Is the U.S. State Dept. stepping back on human rights?

The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) joins over 170 human rights, health and development organizations in expressing our alarm that women’s rights and LGBTQI rights are to be downgraded and even excluded from the U.S. State Department’s annual Human Rights Report.

According to a recent Politico story, staff have been directed to cut passages on family planning and pare down a section of the report addressing racial, ethnic and sexual discrimination.

“The strength of the Human Rights Report,” says Lyric Thompson, ICRW’s Director of Advocacy and Policy, “has been its rigor and its affirmation that the U.S. government stands firmly behind the universal — and indivisible — human rights agenda, an agenda recognizing that the rights of women and the LGBTQI community are unquestionably human rights. The annual report has been a vital source of information on human rights violations for development practitioners and government officials around the world. Without this information, the report ceases to be credible as a report on human rights.”

ICRW joins all organizations calling on U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to uphold the credibility of the Human Rights Report by reversing this unfortunate decision.