Dear friend of HRMI,

It takes a village, not only to raise a child, but also to produce robust, useful human rights data that help drive real change in people’s lives.

Thank you for being part of our village! 

The brand-new human rights data we released in June are the product not just of a whole year’s work, but of decades of research and refinement by scholars, and the hard-won wisdom and experience of grassroots activists. We build on years of work by leaders, funders and supporters who saw the need for better data to improve people’s lives. 

The past twelve months have seen a mighty effort undertaken by HRMI’s researchers, survey operations team, regional engagement team, website developers, infrastructure supporters, and communicators. We've all been hard at work gathering, analysing, and publishing all the rich data that you now see on the Rights Tracker.  

And to do that, we worked with over 50 in-country HRMI Ambassadors, and many hundreds of human rights defenders who shared their knowledge with us of what’s going on in their countries. 

Now it’s your turn. The data are out in the world, and we are delighted to see them being of use already, sparking public conversations in Malaysia, Nigeria, the Solomon Islands, China, and more – truly, all over the world.  

Please visit the Rights Tracker to see the data for yourselves, and then tell your own leaders what they need to focus on to build a better world.  

Let’s keep the conversation going! 

Yours in service,

Thalia Kehoe Rowden, on behalf of the HRMI team  

Our 2025 Data Is Now Live

We are happy to announce that on 18 June, for the eighth year in a row, we launched our new 2025 data measuring how well governments across the world treat people! This year, our Rights Tracker features a host of new information: 

• New economic and social rights scores for 200 countries and territories 

• New civil and political rights scores for 38 countries 

• A new transnational repression section on the China page 

• ‘People at risk' information for 40 different vulnerable groups, in 50 countries 

• Specialised measures for the Pacific on cultural and Indigenous rights; the effects of the climate crisis; and violence in the community 

You can explore the data at RightsTracker.org, a certified Digital Public Good where we visualise human rights scores across countries, rights, and demographics.  

Want to know more about how to use our data? 

• Do you work in advocacy? Our data highlights international obligations and show what governments should prioritise in order to better meet their responsibilities. Include our data in your reports, campaigns, and other advocacy to strengthen your monitoring work with quantitative evidence.    
• Want funders to pay attention? Our data are about outcomes and can highlight the need for projects focused on specific areas that require improvement. You can include our data when demonstrating to funders the importance of your work.   

Check Out Our Data Launch Webinars and Events

Interested in learning more about our 2025 data? We will be hosting a series of webinars over the next few months focusing on specific countries and themes. Join us online!  

Some information on recent and upcoming webinars is below but keep an eye on our social media for more updates over the coming weeks. 

Recent Events 

• On 16 June, our Co-Executive Director, Thalia Kehoe Rowden, ran a webinar on the latest data for New Zealand. Watch the presentation on HRMI’s YouTube here. 

• On 23 June, we carried out an X Spaces Discussion hosted by CITE News to launch and explore our 2025 human rights data for Zimbabwe. Listen to our East and Southern Africa Lead, Nkosi Sibanda, speak about the data here. 
  
  

• On 27 June, Aditi from our Engagement Team ran a webinar on our latest human rights data for Nepal. Watch the presentation on HRMI’s YouTube here.

  
  

  Mr. Rup Sunar, Chairperson of Dignity Initiative and a human rights expert working on strengthening Dalit rights movement and dismantling caste-based discrimination in Nepal shared, 'We need these kind of data that are independent as well as carefully collected and analysed so that we can provide an alternative perspective on the human rights performance of the country compared to the government reports, and bring the risks faced by the Dalit and marginalised people to the forefront. These data complement our work and advocacy efforts, and are valuable to support our insights incorporated into our UPR submissions.'

• On 1 July, our East Asia Engagement Lead, Patrick Poon, launched our latest human rights data on Hong Kong alongside an expert panel of activists who shared their thoughts and experiences on the violations being faced by people in Hong Kong. Watch the presentation on HRMI’s YouTube here.

• On 3 July, Aditi from our Engagement Team ran a webinar on our new data for the Maldives. The session covered the following areas:

  • Understanding HRMI’s work
  • New data on the Maldives
  • How to use the data in UPR submissions, advocacy, and reporting

Upcoming Events 

Data in the Media 

Our latest data have been featured quite extensively across certain countries over the past month. Take a look below at some of the ways our data have started important conversations:  

• Amnesty International NZ wrote about our scores for New Zealand here.  

• Malaysiakini wrote about Malaysia’s trailing education scores here. Our Southeast Asia Engagement Lead, Keshia Mahmood, was also interviewed by BFM Radio on the issue. Listen to her interview here. Following widespread discussion and national media coverage on the data, representatives from two major political parties in the country spoke on the need to improve Malaysia's education system. Read their comments in Malay here and here.

• Premium Times wrote about Nigeria’s low scores here.  

• Our East and Southern Africa Lead, Nkosi Sibanda, was interviewed by CITE on Zimbabwe’s scores. Listen to his interview here. 
  
  
• Radio Free Asia wrote about our scores for China and Hong Kong, the latter of which includes an interview with our East Asia Engagement Lead, Patrick Poon.  
  
  
• The Island Sun published an article on our data about the challenges being faced by people with disabilities in the Solomon Islands here.  

Visit our data in the media page for more recent articles featuring our data.  

Staff Updates

A warm welcome to the staff who’ve joined us recently! Say hello to some of our new team members: 

• Evelynne Gomez, Communications Lead
• Patrick Poon, East Asia Engagement Lead

We’ve had a few new wonderful interns join us too. We are incredibly happy to also be working with Faraday Haydock, Roxy Malek, Natasha Dhliwayo, and Zach Leggio this year! 

We are also farewelling our wonderful communications assistant Sofia Barriga who is now focusing on her legal career, as well as two of our interns, Colin Patrick Stanley and Ellie Loventhal.

Heartiest congratulations to our Digital Rights Lead, Dr. Meridith Lavelle, for successfully defending her doctoral dissertation in June!

Support our Work

HRMI is doing incredible work with very limited resources, and we are delighted to see the global coverage, recognition, and use that our data is getting. Building on our people power and expertise, HRMI is poised to scale its global and thematic reach.  

Our aim is to measure every country’s performance of every human right in international law.  

But we cannot do this alone. We need sustained operational funding to increase our resiliency and strengthen our capacity to ensure the continuity of the Rights Tracker, HRMI’s ground-breaking digital public good.  

 
If you can help with suggestions of potential funders or by making a small donation to HRMI yourself, please get in touch by replying to this email or visiting our donations page.