It is almost the middle of the year already, with bright summers for some, colder, shorter days for some, and high rainfall for others. The seasonal calendar may have different plans for us, but on the HRMI calendar, June is a very exciting month. Why? Well, it is data launch season!
On June 22nd, we are launching the new annual human rights data for nearly 200 countries. We are so stoked to share these findings with all of you, with the ardent hope that they will add to your valuable work improving peoples’ lives and the global monitoring of human rights. Our expert survey ran in 47 countries this year. It is a bit surreal to think the civil and political rights data cover over half of the global population.
We are so profoundly grateful to our expert respondents for sharing their valuable human rights insights, experiences, and stories through the survey to find their way onto the Rights Tracker. Here is a huge shout-out to our Ambassadors and partners for their instrumental role in enabling the production of these data, and to our research team that has been working so very hard over the last few months to crunch all the information and bring these new findings to us in time.
Every year, we try to build on the feedback we receive and bring out something new through our data. Here are some new additions this year that you may be interested in:
An additional indicator for adult health (60-80 years survival), and a new indicator for quality of education that covers high, middle, and low income countries.
We now display economic and social rights (ESRs) scores going back as far as 2000, so there is a 20-year time series visualised for each of the five ESRs.
Thailand, Bangladesh, and the Maldives were new entrants to our list of survey countries, and we are thrilled to complete datasets on each of them.
We have added sex workers as a new group at risk that we collect specific data on in survey countries, and we also have extra information on rights violations based on caste, work, or descent.
A brand new pilot score on freedom of religion and belief for nine countries.
We will be launching these data and bringing out these new stories through three thematic webinars later this month. You can find the details below. We warmly invite you to register to learn more about our findings, and feel free to share them with your friends and colleagues who may be interested.
Stay well, stay safe!
HRMI South Asia Team
Check out the new data
We will be launching the 2023 human rights data on the Rights Tracker on the 22nd of June. Join us online as we reveal this year's scores and discuss the findings with expert panellists, through three thematic webinars.
Civil and political rights webinar
How well did governments respect civil and political rights in 2022? Are people safe from torture and ill-treatment? Is freedom of opinion and expression respected?
Join us to discover the data that provide an answer to these questions. The HRMI team will reveal new findings and tools in this year's dataset.
What can you expect to hear about?
New freedom of religion and belief data tools for 9 countries
Scores for Bangladesh, Thailand, and the Maldives for the first time
Insight into human rights violations from expert panellists
Details
June 22 7am EDT, 1pm CEST, 4:30pm IST, 11pm NZST, (see every time zone)
Register here or watch the livestream on YouTube here.
Human rights in East Asia webinar
It's the two-year anniversary of the National Security Law being passed in Hong Kong, so we are inviting you to join us for a deep dive into human rights in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
What can you expect to hear about?
The evolution of press freedom in East Asia
Which groups of people are most at risk?
Expert panellists share context about violations in the region
Details
June 28 10am CEST, 1:30pm IST, 4pm CST, 8pm NZST, (see every time zone)
Register here or watch the livestream on YouTube here.
Economic and social rights webinar
Are governments using their economic resources to improve people's quality of life?
Join us to discover the 2023 scores that provide an answer to this question. What can you expect to hear about?
Using human rights data to increase investment in low income countries
Improving economic and social rights improves wealth
Details
June 29 11am EDT, 5pm CEST, 8:30pm IST, (in every time zone)
Register here or watch the livestream on YouTube here.
Press and civil society
Would you like early access to the 2023 data to prepare a press release or use these data in your journalism? Please contact us or reply to this email.
K Chad Clay speaks at TEDx UGA
You're a human rights person, you just don't know it yet.
HRMI co-founder and Research Methodology and Design Lead, K Chad Clay, gave an excellent TEDx talk at the University of Georgia this March, watch it here:
Chad explains why we need human rights to drive our decisions, why human rights data are a useful tool in such decisions, and how the United States performs significantly worse in human rights outcomes than most people would expect.
Help us measure children's rights
The Convention on the Rights of Child is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. Despite this, children continue to face systemic violations and data on children’s rights remain extremely limited.
HRMI is working to develop reliable and comparable data tools in order to hold governments accountable to their commitments under international law.
Child Rights Research Fellows Annie Watson and Liz Kaletskihave been working to create preliminary measures of children's rights, including component measures of children’s civil and political rights and economic and social rights.
We are looking for partners to engage in research collaborations, grant funding, and co-design workshops to further develop this workstream. Read about it in this post and concept note.
If you are interested in getting involved or would like more details, please contact ekaletski@ithaca.edu and watson.k.anne@gmail.com.
Economic and social rights in sovereign investment decisions
The World Bank published a new paper using HRMI data. Topics include:
the relevance of economic and social rights for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing in the sovereign debt asset class and
how to start incorporating these rights into the investment process in a practical way.
Many media outlets use HRMI data to highlight human rights problems around the world.
Here are some of the outlets who've used our data recently:
Dr Harish Kumar wrote a book about the right to education in India.
Joan Vilalta Flo wrote about Perú‘s intersectional discrimination in the education for Broken Chalk.
Mike Gunzelman wrote about Saudi Arabia‘s position in the sports world for OutKick.
Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty wrote about Romania‘s teacher’s strike.
Please keep in touch!
Thanks for your interest in HRMI. You are also most welcome to follow us on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook to keep up to date in between newsletters.
Please also feel free to contact us directly with feedback, ideas, and requests. We're here to help.
Support us
HRMI is doing incredible work on very limited resources, and we are delighted to see the global coverage, recognition, and use that our data are getting.
To achieve the exponential impact we are looking to have, we need to expand our data to achieve global coverage as soon as possible. We need to quadruple our income over the next five years in order to do this.
If you can help with suggestions of potential funders, or by making a small regular donation to HRMI yourself, please get in touch by replying to this email, or visit our donations page.
Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), PO Box 24390, Wellington, New Zealand
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