Dear friend of HRMI,

My name is Phoenix, I work as HRMI's East and Southeast Asia Consultant, and I'd like to tell you a story.

On a chilly morning in Mae Chaem, a district nestled in the hills of Northern Thailand, five of us pored over aged historical maps and documents faded by years of leafing. P’Swae spoke fervently of his late father's unrelenting work in preserving the cultural heritage and land rights of their ethnic minority community. He shared tales of land grabs, mounting threats against human rights defenders, and the small victories and steps taken toward equity. Despite the challenges, P’Swae remains committed to carrying on his father's legacy. 
 
Before meeting P’Swae, I had no idea that he hailed from a long line of Indigenous and land rights defenders. And he, in turn, had no inkling of my work in the field of human rights. It was a serendipitous encounter while accompanying some friends on a trip up north.
 
P’Swae told us that he hoped that we would take these stories and tell them to the world.
 
His words stayed with me, and they resonate deeply with my reasons for joining HRMI in late 2022. Our expert survey provides a platform for defenders to share the stories and experiences around them. Our data amplify the voices of the underserved and empower communities to effect change. After all, what gets measured gets improved.
 
We are thrilled to announce the completion of another round of our expert survey. Here's a heartfelt thanks to our respondents, partners, ambassadors, and donors for making our work possible. Keep an eye out for the launch of our latest data in June – we will have data for around 200 countries. What stories will our latest set of data tell? Stay tuned to find out!

Michaelle Phoenix Yeo

East and Southeast Asia Consultant

Thank you for participating in the survey!

The HRMI annual expert survey closed at the start of April, and we are incredibly grateful to all the human rights experts around the world who shared their knowledge with us. 

If you participated in the survey, you have our most sincere thanks and gratitude.

Our team are currently analysing the data and getting it ready to be published in mid-June. We hope you're as excited as we are to find out how well human rights were respected in 2022.

Freedom of religion and belief

New human rights measurement

HRMI is piloting a project to measure freedom of religion and belief in the 2023 human rights expert survey.

We have started measuring this right in 9 countries: Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Aotearoa New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

These data will be accessible on the Rights Tracker in our 2023 data release. We are very excited to share these new data with you, and look forward to expanding our measurement to more countries.

What value do HRMI data add over other data sources?

If you've ever wondered this, you're not alone. We get asked this question all the time.

We are delighted to provide an answer in this article by Anne-Marie Brook and Kobe Amos, published in the The Loop.

Let's measure human rights in all of Asia

Asia data expansion

Bangladesh, the Maldives and Thailand were added to our expert survey this year, meaning that the Rights Tracker will soon have civil and political rights data for 11 countries across South, East, and Southeast Asia. 

This accompanies the economic and social rights data we have for nearly all of Asia! It’s great to see the year-on-year growth in these human rights data, as well as the added value they bring to the many organisations, institutions and individuals using the data in their advocacy and reporting efforts.

We’d love to expand the availability of robust, quantitative human rights data further across Asia – we want to see the following countries, at least, added in the next survey cycle: Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and Myanmar.

This requires resources. Do you have any ideas about funders who may be interested in supporting this valuable work? If so, then please reply to this email or contact james.ibell-roberts@hrmi.ngo.

Join the HRMI Board

Unique opportunity: We are seeking a new Trustee to join our governance Board. Who do you know who might be a good fit?  

HRMI’s vision is a world where all governments reach the highest standards of human rights. We are seeking someone with the skillset and experience to complement our existing Board members. This is a unique opportunity to develop your governance experience and contribute to advancing human rights in an innovative and exciting new context. Might this be you, or someone you know?  

Specific experience sought includes: risk management (ideally in the context of an international NGO working with human rights defenders), people leadership, and work in an international NGO.

The successful candidate can be based anywhere worldwide. Preference will be given to candidates from low and middle income countries.

Please see the job description for further details. If you are interested, or have any questions, please contact Anne-Marie by answering this email or on (Anne-Marie.Brook@hrmi.ngo.

Who is using HRMI data?

HRMI data are a great tool for journalists. Media outlets around the world are using our scores to report on human rights.

Civil society organisations, government bodies and multilateral organisations also make use of our data.

Here are some of the recent highlights:

• The World Bank's Sovereign ESG Data Portal uses HRMI scores
  
  
• The Independent Expert's 2022 annual report to the UN General Assembly on older persons and the right to adequate housing cited HRMI's findings.
  
  
• North East Bylines wrote about democratic backsliding in the UK, using HRMI scores
  
  
• SabiLaw used HRMI scores in this overview of the right to health in Nigeria
  
  
• The Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN's UPR report cited HRMI scores
  
  
• The US State Department's report on Hong Kong human rights and the US-China Economic Review Commission's report to Congress include HRMI data

New HRMI website

We've updated the HRMI website to make it easier to navigate and find the information you're looking for.

We hope you like it! 

If you come across any issues while navigating the site, please email yoyo.pasieka@hrmi.ngo so that we can fix them.

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.