7 million), and New Jersey (1.9 million). Racial profiling and discrimination against Latinos, Asians and Muslims has been sanctioned by various states in the Unit-ed States. Arizona’s S.B. 1070 (most of which was struck down by the United States Su-preme Court) compels police to ask for pa-pers from anyone they have a reasonable sus-picion of being without status. Under this law any person of color, or anyone with a for-eign accent, can be “required to prove their status and be jailed—regardless of whether they are a citizen or an immigrant—until they can do so.” According to the Pew Hispanic Center’s 2008 National Survey of Latinos, nearly one-in-ten (9%) Hispanics said they had been stopped by the police or other au-thorities and asked about their immigration status. Black immigrants who are out of status “are being detained and overrepresented in immi-gration detention despite their small numbers in the larger population.” This mirrors the similar type of overrepresentation of Afri-can Americans in the criminal justice sys-tem. The impact of racial profiling across the board impacts all Black communities regard-less of where they were born. And this is “very pronounced in a city like New York City where Jamaicans, Haitians and Domini-cans have the highest deportation numbers. This ultimately means thousands of families being torn apart and fragmented communi-ties.” While Blacks make up only about 10 percent of the immigrant population, they are “five times more likely to be detained or deported.” Despite the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, the United States is deporting Haitians back to dangerous conditions in Haiti. Haiti is cur-rently undergoing a Cholera crisis, which has killed over 8,000 people and sickened 670,000 (more than 6% of the Haitian population). On

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January 20, 2011, the same day that the Unites States issued travel warnings advising United States citizens to avoid travelling to Haiti due to Cholera the United States deported 26 Hai-tian nationals. On April 1, 2011, U.S. Immi-gration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is-sued a new policy regarding the deportation of Haitians that stated the United States would “resume limited removal of convicted criminal Haitians with final orders of remov-al.” To date, the ICE continues to deport in-dividuals with non-violent minor crimes even though the policy requires ICE to weigh a number of factors including the severity and number of convictions against, significant medical issues, and length of residence in the United States. United Nations Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Haiti has raised serious concerns about the de-portation to Haiti for individuals with severe, life threatening medical conditions due to the lack or limited supply of medicine in Haiti. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) recognized that deporta-tions to Haiti constitute a human rights violation and has urged the U.S. to discontin-ue deportations and in June 2011, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a joint statement calling for all states to restrain from deportation in light of the humani-tarian crisis. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires all applicants applying for a green card to submit to a medical examination, which can have a disproportionately negative impact on immigrants with disabilities. An individual may be deemed inadmissible if they have been determined to have a physical or mental disorder and a history of behavior associated with the disorder “that may pose or has posed a threat to the property, safety or welfare of themselves or others.”

Currently, 80 countries criminalize people who are LGBT often making their immigra-tion to the United States a matter of life or death. Heartland Alliance’s National Immi-grant Justice Center filed 17 complaints in 2011 with the Department of Homeland (DHS) in response to reports of abuse against LGBT immigrants in DHS custo-dy. Complaints have documented epithets, shaming and other degrading treatment lev-eled at LGBT detainees. Detainees are fre-quently housed with other detainees of a gender with which they do not identify, (e.g. transgender woman detainee housed with male detainees) and according to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU in October 2011, nearly 200 incidents of sexual assault had oc-curred in its detention facilities since 2007. Solitary confinement is often used to “pro-tect” the LGBT detainees and transgender detainees are denied hormone treatment and many U.S. Circuit Courts have found this “denial to be a violation of the 8th Amendment’s requirement that the incarcer-ated receive ‘adequate medical care.” In addi-tion to this, LGBT and HIV-positive de-tainees are at risk and lacking access to proper medical treatment. The broken immigration system has resulted in gross violations of the right to freedom from torture, security of person, and the right to life. The Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforce-ment (ICE) detained more than 420,000 peo-ple last year, more than double the amount of people who were in its custody four years ago. Mandatory detention is prescribed in two sections of the Immigration and Naturaliza-tion Act and requires that ICE detain certain categories of people without a bond hearing or any individualized assessment. Fully, 70% of people in immigration detention are there because they are subject to mandatory deten-tion. DHS asserts that Congress has directed ICE to fill—each day—every detention bed for which Congress has appropriated funds.

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Congressional appropriations language on ICE detention budget states that "funding made available under this heading shall main-tain a level of not less than 34,000 detention beds." The immigration detention bed quota requires ICE to lock-up an average of “34,000 immigrants in detention at any given time - close to half a million immigrants annually” - in a network of over 250 county and state jails, private prisons and federal facilities. About 50% of ICE detention beds are cur-rently private while 100% of Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) beds (segregated prisons for immigrants serving time for drug offenses or illegal entry/reentry convictions in the fed-eral Bureau of Prisons system) are private. This creates an incentive for private prison corporations to lobby for the laws and poli-cies that lead to increases in the number of immigrants being incarcerated. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is the largest ICE detention contractor, operating a total of fifteen ICE contracted facilities with a total of 5,800 beds. GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is the second largest ICE contractor and it operates seven facilities with a total of 7,183 beds. The three corporations holding the largest per-centage of ICE detention contracts, collec-tively spent at least $45 million in the past decade on campaign donations and lobbyists at the state and federal levels. While GEO and CCA have both denied trying to influence immigration policies, lobbying disclosure forms show that GEO has hired Navigators Global to lobby on behalf of the company with both the Senate and the House on “is-sues related to comprehensive immigration reform.” The notion that we need to increase border security is rooted in fear. Increased militari-zation of the border has led to “hundreds of deaths over the years as well as unprece-dented levels of violence in border towns.” Indigenous Peoples, and their lands, have been negatively impacted by increased border militarization. The Obama Administration has

deployed thousands of new Border Patrol agents “to the southern border of Arizona, a state known for its controversial crackdown on immigrants.” Caught in the middle of the border militarization are about 28,000 mem-bers of the Tohono O’odham Nation. Their federally recognized reservation is about the size of the state of Connecticut, and for a “76-mile stretch it spans both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.” Because of the number of border patrol agents, checkpoints, drones, and overall surveillance, the Tohono O’odham people are caught “in the midst of colonial policies that are now militarizing [their] lands.” From 2010 to October of 2014 at least 36 people were killed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Other deaths at the bor-der were caused by extreme conditions includ-ing dehydration, heat exposure, and hypo-thermia in the deserts which claims hundreds of lives on Unites States soil each year. Since 1998, the Tucson sector has accounted for 38 percent of all migrant human remains found in wilderness zones north of the border. In 2012, 177 remains were found through the Rio Grande Valley sector and since 2013, the Missing Migrant Project of the Colibri Center for Human Rights has received over 1,700 reports of migrants who are missing. Several humanitarian groups in southern Arizona rou-tinely leave water for migrants in the desert. Some ranchers have also installed drinking fountain valves in their cattle water troughs for migrants to use, and carry water jugs in their trucks in case they encounter migrants in distress on their lands. Similarly, Border Patrol in the Tucson sector reported a 37 percent increase in rescues of migrants in distress be-tween 2012 and 2013. In addition to the number of children of im-migrants in foster care, children face many other challenges when coming into contact with the United States immigration system. Groups of child migrants traveling alone to cross into the United States along the Mexican

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border has garnered national and international attention as, according to President Obama, "urgent humanitarian situation”. The number of “undocumented children—mostly teens, but some as young as five—apprehended crossing the border without parents or guardi-ans has more than doubled in the past two years.” By the end of fiscal year 2013, “38,833 'unaccompanied minors' [where] apprehended by the Border Patrol in fiscal year 2013.” That is a 59 percent jump from the year before, and a 142 percent increase from fiscal year 2011. As of September 30, 2014, “68,434 minors without their parents were detained along the border.” The United Nations High Commis-sioner for Refugees (UNHCR) found in a March survey of children who arrived at the United States border that 58 percent of chil-dren from the three countries cited violence as a key reason for leaving their homes. More than three-quarters of the children are from mostly poor and violent towns in three coun-tries: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Children from Mexico, once the largest group, now make up less than a quarter of the total. A small number come from 43 other coun-tries. Honduras has a world-leading homicide rate of 90 for every 100,000 people, with El Salvador and Guatemala in the top ten at 41.2 and 39.9 per 100,000 people. For some con-text, at the peak of Mexico’s drug violence, its homicide rate topped out at 22.8 per 100,000. Since Jan. 1, 2013 more than 30,000 of these children have been placed with sponsors, usu-ally parents or relatives. They remain there while their cases are being processed. The ma-jority of the children are in Texas, New York, California and Florida. A large number have also been sent to Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and Louisiana. Many of these children, however, are being detained in adult detention facilities. Ac-cording to the National Immigrant Justice Center, from 2008 to 2012, children under the age of 18 spent a combined total of 36,598 days in 30 adult detention facilities around the country. DHS detained at least 1,366 children

in adult facilities for periods ranging from three days to more than one year, and nearly 1,000 children spent at least one week in adult custody. This is in violation of the Flores v. Reno settlement agreement - a class action law-suit was filed against the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) challenging the way the agency processed, apprehended, de-tained, and released children in its custody. The agreement requires that juveniles be held in the least restrictive setting appropriate to their age and special needs to ensure their protection and wellbeing. Overall, “approximately 21,000 individuals appre-hended as children were removed in the past five fiscal years.” Between five and ten migrant children have been killed since February 2014 after the United States de-ported them back to Honduras. Lawmakers have yet to come up with best practices to deal with the waves of unaccompanied chil-dren, but some politicians refute claims that children are fleeing violence and are opting instead to fund legislation that would fast-track their deportations. Even those in danger, who attempt to go through formal channels to remain in the United States face extreme challenges. Ac-cording to the UN Refugee agency, an asylum-seeker is “someone who says he or she is a refugee [a person forced to flee their homes due to persecution, whether on an in-dividual basis or as part of a mass exodus due to political, religious, military or other prob-lems], but whose claim has not yet been defin-itively evaluated.” Those asylum-seekers deemed not to be refugees, nor to be in need of any other form of international protection, can be sent back to their home countries. The Refugee Act of 1980 is supposed to pro-vide for the “effective resettlement of refu-gees and to assist them to achieve economic self-sufficiency as quickly as possible after ar-rival in the United States" However, in 1996, Congress enacted a one-year filing deadline that requires asylum seekers to apply within a

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year or prove by "clear and convincing" evi-dence that the application was delayed due to "changed or extraordinary circumstances. This deadline results in 1 in 5 refugees being de-nied asylum and facing deportation back to the country that they fled from. Many refu-gees do not have access to this information or legal counsel to help them file their applica-tions. Additionally, many refugees do not speak English, which creates a barrier to un-derstanding the complex immigration laws. A favorable Credible Fear Interview (CFI)—“a preliminary step in the lengthy and rigorous asylum review process”—only allows the asy-lum seeker to proceed with his or her protec-tion claim before an immigration judge (which is not normally at a port of entry). When asy-lum seekers are unaware of the legal process and/or their rights, the CFI process is more likely to erroneously exclude bona fide asylum seekers rather than permit entry to fraudulent applicants. When an asylum seeker is denied access through the CFI process and deported back to his or her home country and later tries to seek asylum again he or she will be denied based on the previous deportation order which make him or her ineligible for asylum. As a result of a grassroots human rights campaign led by the DREAMers—youth who put pressure on the Obama Administra-tion by “coming out” as being “undocument-ed”—the Deferred Action for Childhood Ar-rivals (DACA) was signed into law in June 2012. DACA is a “kind of [temporary] admin-istrative relief from deportation that has been around a long time. Through it, DHS author-izes a non–U.S. citizen to remain in the U.S. temporarily. The person may also apply for an employment authorization document (a ‘work permit’) for the period during which he or she has deferred action. A grant of deferred ac-tion is temporary and does not provide a path to lawful permanent resident status or U.S. citizenship.” With the initiation of DACA, hundreds of thousands of these young people have enjoyed the benefits of widened access to the American mainstream, as of March

2014, “673,417 young people have applied to the program and 553,197 have been ap-proved.” While DACA does not offer a pathway to citizenship,, it has the potential to “move large numbers of eligible young adults into mainstream life, thereby improving their social and economic well-being.” In June of 2014, marking the two-year anniversary of the signing of DACA, the Immigration Policy Center conducted a survey which found that nearly 60 percent of DACA beneficiaries have obtained a new job since receiving DACA, and 45 percent have increased their earnings. These findings provide direct evidence of the economic boost provided by DACA. Because new jobs and increased earnings translate into a greater tax base, DACA is also providing an important boost to the economy. In addition to this, DACA has lead to higher rates of driver’s licenses, bank accounts and credit carts, higher rates of healthcare and the bene-fits are “strongest for those attending four-year colleges and those with college degrees.” While DACA was a result of executive action alone, the DREAM Act requires legislative approval in order to become law and includes a path to citizenship. The DREAM Act would permit certain immigrant students who have grown up in the U.S. to apply for temporary legal status and to eventually “obtain perma-nent legal status and become eligible for U.S. citizenship if they go to college or serve in the U.S. military; and [It would] eliminate a feder-al provision that penalizes states that provide in-state tuition without regard to immigration status.” In the absence of the passage of the DREAM Act at the national level or compre-hensive, national immigration reform, some states have taken matters into their own hands. Twelve states have passed their own versions of the DREAM Act offering in-state tuition and in some cases, allow applicants to apply for state funded financial aid and com-munity college fee waivers. On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced a series of executive actions on

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immigration. Five million immigrants could be affected by these actions, 4 million of whom do not have documentation.” Under the plan, most of the people who could be protected from deportation would be parents of United States citizens or green card holders who have lived in the country for more than five years. The Migration Policy Institute says that as many as 3.7 million un-documented immigrants could fall into this category “beginning next spring, they could register with the government, undergo a background check… and gain protected status for up to three years.” An additional 290,000 undocumented im-migrants who were brought to the United States as children would be newly protect-ed under an expansion of Obama's original Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The White House says an-other “1 million immigrants would be newly protected from deportation under the other reforms in the president's directive.” Seven-teen states, led by Texas, are suing the Obama administration over the executive actions on immigration.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States In its 2013 periodic report to the United Na-tions Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the United States says that it “strongly shares the Committee’s view that citizens and noncitizens alike should enjoy protection of their human rights and fun-damental freedoms.” In 2012, the United States admitted 58,238 refugees through its refugee resettlement program. On October 17, 2014, DHS announced a Hai-tian Family Reunification Parole Program (HFRP), which will expedite family reunifica-tion by allowing already approved family-based immigrant visa recipients legal entrance into the United States.

Regarding border killings, the United States says that it is implementing measures to pre-vent the use of illegal force by police against protected groups. The United States Constitu-tion and federal statutes prohibit racially discriminatory actions by law enforcement agencies, e.g. the Pattern or Practice of Police Misconduct provision of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the Omnibus Crime Control and the Safe Streets Act of 1968. Since 2009, the Admin-istration says that it has intensified its en-forcement of these laws. Federal law prohib-its the use of excessive force by any law en-forcement officer against any individual in the United States, including members of racial and ethnic minorities, and undocumented migrants crossing United States borders. Vic-tims of police brutality may seek legal reme-dies, such as criminal punishment of the per-petrator or civil damages. According to the Department of Justice, they have successfully prosecuted law enforcement officers and pub-lic officials where sufficient evidence indicates that they willfully violated a person’s constitu-tional rights. The Obama Administration claims while un-accompanied children are in custody, gov-ernment personnel ensures that the needs of this vulnerable population are addressed promptly, including by immediately segregat-ing children from unrelated adults.

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Recommendations

In April 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Committee issued recommendations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that the United States review its policies of mandatory de-tention and deportation of certain categories of immigrants in order to allow for individual-ized decisions; take measures to ensure that affected persons have access to legal represen-tation; and identify ways to facilitate access to adequate health care, including reproductive health-care services, by undocumented immi-grants and immigrants and their families who have been residing lawfully in the United States for less than five years. In August 2014, under the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Dis-crimination (CERD), the CERD Committee called upon the United States to ensure that the rights of non-citizens are fully guaran-teed in law and in practice, including among other things: (a) abolishing “Operation Streamline” and dealing with any breaches of immigration law through civil, rather than criminal immigration system; (b) undertaking thorough and individualized assessment for decisions concerning detention and deporta-tion and guaranteeing access to legal represen-tation in all immigration-related matters. The United States should immediately sus-pend all deportations to Haiti. The United States should not resume removals until it is determined that conditions are safe and hu-mane for individuals to be returned to Haiti. Regarding border killings, the United States should ensure that the new Customs and Bor-der Patrol Directive on the use of deadly force is applied and enforced in practice.

The United States should ensure that de-tained children are kept in facilities separate from those for adults in conformity with international standards and end the use of expedited removal procedures as a re-sponse to the surge in unaccompanied chil-dren that have recently arrived at the southern United States border.

Human Rights Groups Advancing the Human Rights of Immigrants

Amnesty International USA • Detention Watch Network • Rights Working Group • Amigos Multicultural Services Center; Border Network for Human Rights • Border Action Network • National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights • Black Alliance for Just Immigration • Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus • Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras • Florida Immigration Coalition • Families for Freedom • PUENTE Arizona • Haitian Women of Miami • Leadership Con-ference on Civil and Human Rights • National Immigrant Justice Center • ACLU Human Rights Project.

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The United States, according to the Sentenc-ing Project, remains the world’s leader in incarceration, with 2.2 million people cur-rently in the nation's prisons or jails—a 500% increase over the past thirty years. Of these, about 216,000 are held in federal prisons and 1,360,000 in state prisons. About 720,000 people are incarcerated in local jails, mostly awaiting trial and thus without a conviction and in many cases individuals who cannot af-ford bail. As a result, the United States still incarcerates more people, per capita, than any other nation. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and state governments being overwhelmed by the burden of funding a rapidly expanding penal system, despite in-creasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not the most effective means of achieving public safety. As a result, the Sentencing Pro-ject reports that more than 60% of the people

Criminal Justice & Mass Incarceration ____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any

discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. Everyone has the right to an ef-fective remedy by the competent national tribunals for

acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. No one shall be subjected to arbi-trary arrest, detention or exile. Everyone is entitled in

full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independ-ent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his

rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

____________________

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in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities, while for black males in their thirties, one in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day. One in three black men will be imprisoned during their lifetime, while only one out of 17 white men will serve prison time. Most im-portantly, it is changes in sentencing law and policy—such as the use of “one size fits all" mandatory minimum sentences, not increases in crime rates, that explain most of the six-fold increase in the national prison popula-tion. Disparate treatment in the American criminal justice system often begins with racial profil-ing. In their shadow report for the August 2014 hearing at the United Nations on the United States’ compliance/non-compliance with the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimi-nation (CERD), the ACLU lamented that ra-cial profiling in law enforcement is a persis-tent problem in the United States. Echoing previous complaints, they further criticized that, despite repeated calls by civil society, the U.S. Department of Justice has failed to issue a revision to its 2003 Guidance on the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement. In par-ticular, the ACLU demonstrates in their re-port that the Guidance tacitly authorizes racial profiling by allowing for exemptions in cases that are related to national security and border control. In addition, the Guidance does not explicitly ban profiling based on religion, na-tional origin, or sexual orientation. As such, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), various border and immigration en-forcement, and local law enforcement agen-cies—most notoriously the NYPD—routinely engage in practices of racial profiling. These racial disparities continue in sen-tencing. As the above mentioned report de-tails, sentences imposed on black males in the federal system are nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white males convicted of similar crimes. Black and Latino offenders

sentenced in state and federal courts face sig-nificantly greater odds of incarceration than similarly situated white offenders and receive longer sentences than their white counterparts in some jurisdictions. As the ACLU further finds, racial disparities increase with the sever-ity of the sentence imposed. African Ameri-cans are thus disproportionally represented among convicts who receive life sentences without the possibility of parole (LWOP) and the death sentence. Thus, although African Americans constitute only about 13 percent of the United States population, they constitute 28.3 percent of all lifers, 56.4 percent of those serving LWOP, and 56.1 percent of those who received LWOP for offenses committed as a juvenile. In total, 65.4 percent of prison-ers serving LWOP for nonviolent offenses are African American. As a consequence of these disparities, African Americans are treated un-equally at every stage of the criminal justice system, including stops and searches, arrests, prosecutions and plea negotiations, trials, and sentencing. Race matters at all phases and as-pects of the criminal process, including the quality of representation, the charging phase, and the availability of plea agreements, each of which impact whether juvenile and adult defendants face a potential LWOP sentence. Driven by both a concern for civil rights and for sustainable budgets, the United States Congress and other lawmakers have taken small steps to reform the criminal justice system at the federal level. As part of the 2014 omnibus spending bill, the Charles Col-son Task Force—an independent, nine-member panel of experts tasked with issuing recommendations on federal prison reform—was formed. The year 2013 also saw a record number of exonerations, with 87 people walk-ing free after being wrongly convicted of crimes they did not commit, or that never even happened. In April 2014, the Justice De-partment announced an initiative to extend presidential clemency to potentially thousands of federal prisoners who received harsh sen-tences during the heyday of the ‘war on drugs’

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and who would receive more lenient rulings if they were sentenced and convicted today. The Department of Justice immediately singled out and prioritized 23,000 inmates who fit the ideal for this retrofitting of prison sentences, namely inmates who are nonviolent, low-level drug offenders, with no significant history of crime or violence, who have served at least 10 years of their prison sentences and demon-strated good conduct in prison. Due to the systemic racism that runs throughout the legal and penal systems and that has rendered many inmates ineligible for this clemency program, this step was more symbolic than reformative. At the state level, the push-back against mass incarceration proceeds at a much slower pace than at the federal one. Driven by both finan-cial incentives offered by the prison-industrial complex and by a misunder-standing of substance abuse as a crisis of policing, instead of a public health crisis, the state of Louisiana, for instance, increased drug penalties in 2014, raising the mandatory min-imum for the distribution, possession with intent to distribute, manufacture and sale of any quantity of schedule I narcotic drugs from 5 to 10 years. As the ACLU reports, the dou-bling the mandatory minimum sentence of a law that saw 1,600 people sentenced under it just last year will lead to substantially higher sentences for thousands of people and a real increase in the prison population. The private, profit-driven penal apparatus is also at work in several states where local municipalities have handed over the collection of outstand-ing court fees to profit-driven probation companies, a move that entraps individuals in spiraling debts, which in many cases end in imprisonment for missed payments. On the other hand, California’s Proposition 47, which passed in November 2014, aims to redefine certain nonviolent offenses—such as minor drug or property offences—as misdemeanors, rather than felonies, as they had previously been categorized. The bill plans to save the state of California several hundreds of mil-lions of dollars every year that will be relegat-

ed to fund schools, crime victims, mental health, and drug treatment. It needs to be noted, however, that, according to opponents of the bill, it reduces penalties for possession of ‘date rape’ drugs. In the blindspot of highly publicized efforts to reform the prison system and reassess penal excess of the past, the situation of numerous inmates who have been classified as “political prisoners” or “prisoners of conscience” by various national and international organiza-tions remains unchanged. As such, the Indig-enous activist Leonard Peltier, the legal cir-cumstances of whose conviction have long been questioned, has been imprisoned for 35-years. Likewise, Mumia Abu-Jamal, although released from death-row into the general pris-on population in 2011, has been denied a new trial despite calls for a retrial by numerous na-tional and international bodies, governments, and individuals. In October 2014, in a barely camouflaged move to silence Abu-Jamal, who has continued to speak out against global in-justice from behind bars, Pennsylvania gover-nor Tom Corbett signed a new bill, euphemis-tically entitled Revictimization Relief Act, which allows the state of Pennsylvania to sue inmates for speaking out. In a response, the ACLU asserted that the bill “can’t pass consti-tutional muster under the First Amendment.” Representative of a great number of former Black Panther Party, Republic of New Afrika, and Black Liberation Army activists who still remain incarcerated, on February 20, 2014, Russell Maroon Shoats was finally released into the general prison population after more than 22 consecutive years in solitary confine-ment at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Graterford. Elsewhere, in September 2014, the ACLU, on behalf of Chelsea Manning—sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking video and documents chronicling U.S. war crimes in Iraq, sued the Pentagon for denying gender-transition medical care and failing to follow other protocols for treating gender dysphoria. In addition, the Cuban 5, several Chicano and Puerto Rican activists, MOVE

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members, environmental activists, and post 9/11 Muslim political prisoners remain incar-cerated, despite international calls for new trials. Prison conditions in many United States in-carceration facilities remain appalling. Above all, America’s prisons are dangerously over-crowded, a fact that leads to numerous severe problems. In February 2014, Charles E. Sam-uels, Jr., Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, stated that crowding is of special concern at higher security facilities—with 51 percent overcrowding at high security institu-tions and 41 percent at medium security pris-ons. In their submission for the 53rd session of the United Nations Committee against Tor-ture (CAT) in October 2014, Human Rights Watch deplored that the United States does not ensure effective safeguards against sexual assault for persons in confinement, violating the right to be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Thus, in a single day snapshot survey in 2013, an estimated 80,600 people in prisons and jails experienced some form of sexual victimization while the actual estimate for people in confinement who expe-rienced sexual victimization is closer to 200,000. Human Rights Watch further la-mented that the continued reliance of the United States on prolonged isolation of de-tainees and prisoners, including children, vio-lates the prohibitions against torture and cru-el, inhuman or degrading treatment or pun-ishment. Solitary confinement remains a common practice in American prisons. In 2011, Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rappor-teur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, conclud-ed that even 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman, or de-grading treatment or punishment, and that 15 days is the limit after which irreversible harm-ful psychological effects can occur. It is esti-mated that today between 50,000 and 100,000 inmates are held in solitary confinement on

any given day. According to Solitary Watch, at least 44 states and the federal system now have supermax prisons, which are generally composed solely of solitary confinement cells. At Louisiana’s Angola Prison, Albert Woodcox, a 67-year old former Black Panther Party member, except for one three-year peri-od with the general prison population, has been in solitary confinement since 18 April 1972. In September 2014, Woodcox decided to sue to Louisiana prison system for damages caused by his 40-year ordeal, in which he has spent every day entirely alone in a 6ft by 8ft cell with views through metal bars only of the concrete corridor. In the past, Woodcox had described his experience of solitary confine-ment like this: “When I have an attack I feel like I am being smothered, it is very difficult to breathe, and I sweat profusely; it seems like the cell walls close in and are just inches from my face.” New York City’s Rikers Island Correctional Facility has been in the spotlight regarding its practice of solitary confinement, its mal-treatment of inmates with mental disabili-ties, and its abuse of juvenile inmates. In November 2013, an independent review of mental health standards at Rikers Island found that mentally ill inmates are often placed in solitary confinement—in some cases for thousands of days at a time—a practice that coincides with an increased rate of violence inside the jail. According to the report, of the roughly 800 inmates in solitary at any given time, just over half are mentally ill, including such mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Alongside these allega-tions, Rikers Island came under increased scrutiny for its treatment of juvenile inmates. The arbitrariness and harshness of solitary confinement and other abuses of juveniles becomes particularly apparent in the story of Kalief Bowder, a Bronx teenager who was arrested in 2010 at the age of sixteen, accused of robbery, and confined at Rikers Island for three years to await a trial that never hap-pened. Bowder spent two years in a solitary

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cell. In September 2014, New York City an-nounced to stop holding juvenile inmates in solitary confinement. At that time, there were fifty-one inmates in solitary confinement be-tween sixteen and seventeen years old. Unjust laws that mandate rampant criminali-zation, policing, and incarceration of communities of color and LGBT people of color make them particularly vulnerable not only to a wide array of direct, but also result-ing human rights violations. For example, Blacks represent approximately 12% of the population, in the United States, but account-ed for an estimated 44% of new HIV infec-tions in 2010. LGBT communities of color, particularly transgender women of color and youth, are “endemically profiled’ as engaging in sex work and other sexual offenses.” In these instances, the possession of con-doms is used as evidence of prostitution (leading to condom confiscation and criminal-ization), further compounding the discrimina-tory treatment of LGBT communities color, but “also denying the ability of individuals to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.” Frequently, many of these individuals are Black and Latina transgender women, including immigrant women, who face significant issues of em-ployment discrimination or lack of economic opportunities to begin with, and are forced with no choice but to engage in sex work to survive. The United States government’s approach to combating trafficking has led to the criminal-ization of trafficking victims—often result-ing in “many trafficking victims coming into contact with the state as criminals, rather than crime victims.” Victims are arrested, detained, and prosecuted, and then burdened with the stigma and collateral harms of having a crimi-nal record, all for having engaged in criminal acts that they are forced into by their traffick-ers. The abusive and degrading nature of these arrests, coupled with the lasting harms of

criminal records, violates the rights of traffick-ing survivors to be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and exposes them to additional risks of exploitation by traffickers. In 2013, the United States passed the Traf-ficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) to address this problem, but to date no states have amended their criminal laws based on the TVPRA model. The stigmatization of sex workers and those profiled as such in connection with “ze-ro-tolerance” policing in urban areas where poorer communities are being displaced, op-erate to ensure that these populations are dis-proportionately impacted by the prison sys-tem. Overbroad laws criminalizing such poor-ly-defined acts as “loitering for prostitution,” or “manifesting intent to commit prostitu-tion,” operate to ensure that these communi-ties are “disproportionately impacted by the prison system.” These community groups face additional burdens of police violence and abuse. Arrests for sex work can lead to a cycle of continued exclusion from housing, other employment opportunities, and government benefits, while tracking people into repeated incarceration.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States The United States Government, in its 2013 periodic report to the Committee Against Torture states that no juvenile committed to the custody of the Attorney General may be placed or retained in an adult jail or correc-tional institution in which he or she has regu-lar contact with adults incarcerated because they have been convicted of a crime or are awaiting trial on criminal charges. The statute further provides that whenever possible, the Attorney General shall commit a juvenile to a foster home or community-based facility lo-cated in or near his home community. The government also says that the Department of

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Justice (DOJ) protects the rights of women who are incarcerated in facilities run by or for states through its enforcement of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. It says that the DOJ has successfully brought actions to protect female prisoners from sexual miscon-duct and invasion of privacy by male prison staff. The United States government says it is con-tinuing and intensifying its efforts to end ra-cial profiling by federal as well as state law enforcement officials. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits any state from denying any person the equal protection of laws. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which has been interpreted to contain an equal protection guarantee, extends this principle to the federal government.

Recommendations The United States government is also encour-aged to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolish the death penalty, to commute the sentences of individuals current-ly on death row and to accede to the Second Optional Protocol of the International Cove-nant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its 2014 Concluding Ob-servations recommended legislation, such as the End Racial Profiling Act, that specifical-ly prohibits law enforcement officials from engaging in racial profiling. Recommendations such as this calling for action from the legisla-tive branch suggest that members of Congress should be included in the next United States Government CERD delegation. The Commit-tee also remains concerned that people of color, particularly African Americans, contin-ue to be disproportionately arrested, incarcer-

ated, and subjected to harsher sentences, life imprisonment without parole, and the death penalty. It noted the role of prosecutorial dis-cretion and mandatory minimum drug offense sentencing policies in driving the over-representation of people of color in the crimi-nal justice system. It also raised concerns about the impact of parental incarceration on children of color. The Committee called on the USG to take concrete and effective steps to eliminate racial disparities at all stages of the criminal justice system, in-cluding by amending laws that have a racially discriminatory impact. The Committee is concerned about racial dis-parities at all levels of the juvenile justice sys-tem, including the disproportionate rate at which youth of color are arrested in schools and are referred to the criminal jus-tice system, prosecuted as adults, incarcerated in adult prisons, and sentenced to life impris-onment without parole. Despite the recent Supreme Court decisions, which prohibited mandatory sentencing of juvenile offenders to life imprisonment, 15 states continue to permit life without parole sentencing for juveniles convicted of homicide. The Com-mittee called on the United States Govern-ment to intensify efforts to address racial dis-parities in the application of disciplinary measures and the resulting “school-to-prison-pipeline” and to end life without parole for children.

Human Rights Groups Advancing the Human Right to Equal Treatment American Civil Liberties Union • Sentencing Project • Center for Constitutional Rights • Amnesty International • Death Penalty In-formation Center • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People • Equal Justice Initiative • Malcolm X Grassroots Movement • Justice Strategies • Correctional Association of New York

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The issue of unwarranted police killings of unarmed African American men dominated national and international headlines in July and August 2014, when in rapid succession, several individuals were shot and killed. On July 17, Eric Garner—an unarmed 43-year-old father of six—was assaulted by sev-eral NYPD officers and taken into an illegal stronghold by Officer Daniel Pantaleo, for allegedly selling untaxed, single cigarettes,

convulsing and dying on the sidewalk after exclaiming repeatedly that he could not breathe. A video that was presented to the public in the aftermath shows that Eric Gar-ner pleads for at least eleven times that he cannot breathe before losing his conscious-ness. None of the officers—who, except for Pantaleo, all received immunity during the consequent grand jury investigation—and none of the EMT team that arrives minutes later, attempts to resuscitate Garner, a fact that was pointed out to them repeatedly by bystanders. Commentators later described that as Garner “lay dying, he was treated like a piece of meat. By Pantaleo. By the other cops on the scene. Even by the medical techni-cians.” Chokeholds had been banned by the NYPD in 1993. While the NYPD initially claimed that Garner had died for reasons un-related to his arrest, it was only after the re-lease of a video had created wide-spread pub-lic outcry that a medical examiner ruled his

Right to Life & Security of Person

____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty

and security of person.

____________________

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death a homicide by “compression of the neck.” On December 3, a grand jury in Staten Island ruled not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, sparking days of peaceful protest that faced severe police repression by the NYPD. In the aftermath of the ruling, it was revealed that Pantaleo had been sued twice in the past for racially motivated misconduct while on the job. In 2012, two black men ac-cused him of subjecting them to an illegal strip search in broad daylight, during which Pantaleo purportedly “tapped” each man’s testicles during the search, which he claimed was a bid to discover any contraband. On August 9, Officer Darrell Wilson shot Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old Af-rican American man, six times in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Witnesses re-ported that Wilson continued to shoot even when Brown threw up his arms in a gesture of surrender. Despite several witness accounts that contradicted Wilson’s account, on No-vember 24, a—predominantly white—grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson. During the—generally peaceful—protests that took place in and around Ferguson in the weeks after the killing of Michael Brown, Amnesty International documented numer-ous human rights abuses committed by Missouri police. Amnesty observers witnessed “a police force, armed to the teeth, with mili-tary-grade weapons” facing “a crowd that in-cluded the elderly and young children fighting the effects of tear gas.” Scores of re-strictions—such as curfews, limitations of peaceful protests to designated areas, and a ‘five-seconds’-keep walking rule—were im-posed upon protestors. Between August 13 and October 2 alone, at least 19 journalists and members of the media were arrested while reporting, while many other journalists and observers were subjected to tear gas and rubber bullets. On August 5, 22-year old John Crawford III, father of two, was gunned down by Ohio po-lice officers in the aisles of a Wal-Mart store,

holding a harmless pellet gun he had picked up from a shelf. On August 11, Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old African American, who suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was shot in the back three times by LAPD officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas, in what his family later called “an execution.” On August 19, less than four miles from the site of Michael Brown’s killing, 25-year-old African American Kajieme Powell was shot 12 times by two St. Louis police officers after he approached them, allegedly holding a knife. As a video of the shooting shows, only twenty seconds elapsed between the police officers arriving on the scene and them firing at Pow-ell. Commentators lamented that the police officers immediately escalated the situation and that they came ill-equipped to properly deal with a potentially mentally disturbed per-son. Even more disturbing was the dashcam video of South Caroline state trooper Sean Groubert, who, on September 4 started shooting unwarrantedly at a man, 35-year-old African American Levar Jones, after he pulled him over at a gas station for an alleged seat-belt violation. Groubert was later arrested and charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature. Only days after, on Sep-tember 10, 22-year-old African American Na-thaniel Darren Hunt was fatally shot by two Utah police officers, allegedly for swinging a sword, which his family claimed was decora-tive to match the Japanese anime costume he was wearing that day. An autopsy later found that Hunt was shot at least four times in the back, presumably while he was fleeing from the officers. Nonetheless, both officers were exonerated in November. On November 20, 28-year-old unarmed African American Akai Gurley was shot dead by rookie NYPD of-ficer Peter Liang in a darkened stairwell in the Pink Houses public housing block in Brook-lyn. Protesting the unwarranted killing, Hakeem Jeffries, who represents New York’s eighth congressional district, urged the city to take steps towards “meaningful police re-form” and criticized the zero-tolerance, “bro-ken windows” strategy championed by New

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York police commissioner, Bill Bratton, which, he argued, “leads to an aggressive po-lice mindset towards young men of color.” On November 22, Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old rookie officer, fatally shot 12-year-old African American Tamir Rice, who was play-ing with a plastic pellet gun in a park, despite the fact that the caller who informed the po-lice dispatcher had pointed out that Rice was a minor and the gun might be a toy. A video released later shows that Loehmann shot Rice within 1½ to 2 seconds of pulling up in his cruiser. Loehmann and his partner, Frank Garmback, failed to give Rice first aid for nearly four minutes. Crucially, both officers later stated that, upon arrival at the scene, they had thought Rice to be twenty years old—almost twice his actual age, a fact which many commentators read as another example of the super-humanization of blacks in popular white American imaginary. And on December 2, 34-year-old Rumain Brisbon was shot dead by an Arizona police officer when Brisbon reached for a bottle of oxycodone pills during a scuffle with the officer. The police killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, John Crawford III, Akai Gurley, and Tamir Rice are no anomaly: Overall, nearly two times a week a white po-lice officer killed a black person during a sev-en-year period ending in 2012. And, while grand juries usually return indictments; the one exception is cases involving police shoot-ings: In fact, allegations of police misconduct rarely result in charges. According to the Na-tional Police Misconduct Reporting Project (NPMRP), most recent (2010) report, identi-fied 4,861 unique reports of police miscon-duct in the U.S. involving 6,613 officers for 2010 alone. Thus, almost 10 out of every 1,000 American officers were accused of some type of misconduct, with excessive force being by far the most common type of accu-sation. Of the more than 8,300 misconduct accusations (involving almost 11,000 officers) in the NPMRP database from April 2009 through the end of 2010, 3,238 resulted in

legal action, only 33 in convictions, and a mere 12 in time spent in prison. According to We Charge Genocide (WCG), a grassroots, inter-generational, volunteer effort to hold the Chicago Police Department ac-countable, 75 percent of police shooting vic-tims in Chicago are black, even though Afri-can Americans only make up about 33 percent of the city’s overall population. African Amer-icans, who also make up 92 percent of those targeted by police “taser” attacks, are thus ten times more likely to be shot by a Chicago po-lice officer than white citizens. In the first six months of 2014 itself, the report chronicles, 23 of the 27 citizens shot by police were black. On May 7, 2014, Dominique “Damo” Franklin Jr., aged 23, was taken to a Chicago hospital in critical condition after a Chicago police officer assaulted him using a Taser, for alleged retail theft. Franklin died from his in-juries on May 21. On December 3, 2014, the trial against Chicago police officer Dante Servin began. Servin is charged with involun-tary manslaughter, reckless discharge of a fire-arm and reckless conduct leading to the 2012 killing of Rekia Boyd, an unarmed 22-year-old African American woman. While most of the causes célèbres in 2014 cen-tered around the police killings of African American men, a report by Women’s All Points Bulletin that was presented to the United Nations Convention on the Elimina-tion of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in August 2014 documents American police crimes against women of color. The report breaks down statistics of police brutality to highlight the disproportionate targeting of black women by U.S. police. Thus, in the af-termath of the killing of Eric Garner, it emerged that NYPD officers had also applied a chokehold when arresting 27-year old, preg-nant, Rosan Miller in East New York, for grilling on a public sidewalk. In June 2014, LAPD officer Daniel L. Andrew was filmed viciously beating Marlene Pinnock—a 51-year-old, homeless African American woman

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diagnosed with bipolar disorder—on the side of a Los Angeles freeway. In addition, sexual misconduct by police officers, or public officials, is the second most prevalent form of police crime. Rape and sexual assault are “systemic practices that continue because of the pervasive acceptance of misogyny and violence against women within which we live and state officials oper-ate.” Thus, in August 2014, the American public learned of charges of rape, forcible sodomy, sexual battery, and other sex crimes files by six women against Oklahoma on-duty police officer Daniel Holtzclaw. By Novem-ber, seven additional victims had come forth to file similar charges, accusing Holtzclaw of having forced them into his patrol car by threatening them with arrest if they didn’t per-form sex acts. Nationwide, there is a rise in police interaction with Black women, as over 2 million women were arrested in 2010 in the United States, making this an 800% increase in the number of female arrests from 1977-2007. An increase in arrests means increased contact between police and women in Black communities, which are already over-policed. While the their rates of incarceration have di-minished in recent years, approximately 349 out of every 100,000 black women were in-carcerated as of 2008, while 93 out of every 100,000 white women were incarcerated. The trend of overpolicing minority neigh-borhoods in only exacerbated by an increas-ingly excessive militarization of American police departments. As American military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq is wind-ing down, American police departments, who were already highly militarized, have received an estimated 860 armored and mine-resistant vehicles, more than 93,000 machine guns, and more than 530 planes and helicopters. Ac-cording to the ACLU, the SWAT raids, for which these vehicles and arms are frequently being used, routinely lead to the deaths of in-nocent people, among them elders and chil-dren. In this, the use of paramilitary weapons

and tactics disproportionally targets commu-nities of color. Even according to official gov-ernment reports, the amount of police intimi-dation, coercion, and harassment is staggering: According to estimates by the Bureau of Jus-tice Statistics, 500,000 persons each year are hit, held, pushed, choked, threatened with a flashlight, threatened or sprayed with pepper spray, threatened with a gun or other form of force by the police. The killing of Israel “Reefa” Hernandez Llach, an 18-year old graffiti artist at the hands of the Miami Beach Police Department serves as a prime example of police overreach. A joint report presented at the 53rd Session of the United Nations Committee Against Torture in November 2014 by Israel’s family, the Dream Defenders, and Community Justice Project of Florida Le-gal Services, alleges that his intentional killing by Miami Beach Police Officer Jorge Merca-do’s unwarranted use of an electroshock de-vice (“Taser”), amounts to torture under Arti-cle 1 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treat-ment or Punishment. The shadow report fur-ther laments various abuses suffered by Isra-el’s family by the police in the aftermath and deplores a lack of accountability for the un-warranted use of lethal force. On December 4, 2014, Attorney General Eric Holder presented a report on systematic pat-terns of abuse within the Cleveland police de-partment. The findings concluded that Cleve-land police “too often use unnecessary and unreasonable force in violation of the Consti-tution,” and that “[s]upervisors tolerate this behavior and, in some cases, endorse it” and further points to a “pattern or practice of us-ing unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” including the “unneces-sary and excessive use of deadly force,” simi-lar use of non-deadly force, and “[e]xcessive force against persons who are mentally ill or in crisis.” According, one particular example for this use of excessive force, is police a car chase of two African Americans—Timothy Russell and his passenger Malissa Williams,

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who had allegedly been driving above the speed limit and refused to be pulled over. Af-ter the officers had identified a presumed backfire as a gunshot, a 25-minute-long, highspeed, massive chase ensued, involving at least 62 police vehicles and more than 100 patrol officers, supervisors, and dispatchers—about 37 percent of the CDP personnel on duty in the City. The chase ended in a stand-off in which thirteen officers fired 137 shots at the car, killing both suspects—Russell and Williams, who were both unarmed, suffered more than twenty gunshot wounds each. The officers who were firing on the car from all sides, the DOJ report specifies, believing that they were being fired at by the suspects, while it now appears that those shots were being fired by fellow officers. Alongside people of color, people with disa-bilities remain the target of police violence in the U.S. A shadow report filed by Idriss Stelley Foundation and Poor Magazine with the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) suggests that not only do half of the people who suffer from police violence have psychi-atric disabilities, but, moreover, the majority of people killed by the police have disabilities. A particular grievous case was the fatal police shooting of James M. Boyd, a 38-year-old homeless man near Albuquerque, New Mexi-co, on March 16, 2014. Video released in the aftermath showed Boyd, who suffered from schizophrenia, gathering his belongings before officers opened fire. Boyd, who had multiple emergency surgeries and then had his arm amputated, died from three gunshot wounds, including one in the lower-left back, a day af-ter the shooting. Inquiries into the Albuquer-que police department in the aftermath of the killing brought to light that its officers had shot 40 people and killing 26 since 2010 alone. What surfaced in the wake of Michael Brown’s shooting were countless testimonies by citizens of Ferguson that attested to wide-spread abuses of police authority. As such,

a report compiled by ArchCity Defenders—a non-profit lawyer’s group—documented that the Ferguson municipal court ran a very prof-itable line of action, having issued 12,108 cas-es and 24,532 warrants in 2013 alone, amounting to an average of 1.5 cases and three warrants per Ferguson household. The report also found that fines and court fees for 2013 in Ferguson, a city of just 21,000 people, totaled $2,635,400, making it the city’s se-cond-biggest source of revenue. What added to this picture of racial profiling was that the municipal judge, five of the six City Council members, and about 90 percent of the city’s police force were white, even though Fergu-son itself is more than 70 percent black. By contrast—and many argued, as a conse-quence—the citizens subjected to 92 percent of all searches and 86 percent of cars stopped were black. Subsequent reports chronicled that, far from being the exception, the inverse racial makeup of Ferguson’s police depart-ment vis-à-vis the city’s demographics was representative for a more commonplace race gap in American police departments and that in hundreds of police departments across the country, the percentage of whites on the force is more than 30 percentage points higher than in the communities they serve. As a response to grassroots activism rather than motivated by investigative journalism, the national and international media in 2014 focused on police killings, an issue that had rarely made headlines in mainstream media in 2013. That year, also as a response to popular outrage rather than because of soul-searching conducted by the media, attention had fo-cused primarily on vigilante killings, such as the cases of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, and Renisha McBride. While George Zim-merman, the killer of unarmed, 17-year-old African American Trayvon Martin, was ac-quitted by an almost exclusively white jury in July 2013, Theodore Wafer, the killer of un-armed, 19-year-old African American Renisha McBride was sentenced to 17 years in prison in September 2014. After the initial trial had

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ended in a mistrial, Michael Dunn, who had shot and killed 17 year-old, unarmed, Jordan Davis over an argument over loud music in 2012, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole in a retrial in October 2014. In August, Sabri-na Fulton—mother of Trayvon Martin—and Ron Davis—Jordan’s father—were part of United States civil society’s delegation to testi-fy in front of the Committee on the Elimina-tion of Racial Discrimination in Geneva. Likewise, in November, Michael Brown’s par-ents—Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr—and supporters travelled to Gene-va to testify before the United Nations Con-vention Against Torture about the killing of their son.

Death Penalty

Following China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, the United States ranked fifth world-wide with 39 executions in 2013. As the ACLU notes, research has also shown that race plays a sig-nificant role in the determination of which homicide cases result in death sentences. Be-tween January and September 2014, a further 29 individuals were executed. The procedure of these executions repeatedly exposed the condemned to extreme pain. On January 9, Michael Wilson lamented excruciating pain during his execution in Oklahoma, for which a cocktail of three individual drugs were used. On January 16, Dennis McGuire kept gasping during his 25-minute execution in Ohio. In April, in Oklahoma, executioners pushed an IV catheter straight through a vein in Clayton Lockett’s groin, so that the drugs filled his tissue and not his bloodstream. As Lockett writhed and grimaced, the executioners closed the curtains and tried to call off the execu-tion—but it was too late, and he eventually died of a heart attack. And in July, Joseph Ru-dolph Wood gasped and snorted for more than 90 minutes after a lethal injection in Ari-zona. Several states have refused to disclose the sources of drugs used for executions.

Gender- and Sexuality-based Violence

According to a UN study, in the United States 83 percent of girls aged 12 to 16 experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools. According to the most recent Na-tional Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, over 22 million women in the United States have been raped in their lifetime, 18.3% of women in the United States have survived a completed or attempted rape, and every 90 seconds, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. In addition, one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime and almost one-third of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner. The most recent annual report of the Anti-Violence Project (AVP) documented 21 homicides in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV), ranking 2013 alongside 2012 as the years with the highest yearly total of IPV homicides. People of color were 1.6 times as likely to experience physical violence by intimate partners and 1.9 times as likely to experience threats and intimidation. 76 per-cent of these 2013 IPV homicide victims were gay men, while transgender individuals were 1.9 times as likely to experience violence and 3.9 times as likely to experience discrimination by an intimate partner. Women of color and indigenous women are especially vulnerable to sexual violence. In his September 2012 report on the rights of indigenous peoples in the United States, Spe-cial Rapporteur James Anaya lamented that Native American and Alaska Native women are often denied due process within courts and health care services following a sexual assault; denial of health services based on race; need for improved standard of care for sexual assault victims, including the collection of forensic evidence to assist with the prose-cution process. According to INCITE! Wom-en of Color Against Violence, American Indi-an women are twice as likely to be victimized by violent crime than women or men of any other ethnic group, while sixty percent of the

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perpetrators of violence against American In-dian women are white and Asian American women are most likely to be victimized by whites as well. Women of color—particularly black and Latino—are also targeted for sexual violence crossing the U.S. border. Rates of violence against African American women as well are higher than the national average. Na-tionwide, black women are disproportionally affected by sexual violence. As such, the Women of Color Network reports that ap-proximately 40% of black women report co-ercive contact of a sexual nature by age 18 while the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) found that 18.8% of Afri-can American women reported rape in their lifetime. Often, law enforcement does not protect victims of domestic violence and sometimes even prosecutes them. In 2012, then 31-year old African American Marissa Alexander was prosecuted for aggravated as-sault with a deadly weapon for firing a warn-ing shot when her husband attacked and threatened to kill her. It took her jury twelve minutes to convict Alexander, who received a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years. After an appellate court had ordered a retrial in September 2013, Florida State Attorney Angela Corey announced that she intended to re-prosecute Alexander, this time aiming for three consecutive 20 year sentences, amount-ing to a mandatory 60 year sentence if Alex-ander is found guilty in a second trial. Faced with this, in November 2014, Alexander ac-cepted a plea deal and a three year sentence. According to the Center for Disease Control and the White House, one in every five wom-en has experienced some form of sexual as-sault as an undergraduate. While not all of these experiences have been reported, those that have expose not only the prevalence of misogyny and violence on campuses, but also the prevalence of injustice in the way that the criminal act is dealt with on a legislative level. Currently, there are 85 higher education institutions now under investigation due to concerns with how the schools handle sexual

violence on campus. A recent study showed that one out of five undergraduate women experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college. Among the in-stitutions of higher education that has been criticized for lacking adequate mechanisms—as well as the motivation—to address sexual violence on its campus is Columbia Universi-ty. To protest the fact that she had to contin-ue attending college alongside her rapist, Co-lumbia senior Emma Sulkowicz began carry-ing her dorm room mattress wherever she goes, a performance/protest which gained her wide-spread support. Aside from college campuses, the U.S. mili-tary has a dismal record regarding sexual violence. In 2012, the latest year for which statistics are available, an estimated 26,000 rapes and sexual assaults took place in the mil-itary, while only 1 in 7 victims reported their attacks, and just 1 in 10 of those cases went to trial. After the Military Justice Improvement Act, introduced in 2013 by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat, New York) and Barba-ra Boxer (Democrat, California) in March 2014 fell short of breaking the Republican filibuster, Gillibrand in December renewed her call for a vote on a bill that would remove sexual assault prosecutions from the oversight of military commanders. In May, the Depart-ment of Defense Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military found that reports of sexual assault were up 50 percent for the year 2013. Likewise, the college football industry has a notorious forty-year history of manipu-lating evidence and information in order to protect its superstar players and coaches who are perpetrators in sexual assault cases.

Violence at U.S. Borders

As of October 20, 2014, at least 32 individuals have been shot and killed by U.S. Border Patrol Officers since 2010. Until October, the year 2014 saw eleven incidences, resulting in five deaths. In August 2014, on Tohono O’odham Native American land, two Indige-

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nous members—Amon Chavez and his cousin—were shot and hospitalized by an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol, an agency which by many Indigenous members, is seen as an occupying army. In July 2014, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against U.S. Border Pa-trol on behalf of Elena Rodriguez, whose 16-year old son Jose Antonio was killed by bor-der patrol agents in 2012. Similarly, the case of Juan Mendez Jr.—a 18-year-old U.S. citizen who was shot twice in the back by Border Pa-trol Agent Taylor Poitevent on October 5, 2010—received renewed scrutiny by U.S. me-dia, investigators, and an assistant U.S. attor-ney in 2014. In 2013, Police Executive Re-search Forum prepared a report investigating 67 shooting incidences by border patrol since 2010, yet U.S. Customs and Border Protection chose to keep the, purportedly condemning, report secret, despite demands from members of Congress, immigrant groups, and civil rights advocates that it be released. In May 2014, the ACLU filed a complaint to force the report’s release. Human rights abuses within detention centers along the U.S./Mexico border are prevalent. A 2014 report by the Puente Hu-man Rights Movement details anti-migratory policies in the state of Arizona and in the U.S. at large. As the report outlines, the Obama administration has set a quota of 400,000 an-nual deportations in 2010 and currently de-ports 1,300 people per day, 300 of whom are deported by Arizona on average. These poli-cies, the report specifies, result in an increas-ing criminalization and racial profiling of (un-documented) immigrants, as well as citizens of color, in border-states. Further, Puente chron-icles a high volume of cases of human rights violations and cases of torture of immigrants within immigration detention centers and Ari-zona jails. One such case centered on allega-tions of sexual abuse suffered by a number of women at a private immigrant detention facili-ty run by Geo Group Inc. in southern Texas. In fact, as the National Immigrant Justice Center notes, sexual violence—ranging from

groping to rape—is pervasive in America’s prisons and jails.

Gun Violence

From January 1 to November 22, 2014, there were a total of 45,893 incidents of gun vio-lence in the United States, resulting in 11,099 deaths, among them 1,191 children. Since the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook El-ementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which sparked a nationwide debate but did not lead to any significant nationwide legal measure of gun control, there have been 91 more school shootings. On May 23, 2014, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger went on a stabbing and shooting rampage at University of Cali-fornia, Santa Barbara, injuring 13 and killing seven, including himself. Rodger left behind a video in which he cited extremely misogynist views, contempt for racial minorities and in-terracial couples, among others, as the source of his anger. On October 24, a shooting ram-page at Marysville Pilchuck High School in Washington left three 14-year old girls, the 15-year old cousin of the shooter, and the 15-year old shooter himself dead. But obviously, shooting rampages are not limited to schools and college campuses. New research released in fall 2014 by both Harvard School of Public Health and the FBI demonstrates that mass shootings are occurring more frequently. The FBI report, released in September 2014, found an increasing frequency of incidents annually, while the Harvard report established that the rate of mass shootings had tripled since 2011, thus illustrating U.S. President Obama’s observation in June 2014 that mass shootings were “becoming the norm.”

Hate Crime

Like in the case of Elliot Rodger referenced above, these shootings are often motivated by racist, misogynist, or xenophobe resent-ments, thus qualifying as hate crimes. Ac-cording to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the number of active hate groups in the United States has increased by 56 percent

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to a total of 939 since President Obama’s elec-tion in 2008. While the FBI has reported a decrease in hate crime in recent years, a report that was widely disseminated by mainstream media, the SPLC has called these numbers utterly deceiving, lamenting that numbers were only lower because the percentage of the population covered by law enforcement agen-cies that did report plunged to its lowest level since 1995, encompassing just 79% of Ameri-cans. Cautioning the public against taken the officially sanctioned number of 5,796 hate crimes at face value, the SPLC suggests recent studies suggest that the actual number of an-nual hate crimes in the United States in the last few years has been almost 260,000. New York City may serve as a microcosm to illustrate the lingering presence, obsequious-ness, and many heads of hate crimes in Amer-ican society. On December 1, 2013, 22-year-old Taj Patterson, a gay African American man, was attacked by a group of twenty men—members of Shomrim, a Jewish neigh-borhood watch group that patrols parts of Williamsburg—and beaten severely, suffering a broken eye socket, a torn retina, bruises, and blood clotting. On May 17, 2014, 32-year-old Mark Carson was gunned down in New York’s Greenwich Village, in what was as-sumed to have been anti-gay hate crime. Fur-ther, in the aftermath of a memorial march days later, two demonstrators were attacked by Fabian Ortiz, 32, and Pedro Jiminez, 23, beaten, and exposed to anti-gay slurs. During the late summer, according to the NYPD, New York City saw an increase of 40 percent in anti-Semitic incidents. In November, police arrested an unnamed 15-year-old for allegedly beating Haim Ovanounou, an Israeli tourist, in Williamsburg. Simultaneously, purportedly as a result of the United States continued mili-tary involvement in the Middle East, anti-Muslim hate crimes spiked in New York City, doubling in number from the previous year. In August, 29-year-old Sandeep Singh, a Sikh father of two, was exposed to racial slurs,

called a “terrorist,” and then critically injured after being hit by a car in Queens.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

In December of 2014, President Obama pro-posed new funding meant to help improve relations between police departments and communities of color, saying there is a "sim-mering distrust" between the two groups that extends well beyond the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. The White House has asked for $263 million in funding for police body cam-eras and training in the wake but the program will require congressional approval. The United States Government, in its periodic report to the Committee Against Torture in August of 2013, said that the government has a long-standing commitment to addressing violence against women. The federal govern-ment’s “efforts to address violence against women in the United States have been guided by two key principles: 1) ensuring safety for victims; and 2) holding offenders accounta-ble.” It states that VAWA has led to signifi-cant improvements in the criminal and civil justice systems at the local level – where the majority of these crimes are prosecuted. By forging state, local, and partnerships among police, prosecutors, judges, victim advocates, health care providers, faith leaders, and oth-ers, OVW grant programs help provide vic-tims with the protection and services they need to pursue safe and healthy lives, while simultaneously enabling communities to hold offenders accountable for their violence.

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Recommendations

Based on their observations of the systematic repression of peaceful protestors in Ferguson, Amnesty International renewed its recom-mendation that the Department of Justice (DOJ) conduct an independent, transparent, and impartial investigation into the death of Michael Brown and called for the United States Congress to pass the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act. Concerning police overreach, a delegation of Ferguson Activists met with President Obama, Vice President Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder in December 2014 to demand action on the targeting of people of color by police. Their recommendations in-clude: encouraging the federal government to use its power to prosecute police officers that kill or abuse people; removing local district attorneys from the job of holding police ac-countable, and instead having independent prosecutors at the local level charged with prosecuting officers; the establishment of community review boards that can make rec-ommendations for police misconduct, instead of allowing police departments to police themselves; defunding local police depart-ments that use excessive force or racially pro-file. Instead of having the Department of Jus-tice (DOJ) wholesale giving more than $250 million to local police departments annually, DOJ should only fund departments that agree to adopt DOJ best practices for training and meaningful community input; the demilitariza-tion of local police departments; an di invest-ing in programs that provide alternatives to incarceration, such as community-led restora-tive justice programs and community groups that educate people about their rights.

Regarding sexual violence by state and fed-eral officers or within state or federal insti-tutions, the United States Government should open a federal investigation into the Oklahoma rape cases involving Officer Daniel Holtzclaw, similar to other civil rights investi-gations undertaken by the Department of Jus-tice. Further, the Prison Rape Elimination Act should be mended to say “Prisoners” in-stead of “Prison” and redefine “in custody” to include the moment of seizure by a police of-ficer or relevant public officials. Considering the policing of people with dis-abilities, the Idriss Stelley Foundation along-side Poor Magazine recommend a national accounting of cases of police violence and police killings that include the disability status of victims to remedy the lack of adequate sta-tistics and increased training for police de-partments on working with people with disa-bilities. Their report also echoes the public demand expressed by hundreds of thousands of citizens in the wake of Michael Brown’s death for body cameras to be worn by police officers. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its 2014 Concluding Ob-servations expressed concern at the high number of gun-related deaths and injuries, which disproportionately affect people of col-or, particularly African Americans. It also not-ed with concern the proliferation of "Stand Your Ground" laws, and its discriminatory impact on people of color. The Committee urged that the United States Government take effective step to protect the human right to life and to reduce gun violence. The Gov-ernment should expand background checks for all private firearm transfers, prohibit the practice of carrying concealed handguns in public, increase transparency in gun use in crime and illegal gun sales, and remove the far-reaching immunity inherent in "Stand Your Ground” laws.

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The United States Government should inves-tigate and prosecute law enforcement offi-cials engaged in use of excessive force and intensify efforts to prevent excessive use of forces. It should improve the reporting of cases involving the excessive use of force and strengthening oversight of and accounta-bility for inappropriate use of force. In its 2014 Concluding Observations, the Committee Against Torture says that the United States government should ensure “prompt, impartial and effective investigations of all allegations of sexual violence; ensure that, in practice, complainants and witnesses are protected from any acts of retaliation or reprisals, including intimidation, related to their complain or testimony; and ensure equal access to disability compensation to those veterans who are survivors of military sexual assault. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is concerned at the disproportionate number of women, particu-larly African American, immigrant, and American Indian and Alaska Native wom-en, who continue to be subjected to violence, including rape and sexual violence. It also re-iterated its concern at the denial of access to justice for indigenous women. The Commit-tee called upon the United States Government to intensify efforts to prevent and combat vio-lence against women, ensure access to justice and remedies particularly for indigenous women, and provide adequate resources and training for violence. In its 2014 Concluding Observations, the Committee Against Torture urges the United States government to ensure that “all instanc-es of police brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement officers are investi-gated promptly, effectively and impartially by an independent mechanism with no institu-tional or hierarchical connection between the investigators” and the alleged perpetrators; prosecute persons suspected of torture or ill-treatment and, if found guilty, ensure that they are punished in accordance with the gravity of

their acts. The government should also pro-vide effective remedies and rehabilitation to the victims and redress for Chicago Police Department torture survivors by supporting the passage of the Ordinance entitled Repara-tions for the Chicago Police Torture Survivor.

Human Rights Organizations Advancing the Human Right to Life and Security of Person Amnesty International USA • Black Lives Matter • Lost Voices • Hands Up United • Women’s All Points Bulletin • Millennial Ac-tivists United • Dream Defenders • Make the Road New York • Malcolm X Grassroots Movement • Color of Change • NAACP Le-gal Defense Fund • Center for Constitutional Rights • Ohio Students Association • IN-CITE! Women of Color Against Violence • Organization for Black Struggle • We Charge Genocide • Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination • Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission • Black Women’s Blueprint • Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute (MCLI)

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The right to work means that the United States has an obligation to “respect, protect and fulfill each person’s access to work to earn one’s living and the obligation to guaran-tee that this work can be freely chosen or ac-cepted.” The recent global economic crisis created serious challenges for the protection of human rights in the United States and throughout the world. The root cause of the crisis stemmed from United States. financial markets and policy decisions, including “de-liberate legislative changes, the lack of regula-tory protections for risky financial products offered by commercial or investment banks, and the failure to extend government over-sight of the private sector.” Under interna-tional law, states are obligated to fulfill, pro-tect and respect basic economic and social human rights and to ensure equal enjoyment of these rights for all.

Decent Work

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of em-ployment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration insuring for himself and his

family an existence worthy of human dignity, and sup-plemented, if necessary, by other means of social protec-tion. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade

unions for the protection of his interests.

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This economic crisis impacted the human right to work and to maintain adequate standards of living. The economic downturn destroyed jobs, reduced standards of living, heightened risks for ordinary people and “drove families deeper into poverty, especially women and people of color.” Overall unem-ployment rates have fallen since the “yearly average of 9.6% in 2010 to 7.4% in 2013 and 6.5% in the first six months of 2014”, but they have not yet returned to pre-2008 levels. The underemployment rate—which includes not just the officially unemployed, but also part-time workers who want full-time jobs—reached a high of 18.6% in January 2014 and, as of October 2014 was 14.8%.”

Although the greatest losses during the reces-sion were among higher paying jobs and mid-wage jobs, the greatest percentage of new jobs are in lower paying industries. In 2014, there are “1.85 million more people employed in low paying jobs than in 2008, while 958,000 fewer people are employed in mid-wage industries and 976,000 fewer people are employed in high wage industries than there were six years ago.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 11.0% of African Americans are still unemployed and this per-centage has not seen any significant decline since the start of the recession.

Essential to the right to work, is “the right to a just remuneration that ensures an existence worthy of human dignity.” The preamble to the Constitution of the International Labour Organization “identifies the provision of an adequate living wage as one of the conditions for universal and lasting peace based on social justice.” All workers deserve to earn a liv-ing wage in order to have a safe and decent standard of living. This wage should be enough to pay for basic necessities, such as housing, food, childcare, transportation, healthcare, and taxes, and other basic necessi-ties. Currently in the U.S., the minimum wage in various states do not amount to a livable wage with the national minimum wage at $7.25/hour. The Fair Minimum Wage Act is a

bill that, if passed, would amend the Fair La-bor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour “over two-and-a-half years, in three steps of 95 cents each, adjust the minimum wage annually to keep pace with the rising cost of living.” The Act would also raise the minimum cash wage for tipped work-ers “which has been frozen at a meager $2.13 per hour for more than twenty years - to 70% of the full minimum wage.”

A number of states have already acted to raise the minimum wage. In 2013, Seattle elected a socialist city councilor on a $15 per hour minimum-wage platform. In June of 2014, Seattle made history “by passing the $15-an-hour minimum wage—the highest rate in the country for a major city, and more than twice the federal minimum.” Thirteen states have raised their minimum wage and nine of them (including Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, and Rhode Island) raised theirs to keep up with inflation. The states that have raised their minimum wage have seen faster job growth with the number of jobs growing an average of 0.85 percent from January through June 2014. The average for the other 37 states was only 0.61 percent. Cal-ifornia raised its minimum wage to $10 per hour while in New York City, Mayor DeBlasio signed a minimum wage bill which covers thousands of previously exempt work-ers and raising the hourly wage itself, to $13.13 from $11.90, for workers who do not receive benefits. His executive order seeks to make the minimum wage equal to a living wage with all hourly workers in the city earn-ing more than $15 by 2019, according to the city’s projections.

Because of negative attitudes, historic and current barriers, women face challenges that make them uniquely vulnerable to human rights violations with respect to access to work, as well as within the workplace. Women have continued to experience “higher rates of poverty and to continue make less money for comparable work than their male peers

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throughout the recession and the recovery periods.” The gender poverty gap has actually expanded during the economic recovery, with 16.3 percent of women and 13.6 percent of men living in poverty in 2012, compared to 16.2 percent of women and 14.0 percent of men living in poverty in 2010. Black women in August of 2014 posted an unemployment rate of 10.6 percent, the same rate that group registered in August 2013—“while during that span unemployment rates decreased for black men, white men, white women, Latino men, Latino women, and adult Asian Americans.” More education is not an effective tool against the gender wage gap. At every level of aca-demic achievement, women’s median earnings are less than men’s earnings, and in some cas-es, the gender pay gap is larger at higher levels of education. While education helps everyone, black and Hispanic women earn less than their white and Asian peers do, even when they have the same educational credentials. Across professional fields, female workers make less than their male counterparts. In 2014, women continue to make only 77 cents for every dollar that their equally qualified male counterparts make.

In 2013 alone, 93,727 charges of workplace discrimination were filed with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Of these charges, over one-third of them were based on race (35%) and nearly one-third was based on sex (29%). In 2010, the EEOC issued a report showing that African-Americans face major obstacles in the federal workforce due to poor en-forcement of equal opportunity regulations, lack of mentors and networks, unconscious bias, and other factors which highlight struc-tural racism.

Currently, 47 percent of major employers use credit background checks during the hir-ing process to screen out employment appli-cants with poor credit. This percentage may be even higher for smaller companies. Re-search consistently shows that African-American and Latino households tend to have

worse credit, on average, than White house-holds. The use of poor credit to cut off em-ployment opportunities has had a disparate impact on minorities. Despite the fact that “there is no proven link between personal credit reports and criminal behavior or per-formance of a specific job, employers still use these checks as a barrier to employment.” The overbroad use of criminal background checks by employers to screen out job applicants has a disproportionate impact on people of color. More than “90 percent of employers use crim-inal background checks to screen applicants for some or all positions.” In addition to this, some even screen out applicants with arrest records that did not lead to a conviction. Na-tionally, “African Americans and Hispanics are “arrested in numbers disproportionate to their representation in the general population: in 2010, African Americans made up 28 per-cent of all arrests, even though African Amer-icans only comprised approximately 14 per-cent the population generally.” In 2008, His-panics were arrested for federal drug charges at a rate of approximately three times their proportion of the general population.”

Surveys of Black LGBT people put rates of employment discrimination near 50 per-cent. LGBT people of color have higher rates of unemployment compared to non-LGBT people of color (e.g. unemployment rates for transgender people of color have reached as high as four times the national unemployment rate). In addition, research has shown that LGBT people of color, particularly Black LGBT people, are at a much higher risk of poverty than non-LGBT people (e.g., Black people in same-sex couples have poverty rates at least twice the rate of Black people in op-posite-sex married couples—18 percent vs. 8 percent). For Asian and Pacific Islander LGBT people, those who say they have expe-rienced employment discrimination based on their sexual orientation range from 75 to 82 percent. The number of transgender people of color who report having actually lost a job because of discrimination is especially daunt-

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ing. Thirty-two percent of Black transgender respondents reported having lost a job due to bias. The numbers for other transgender peo-ple of color are 36 percent for American Indi-ans, 30 percent for Latinos, and 14 percent for Asians and Pacific Islanders. In response to this disturbing trend, 18 States and the Dis-trict of Columbia have passed anti-discrimination law protecting transgendered people. A series of federal court rulings, and the decision in April 2012 by the Equal Em-ployment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to extend workplace protections to trans-gender people who may experience discrim-nation “because of sex.”

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers contin-ue to be a particularly at-risk demographic in the United States. These workers are vulnera-ble to dangerous working conditions, uncom-pensated workplace injuries, discrimination, and other labor law violations, including un-paid wages. Undocumented workers who try to stand up for their rights routinely face physical and immigration-related threats and retaliation. Fifty-three percent of farmwork-ers are undocumented, representing a vital workforce in manufacturing, service, con-struction, restaurant, and agriculture sectors.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program is “a unique partnership among farmers, farmworkers, and retail food companies that ensures humane wages and working conditions for the workers who pick fruits and vegetables on participat-ing farms.” Participating buyers in the pro-gram pay a penny more per pound which to-mato growers pass onto workers. Between January 2011 and October 2014, over $15 mil-lion in Fair Food Premiums were paid into the Program. The program has been called “one of the great human rights success stories of our day” in a Washington Post op-ed, “the best workplace monitoring program” in the U.S. in the New York Times, and a “smart mix of tools” that “could serve as a model elsewhere in the world” by the United Na-

tions Working Group on Business and Hu-man Rights.”

Domestic workers are comprised mostly of women—35% of whom are undocument-ed and they play a vital role in the United States’ economy by helping families meet many of the most basic physical, emotional, and social needs of the young and the old. The social isolation of domestic work is com-pounded by limited federal and state labor protections with many of the laws and policies that govern pay and conditions in the work-place being inapplicable to domestic workers. Even when domestic workers have greater legal protections, they have little power to as-sert their rights. The women who perform domestic work today are, in substantial meas-ure, immigrant workers, many of whom as mentioned earlier are undocumented, and women of racial and ethnic minorities. These workers enter the labor force bearing multiple disadvantages including low pay, 23 percent of workers surveyed are paid below the state minimum wage with 70 percent being paid less than $13 an hour. Sixty-seven percent of live-in workers are paid below the state mini-mum wage, and the median hourly wage of these workers is $6.15. Domestic workers rarely receive employment benefits and less than two percent receive retirement or pen-sion benefits from their primary employer. Interviews with domestic workers reveal that they often endure verbal, psychological, and physical (including sexual) abuse on the job without recourse. Domestic workers, who are unprotected by contracts and laws available to other workers, fear employer retaliation. The U.S. has not ratified the International Labour Organization’s Domestic Workers Conven-tion, 2011 (No. 189) which went into force in September of 2013, extending basic labor rights to domestic workers around the globe.

Walmart, one of the richest corporations in the world, with profits of $16 billion an-nually and 1.4 million employees, earns record sums of money while their employees are un-able to make ends meet. Employees, consum-

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ers and activists have joined together to “fight for decent wages, full-time hours, predictable schedules and dignity at work.” Because of their low wages, many Walmart employees must seek government benefits to make ends meet. This "Walmart Economy" means that taxpayers must give, to the tune of nearly $8 billion a year, to pay for food subsidies, health care, and housing for Walmart employees. All while the Waltons—the richest family in the country who own and run Walmart—add $8.6 million to their $150 billion wealth every day.” In addition to the Walmart protests, fast-food workers went on strike on December 4, 2014 in close to 200 cities, “the most widespread walkouts the industry has seen to date. And for the first time, convenience and dollar store workers joined them.” The goal of the mass walk-out is to compel the top national fast-food corporations to agree to a pay increase for its workers and to make it easier for work-ers to unionize. Activists, in the wake of the decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Black unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, held nationwide protests on Black Friday “that closed some malls over the [2014 Thanksgiv-ing] holiday weekend, obstructed traffic in big cities and flooded social media with appeals for Americans to stop shopping.” The pur-pose of the national boycott of Black Friday was to diminish profits of major corporations in the hopes that governments would take notice that the people, particularly people of color, are fed up with police violence against people of color. Though it is not clear wheth-er the large drop in sales (11 percent) was due solely to the boycott, social media and real life response to the boycott has been impactful in raising awareness. Adjunct professors, like tenured professors, have advanced degrees, are responsible for teaching and counseling students while main-taining relevance in their respective fields of study. In spite of this, the disparity in adjunct and tenured professors’ earnings for teaching the same level courses is jarring. The average

salary for a distinguished professor is $144,000 a year while the average pay for an adjunct professor is between $$15,000 and $20,000 annually ($2, 987 per class meaning they have to teach five or six courses per year to make this salary). In fact, for example, in Boston, “an adjunct professor must teach be-tween 17 and 24 classes a year to afford a home and utilities.” Most adjunct professors live below the poverty line, have to teach multiple classes with large numbers of stu-dents, often commuting between two or three colleges, and receiving public assistance just to make ends meet. Moreover, most adjuncts do not get office space, have limited resources to prep for classes, and can be hired as close to the start of the semester as possible and fired at any given time. At the same time, the cost of tuition for students continues to increase and high-level administrators make record amounts of money. Today, about seventy-five percent of faculty members throughout the nation’s public and private colleges are ad-junct professors. Efforts for adjunct profes-sors to unionize are picking up steam through Adjunct Action. These actions have spread to 10 metropolitan areas, where it has formed, or is working to form, unions at more than 30 campuses employing a total of about 25,000 adjuncts. It has already unionized about 70 percent of adjuncts at colleges in Washington, D.C., and has gained footholds in Boston, Los Angeles, and around Seattle. Hundreds of thousands of children are em-ployed as child agricultural farmworkers in the United States. They often work 10 or more hours a day with sharp tools, heavy ma-chinery, and dangerous pesticides, and die at 4 times the rate of other working youth. Farm-worker children drop out of school in alarm-ing numbers. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows child farmworkers to work at younger ages, for far longer hours, and under more hazardous conditions than all other working youth. Children can legally work on any farm at age 12, with their parents’ permis-sion, and it is not uncommon to see children

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as young as seven and eight in the fields. Dur-ing peak harvest season, the children work up to 14-hour days, and earn far less than mini-mum wage. There is no minimum age for children working on a small farm with paren-tal permission.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

The United States implemented the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 to address the high-risk activity in the financial sector that con-tributed to the recession of 2007-2009. The Act increased federal oversight and regulation of financial services in the United States, and requires more transparency and better infor-mation for potential investors and consumers of financial products.

The United States in its 2010 Universal Peri-odic Review (UPR) report accepted three rec-ommendations that specifically reference sex-ual orientation, gender identity, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people. To-gether, recommendations 86, 112, and 116 require the United States to take all necessary measures to comprehensively address discrim-ination against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity by en-couraging the equal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

President Obama signed an executive order barring LGBT discrimination by federal contractors. He also went further and formal-ly amended a separate executive order to in-clude workplace protections for transgender employees of the U.S. government.

In the UPR Working Group’s report in Janu-ary 2011, it recommended that the United States take the necessary measures in favor of the right to work and fair conditions of work so that “workers belonging to minorities, in particular women and undocumented migrant workers, do not become victims of discrimi-

natory treatment and abuse in the work place and enjoy the full protection of the labor leg-islation, regardless of their migratory status.”

The United States Government has taken steps to alleviate the problems arising from discrimination in employment. The first bill signed into law by President Obama in 2009 was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which restored the time periods workers had to bring litigation to hold their employers ac-countable for pay discrimination. In 2014, the president signed an executive order prohibit-ing companies that contract with the federal government from retaliating against workers who disclose or inquire about their pay. The president also signed a presidential memoran-dum requiring Department of Labor to collect wage data from federal contractors that will allow for analysis of pay rates by sex and race.

Recommendations

The United States government and the Fed-eral Reserve should ensure that fiscal policy promotes human rights, including the right to work to work and the right to an adequate standard of living. Fiscal policy should play a direct role in investing in education, health care and other social spending and infrastruc-ture to support sustainable employment gains in the long run and, in the short-run, running counter cyclical policies to prevent job losses when the economy weakens.

Restore federal Emergency Unemploy-ment Compensation for long-term unem-ployment relief. Extend disability benefits and support to low-income households to help maintain a minimal standard of living.

United States should prohibit any employer from taking any adverse employment deci-sion on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, meaningfully enforce such a prohibition, collect a variety of data on this issue, and monitor labor markets and work-places. Further, Congress should pass, and

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the President should sign, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by employers with at least 15 employees.

Companies should conduct salary audits to proactively monitor and address gender based pay differences and in the face of congressional gridlock, President Barack Obama can issue an executive order banning federal contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their salaries or ask about pay practices, a move that could protect 22 percent of the nation’s workforce.

The Obama administration should support, and Congress should pass, employment leg-islation including the Equal Employment for All Act (H.R. 645/S.1837), the Fairness & Accuracy in Employment Background Checks Act (H.R. 2865), and the Accuracy in Back-ground Checks Act of 2013 (H.R. 2999).

The United States should enact and enforce policies that rectify the exclusion of domes-tic workers from employment and labor laws. Among these protections are the right to or-ganize, earn the minimum wage, get paid for overtime, take regular rest and meal periods, claim workers’ compensation and unemploy-ment insurance, have healthy and safe work environments, and have effective remedies for discrimination, abuse, and harassment. In ad-dition, policies are required to assure benefits, such as paid vacation and holidays or notice of termination, that are difficult for domestic workers to negotiate with their employers. Policies are needed to address issues particular to live- in workers, such as standard hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The United States should put in place strong protections for unions to preserve the col-lective bargaining process. This is needed to ensure that working people, through their un-ions, “negotiate contracts with their employ-ers to determine their terms of employment,

including pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family and more.”

The Unites States also needs a national do-mestic workers bill of rights, which would also include other member of the informal sector, to provide, critical workplace protec-tions including a “requirement for written contracts in the domestic worker industry, requirement for notification of termination and provisions for maternity leave.”

Human Rights Groups Advancing the Human Right to Decent Work

Coalition of Immokalee Workers • Black Workers for Justice • Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights • United Workers Congress • Our Walmart • Warehouse Work-ers United • American Civil Liberties Union • National Domestic Workers Alliance • Na-tional Partnership for Women and Families • 9to5 National Association for Working Wom-en • New York Communities for Change • United NY • The Black Institute • Center for Women’s Global Leadership • Project South • Michigan Welfare Rights Organization • Pov-erty Initiative • Georgia Citizens Coalition on Hunger • Southwest Georgia Project for Community Education • Sex Workers Project • National Economic and Social Rights Initia-tive • Human Rights Project at the Urban Jus-tice Center • Vermont Workers Center • Na-tional Gay and Lesbian Task Force • Restau-rant Opportunities Center United (ROC) • Jobs with Justice • OURWalmart • Blackout for Human Rights , SEIU • United Farm Workers • Adjunct Action • National Worker Organizing Committee

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Essential to any healthy democracy is the right for all of its eligible citizens to participate equally in free and fair elections. Attacks on the right to vote not only have negative im-pacts for the individuals who are targeted, but they also threaten the very fabric of a democ-racy by silencing the voices of vulnerable communities. Though various states and lo-calities have put into place a variety of ob-structive practices that impact people of color, women, students, the elderly, low-income people, and people with disabilities, it was the United States Supreme Court that dealt the most devastating blow to voting rights in July of 2013. The striking down of an essential component (section 4) of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder has opened the door for many jurisdictions to pass laws that obstruct voting rights. Section 4 was an essen-

Voting Rights

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 21

Everyone has the right to take part in the govern-ment of his country, directly or through freely chosen

representatives. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. The will of

the people shall be the basis of the authority of gov-ernment; this will shall be expressed in periodic and

genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by

equivalent free voting procedures.

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tial component of Section 5, which required certain jurisdictions (mainly in the South with a history of discrimination) to obtain federal approval before making changes to voting laws. In January 2014, a bipartisan group of congressmen and senators introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014. This bill seeks to give the public the opportunity to learn about “discriminatory voting changes and stop them, through different sets of tools, before they can disfranchise voters.” Congress should, but has yet to pass this bill. With an essential part of the Voting Rights Act eliminated, attempts to suppress the right to vote have increased across the na-tion, which threatens to roll back the hard-won right of every American citizen to partic-ipate freely in the democratic processes. The-se newly enacted laws “disenfranchise many voters including minorities, low-income per-sons, senior citizens, voters with disabilities, and students.” From January to June of 2014, at least 83 restrictive bills were introduced in 29 states whose legislatures have had floor activity. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has published a “Map of Shame” which highlights voter suppression legislative bills across the country. At least 18 states (including Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York) have intro-duced bills either requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls or making existing pho-to ID laws more restrictive. As of July 2014, “thirty states require voters to present gov-ernment-issued photo identification at the polls” to vote in federal, state, and local elec-tions. Voter ID laws have a disproportionate impact on people of color. For example, a law recently passed in Tennessee requires that in-dividuals present government-issued identifi-cation in order to cast a ballot. With an “estimated 25 percent of voting-age African Americans possessing no government-issued identification, the discriminatory impact of such laws is clear.” An estimated 1.2 million eligible African-American voters and 500,000 eligible Hispanic voters live more than 10

miles from their nearest identification-issuing office that is open more than two days a week. Four states have introduced bills requiring proof of citizenship, such as a birth certifi-cate, to register or vote (Massachusetts, Okla-homa, South Carolina, Utah) and 13 states have introduced bills to limit voter registration mobilization efforts and reduce other registra-tion opportunities (including Alabama, Arizo-na, Colorado and Vermont). Early Voting Cancellation, according to Attorney General Eric Holder, “is a major step backward. Those state officials who seek to impose these restrictions must justify clearly, factually, and empirically why they are necessary." Early voting allows those who cannot afford to miss work or those who cannot afford to pay for childcare to vote before an upcoming election. The costs associated with voting—in lost pay, in childcare, in transit fares—are higher for minorities and the poor. This is why they are among the largest beneficiaries of early, flexi-ble voting. Early voting “isn't merely a matter of convenience. It's a recognition of the fact that many forms of historic discrimination and economic inequality have also, as a down-stream consequence, made it harder for mi-norities to vote.” In 2013, North Carolina passed one of the most restrictive voter suppression laws in the United States. The law included strict pho-to identification requirements, shortened the early voting period by a week, eliminated same-day voter registration, and eliminated pre-registration for 16 and 17 year olds, among other restrictive changes. These changes will have an outsized impact on the state’s growing African-American population. Evidence has shown that African-American voters in North Carolina are more likely to vote during early voting than white voters, are disproportionately more likely to utilize same day registration, and are all-around the voters most affected by these changes. Like-wise, same day registration proved to be very

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popular among African-Americans voting in the 2008 and 2012 elections. With the excep-tion of strict photo ID requirements to vote, the bill was in effect for the November 2014 election. This law was passed despite the fact that widespread voter fraud is not an issue in North Carolina. In October of 2014, the United States Su-preme Court allowed Texas to enforce a very restrictive voter ID law. The law was previously struck down by a federal judge say-ing that “roughly 600,000 voters, many of them black or Latino, could be turned away at the polls because the were lacking the suffi-cient identification.” The Supreme Court overturned the ruling, despite that fact that the judge found the Republican-led Texas state legislature intentionally discriminated against minority voters. While it is too early to assess whether the Republican electoral sweep in this November’s election was a result of these changes, election protection hot-lines and other voter protection volun-teers reported “what appeared to be wide-spread problems both with voter registrations and with voters being told they were in the wrong precinct.” Many language minorities face discrimina-tion when attempting to exercise their right to vote. Citizens “who are not yet fluent in Eng-lish have difficulty understanding complex voting materials and procedures and are often denied needed assistance at the polls.” A re-cent survey reported that 75 percent of Asian-American adults speak a language other than English at home. The “rate is 89 percent among foreign-born adults [and] 31 percent among native-born Asian Americans.” In 2008, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund monitored 229 poll sites in 11 targeted states and surveyed 16,665 vot-ers—finding language assistance was inade-quate. Additionally, 254 Asian Americans complained that there were no interpreters or translated materials. Even though in New York language-assistance is required by law,

one-fourth of the Chinese and Korean inter-preters were absent from the polls. Thirty-eight percent of respondents in Boston wished to receive oral language assistance, but “could not find interpreters who spoke their language or dialect.” From 1995 to 2014, 17% of successful challenges to a jurisdiction’s fail-ure to provide adequate bilingual voting assis-tance involved one or more Asian lan-guages—usually Chinese, but other cases in-volved Bengali, Ilocano, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. Citizenship checks also have a racially discriminatory effect on Americans’ ability

to cast ballots and participatein democratic

processes. Americans of color are dispropor-tionately likely to lack the kinds of documents accepted as proof of citizenship. Post-registration citizenship checks largely focus scrutiny on the “only group of Americans likely to have been previously identified in government databases as noncitizens: natural-ized citizens.” According to the most recent data released by the United States Census Bu-reau, 75% of all naturalized citizens belong to a racial or ethnic minority group, compared to just 30.6 percent of all native-born American citizens. Disparate treatment of “naturalized citizens therefore constitutes disparate treat-ment of the nation’s racial and ethnic minori-ties.” In the case United States v. Long County Georgia, 45 Latino residents’ right to vote was challenged on the grounds that they were not United States citizens. They were required to attend hearings to prove their citizenship even though there was no evidence calling into question their citizenship and even though similarly situated non-Hispanics were not re-quired to do so. The federal court required the county to: notify the 45 Latino voters that the challenges to their right to vote were unsub-stantiated; implement uniform voter challenge procedures; and properly train their election officials and poll workers.

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Indigenous Peoples throughout history have experienced voter discrimination, including literacy tests, which were not repealed until the 1970s. Well into the 1940s, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Washington prohibited “Indians not taxed” from voting, even though they allowed Whites who did not pay taxes the right to vote. Arizona denied Native Americans living on reservations the right to vote because they were “under guard-ianship” of the federal government. This poli-cy remained in place until 1948. Utah denied Native Americans living on reservations the right to vote because, under state law, they were considered non-residents. The Utah Su-preme Court upheld this law, and only after the United States Supreme Court agreed to review the case did the state legislature repeal it in 1957. In Colorado, Native Americans residing on reservations were not permitted to vote until 1970. Since 1973, there have been more than 30 successful challenges to redis-tricting schemes and methods of election that dilute the Native American voting power. Be-tween January 1995 and June 2014, there were 18 successful Voting Rights Act cases on be-half of Native American plaintiffs. Refusal by election registrars to provide registration forms to groups involved in registering Indig-enous Peoples and Alaska Natives; purging them from voter registration lists; baseless charges of voter fraud; and failure to provide sufficient polling places in Native-American communities have resulted in Indigenous Peoples having the lowest rates of voting of all racial and ethnic groups in the United States at 47.5% in 2008 and 46.6% in 2012. Many of the 33.7 million Americans with disabilities of voting age find themselves locked out to the democratic process, “not because polling officials are deliberately block-ing disabled people from entering, but be-cause so many polling places are inaccessible.” In fact, the Federal Election Commission re-ports that, in violation of state and federal laws, more than “20,000 polling places across the nation are inaccessible, depriving people

with disabilities of their fundamental right to vote.” Polling places are inaccessible, often set in church basements or in upstairs meeting halls where there is no ramp or elevator. There is also sometimes no disabled parking, or doorways are too narrow. All this means problems “not just for people who use wheel-chairs, but for people using canes or walkers too. And in most states people who are blind don't have the right to a Braille ballot; they have to bring someone along to vote for them, and might well wonder if that person is really following their instructions.” Poll work-ers can sometimes deter people from voting when they question the right to vote of some-one with a cognitive disability as well. Disenfranchisement of individuals with prior criminal convictions affects millions of Americans who are disproportionately people of color. An estimated 5.85 million Americans have currently or permanently lost their voting rights as a result of a felony con-viction. This includes nearly 4.4 million of those who have been released from prison and are living and working in the community. Nearly 2.2 million African Americans, or 7.7% of black adults, are disenfranchised, compared to 1.8% of the non-African American popula-tion. In three states – Florida (23%), Ken-tucky (22%), and Virginia (20%) – more than one in five African Americans are disenfran-chised. Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia prohibit voting while incarcerated for a felony offence and only two states (Maine and Vermont) allow prisoners to vote. Thirty-five states prohibit persons on parole from voting and 31 of these states exclude persons on probation as well. Fully 75% of disenfranchised voters include individuals on parole, probation, or who have completed their sentences. Four states deny the right to vote to all persons with felony convictions even after completing sentencing. African Americans of voting age have lost the right to vote—a rate four times the national average. Available data suggests “criminal disfran-chisement laws may also disproportionately

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impact Latino citizens because of their overrepresentation in the criminal justice sys-tem.” Many of the current criminal disfran-chisement laws “proliferated in the Jim Crow era and were intended to bar minorities from voting.” The United States continues to lead the world in the rate of incarcerating its own citizens. Over the last few decades, the num-ber of disfranchised citizens has been increas-ing because of an incarceration boom fueled by mandatory minimum sentences and the ‘War on Drugs.” Despite these set backs, some states have reversed course. Since 1997, 23 states have modified felony disenfranchisement provi-sions to expand voter eligibility, eight states either repealed or amended lifetime disenfran-chisement laws, and three states expanded voting rights to persons on probation or pa-role. In August of this year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a blanket ban on voting of prisoners violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to free and fair elections. As a member of the global community, the United States should aim to meet this standard as well. In addition to the various forms of voter sup-pression mentioned above, many Americans have found that broader, less-obvious system-ic changes, like unlawful redistricting (or Ger-rymandering) hinder the rights of large num-bers of potential voters. Gerrymandering occurs “when political parties redraw district boundaries to give themselves an electoral advantage.” A few of the many districts ac-cused of engaging in some form of Gerry-mandering, which includes malapportionment (when a few districts contain a larger percent-age of the population to limit vote strength–Montana), Cracking (when a district is broken up to prevent minority group from electing their candidate of choice—Arizona, Virginia, and Wisconsin), or Packing (when minority voters are concentrated in one or as few dis-tricts as possible—Louisiana and Wisconsin).

To its credit, the Department of Justice has actively pursued and filed lawsuits against ju-risdictions that engage in acts that suppress the right to vote.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

In its report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) in June of 2013, the United States Government states that the De-partment of Justice (DOJ) “enforces statutes that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), the Na-tional Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA).” The report states that these laws and others are intended to prohibit discrimi-nation in voting on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group; require certain covered jurisdictions to pro-vide bilingual written materials and other as-sistance; and require that voters who require assistance to vote by reason of blindness, dis-ability, or inability to read or write be given assistance by a person of the voter’s choice. Regarding felony disenfranchisement, the United States Government states that the United States Constitution generally assigns to the individual states, and not to the United States Congress, the “responsibility for de-termining eligibility to vote. At the same time, Congress does have the power to regulate elections for federal offices and also the con-stitutional authority to eradicate discrimina-tion in voting. Federal legislation addressing voting by former felons in federal elections has been proposed, but not enacted.”

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Recommendations

Various United Nations bodies have made recommendations to ensure that all eligi-ble persons can access their right to vote equally. The Human Rights Committee, in its 2014 Concluding Observations for the Inter-national Convention of Civil and Political Rights Review states that the United States should “ensure that all states reinstate voting rights to felons who have fully served their sentences; provide inmates with information about their voting restoration options; remove or streamline lengthy and cumbersome voting restoration procedures; as well as review au-tomatic denial of the vote to any imprisoned felon, regardless of the nature of the offence.” They further state that all necessary measures should be taken to ensure that voter identifi-cation requirements and the new eligibility requirements do not impose excessive bur-dens on voters and result in de facto disen-franchisement. In its August 2014 Concluding Observations, the Committee on Elimination of Racial Dis-crimination noted concern about obstacles faced by people of color and Indigenous Peoples to “effectively exercise their right to vote, due to restrictive voter identification laws, district gerrymandering, and state-level felon disenfranchisement laws.” It called on the United States Government to “enforce voting rights laws that encourage voter partic-ipation”, and adopt federal legislation to pre-vent the implementation of voting regulations which have discriminatory impact. Congress should pass, and the President sign, the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014, “in order to provide the necessary tools and protections to the Voting Rights Act that were lost following Shelby County v. Holder.”

Congress should enact Voter Registration Modernization which would include auto-matic registration (states will register every voter when they turn 18 or become natural-ized citizens through information contained in other government lists, such as driving rec-ords, assistance rolls and other safeguarded information); permanent registration; and Election-day correction (allowing people to correct info or register on election day). The Department of Justice should endorse and urge Congress to pass the Democracy Restoration Act and clarify its support of automatic restoration of voting rights to citi-zens upon their release from incarceration for disfranchising convictions, and oppose re-strictions for those on parole or probation or with unpaid fees or fines.

Human Rights Groups Advancing the Human Right to Vote

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law • American Civil Liberties Union • Na-tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People • Asian American Legal De-fense and Education Fund; Brennan Center for Justice • Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, National Commission on Voting Rights • Project South • Color of Change • Voice of the Ex-Offender (VOTE)

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Marriage and family are the structures in which we, as a society, have stored the rights and protections that govern the legal relationships among and between the people that we decide to spend our intimate lives with. As such, the denial of these fundamental rights based on an individual’s characteristics can serve to create a two-tiered system in which some individuals are protected and others are not. The right to marry has been denied to millions of individuals in the United States based on their sexual orientation. Many of the arguments used to justify denying the right for same-sex couples to marry, were used against interracial couples and were not invalidated until 1967 in the landmark case, Loving v. Virginia in which the United States

Marriage & Family

____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16 and Article 25

Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to

equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

Everyone has the right to a standard of living ade-quate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family… Motherhood and childhood are

entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the

same social protection.

____________________

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Supreme Court upheld the right of a black woman and a white man to marry. Since then, advocates for marriage equality have fought at the federal level, and state-by-state, for the right to marry for same-sex couples. Though the Supreme Court has not yet de-clared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, its decisions in 2013 states that “Congress could not refuse to recognize same-sex marriages endorsed by the states” and it “turned back an effort to reinstate Cali-fornia’s Proposition 8, which defined marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.” This represents a significant step toward ex-panding the rights of same-sex couples. Indi-vidual states have taken the lead to ensure equal protection for all and as of October 2014, 35 states and the District of Columbia permit same-sex couples to marry—24 by court decision, eight by legislature and three by popular vote. Among these victories, was a federal court case in which the judge ruled that Virginia’s refusal to marry same-sex cou-ples and to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages violates the Fourteenth Amend-ment of the United States Constitution. Other states have tried to deny the right to marry by arguing that granting that right would not “enhance child welfare,” foster biological re-production or encourage gendered parenting styles. On October 6, 2014 the Supreme Court declined to hear any of these cases, which “cleared the way for same-sex marriag-es in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin [included in the 35 states].” Gay and lesbian couples started getting married in those states within hours. Currently, a number of same-sex couples in various states are still fighting for that bundle of rights that many of their family, friends, neighbors and colleagues enjoy. Since many same-sex couples are not afforded the protections of marriage, a number of states provide no way for both parents in a same-sex parent family to establish a le-gally protected relationship with their

children, either by adoption or by any other means. As a result, “those children are denied government benefits and can be separated from one of their parents if their parents sep-arate or the legally recognized parent dies.” These parents, who are not considered “legal parents” may not be able to consent to medi-cal care for the child or make educational de-cisions, and may have no ability to provide health insurance for the child as their depend-ent. The absence of legal recognition also “stigmatizes these families, inviting private discrimination and making it more difficult for children being raised by LGBT parents to feel safe and included in their communities.” A number of states allow same-sex parents to protect their parental rights through adoption or another court process. However, a few states “explicitly discriminate against same-sex parents by prohibiting adoptions by any adult who has an unmarried partner or preferring adoption by married, different-sex couples.” This issue is particularly widespread for transgender parents, who are at risk of los-ing custody or even having their parental rights terminated in many states based solely on their gender identity. The 2012 report, Rocking the Cradle: Ensur-ing the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children, estimates that 6.1 million children in the United States have disa-bled parents. These parents are more at risk than other parents of losing custody of their children, including “removal rates as high as 80 percent for parents with psychiatric or in-tellectual disabilities.” Likewise, the adoption system in the United States has a framework that puts barriers in the way of adoption for disabled people interested in fostering or adopting. Adoptive parents may be taken far into the process before being rejected “on the grounds of impairments like cerebral palsy, despite ample evidence of their willingness and ability to care for children; this is a devas-tating turn of affairs for people who long for full social inclusion, which includes the op-portunity to parent if they want to.”

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The health of societies can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable people. The rights of children, to health and well-being and to be free from harm have been abridged in the United States in a number of ways. To date, the United States has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which requires all appropriate legisla-tive, administrative, social and educational measures be taken to protect the child from “all forms of physical or mental violence, inju-ry or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.” The most recent report by the Children’s Bureau at the Department of Health and Human Services states that in 2012 there were 3.4 million reports of child maltreatment in the United States involving more than six million children. Approximately 1,640 children died from abuse and neglect, and about 70 percent of these children were younger than 3 years old. Young children are particularly vulnerable as more than “44 per-cent of children who die from abuse and ne-glect every year are under a year old.” Children enter the foster care system through no fault of their own, usually as a re-sult of abuse, neglect and/or abandonment. The foster care system disproportionately im-pacts poor people and people of color par-ticularly because a parent can be deemed unfit for conditions that have more to do with pov-erty, than parenting ability. For example, after losing her job, Melody, an African American single mother had no choice but to move her-self, and her eight-year old daughter in with a friend. The police raided the apartment, and arrested all of the adults; including Melody and her daughter was placed in foster care. Similarly, because the United States does not recognize the human right to housing or de-cent work, many people, particularly poor women of color are left to fend for them-selves and then are punished when they do so. An African American woman experiencing

homelessness, Shanesha Taylor, was impris-oned after leaving her children in the car dur-ing a job interview after her babysitter fell through. Taylor did eventually regain custody of her children, but her trial is set for Febru-ary 2015. Considering the impact of incarcera-tion on Black families reveals “a relationship between the child welfare system and the criminal justice system.” The most obvious connection is that imprisoning parents thrusts many children into foster care. But “there are other less obvious and more profound sys-temic associations between criminal justice and child welfare. Demographically, the two institutions are remarkably similar. They are both populated almost exclusively by poor people, and by grossly disproportionate num-

bers of Blacks.”

The number of children in foster care na-tionwide increased in 2013 for the first time in seven years. At the same time, the child wel-fare spending actually declined nationwide between 2010 and 2012. The annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services tallied 402,378 children in the foster care system as of Sept. 30, 2013, “up from about 397,000 a year earlier, but still down dramatically from a decade earlier.” In 2012, more than half of children enter-ing United States foster care were young peo-ple of color and “twenty-six percent of chil-dren currently in U.S. foster care are African American, double the percentage of African American children in the U.S. population.” Twenty-one percent of children in foster care are Hispanic and in certain places, Indigenous Peoples account for “about 1.6 percent of the population of Minnesota, yet [make up] 16 percent of the kids in foster care. They are 17 percent of the population in Alaska and 55 percent of the population in foster care.” Very little is currently known about girls in the foster care system and what happens to them after they leave the system. The available research indicates that too many girls who are

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in foster care as teenagers, experience school failure, violence, homelessness, financial diffi-culties, and early parenthood, as well as physi-cal and mental health ailments. They also “become involved with other public systems, including the criminal justice system.” Children of African descent in the United continue to be a vulnerable population mar-ginalized by persistent race, gender, and eco-nomic discrimination. A growing concern is the increased use of psychotropic medications on foster care children, who are prescribed psychotropic medications at rates nine times higher than other children. Continued preju-dicial and racist, sexist stereotypes about Afri-can-American girls being angry and aggres-sive, increase mislabeling diagnoses. African-American children are diagnosed with “higher rates of mood/psychotic and behavior or conduct disorders and prescribed psycho-tropic medications,” even to children as young as five years old. The side effects and consequences of ingesting psychotropic medi-cations are damaging, debilitating, and life-threatening. In 1978, the United States enacted legislation to address the long-standing practice of re-moving Indigenous children from their families and placing them with non-indigenous families in an effort to assimilate them into the majority culture. By advancing a “strong presumption of Indigenous custody for Indigenous children, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) marked a signif-icant policy change and recognition of Indige-nous Peoples’ right to self-determination.” However, Indigenous children are still being removed from their homes and communities at disproportionate rates, preventing Indige-nous children from fully exercising their rights to culture and community. The recent case involving the adoption of a Cherokee child outside her family and nation, which was ad-dressed by the United Nation Special Rappor-teur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, is indicative of the ongoing harm that is arising

from the lack of federal oversight and proper application and implementation of ICWA. Two South Dakota Indian nations have re-cently received federal grants that will enable them to establish plans to take over their own foster care programs. Some say that this is in response to the fact that the state of South Dakota is currently defending itself in federal court over a lawsuit alleging it violated ICWA by placing up to 80 percent of tribal children in white foster homes. When the parents of LGBT young people or their legal guardians “do not accept the youth’s identity, every state but two in the [United States] permits families to engage mental health professionals...to attempt to change the young person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” Although the practice of conversion therapy was long ago discredited as ineffective and dangerous by mainstream mental health organizations, the practice con-tinues largely unabated by United States Law. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual young adults who experienced high levels of family rejection in adolescence based on their sexual orienta-tion—of which conversion therapy is one form—“are 8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide and 5.9 times more likely to report high levels of depression than peers from families reporting no or low levels of rejection.” For transgender youth the stakes are even higher—45% of transgender people between the ages of 18 and 24 report at least one suicide attempt—and exposure to conversion therapy only heightens the risk of suicide.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration extended many benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees, and supports the pending Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, a law that would extend

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additional benefits to same sex partners. The United States government states that the de-bate continues over equal rights to marriage for LGBT individuals at the federal and state levels, and “several states have reformed their laws to provide for same-sex marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships.”

This year, President Obama proclaimed the month of May to be National Foster Care Month and says that his Administration is working “to break down barriers so every qualified caregiver can become an adoptive or foster parent.” Additionally, in the past year, they “awarded grants to States, [Indigenous Nations], and local organizations to give communities new strategies to help foster children, including methods for finding per-manent families, preventing long-term home-lessness of young people aging out of foster care, and supporting their behavioral and mental health needs.”

Recommendations

All states should recognize both parents in LGBT parent families as legal parents and should recognize adoptions and parentage judgments issued by other states, without re-gard to a parent’s sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or marital status. The federal government should recognize non-biological parents for the purposes of government bene-fits provided to children.

Eligibility for basic public benefits should be separated from marital status. Those bene-fits that are intrinsically tied to social relation-ships (such as survivorship benefits, disability benefits for dependents, and employment leave for caretaking) should be made available based on the actual interdependence and need of the relevant individuals. Every state should adopt legislation or regula-tions prohibiting state-licensed profes-sionals from attempting to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimi-nation of Racial Discrimination recommends that the United States, “effectively implement and enforce the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 to halt the removal of indigenous chil-dren from their families and communities.” Provide Indigenous Nations with sufficient funding to provide family and child care ser-vices and provide individual states’ protection and child welfare systems with sufficient funding to ensure ICWA compliance.

Addressing the myriad and complex needs of girls in the child welfare system has to start with a first step—acknowledging that girls have gender-specific needs. The next step is initiating a comprehensive effort to under-stand girls in the child welfare system and their needs. While collecting and analyzing information about girls, systems need to sim-ultaneously change some of their approaches to provide gender-responsive and trauma-informed services. The Department of Health and Human Ser-vices, state, and local governments should collect data concerning psychotropic med-ication use and prescription categorized by race and ethnic origin and disaggregated by age and gender-identity for foster care chil-dren.

Human Rights Organizations Advancing the Human Right to Marriage and Family:

Human Rights Campaign; National Center for Lesbian Rights • American Civil Liberties Un-ion • Children’s Rights • Lakota People's Law Project & Lakota Child Rescue Project • Donaldson Adoption Institute • CASA • Child Welfare League Of America • Franklin Law Group – Mecca’s Place • National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition • International Indian Treaty Council • Na-tional Indian Child Welfare Association

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The ability to control one’s own reproduction can have a significant impact on physical and mental health, socio-economic status and the right to life and self-determination. Failure to access reproductive healthcare, particularly for poor women and women of color, can have devastating impacts on them and the lives of their potential children. Maternal mortality in communities of color is a human rights crisis in the United States. Between 1990 and 2013, “the maternal mortality ratio in the United States more than doubled from “12 to 28 maternal deaths out of every 100,000 live births.” Racial disparities fuel this crisis and for the last four decades, Black women have been dying in childbirth “at a rate three to four times their White counterparts.” Cities and states with a high African American pop-ulation also have the highest rates of maternal

Reproductive Justice

____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25

Everyone has the right to a standard of living ade-quate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family… Motherhood and childhood are

entitled to special care and assistance.

____________________

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mortality in the country; “in some areas of Mississippi, for example, the rate of maternal death for women of color exceeds that of Sub-Saharan Africa, while the number of White women who die in childbirth is too in-significant to report.” Women of color also have poor non-pregnancy related health out-comes, with Latinas nearly 1.5 times more likely to have cervical cancer than White women and Black women twice as likely to die from cervical cancer compared to White women. The United States is the only devel-oped country that does not guarantee paid maternity leave. The United Kingdom guaran-tees “39 weeks of paid leave for mothers, two of which are mandatory.” Australia offers 18 weeks and Mexico gives mothers 12 weeks of paid leave, reimbursed at 100% of their salary. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in the first quarter of 2014, legislators in 38 states introduced 303 provisions seeking to limit women’s access to reproductive health-care. Twenty-two states have five or more restrictions on abortion access, and Louisiana has 10 (with more under consideration this year). More legislation restricting abortion rights was passed between 2011 and 2013, then the entire decade prior. Perhaps one of the most crushing blows to reproductive rights is the Hobby Lobby case decided by the Supreme Court in June of 2014. The Court held that closely held corporations, each owned and controlled by members of a single family, with sincere religious beliefs would be exempted from having to cover contraception in their employee health insurance plans as required by the Health and Human Services regulations. The plaintiffs objected to paying for “two forms of the emergency morning-after pill and two kinds of intrauterine device (IUD)” because they believe them to be “abortifacients”—contraceptives that end pregnancies rather than preventing them. Where abortion is not explicitly banned, unnecessary and onerous requirements create de-facto abortion bans in certain

states. As of October, 2014, 39 states require an abortion to be performed by a licensed physician; 21 states require an abortion to be performed in a hospital after a specified point in the pregnancy, and 18 states require the involvement of a second physician after a specified point. Forty-two states have gesta-tional limits on abortions, most often fetal viability, except when necessary to protect the woman’s life or health. Nineteen states have laws in effect that prohibit “partial - birth” abortion. Nearly half of Latinas and approximately 70 percent of black women “live in states with-out public coverage of abortion, most of which are also now considered ‘hostile’ due to newer state restrictions.” In May 2014, the Center for Reproductive Rights and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective gathered first-hand accounts of Black women living in the American South in order to better understand the role of racial and gender discrimination in their reproduc-tive and sexual lives. Women living in Georgia and Mississippi—two states with the highest rates of maternal death in the country—shared their experiences with the health care system from the time of their first sexual ac-tivity through childbirth. Their stories reveal key inequalities in the health care system for women of color, including: (1) lack of infor-mation about sexuality and sexual health; (2) discrimination in the health care system; (3) lack of access to sexual and reproductive health care; and (4) poor quality of sexual and reproductive health information and services. The 26 states that have rejected the Medi-caid expansion—a federal health care pro-gram for low-income people living in the United States—“are home to about half of the country’s population, but about 68 percent of poor, uninsured blacks and single mothers. About 60 percent of the country’s uninsured working poor are in those states.”

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Immigrant women, both citizens and non-citizens, are far more likely to live in pov-erty than women born in the United States and “most immigrant women, even those who have citizenship, are excluded from federal Medicaid altogether.” In an effort to coerce and frighten women out of their reproductive choices, 17 states mandate that women be given counseling before an abortion that includes information on at least one of the following: the purported link between abor-tion and breast cancer (5 states), the ability of a fetus to feel pain (12 states) or long-term mental health consequences for the woman (8 states). The Hyde amendment—which bans fed-eral Medicaid coverage of abortion—was crafted as a deliberate attack on low-income women’s reproductive freedom by placing abortion out of reach financially. As Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) himself, the author of this restriction, told his colleagues during a con-gressional debate over Medicaid funding in 1977 "I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman. Unfortunately, the only vehicle avail-able is the…Medicaid bill." As a consequence of structural barriers that make it harder for women and people of color to make ends meet, women of color are more likely to be eligible for Medicaid. Today three in 10 Lati-nas and Black women are enrolled in Medi-caid, and one in five Southeast Asian women are enrolled. When “abortion coverage is de-nied, these women are forced to make unim-aginable choices between paying for rent or groceries or finding the money to pay out-of-pocket for an abortion.” For poor women, abortion has become out of reach because 32 states and the District of Columbia prohibit the use of state funds for abortion except in those cases when federal funds are available: where the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Taking in a step further, in

“defiance of federal requirements, South Da-kota limits funding to cases of life endanger-ment only. Nine states restrict coverage of abortion in private insurance plans, most of-ten limiting coverage only to when the wom-an’s life would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term. With many abortion clinics closed as a result of onerous and super-fluous requirements, women have to travel further to receive care. The imposition of waiting periods, usually 24 hours, makes this particularly difficult for low-wealth women who may not have the resources for multiple trips, child-care, time-off from work, or a place to stay near the far-away facility. Twen-ty-six states require a woman seeking an abor-tion to “wait a specified period of time, usual-ly 24 hours, between when she receives coun-seling and the procedure is performed.” Ten of these states have laws that effectively re-quire the woman to make two separate trips to the clinic to obtain the procedure. These policies impact poor woman in a variety of ways, for example, this year, a judge sentenced a Pennsylvania mother to up to a year and a half in prison for helping her 16-year-old daughter end a pregnancy by purchasing abor-tion medication online. The mother, who has a low-paying job, ordered the medication online because there was no health center that provides abortions nearby, and she lacked health insurance to pay for an abortion at a hospital. Thanks to a new Alabama law, a teen who cannot obtain parental consent has to undergo a gauntlet of questioning to get the abortion she needs. Among the 53 anti-choice state measures enacted in 2013, the most prominent trends were: bans on abortion care after 20 weeks; measures prohibiting insurance coverage of abortion; and laws subjecting abortion pro-viders to burdensome restrictions not applied to other medical professionals. Laws that sin-gle out abortion providers particularly “threaten access to abortion care because they reduce further the already declining number of providers. Already, 87 percent of U.S.

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counties have no abortion provider.” With eight laws, Arkansas has enacted the most an-ti-choice legislation in 2013. Oklahoma enact-ed five anti-choice laws and Missouri and North Dakota enacted four anti-choice laws. Sex selection is “the practice of attempting to control the sex of one’s offspring in order to achieve a desired sex.” In an effort to further undermine women’s reproductive rights, anti-choice activists and politicians have common-ly used racist myths—one of them being that Asian American women “are giving birth to more boys than girls because they are engag-ing in sex-selective abortion practices.” Re-productive justice advocates say that sex-selective abortion bans are “anti-immigrant,” exploit "harmful stereotypes,” and are supported by groups, individuals and legislators who oppose to reproductive rights. Eight states have approved bans on sex-selective abortions and many lawmakers have cited an alleged preference in the Asian-American community for sons as a justifica-tion for the ban. But a recent study noted “the preference for sons by Asian immigrants may have been exaggerated. Researchers found that immigrants from India, China and Korea were actually slightly more likely to have daughters than most.” The city of San Fran-cisco, in September of 2014, approved a reso-lution prohibiting a ban on sex-selective abor-tions becoming the first city in the country to do so. Attitudes about women with disabilities and reproduction leave them uniquely vul-nerable to human rights abuses. The National Council on Disability has found that physi-cians see women with disabilities as “sexually inactive and, thus, not in need of reproductive care.” Women with disabilities are “more like-ly to have hysterectomies at a younger age” and for a non-medically necessary reason, in-cluding by request of a parent or guardian.

Since 2012, there have been twelve confirmed cases and over 100 suspected cases of families subjecting their disabled children to similar

treatment. Eleven states retain statutory lan-guage authorizing a court to order the invol-untary sterilization of a person with a disabil-ity. Courts are divided on the legal capacity of women with disabilities to decide about their reproductive lives, “particularly regarding the forced sterilization of young women and girls with disabilities,” and there is no clear judicial standard that ensures reproductive decision-making resides with women. Women with disabilities are also denied reproductive justice through lack of physical access to healthcare services, such as accessible gynecological ta-bles or communication barriers for those with visual or hearing impairments. One United States study showed that “only 19% of physi-cally disabled women surveyed had received sexuality counseling,” and women with paraly-sis, impaired motor function or obvious phys-ical disability were rarely offered contraceptive methods or information. LGBT sexuality has historically been exclud-ed from important health related discussions, especially sexual education discussions. The absence of such education is detrimental to the reproductive health of LGBT youth. For example, the number of HIV/AIDS cases has “increased among gay adolescents, especially among black males.” Surprisingly, several studies show that the rate of LGB teen preg-nancy is higher than teen pregnancy among heterosexuals. Only “twelve states require a discussion about sexual orientation in sexual education courses, and three of these twelve states only require negative information about non-heterosexual sexual orientation.” These limitations on sexual education not only stig-matize LGBT youth, but also endanger their sexual health and reproductive lives. Incarcerated women receive minimal re-productive health care and what they do receive is often not provided in accordance with professional ethics standards. Six percent of incarcerated women “are pregnant at any given time, but do not have access to prenatal care or birthing options, such as midwives or

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birthing centers.” Prison food does not pro-vide adequate nutrition to support a healthy pregnancy and these women have little, if any, access to prenatal vitamins. As a result, the health of those who carry their baby to term and the fetus’s health are at risk. Some incar-cerated women in Washington State “were denied their 24-hour bonding period after birth as well as the chance to breastfeed their babies.” Women who undergo cesarean sec-tion deliveries are often denied painkillers af-ter a c-section. Even with the passage of laws that end the practice of shackling pregnant women prisoners during labor (the use of handcuffs, leg irons and waist chains), “corrections departments in at least 23 states allow restraints to be used on women during labor” and some allow women to be re-strained during transportation and immediate-ly after giving birth. For those who want to prevent or end a preg-nancy, options are similarly limited and abuses are common. Some women are denied de-sired abortions, while others are subjected to non-consensual terminations. In addition, many women are denied access to contracep-tives during incarceration and upon release. Even women who have established health histories that indicate a medical need for con-traception apart from pregnancy prevention, such as oral contraceptives for treatment of menstrual disorders, are denied those medica-tions. Instead, prisons exert coercive control over the bodies of incarcerated women, sub-jecting them to irreversible reproductive harms like non-consensual sterilization. Last year, an independent investigative report spurred by Justice Now, which uncovered that nearly 150 women had been coerced into being sterilized between 2006 and 2010. The story uncovered that doctors under con-tract with the state of California sterilized in-carcerated women by pressuring them, some-times under sedation, to undergo a tubal liga-tion. Dr. James Heinrich, one of the doctors accused of coercing women into having this

procedure, was quoted proclaiming that steri-lizing these women would “save in welfare paying for these unwanted children.” These findings are particularly impactful because the women targeted—mostly poor and women of color—are amongst the most vulnerable in our society.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

The Affordable Care Act, signed by Presi-dent Obama in 2010, provides that health in-surance providers must cover birth control for women as preventive care with no co-payment. However, “religious employers” are exempted from this requirement leaving mil-lions of women without coverage. Also, im-migrants are excluded from many of the bene-fits of the ACA and undocumented immi-grants have virtually no healthcaree access through the ACA. The Department of Health and Human Ser-vices Office of Population Affairs oversees the Title X Family Planning Program, which is the only federal grant program dedi-cated solely to providing individuals with “comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services. This program is designed to provide access to contraceptive services, supplies, and information to all who want and need them.” The law gives priority to persons from low-income families. Title X-supported clinics also provide related preven-tive health services such as patient education and counseling; breast and cervical cancer screening; sexually transmitted disease (STD); and HIV prevention education, counseling, testing, and referrals.

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Recommendations

This year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination rec-ommended that the United States eliminate racial disparities in the field of sexual and reproductive health and “standardize the data collection system on maternal and infant deaths” in all states to effectively identify and address the causes of disparities in maternal and infant mortality rates and improve moni-toring and accountability mechanisms for pre-ventable maternal mortality. This year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination rec-ommended that the United States take proac-tive steps to eliminate racial disparities in reproductive and sexual health, especially maternal mortality, by increasing coverage for low-income women living in states that have opted out of Medicaid expansion; increasing access to a full range of affordable contracep-tive services that help women plan healthy pregnancies; addressing racial and gender ste-reotypes that promote stigma, inhibit the abil-ity of women of color to seek and receive sexual and reproductive health services and information, and reduce women’s control over their reproductive decision-making; in-creasing quality of and access to maternal health services for women relying on the pub-lic health system, including pre- and postnatal care; and passing paid parental leave legisla-tion to ensure optimal health and well-being for women and children. Regarding women with disabilities, the United States Government should enhance funding and improve programs for training of reproductive healthcare professionals on physical accessibility of facilities; informed consent procedures for all reproductive health procedures involving women with disabilities; and multiple accessible formats for communi-cating reproductive health information.

The United States Government should also issue a statement condemning sex-selective abortion bans as discriminatory against and harmful to Asian American women, encourag-ing state legislatures to repeal their sex-selective abortion bans, and encouraging the United States Congress not to enact a federal sex-selective abortion ban.

Human Rights Organizations Advancing the Human Right to Reproductive Justice

Human Rights Campaign • American Civil Liberties Union • Asian Communities for Re-productive Justice • Sister Song • Native American’s Women’s Health Education Re-source Center; Disability Intersections • Women Enabled International • Guttmacher Institute; Justice Now; National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum • Center for Re-productive Rights • SPARK • Advocates for Informed Consent

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Inadequate access to healthcare endangers an individual’s human right to health and, in some cases, the human right to life. Despite accepting recommendations from the various United Nations human rights bodies, the right to health in the United States re-mains unrecognized. As a result, the most vulnerable members of the population con-tinue to suffer from lack of healthcare cover-age Healthcare is a Human Right campaigns now exist in several states, “inspired by the example of Vermont, which in 2011 became the first state to pass a law for a universal, publicly financed health care system.” While the United States proclaims advancement in this cause with the advent of a federal health insurance exchange, a component of the Af-fordable Care Act (ACA), this does not ad-dress the right to healthcare-only the right to

Healthcare

____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25

Everyone has the right to a standard of living ade-quate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the

right to security in the event of... sickness... Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special

care and assistance.

____________________

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purchase health insurance. Maintaining a for-profit, insurance-based system does not con-stitute universal healthcare and access to pur-chase that insurance does not increase access to actual healthcare. Further, large segments of the population within the borders of the United States are denied even the right to health insurance based upon their immigra-tion status. Healthcare is frequently tied to employment, and employers providing that insurance are now allowed to provide only what agrees with the employer’s personal reli-gious views. Despite some of the shortcomings of the ACA, the uninsured rate in the U.S fell 2.2 percentage points to 12.4% in the second quarter of 2014. This is the lowest quarterly average recorded since Gallup and Healthways began tracking the percentage of uninsured Americans in 2008. The previous low point was 14.4% in the third quarter of 2008. However, for people of color aged 19-64, the uninsured rates are staggering with 33% of Hispanics, 25% of Blacks and 20% of Indigenous Peoples being uninsured in 2013 (this data does not include undocumented immigrants). The uninsured rates nationally for children ages 0-18 is 8%, however, the states with the highest rates of uninsured chil-dren are Nevada (18%), Arizona (14%), Flori-da (12%), Texas (11%), and Mississippi (11%). The passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 brought with it a new Patient’s Bill of Rights protecting Americans from pre-vious abuses of insurance companies. In 2012, reforms were put into place to improve the healthcare quality and lower the costs of Americans’ healthcare. This includes a provi-sion in the law, requiring “any ongoing or new federal health program to collect and report racial, ethnic and language disparities,” a measure to help identify and reduce dispari-ties. The law requires mental health and sub-stance abuse services to be covered at parity, or on “fair and equal terms, with other medi-cal care in plans” that are required to offer

Essential Health Benefits. However, plans will not be required to cover all types of mental health services and may not cover mental health conditions. In 2014, vital consumer protections went into effect. These include prohibiting discrimi-nation due to pre-existing conditions or gender, eliminating annual limits on insur-ance coverage, and ensuring coverage for in-dividuals participating in clinical trials. Also, if states choose to expand Medicaid coverage, then “Americans who earn less than 133% of the poverty level (approximately $14,000 for an individual and $29,000 for a family of four) will be eligible to enroll in Medicaid.” These states will receive 100% federal funding for the first three years to support this expanded coverage, phasing to 90% federal funding in subsequent years. Despite these advances, there has been con-stant opposition to the ACA, “the legal fights just keep growing, more than four years after the law was passed, more than two years after the Supreme Court issued its landmark June 2012 decision upholding the unpopular individual mandate” and more than a year af-ter millions of Americans started signing up for the health benefits. The ACA may be chal-lenged again in 2015 because the justices have been asked to weigh in on whether the Af-fordable Care Act’s subsidies can “go to any American, regardless of whether their state runs a health insurance exchange or relies on the federal one.” The Court will soon be asked, too, whether religious nonprofits have to provide contraception in employee health plans, a follow-up to last spring’s Hobby Lobby case. According to a Gallup poll, after the passage of the ACA, uninsured rates dropped the most among Blacks, Hispanics, and other Low-Income Americans. The uninsured rate was lower in April than in the fourth quarter of 2013 across nearly every key demographic group. The rate dropped more among blacks

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than any other demographic group, falling 7.1 percentage points to 13.8%. Hispanics were expected to disproportionately benefit from the Affordable Care Act because they are the subgroup with the highest uninsured rate. De-spite these advances, the Affordable Care Act “will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help.” Because they live in states that have declined to participate in a vast ex-pansion of Medicaid, the medical insurance program for the poor, they are among the eight million Americans who are impover-ished, uninsured and ineligible for help. Four in ten uninsured Blacks with incomes “low enough to qualify for the Medicaid ex-pansion fall into the coverage gap, compared to 24% of uninsured Hispanics and 29% of uninsured Whites.” Disability-related health disparities that can lead to compromised care, ill health, insti-tutionalization, and premature death are not consequences that inevitably follow the simple fact of impairment. Rather, they are the many barriers that stand in the way of people with disabilities (PWD). National sources indicate that disability prevalence is highest among African Americans who report disability at 20.5 percent compared to 19.7 percent for non-Hispanic Whites, 13.1 percent for His-panics/Latinos and 12.4 percent of Asian Americans. Disability prevalence among American Indians and Alaskan Natives is 16.3 percent. Among nonelderly adults, Indigenous Peo-ples and Alaska Natives are more likely than the overall population to report being in fair or poor health, being overweight or obese, having diabetes and cardiovascular dis-ease, and experiencing frequent mental dis-tress. Moreover, “the suicide rate for [Indige-nous Peoples] and Alaska Native adolescents and young adults is two and half times higher than the national average.” Nearly one in

three Indigenous Persons and Alaska Natives is uninsured. Overall, Indigenous Peoples and Alaska Natives have limited access to employ-er-sponsored coverage because they have a lower employment rates and tend to be em-ployed in low-wage jobs that typically do not offer health coverage. Less than four in ten (36%) Indigenous Persons and Alaska Natives have private coverage, compared to 62% of the overall nonelderly population and half of poor uninsured adult Indigenous Persons and Alaska Natives live in states not moving for-ward with the Medicaid expansion. For many immigrants, access to healthcare insurance is barred by law. The United Na-tions Human Rights Committee, in its 2014 Concluding Observations under the Interna-tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), expressed concern about the “exclusion of millions of undocumented im-migrants and their children from coverage under the Affordable Care Act,” and the lim-ited coverage of undocumented immigrants and immigrants with documentation in the United States for less than five years by Medi-care and children Health Insurance. Americans who identify as lesbian, gay, bisex-ual or transgender (LGBT) are more likely than non-LGBT Americans to report that they lack health insurance. While the per-centage of LGBT adults without health insur-ance has decreased significantly since the Af-fordable Care Act’s provisions requiring Americans to have health insurance took ef-fect at the beginning of 2014, “they are still more likely to be uninsured than their non-LGBT counterparts.” In addition to this, one-quarter of LGBT adults report they “did not have enough for money for healthcare needs at least once in the last year, compared with 17% of non-LGBT individuals.” The ratio of uninsured gay and lesbian adults to heterosex-uals in America is estimated at 2 to 1. For LGBT people of color, discriminatory hiring and firing practices based on race, sexual ori-entation, and/or gender identity regularly pre-

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vent them from enjoying the protection of steady employment and employer-provided health insurance. For transgender people who enjoy few legal protections from workplace discrimination and whose healthcare needs are often explicit-ly denied coverage by insurance companies, accessing and retaining health insurance cov-erage can be virtually impossible. Further, even when LGBT people of color are able [to] secure insurance coverage, barriers to health care remain. Fear of bias and mistreat-ment from health care providers plays a sig-nificant role in preventing LGBT people from seeking care in a timely manner. Communities of color and LGBT people of color face elevated discrimination and racism in the United States health care system, which detrimentally affects engagement in health care and results in poorer health outcomes. Discrimination and racism particularly affects those vulnerable to HIV and living with HIV. Experiences with discrimination include “outright refusal of care both due to race and gender expression, violence and har-assment, sexual abuse, lack of provider knowledge, and inaccessibility to insurance.” Currently, there are no clear federal require-ments prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in hospitals and urgent care centers nationwide. Disparities persist in the estimated rate of new HIV infections amongst LGBT people. Near-ly 60,000 uninsured and low-income people living with HIV reside in states that are not expanding Medicaid, but are otherwise eligible for health benefits. Intersex people are “born with a reproduc-tive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.” People born with intersex conditions face a wide range of violations of their sexual and reproductive rights, as well as rights to bodily integrity and individual autonomy. In infancy and throughout childhood, children with in-

tersex conditions are “subject to irreversible sex assignment and involuntary genital nor-malizing surgery, sterilization, medical lay and photography of the genitals, and medical ex-perimentation.” Intersex individuals suffer life-long physical and emotional injury as a result of such treatment. Children of African descent in the US con-tinue to be a vulnerable population marginal-ized by persistent race, gender, and economic discrimination. A growing concern is the in-creased use of psychotropic medications on foster care children, who are prescribed psy-chotropic medications at rates nine times higher than other children. Continued preju-dicial and racist, sexist stereotypes about Afri-can-American girls being “angry and aggres-sive, increase mislabeling diagnoses African-American children are diagnosed with higher rates of mood/psychotic and behavior or conduct disorders and prescribed psycho-tropic medications,” even to children as young as five years old. The side effects and consequences of ingesting psychotropic medi-cations are damaging, debilitating, and life-threatening.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

The United States Government, in its periodic report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2013, states that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 “provides many Ameri-cans access to health insurance.” Section 1557 extends the application of federal civil rights laws to any health program or activity receiv-ing federal financial assistance, any program or activity administered by an executive agen-cy, or any entity established under Title 1 of the ACA. According to United States Government’s Universal Periodic Review Report in 2013, United States law and practice “provide broad

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and effective protections against, and reme-dies for, disability-based discrimination.” The most notable of these is the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The laws cover many areas of life “including education, health care, transportation, housing, employ-ment, technology, information and communi-cation, the judicial system, and political partic-ipation.” The Government also states that the recent health care reform bill “lowers costs and offers greater choices for women, and ends insurance company discrimination against them.” In March, the President signed into law im-portant health provisions for American In-dians and Alaska Natives. The law increases access to care for “underserved populations by expanding community health centers that deliver preventive and primary care services.” The law, according to the government, will help our nation reduce disparities and discrim-ination in access to care that have contributed to poor health.

Recommendations

Institute a universal healthcare system for all persons with the borders of the United States. As an interim measure to instituting a nationwide universal healthcare plan, ensure that the most vulnerable sections of the popu-lation, and especially immigrants, are allowed to fully participate in healthcare, not just emergency healthcare; decouple healthcare from employment so that an essential human right is no longer tied to employment status and health coverage is not subject to an em-ployer’s religious views. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in is 2014 Concluding Obser-vations, raised concerns that many states have opted out of the Medicaid expansion program of the Patient Protection and Af-fordable Care Act (ACA), thus missing an op-portunity to address racial disparities in health

care. It is also concerned at the exclusion of undocumented immigrants and their children from coverage under the ACA, as well as the limited coverage of undocumented immi-grants and immigrants residing lawfully in the United States for less than five years by Medi-caid and Children’s Health Insurance Pro-gram. It reiterated its previous concern at the persistence of racial disparities in the field of sexual and reproductive health, particularly with regard to the high maternal and infant mortality rates among African American communities. The Committee recommended that the United States Government take con-crete measures to “secure access to affordable and adequate healthcare services for all indi-viduals and in particular racial/ethnic minori-ties residing in States that opted out of the Affordable Care Act.” It also recommended that the Government eliminate racial dispari-ties in sexual and reproductive health, stand-ardize data collection on maternal and infant deaths, and improve monitoring and account-ability mechanisms for preventable maternal mortality. Regarding African American girls in foster care, the Department of Health and Human Services, state, and local governments should collect data concerning psychotropic medica-tion use and prescription categorized by race and ethnic origin and disaggregated by age and gender-identity for foster care children. Regarding persons with disabilities, gov-ernment should promulgate regulations re-flecting the Access Board’s proposed re-

quirements for accessible medical equipment

for health facilities including those offering

obstetric and gynecological services. Priori-

tize trauma-informed care and peer-run alter-natives to the traditional medical model do exist.

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Regarding LGBT and people living with HIV, the Department of Health and Human Services should evaluate existing non-discrim-ination protections that bind healthcare pro-viders and ensure that LGBT people are in-cluded alongside other protected classes. The immediate expansion of Medicaid across all states to alleviate issues of the uninsured and lack of access to health care faced by commu-nities of color, people living with HIV and to improve racial disparities along the HIV con-tinuum of care. Additionally, the reauthoriza-tion of the Ryan White Care Act will be a fundamental safety-net to ensure access to health care for all people living with HIV. Development of mechanisms to monitor the progress on addressing racial health disparities and issues of healthcare access within the con-text of the Affordable Care Act roll-out and implementation.

Human Rights Groups Advancing the Human Right to Healthcare

National Economic and Social Rights Initia-tive • Vermont Workers Center • National Advocates for Pregnant Women • American Civil Liberties Union Physicians for Repro-ductive Health • The Praxis Project • Coun-cil of Athabascan Tribal Government • Physi-cians for Human Rights • Women's Health and Justice Initiative • Women Enabled Inter-national • Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network • Lambda Legal • HIV Prevention Justice Alliance (HIV PJA) • Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund • Franklin Law Group-Mecca’s Place • SisterSong • Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR)

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Education is not simply a fundamental human right on its own, but it is also an essential right to realize other human rights. Because of a number of factors, including housing segrega-tion, discrimination, and the school funding structure, public schools in some neighbor-hoods excel while others face debilitating challenges. Unfortunately, these failing schools fail our children and violate the hu-man right of students to receive an education free from racial and other forms of discrimi-nation. The education system in the United States has a troubling past that includes racial and socioeconomic segregation including a “separate but equal” principle for whites and blacks that was sanctioned by society and the

Education

____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 26

Everyone has the right to education […] Educa-tion shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of re-spect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious

groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that

shall be given to their children.

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United States courts. In the six decades since the Supreme Court struck down legal segrega-tion in Brown v. Board of Education, extreme seg-regation still exists and its impact on people of color has been significant. Indeed, sixty years after the Brown decision, segregated schools are the norm for the majority of Black and Latino students as millions of students in the United States continue to attend sepa-rate and unequal schools. In 1968, “76.6 percent of Black students and 54.8 percent of Latino students attended majority-minority schools. For Black students, those numbers have remained virtually unchanged, while La-tino students are today substantially more seg-regated than they were a half-century ago.” This entrenched racial segregation is strong-ly linked to socioeconomic segregation. Due to many factors, including racial discrim-ination and the public school funding struc-ture, segregation correlates to inequality. This corresponding inequality results in the qual-ity of education a child receives, which has impacts on dropout rates, college attendance and completion, quality of life, earning poten-tial and overall development. While public schools in wealthy, mostly-white neighbor-hoods boast of the latest amenities including swimming pools, Advanced Placement (AP) classes and state-of-the-art technologies, schools in poor black and Latino neighbor-hoods suffer from dilapidated buildings, out-dated textbooks, and inexperienced teachers. In fact, the correlation between race, socioec-onomic status, and education is “so strong that almost every supermajority-minority school is associated with high levels of pov-erty, which is not the case for white-dominated schools.” Today, the majority of black students attends a school where almost “two out of every three classmates [64%] are low-income, nearly double the level in schools of the typical white student [37%].” This “double segregation” has a deep lifelong academic impact on the students who expe-rience it, as studies show that the concentra-tion of poverty within schools plays a signifi-cant role in determining student achievement.

Students of color disproportionately at-tend underfunded and under-resourced schools. A comparison of two high schools in New York City is illustrative. In Passages Academy, where 47.9 percent of students are Black and 43.7 percent of students are His-panic, “61 percent of teachers are absent more than ten days of the school year, and none meet all state licensing and certification re-quirements.” By contrast, in the New Explo-rations into Science, Technology, and Math School, where only 11.8 percent of students are Black and 14.2 percent of students are Hispanic, “only 21 percent of teachers are ab-sent more than ten days of the school year, and 86.5 percent of teachers meet all state li-censing and certification requirements.” Of all the racial groups, African American students are most likely to attend a school that does not offer advanced placement (AP) courses (which are a draw for colleges). As a result of segregation, African Americans are more like-ly to attend high-poverty public schools and less likely to graduate from high school and attend college. Research shows that children of color attend such “dropout factories” “at significantly higher dropout rates for African Americans and Latinos than for whites.” The U.S. is also home to a growing number of English Language Learner (ELL) stu-dents, with more than 20% of students now speaking a language other than English at home. Nationwide, “over half of ELL stu-dents are in schools where nearly a third of their peer students are also ELLs, whereas more than half of English-speaking students attend schools where ELL students make up less than one percent of students.” The ma-jority of ELL students are native Spanish-speakers, and overall Latinos are the most segregated racial group in U.S. schools. Across the country, schools spent $334 more on every white student than on every nonwhite student. This is roughly 8 percent of the median per-pupil spending. In 2012, more than one-third of the students attended

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schools that are either more than 90 percent white or more than 90 percent nonwhite. The spending difference between these schools is large. The mostly white schools “spent $733 more per student than the mostly nonwhite schools, 9 or 18 percent of the me-dian per-pupil spending nationwide.” The av-erage-sized, mostly minority school has 605 students. This means that the average school serving 90 percent or more students of color would see an “annual increase of more than $443,000 if it were to be brought up to the same spending level as its almost-entirely-white sister schools.” Across all schools, an increase of 10 percent in students of color is associated with a decrease in spending of $75 per student. Given the 20 percent gap in high school graduation rates between “white stu-dents (78 percent) and their peers—Hispanic (58 percent), black (57 percent), and Indige-nous Students (54 percent)”—spending less money on schools that serve more students of color, even if it is not intentional, simply does not make sense. In fact, the United States is one of few advanced nations where schools serving better-off children usually have more educational resources than those serving poor students, according to research by the Organization for Economic Coopera-tion and Development. Among the 34 O.E.C.D. nations, “only in the United States, Israel and Turkey do disadvantaged schools have lower teacher/student ratios than in those serving more privileged students.” The vast majority of O.E.C.D. countries “either invest equally into every student or dispropor-tionately more in disadvantaged students. The U.S. is one of the few countries doing the op-posite.” The most common reason given for variation in the funding of schools is “the history of school finance systems in which public schools were supported almost entirely by local property taxes.” However, in recent years, researchers have started to document a new level of maldistribution of resources at the district level. School districts “magnify

those initial inequities by directing more non-targeted money to schools and students with less need.” This happens primarily when dis-tricts have teacher assignment practices that place the least-experienced teachers in high-minority, high-poverty schools. Because nov-ice teachers earn so much less in salary, “the total spending at these high-needs schools is likely to be lower than spending at schools in wealthier neighborhoods that employ veteran teachers.” For many, the answer to these dipartites is public charter schools, which enrolled “over 2 million school children in over 6,000 schools in 41 states plus the District of Co-lumbia in the 2012-13 school year.” Charters are public schools that operate based on an explicit agreement that generally commits the school to accomplish certain goals over a mul-ti-year period in exchange for autonomy from many of the rules and regulations that tradi-tional public schools must adhere to. Evi-dence shows, however, that charters schools, in addition to diverting funds from already struggling public schools, actually are in-creasing disparities. Charter schools are cur-rently adding to racial and socioeconomic isolation, “as well an increased isolation of English learners and students with disabilities. Especially problematic is the extreme isolation of African Americans in charters, which is occurring at a “much higher rate than in regu-lar public schools.” Many charter schools use methods that often decrease the likelihood of students enrolling with “a disfavored set of characteristics, such as students with special needs, those with low test scores, English learners, or students in poverty.” For example, the Green Woods charter school in Philadelphia made its appli-cation available to prospective families “only one day per year, in hard copy form only, at a suburban country club not accessible by pub-lic transportation.” When charter schools overtly, or even unconsciously, urge students to leave—by “not offering services for special

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education students or English language learn-ers—they send those students back to tradi-tional public schools.” Most charter schools are not helping kids. In Philadelphia, for ex-ample, the average SPP [School Performance Profile] score in for “traditional public schools was 77.1, but for charter schools it was 66.4, and cyber-charter schools came in at a low 46.8.” In addition to facing challenges related to ed-ucational attainment, children of color are vulnerable to being thrust into the school-to-prison pipeline—“ a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and crim-inal justice systems.” Racial minority stu-dents—both boys and girls of color—are dis-proportionately punished through suspension and expulsion for the same infractions as white students. Even in more affluent schools and schools where white students are in the majority, “black and Latino students face sig-nificantly harsher punishments than their white peers.” In one study of Florida students, 39 percent of all Black students were sus-pended at least once, compared with only 22 percent of white students. This remains true regardless of age or grade. For example, in 2011, in one prekindergarten and kindergarten school in Louisiana, “Black students com-prised every single out-of-school suspension and half of all in-school suspensions, despite constituting only 26.5 percent of all students.” According to Department of Education, black children represent “18 percent of preschool enrollment, but 48 percent of preschool chil-dren receiving more than one out-of-school suspension.” Lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) youth and those perceived as LGBT are at an increased risk of being bullied. While trying to deal with all the challenges of being a teenager, LGBT teens also have to deal with harassment, threats and violence directed at them on a daily basis. LGBT youth are “nearly twice as likely to be called names,

verbally harassed or physically assaulted at school compared to their non-LGBT peers” putting their mental health and educa-tion, as well as their physical well-being, are at-risk. LGB youth are “4 times more likely, and questioning youth are 3 times more likely, to attempt suicide as their straight peers” while nearly half of young transgender people “have seriously thought about taking their lives, and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt.” According to a December 2013 study by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), approximately 50 percent of all Mus-lim school kids in California face bullying based on their faith. The majority of school-related cases reported to CAIR involve teach-er discrimination. Therefore, it is significant that “18% of the surveyed students answered: ‘Strongly Disagree,’ ‘Disagree,’ or ‘Undecided’ when asked about feeling comfortable partici-pating in classroom discussions and 19% of students answered: ‘Strongly Disagree,’ ‘Disa-gree,’ or ‘Undecided’ when asked if their teachers respected their religion.” More than 10% of American Muslim students reported “physical bullying such as slapping, kicking, or punching” while seventeen percent of the fe-male respondents who wear a hijab (religious headscarf), reported being bullied at least once because of this. Children with disabilities are “two to three times more likely to be bullied than their non-disabled peers.” In addition, students with disabilities also face challenges related to ac-cess to equal education. The wide graduation-rate gaps in many states between students with disabilities and those in traditional educa-tion “raise the stakes for next year’s first-ever federal evaluation of how well states are serv-ing their special education students.” The most recent United States Department of Ed-ucation data, for 2011-12, shows “a four-year graduation-rate gap that ranges from a high of 43 percentage points in Mississippi to a low of 3 percentage points in Montana.”

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The shortcomings of the educational system are not limited to elementary and secondary schools. Black and Latino students have sig-nificantly lower college-going rates than their white counterparts. According to 2010 data from the National Assessment of Educa-tion Progress (NAEP), “just over half (55.7 percent) of Black students and just under two-thirds (63.9 percent) of Latino high school graduates enroll in postsecondary education, compared with 71.7 percent of white gradu-ates.” Furthermore, because students of color are both less likely to be academically pre-pared and more likely to experience economic hardship, their college completion rates are lower as well. Further research shows that Black college graduates are less likely to be employed, which impacts a host of other rights. In 2013 (the most recent full year of data available), 12.4 percent of black college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 were unemployed. For all college graduates in the same age range, the unemployment rate was 5.6 percent. In 2013, more than half (55.9 percent) of employed black recent college graduates were “underemployed” –defined as working in an occupation that typically does not require a four-year college degree.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

The United States Government has made ad-vances in monitoring and enforcing “approxi-mately 200 federal school desegregation cases. It also combats discrimination against English Language Learner students and their parents through enforcement of the Equal Education-

al Opportunities Act of 1973 and Title VI.” The Department of Education (DOE) initi-ates compliance reviews where information suggests widespread discrimination. Between “FY 2009 and 2012, ED initiated more than 60 reviews specifically targeting Title VI dis-crimination issues.” The DOE has also formed the Equity and Excellence Commis-sion to recommend ways “school finance can

be improved to increase equity and achieve-ment [which] issued a report containing its findings and recommendations in February 2013.” In 2014, the United States Department of Education issued new guidelines to schools calling for them to ease up on zero toler-ance policies and “not to arrest students for minor disciplinary infractions.”

Recommendations

The Departments of Justice and Education should develop a comprehensive plan to address concentrated poverty and racial isolation in schools and neighborhoods. The plan should include “enforcement of fed-eral civil rights laws, as well as programs and policies to incentivize school improvement; racial and socioeconomic integration; eco-nomic and infrastructure development (in-cluding affordable housing and transporta-tion); coordinated health and social services; and effective re-entry programs.”

The U.S. Department of Education should conduct the Civil Rights Data Collection “on an annual basis, instead of every two years; take steps to ensure greater accuracy in data reported by states and districts” and should begin to aggressively enforce provi-sions of existing civil rights laws “barring sex discrimination to protect LGBT youth from discrimination and harassment” explicitly. The U.S. Department of Education should put a moratorium on out-of-school sus-pensions. Over 3 million students are sus-pended out of school each year contributing to push-out across the country. To implement this moratorium, Solutions Not Suspensions, a grassroots initiative of students, educators, parents, and community leaders, is calling on states and districts to support teachers and schools in dealing with discipline in positive ways. They are aiming at “keeping students in the classroom and helping educators work with students and parents to create safe and

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engaging classrooms that protect human rights to education and dignity.” The Government should increase federal funding for education programs proven to create racially integrated learning envi-ronments for students, such as the MSAP. The U.S. should reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with provisions that support and encourage inter-district rem-edies to the problem of school segregation (such as paying up-front for the transporta-tion of students crossing district lines and in-centives for non-failing districts to receive transfers). By 2015, the U.S. Department of Education should to take a closer look at graduation-rate disparities in students with disabilities “when it evaluates states on their special edu-cation performance. And that eventually could affect what states can do with their federal aid for special education.”

Human Rights Groups Advancing the Human Right to Education

Dignity in Schools Campaign • Advancement Project • Independent Commission on Public Education (ICOPE) • NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) • Latino Justice • MALDEF • CADRE • American Civil Lib-erties Union • Poverty and Race Research Ac-tion Council • Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights • Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law • Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy

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The right to adequate, safe, and affordable housing is a human right. Housing has the potential to impact the lives of individuals in profound ways, including the human rights to education, health, security, and life. The Unit-ed States has not ratified the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which grants, amongst oth-er things, the human right to housing. The housing situation in the United States in 2014 is concerning: homelessness holds steady, housing affordability continues at crisis levels, and discrimination on the basis of race, disa-bility, gender, national origin, and criminal background remains persistent in the housing market. Foreclosures and segregated, inade-

Housing

____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25

Everyone has the right to a standard of living ade-quate for the health and well-being of himself and

of his family, including […] housing. ____________________

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quate housing conditions have taken a dispar-ate toll on minority communities. Though the United States is under obligations to protect the human right to adequate housing under numerous treaties and declarations, domestic law “provides no entitlement to housing assis-tance or even to basic shelter.”

Homelessness

Individuals experience homelessness for a va-riety of reasons, including job-loss, trauma from domestic disputes (including domestic violence and their status as an LGBTQI per-son), and natural disasters. The “main reason people experience homelessness is because they cannot find housing they can af-ford.” Without an adequate safety net to catch families when they fall on hard times, home-lessness can hit people unexpectedly. Accord-ing to a recent report, entitled The State of Homelessness in America 2014, on a single night in January 2013 (January being one of the coldest months of the year), 610,042 peo-ple were experiencing homelessness. The people at risk of homelessness, “those in poverty, those living with friends and family, and those paying over half of their income for housing, has remained high despite improve-ments in unemployment and the overall economy.” Despite the United States gov-ernment’s assertion that homelessness is de-creasing, the Department of Housing and Ur-ban Development’s figures only recognize people living on the street, in areas unfit for human habitation, or in shelters or transitional housing. The definition omits those who are doubled up in the homes of friends or family, a number which increased by 9.4% from 2010 to 2011, to 7.4 million people.

The Government provides “no entitlement to housing, yet when individuals become home-less, they are treated as criminals.” Since 2011, the criminalizing of homelessness has sig-nificantly increased, affecting the more than 3.5 million people who experience homeless-ness in the United States of America annually. Further, people who experience homelessness

regularly face the degradation of “performing basic bodily functions—sitting, eating, sleep-ing, and going to the bathroom—in public, and are consistently threatened with criminal punishment for doing so.” Thus, a significant number of jurisdictions routinely and discrim-inately target homeless people under ordi-nances which prohibit particular behaviors, for example “obstructing sidewalks, loitering, panhandling, begging, trespassing, camping, being in particular places after hours, sitting or lying in particular areas, sleeping in public, erecting temporary structures, storing belong-ings in public places, or urinating in public.” These policies are particularly severe for peo-ple of color, immigrants, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, and people with disa-bilities, “who are among the most likely to be rendered homeless, and are often subject to the harshest treatment by private actors and law enforcement officials when that occurs.”

The human right to affordable housing—defined as costing no more than 1/3 of a household’s income—is not recognized in the United States. There is no state in the country where someone earning the minimum wage can afford a one or two-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent (FMR). Fur-ther, the stock of affordable housing has been declining since 2007 largely due in part to the fact that the Department of Housing and Ur-ban Development’s (HUD) budget has de-creased largely by more than half. This has resulted in the loss of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 low income housing units each year. A household with worst case housing needs is defined as one that spends more than 50% of their income on rent, making its members ex-tremely vulnerable to eviction. Unsurprisingly, more than “50% of people with worst case

housing needs are Black, Hispanic,” or other people of color. Of the 3.5 million people ex-periencing homelessness “42% are African-Americans (despite being only 12% of the population overall); 20% Hispanic (12% over-all); 4% Native American (1% overall); and 2% Asian (1% overall).”

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Families headed by women of color are also disproportionately affected due to their lower incomes. One recent study found “women in black neighborhoods in Milwau-kee represented only 9.6% of the population, but 30% of the evictions.” Over 60% of homeless children and youth are from mi-nority groups. The 1.5 to 2 million children and youth experiencing homelessness in the United States are disproportionately African American or Latino. In Chicago, for example, students of color and low-income children are disproportionately represented among stu-dents experiencing homelessness in Chica-go. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) identified 18,669 homeless students in the 2012-13 school year, an 8.2% increase from the prior year. Of these students, 98.3% were children of color; of these, 2,512 were unaccompanied homeless youth. The lack of available Perma-nent Supportive Housing (PSH) units for dis-abled homeless youth was even more extreme. In the entire city, there are only 20 designated PSH units that are provided by just two Chi-cago-area non-profits.

Racial Segregation

Racial segregation still prevails. Communi-ties in the United States remain “marked by a high degree of racial segregation and concen-trated poverty, creating inequality in access to education employment, and healthy public spaces, and perpetuating gaps in opportunity for successive generations.” The Black house-holds living in public housing are four times more likely than their white counterparts to live in census tracts where the poverty rate exceeds 40%. Among voucher holders, 12% of black households live in high poverty cen-sus tracts compared to 4% of white house-holds. Racial segregation “is associated with greater odds of death for older African Amer-icans, and older African Americans are more likely than any other age groups to live in neighborhoods disadvantaged by racial segre-gation.”

Housing discrimination and segregation are critical barriers to opportunity for people of color in the United States. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Devel-opment (HUD) received 9,324 complaints of housing discrimination based on race, color or national origin combined. These complaints represent only a fraction of the estimated 4 million complaints of housing discrimination that occur every year just in the rental and real estate sales markets. Though the Fair Hous-ing Act (FHA) was passed 45 years ago, peo-ple of color, religious minorities, people with disabilities, and others continue to face signif-icant barriers to finding adequate housing. In addition to the FHA, “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs (including housing programs).” Where it falls short, however, is that it only provide relief for intentional dis-crimination, so “discriminatory effects” dis-crimination is not privately enforceable under Title VI. Finding safe, affordable housing in racially and economically integrated communities continues to be one of the biggest challenges for poor families of all protected classes. Sev-eral federal programs, “including HUD’s Sec-tion 8 Voucher (also known as the Housing Choice Voucher) program, exist to help low-income people afford housing and achieve housing mobility.” However, demand for housing assistance vouchers from government programs far exceeds their availability. Even when families get assistance, “many are met with outright discrimination by landlords who refuse to accept housing vouchers or other housing assistance and income subsidies.” Landlords across the nation engage in dis-crimination based on source of income on a daily basis. People of color are “dispro-portionate victims of income discrimination.” Continued residential segregation and the history of excluding people of color from ac-cess to sustainable mortgage credit created model conditions for predatory lending to

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poor households in communities of color. This has “led to the loss of wealth built over generations in neighborhoods of color, repre-senting over half of the total cost of the fore-closure crisis in the United States.” The racial dimensions of the recent foreclosure crisis in the United States are undeniable. Continued residential segregation and the exclusion of people of color from access to quality mort-gage credit “created model conditions for predatory lending to poor households in communities of color. This has led to the massive loss of wealth built over generations in communities of color.” Two studies for the Consumer Federation of America examined the race and gender di-mensions of subprime mortgage lending. The studies found that about 24 percent of male borrowers received subprime mortgages compared with about 32 percent of female borrowers. They also found discrimination between different racial and ethnic groups: about 20 percent of white borrowers and 13.5 percent of Asian borrowers received subprime loans in 2005, compared with almost 40 per-cent of Latino borrowers and over 50 percent of African American borrowers. Women, par-ticularly minority women, were significantly more likely to receive subprime mortgage loans. While white women were 25.8 percent more likely to receive a subprime mortgage loan than white men, African American wom-en were 256 percent more likely to receive a subprime mortgage than white men (and 5.7 percent more likely to receive a subprime mortgage than African American men). Latino women were also disproportionately impacted by the subprime mortgage crisis; Latino wom-en were 177.4 percent more likely than white men and 19.3 percent more likely than Latino men to receive subprime mortgage loans. The costs of a subprime mortgage relative to a standard mortgage were substantial. Subprime borrowers were estimated to pay between $85,000 and $186,000 more in interest than average borrowers over the period of a typical mortgage.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program is the largest federal low income housing development program, with 2,458,000 housing units placed in service be-tween 1987 and 2012. Yet this program still lacks meaningful civil rights guidance. This guidance for state housing finance agen-cies (HFAs) that administer the program would provide applicants to the program with equal access to program benefits, and access to non-segregated communities and high per-forming schools.

Housing Discrimination

Though the Fair Housing Act prohibits dis-crimination on the basis of disability in all types of housing transactions, many afforda-ble housing units are not structurally made for those with disabilities. There are other zoning and land regulations used to dis-criminate against people with disabilities in-cluding moratoriums on the construction of new adult care facilities for persons with disa-bilities or denial of permit for a residence for persons who are HIV-positive. In addition to this, the FHA has given individual landowners the discretion to assess whether a person with a mental disability is a threat to others making this group particularly vulnerable to private forms of discrimination. LGBT individuals and families often ex-perience upfront hostility from landlords, real estate agents, and lenders when looking for housing. In 2011, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality released the results of their comprehensive national survey on transgender discrimination. The survey found that of the 6,450 transgender and gender non-conforming study participants, many experi-enced gender identity discrimination in hous-ing: 19 percent had been denied a home or apartment; 19 percent had experienced home-lessness; and 11 percent had been evicted. Those who had experienced homelessness were 2.5 times more likely to have been in-

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carcerated than those who had not experi-enced homelessness, and more than four times more likely to have done sex work than those who had not experienced home-lessness. The typical victims of sexual harassment in housing tend to be poor women of color who are also single mothers. Many sexual har-assment cases involve tenants living in subsi-dized or affordable housing. Landlords often touch women without consent; grant or deny housing and housing benefits in exchange for sex; and retaliate against women when they refuse sexual advances. Low-income women are “often reluctant to report incidents of sexual harassment by landlords because of risk of eviction, blacklisting, or retaliation from homeowners and landlords.” It is especially dangerous for women to report sexual har-assment committed by landlords, who hold a key to a home.

Displacement

Extreme weather events have displaced large numbers of people who have yet to re-cover from its devastating effects. Congress authorized $16 billion for rebuilding homes destroyed from Superstorm Sandy, however, there are tens of thousands of people who are still without homes and as a result are home-less. There are approximately 15,000 people in New York City seeking aid, but only 352 have received it. In New Jersey, 2,032 homes have been rebuilt, but more than 11,500 homes are eligible for rebuilding. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the federal government provided major disaster recovery funding for both Louisiana and Mis-sissippi. The State of Louisiana used HUD funds to administer the Road Home Pro-gram, the single largest housing recovery program in United States history. The Road Home Program formula used to allocate grants for rebuilding to homeowners had a discriminatory impact on African-American

homeowners. The formula, approved by HUD, “provided up to $150,000 for repairs and rebuilding based on either the pre-storm home value or the cost to rebuild the home, whichever was lower.” Home values in Afri-can-American neighborhoods are lower than values of comparable homes in white neigh-borhoods. The Road Home, a profit-generating program, and others like it, em-ployed market-based requirements for re-building homes which exacerbated “existing inequalities in socioeconomic starting point by helping to fuel a racialization of recovery that meant African American communities would be the least likely to return and the last to re-cover.” African Americans were more likely than white grant recipients to have their grants based upon the much lower market value of their homes before Katrina hit, in-stead of the estimated cost to repair the dam-age. Non-governmental organizations filed suit against HUD and the State of Louisiana and “settled the case, changing the formula allocation to provide assistance to 13,000 in-dividuals and over $500 million in grant home rebuilding funds.” There are approximately 1.2 million people living in public housing—a housing program created for low-income families in which most units are owned and managed by local hous-ing agencies—across the country. Though Blacks comprise only 13.2% of the popula-tion, they are 45% of affordable housing resi-dents. Latinos make up 17% of the popula-tion in the United States, but they are 24% of public housing residents. Since the 1990s, public housing has been torn down in cities across the United States: twenty-one buildings each in Philadelphia and Baltimore, seventy-nine in Chicago, and many more in cities such as Newark, Atlanta, and the District of Co-lumbia. The Housing Opportunities for Peo-ple Everywhere (HOPE) VI, a federal grant program “enacted in 1992 that allots money to cities to revitalize decrepit or otherwise ‘failed’ housing developments” was created to solve the problem and was a major cause of

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the demolition of public housing. In 2007, two years after Hurricane Katrina, the city of New Orleans began on its plan to demolish 4,500 public housing units and replace them with mixed-income housing developments designed with “houses facing the streets, with . . . a mix of housing types, prices, and sizes to attract a mix of people; shopping and parks accessible via footpaths and sidewalks; a grid of streets.” To date, many public housing res-idents who were displaced by the demotions have to be provided replacement housing. Further, many of the HOPE VI housing units do not have enough subsidies for extremely low income people to afford the higher rents.

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

In its 2013 report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the United States Government said that the De-partment of Housing and Urban Devel-opment (HUD) currently manages several programs directly addressing homelessness, including the Continuum of Care program, the Emergency Shelter Grant program, and two programs targeting homeless veterans. In 2010, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness published Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness—“a comprehensive approach by 19 federal agencies to prevent and end vet-eran, chronic, and family and youth home-lessness.” In 2013, HUD published a final rule on the implementation of a discriminatory effects standard with regard to housing, de-signed to promote enforcement against hous-ing practices that have an unjustified discrimi-natory effect. The federal government has taken welcome steps in addressing the discriminatory lending practices that gave rise to the massively une-qual effects of the foreclosure crisis. Since 2009, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice “has settled several

high profile discrimination cases against sub-prime lenders.” Additional action by the fed-eral government, however, is necessary to en-sure accountability and to safeguard against future discrimination. In 2013, HUD also released a draft regula-tion addressing the Fair Housing Act’s re-quirement that jurisdictions operating housing programs “affirmatively further fair housing,” that is, “promote residential integration and equality in housing choices.”

Recommendations

In 2014, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its Concluding Ob-servations, expressed concerns at the high number of homeless persons, who are dispro-portionately African American, Hispan-ic/Latino American and Native American, and at the criminalization of homelessness. Among the Committee’s recommendations was that the United States Government abol-ish laws that make homelessness a crime, of-fer incentives to decriminalize homeless-ness, and work closely with relevant stake-holders to address homelessness in ac-cordance with human rights standards. The Committee also urged the Government to ensure the availability of affordable housing for all, strengthen implementation of laws protecting against housing discrimina-tion, and promptly investigate all discrimina-tory practices related to housing. HUD should redesign all federal rental housing programs to meet affirmative ob-ligations to address segregation, with both strong standards (that is, mandatory require-ments) and strong incentives for mobility and affordable housing. In the Section 8 program, HUD should implement small-area Fair Mar-ket Rents to increase the range of neighbor-hoods available to voucher holders. The Obama administration should issue civil rights standards for the Low Income Housing Tax

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Credit Program, including implementation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act (including its affirma-tively furthering provision). Regarding the problems with public housing and displacement, the United States govern-ment should increased HUD funding for pub-lic housing agencies, increased employment opportunities, the implementation of com-munity-based policing initiatives, and the strengthening of management and oversight might alleviate some of the social ills that plague PH—if not in every case, at least in many. Considering the shortcomings of demolition and privatization initiatives such as HOPE VI (in particular, lack of institutional accountability and tenant displacement, lead-ing to gentrification and, often, a sense of per-sonal loss) and the importance of PH as a source of housing for low-income and work-ing-class people, policy-makers should con-sider implementing the sorts of reforms out-lined above before resorting to demolition. Congress should ensure that any reform of the secondary mortgage market is designed with an explicit focus on ensuring widely available, equitable credit opportunities in all communities, especially those that have tradi-tionally not received fair access to credit.

Human Rights Groups Advancing the Human Right to Housing

National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty • Just Cause/Causa Justa • Take Back the Land • Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign • Picture the Homeless • Poverty and Race Research Action Council • National Econom-ic and Social Rights Initiative • Witness • Los Angeles Community Action Network, Center for Fair Housing, Fair Housing Justice Center • Unity Parenting Counseling Inc. • National Coalition for the Homeless • National Fair Housing Alliance • National Low Income Housing Coalition • American Civil Liberties Union • National Alliance To End Homeless-ness • The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

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Widespread surveillance by governments of its people has a chilling effect on civil liber-ties and human rights. Surveillance impacts who we speak to, what we listen to, what we say, and how the press reports what is hap-pening in our world. In a time when “every keystroke is potentially watched, and every heartbeat potentially counted” it might be in-structive to draw on history and review other examples of government surveillance typically in the name of national security. The public outrage against surveillance may be at its most visible with men like Edward Snowden and Glen Greenwald at the helm, however “communities of color have been under ag-gressive surveillance for decades.” Black people in this country have endured very intimate state intrusions. The 1960s

Privacy

____________________

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.

Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

____________________

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and 70s in the United States constituted the COINTELPRO era—a secret FBI program designed to monitor and ‘neutralize” domestic groups “deemed by the FBI to be a danger to national security.” Such targets included anti-war groups and civil rights groups as well as individuals. The FBI infiltrated black power groups, American Indian Movements and the Brown Berets, resulting in jailed dissidents and the blackmailing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Further, the disproportionate im-prisonment of black and brown people in the United States means that “their families are also caught in the surveillance net.” Those visiting loved ones at Rikers Island jail com-plex must submit to fingerprinting, lift up their tongues and shake out their bras in front of a prison guard. Outside of the bars, this lack of privacy is reinforced by police who “grope and question black youth” at will. Women, especially women of color, also live under that gaze of the surveillance state. Who they partner with, whether they bear children, and how they raise them are all sub-ject to scrutiny by the government and society at large. For poor women, not only are their reproductive choices monitored, but if they receive any public assistance at all from the government, they are expected to disclose who is in their houses, are sometimes subject-ed to “home visits” or “walk-throughs” of their homes, and in some cases, they are forced to undergo intrusive drug testing. This is especially problematic in light of the fact that similar intrusions into the homes and lives of others who receive government enti-tlements are not required. The government “does not search through the closets and medicine cabinets of farmers receiving subsi-dies. They do not dig through the laundry baskets and garbage pails of real estate devel-opers or radio broadcasters. The overwhelm-ing majority of recipients of government ben-efits are not the poor, and yet this is the group we require to sacrifice their dignity and their right to privacy.”

Those who are from marginalized commu-nities grew up in environments “very much shaped by surveillance, which has been uti-lized to ramp up the criminal justice system and increase deportations." Even immigrants who possess sufficient papers are put through rigorous collection of biometric information including medical exams and each immigrant must be fingerprinted every time they enter the country. An amendment to the Immigra-tion Reform Bill, which was accepted by the Senate Judiciary Committee in May of 2013, would, if passed, require all foreign nationals at the busiest airports to submit their finger-prints, facial recognition and iris scans before leaving the United States. Similarly, the New York Police Department (NYPD) has implemented a massive surveil-lance program targeting Muslim commu-nities in New York and the surrounding states. Informants in Arab and Muslim com-munities, at mosques, cafes, bookshops and in private homes have sometimes tried to pres-sure innocent men into making plans, or even expressing sentiments, that could get them charged with terrorism. The NYPD program “deployed undercover officers and informants in mosques, schools, restaurants, and bodegas throughout the city to spy on the daily lives of thousands of Americans.” Despite the re-sources and time spent on the program it “never turned up a lead worth pursuing” In a victory for privacy advocates this past April, the infamous NYPD spying squad known as the “demographics unit” was disbanded. The unit had been widely known for its use of un-dercover police officers to spy on Muslim communities based solely on religion. The group had been building detailed reports on the activities of community members without any suspicion of wrongdoing. A report by the CLEAR Project at CUNY School of Law outlines the damaging psy-chological impact that unwarranted spy-ing had on these innocent Muslim com-munities. The study found that the surveil-

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lance suppressed religious practice, stifled speech and association, sowed suspicion amongst community members, and severed relationships between the community and law enforcement. However, despite the closing of this unit, the NYPD is still known to use in-formants to infiltrate Muslim student groups on college campuses and collected the names, phone numbers and addresses of those who attended. Analysts trawled “college websites and email groups to keep tabs on Muslim scholars and who attended their lec-tures.” In addition, entire mosques have been designated suspected ‘terrorism enterprises,’ a label that the police claimed allowed them to “collect the license plate numbers of every car in mosque parking lots, videotape worshipers coming and going, and record sermons using informants wearing hidden microphones.” A July 10 2014 New Yorker article says that despite claims by the National Security Agen-cy (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that the communications of innocent people have not been intercepted, evidence has been found that the communications of several well-known Muslim Americans were being monitored. Included in the list of prominent Americans who were spied on was Faisal Gill, a candidate for the Virginia legislature, Nihad Awad, the Executive Direc-tor of the Council on American-Islamic Rela-tions, Hooshang Amirahmadi, an professor at Rutgers, and Asim Ghafoor, and an attorney who has represented clients in terrorism cases. Given this list, it appears that the targeting is politically motived. Further, some of the rec-ords collected go far beyond the political. NSA analysts were retaining a cache of rec-ords with little to no evidentiary purpose such as “chat transcripts, medical records, and ‘ac-ademic transcripts of schoolchildren’: ‘Scores of pictures show[ing] infants and toddlers in bathtubs, on swings, sprawled on their backs and kissed by their mothers.” The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) suggests that heavily redacted documents re-

ceived from the Department of Homeland Security show that that agency as well as local law enforcement were monitoring the activ-ities of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and strategizing how to interfere with the peaceful protests from their inception without cause. PCJF asserts that in preparation for planned protests in New York City on Octo-ber 15, 2011, the DHS documents show co-ordination between federal and local authori-ties to use New York City’s permitting scheme to frustrate, obstruct or stop free speech activities. The new documents reveal DHS surveillance of protests in Asheville, NC; Tampa; Ft. Lauderdale; Jacksonville; Lansing, MI; Denver; Kansas City; Los Ange-les; Boston; Dallas; Houston; Minneapolis; Miami; Jersey City; Phoenix; Lincoln, Nebras-ka; Chicago; Salt Lake City; Detroit and oth-ers. These tactics suppress free speech, are an impediment to the peaceful political activities, and stifle freedom of association. The Obama Administration has aggressively pursued whistleblowers who seek to public-ly disclose the United States government’s far reaching surveillance and massive data collec-tion. Edward Snowden, a former system ad-ministrator for the Central Intelligence Agen-cy (CIA) and NSA contractors, Dell and Booze Allen Hamilton, leaked classified in-formation from the National Security Agency starting in June 2013. He came to internation-al attention after disclosing to several media outlets thousands of classified documents that revealed numerous global surveillance pro-grams. Snowden claims to no longer be in possession of the documents that he removed from the NSA. The documents are mostly in the hands of reporters such as Glenn Green-wald from The Intercept–First Look Media and Laura Poitras whose film on Snowden, Citizenfour was released this year. Incidental-ly, polling shows 55% of Americans agree with Snowden’s decision to reveal information on the PRISM program. On August 7th 2014, he was granted permanent asylum in Russia lasting three years as the United States De-

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partment of Justice continues to maintain charges against Snowden. In contrast, in De-cember of this year, Edward Snowden won a Swedish Human Rights Award for his NSA revelations. Chelsea Manning, a private in the United States army, was sentenced to 35 years in prison, in August of 2013 for leaking hun-dreds of thousands of sensitive government documents to the WikiLeaks website. The trove of documents “fell within four catego-ries: videos, incident reports from the Afghan-istan and Iraq wars, information on detainees at Guantanamo and thousands of State De-partment cables.” Some of the top documents among other things showed one case in which a United States helicopter fired on civilians and that civilian casualties in the war were higher than being reported. The NSA collects data on individuals and groups in a number of ways. It collects mil-lions of text messages daily in ‘untargeted’ global sweeps. Documents surfaced in early 2014 showing that through a program called Dishfire, the NSA was able to collect on aver-age 194 million text messages a day in April of 2011. From these messages agencies can ex-tract content, location information, contact networks, and credit card details. The daily collection included “5 million missed-call alerts,” details of 1.6 million border-crossings from network roaming alerts, 110,000 elec-tronic business cards, and details on 800,000 financial transactions. Messages collected were not based on any suspicion of wrongdo-ing. A letter dated April 30 2014 from the De-partment of Justice, to a few key members of government, details the government’s use of its national security surveillance powers in 2013. There were over 3000 search appli-cations accepted by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court; and they were all accepted while the court adjusted only 34. A District of Columbia federal court judge

held that the mass collection of metadata is unconstitutional. United States District Judge Richard Leon held that arbitrary bulk collec-tion and retention of data violates privacy rights guaranteed under the 4th amendment of the Constitution. The opinion highlighted that information was being analyzed without judi-cial oversight and numbers were being col-lected for which there was no suspicion of any wrongdoing. National Security Letters (NSLs) are like subpoenas in that they are used to obtain in-formation from companies as part of national security-related investigations which require companies to turn over data about their cus-tomers’ use of services such as banking, tele-phone, and Internet usage record. The FBI made 14,219 National Security Letter requests under the Patriot Act Section 118 for infor-mation related to United States persons. Ap-ple released information showing it received up to 249 National Security Letter requests from January to June 2013. Google received up to 999 requests between January to June 2014. Microsoft also received up to 999 NSL requests between July to December 2013. On March 14, 2013, a United States District Court held that law provisions that restrict the recipients of NSLs (like Google, Microsoft, Verizon, etc.) from disclosing the fact that they received such a letter violated their first amendment rights. The NSL statute prohib-its the recipient from disclosing that they re-ceived a letter on the grounds that it would endanger national security, interfere with dip-lomatic relations and interfere with an investi-gation or endanger life or physical safety. The government makes this determination without judicial review and nearly 97% of these letters include such gag orders—barring them to dis-close the fact that they received the letter. The government appealed the ruling and the 9th Circuit heard arguments on October 8, 2014. The 9th Circuit seemed troubled by the fact that Gag orders had no expiration date, which makes oversight of these programs difficult.

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They have inhibited public understanding of the scope of such programs, the types of in-formation being requested and impeded the efforts of individuals seeking redress. User data requests are requests made by governments and courts to internet service providers, phone companies, and others ask-ing them to hand over the usage data of spe-cific users. From January to June 2014, Google received 12,539 User Data requests from the United States government. Of those, only 3,187 were by search warrant and 8,211 were through an Electronic Communications Privacy Act subpoena. They complied 84% of the time. In 2014, Microsoft received 6,919 requests identifying 15,730 users. Microsoft disclosed content in 10.1% (701) of instances and non-content in 62.5% (4321) of instances. Thirteen percent of requests were rejected for not meeting appropriate legal standards. Mi-crosoft claims that all 2014 content requests were granted in response to a court order or warrant. A number of bills have been introduced to combat the mass surveillance occurring within the United States. The Electronic Communications Privacy Amendments Act of 2013 is a bill that would update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The Amend-ments Act does away with provisions allowing the request of 180 days old electronically stored content by law enforcement without a warrant and introduces a new requirement that notice be given to customers whose con-tent is requested within 180 days (at most). Unfortunately, the bill has been stalled in Congress since April 2013. A bill called the Email Privacy Act was introduced in May 2013 and is currently before the House and Senate. It requires the government to obtain a warrant prior to reading an individual’s online messages. In September of 2014, over 70 pub-lic interest organizations and companies sent letters to Congress urging them to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

The use of domestic drones [Unmanned Aircraft Systems] by law enforcement brings up new challenges. In 2013, Congress man-dated the Federal Aviation Administration put forth regulations allowing for the flight of drones domestically. Because drones are rela-tively inexpensive, require less manpower to operate, and create the potential for sustained surveillance of individuals or places, there is a likelihood that their use will increase. Last year, most of the bills introduced require law enforcement to get a probable cause warrant before using a drone in an investigation. This year, much of the proposed legislation is more complex, taking into account the more chal-lenging issues like “what to do with infor-mation that is collected incidentally to lawful drone use, how long law enforcement can hang on to drone-collected data, and how to handle government access to information col-lected by third-party drones.” In a September 2013 report, the Inspector General found as of May 2013, the FBI had spent over $3 million on [Unmanned Aircraft Systems] UAS activities, the Bureau of Alco-hol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) almost $600,000, and the United States Marshal Services (USMS) $75,000. In addi-tion, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and Office of Community Oriented Policing Ser-vices (COPS) have provided $1.2 million in funding to seven local law enforcement agen-cies and non-profit organizations to purchase UAS for testing or use. Until the FAA prom-ulgates new regulations, drone use is only al-lowed at 400 feet with permission. The report makes clear that federal agencies do not see drone use as requiring a warrant or as any dif-ferent than the use of manned aircraft. An April 2013 Report to Congress from a Legisla-tive Attorney states that the FAA predicts 30,000 drones will be flying within 20 years and that current technology allows these ma-chines to be fitted with advanced cameras and infrared equipment that could raise privacy concerns.

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Though the federal government has been slow to act, some states have taken strides to combat mass surveillance. The New Mexico Appeals Court held that New Mexi-co’s state constitution prohibits the use of drones without a warrant. According to the ACLU, 36 states have proposed legislation requiring warrants for the use of drones by law enforcement and 13 states have enacted such legislation. Some of these laws have maximum retention periods for data gathered and require that only information on the in-tended target be kept. Other efforts to combat the highly secre-tive collection of large amounts of data in-clude Apple and Google’s new smart phone encryption that even they cannot get into. New Jersey has passed a law requiring that library records including e-books be kept pri-vate without a warrant. In, Riley v. California, a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in June of 2014, the Court held that a smart phone could not be searched incident to arrest without a warrant. The holding hinged on the idea that the significant amount of highly personal information kept on cell phones means that there is a significant inva-sion of privacy far greater than from the cus-tomary pat and frisk or searching containers nearby. The Court held that under the 4th Amendment, the search of something with such a vast quantity of personal information requires a warrant. In October of last year, activists of color led a broad coalition of more than 100 public ad-vocacy groups at the “Stop Watching Us” ral-ly in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the rally, which began as a march from Union Sta-tion to the reflecting pool outside Capitol Hill, “was to deliver a petition to Congress de-manding an end to NSA mass spying.”

Specific Human Rights Commitments Made by the United States

In June of 2013, the United States Govern-ment issued a response to the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s List of Issues for the International Covenant of Civil and Politi-cal Rights. The President acknowledged in 2005 that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) had been intercepting, without a court order, certain international communi-cations. This activity, thereafter was brought under the supervision of the Foreign Intelli-gence Surveillance Court (FISC) and, in 2008, Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to modernize collec-tion authorities and solidify FISC’s role. According to the Administration, the FISC plays an important role in overseeing certain NSA collection activities conducted pursuant to FISA. It not only authorizes these activi-ties, but it also plays a continuing and active role in ensuring that they are “carried out ap-propriately.” If at any time the government discovers that an authority or approval grant-ed by the FISC has been implemented in a manner “that did not comply with the Court’s authorization or approval, or with applicable law, the government must immediately notify the FISC and corrective measures must be taken.”

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Recommendations

Regarding racial profiling and illegal sur-veillance, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination says that it “remains concerned at the practice of racial profiling of racial or ethnic minorities by law enforcement officials…” The Committee urged the United States Government to adopt and implement legislation which specifically prohibits law en-forcement officials from engaging in racial profiling, such as the End Racial Profiling Act; and undertake “prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into all allegations of racial profiling, surveillance, monitoring and illegal intelligence-gathering…” In March of 2014, Human Rights Committee, when reviewing the United States Govern-ment for compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ex-pressed concern about the surveillance of communications in the interest of protecting national security, conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) both within and out-side the United States. The Committee was concerned about the adverse impact of these activities on individuals’ right to privacy. The Committee recommends that the United States government take “all necessary measures to ensure that its surveillance activi-ties, both within and outside the United States, conform to its obligations under the Covenant, including article 17.” In particular, measures should be taken to ensure that any interference with the right to privacy complies with the principles of legality, proportionality and necessity, regardless of the nationality or location of the individuals whose communica-tions are under direct surveillance, and reform the current oversight system of surveillance activities to ensure its effectiveness.

Human Rights Groups Advancing the Human Right to Privacy

Center for Media Justice • DRUM NYC • American Civil Liberties Union • Center for Constitutional Rights • Council on American-Islamic Relations

© 2014 US Human Rights Network. All rights reserved.

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