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Press Release

Reacting to news that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services may adopt a "domestic gag rule" around Title X, the nation's program for affordable birth control and reproductive health care, Tarah Demant, Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Identity Program at Amnesty International USA stated: “The proposal is deadly, discriminatory, and a blatant attempt to restrict women’s reproductive rights. “Such a plan defies human rights standards and puts the lives of all people, especially women of color and low-income women, at risk. It restricts people’s sexual and reproductive rights placing all those who may be pregnant in danger.…

May 18, 2018

Press Release

The failure to pass a reform to decriminalize abortion during El Salvador’s latest legislative cycle is a sickening step backwards for human rights, said Amnesty International today. “El Salvador’s lawmakers have blood on their hands after declining to even discuss the reform to decriminalize abortion. This desperately needed bill would have saved the lives of countless women and girls who are needlessly put at risk by the total ban on abortion. The wasted opportunity to end this injustice is a terrible blow to human rights in El Salvador,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly…

April 27, 2018

Press Release

Responding to the commemoration of the fourth anniversary of the abduction of 276 school girls in Chibok, Osai Ojigho Director Amnesty International Nigeria said: “What happened in Chibok should have served as a wake-up call to the Nigerian government. Yet four years on, thousands more women and girls have been taken from their homes and forced to live in captivity, in events largely unnoticed and unreported by media. “The time is long overdue for the government to deliver meaningful action on behalf of all the victims of Boko Haram’s crimes. This starts by doing more to secure the release of…

April 13, 2018

Press Release

One year after President Trump reinstated the “global gag rule,” which bars health care providers around the world from providing or counseling clients on abortions, human rights and women’s rights groups issued a call for an end to the policy once and for all. Amnesty International USA and the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) call on President Trump to rescind the policy and for Congress to pass the Global HER Act to end it. “The global gag rule does nothing to save lives,” said Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “If anything, it places more lives…

January 22, 2018

Press Release

Amnesty International USA will honor Charon Asetoyer, a member of the Comanche nation and a lifelong Native American women’s health advocate and activist, at this year’s Ginetta Sagan Award Reception tomorrow night in San Francisco. The award, named in honor of a WWII resistance fighter who went on to become a powerful advocate for Prisoners of Conscience, is given annually to honor courageous women around the world who stand up for the rights of women and children who face grave human rights violations.

October 10, 2017

Press Release

The sentence against a 19-year-old rape survivor of 30 years in prison on charges of “aggravated homicide” after she suffered pregnancy-related complications, is a terrifying example of the need for El Salvador to urgently repeal its retrograde anti-abortion law, Amnesty International said.

July 6, 2017

Report

A set of laws which claim to promote maternal and infant health are in fact driving pregnant women away from vital health services, jeopardizing their well-being and violating their right to health, according to a new report published by Amnesty International.

May 23, 2017

Press Release

The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador has a historic opportunity to reject the criminalization of abortion and protect the health and lives of millions of women throughout the country.

May 8, 2017

Press Release

Ahead of a debate in the Honduran congress today over the country’s criminalization of abortion, Amnesty International’s Americas Director Erika Guevara-Rosas said: “By criminalizing abortion, the Honduran Penal Code is incompatible with human rights standards and must be modified without delay.” “Preventing women from exercising their human rights by stopping them from being able to make decisions over their own bodies only puts their health and lives in danger.” As part of a wider debate on the country’s Penal Code, the Honduran Congress will debate proposed changes that would allow for abortions when the health of the pregnant woman is…

April 25, 2017

Press Release

As the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s administration come to a close, Amnesty International has compiled a list of 100 ways the Trump administration has tried to threaten human rights in the U.S. and around the world – sometimes succeeding, and sometimes being blocked by a powerful and growing resistance movement.

April 24, 2017

Report

Women and girls risk unsafe abortions that can lead to serious health complications, and even death, due to persistent barriers to legal abortion services, according to research by Amnesty International and the Women’s Health Research Unit of the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town.

January 31, 2017

Press Release

Sierra Leone must lift a deeply discriminatory ban on visibly pregnant girls attending school and taking exams, which continues to entrench gender inequality in the country and puts thousands of teenage girls’ futures at risk, Amnesty International said today, a year on from its report on the issue.

November 7, 2016