Author: Kristen Reesor

CABO VERDE — Cabo Verde, formerly Cape Verde, is a small archipelago off the coast of Africa. Its government is proud to be one of the rare African countries to meet all the Millennium Development Goals. Still, the nation of around 500,000 people has documented human rights violations. The following is a breakdown of where human rights in Cabo Verde can improve. Violence & Prison  Cabo Verde’s constitution prohibits torture, but media continue to report instances of police brutality (e.g., excessive force and aggression against suspects). The National Police Council responded to the abuses “in most cases,” according to the…

LOMÉ, Togo — The small West African country of Togo has seen a decreasing poverty rate. Fifty-five percent of people lived under the national poverty level in 2015; in 2006 — less than a decade earlier — the poverty rate in Togo was about 62 percent. The government of Togo is partly responsible for this decrease. Here are some of its recent efforts to reduce the poverty rate in Togo: 1. Togo believes a key to lowering widespread poverty is improving agricultural productivity. About 65 percent of the labor force depends on agriculture; so, increasing farm efficiency directly impacts millions of…

DILI–Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor, has around 1.2 million people. It also has less than one physician per 10,000 inhabitants and spent 1.5 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on health in 2014. Common diseases in East Timor include tuberculosis, lower respiratory infections and diarrheal diseases. Tuberculosis (TB)  Although largely eradicated from the United States and other developed countries, tuberculosis is a common disease in East Timor and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), caused 11.2 percent of deaths in East Timor in 2012. With one of the highest prevalence rates in Southeast Asia, tuberculosis is the number one…

MONTEVIDEO — The South American country of Uruguay has made significant gains in human rights over the years. Despite this, human rights in Uruguay still need improvement for several groups of people, including prisoners, Afro-Uruguayans, women and gender and sexual minorities. Prisoners often lack adequate human rights in Uruguay because the country has a history of inhumane prisons. As the Huffington Post reports, in some prisons, inmates used toilet water for drinking. Some sewage systems did not work, either, so prisoners defecated in plastic bags, which they later threw outside. Moreover, hundreds of detainees spent years in small metal boxes…

SEATTLE — Around 78 percent of Madagascar’s population suffers from extreme poverty, defined as living on $1.90 a day. The country’s gross domestic product per capita is only $1,500. So, why is Madagascar poor? A history of political instability This is a main underlying factor that has caused several other causes of poverty in Madagascar to worsen. Decades of strife involving military coups, corrupt dictators and political violence have tarnished the former French colony. The World Bank refers to the most recent turmoil in Madagascar as the “lost years of socio-economic development.” This period lasted from 2009 to 2014 after…

KIEV — Civilians in the Eastern European country Ukraine have been caught in the crosshairs between Ukrainian- and Russian-backed fighters. The tumultuous conflict has given rise to multiple instances of human rights abuses in Ukraine, ranging from physical offenses to restrictions on freedoms. The armed conflict in eastern Ukraine has produced human rights violations on both sides—Ukrainian authorities and Russia-backed separatists. Last year Amnesty International and The Human Rights Watch reported several dozens of forced disappearances and incidents of civilian torture. Each side has allegedly unlawfully detained people accused of spying for or supporting the opposite side. According to the…

SEATTLE — Africa as a whole has 2.7 physicians for every 10,000 people, compared to a global average of 13.9. Every year, 25 to 50 percent of African doctors leave their homes, leaving millions of sick or dying Africans without proper care. This lack of healthcare professionals means that hospitals and other care centers cannot operate at their full capacity or provide all patients with basic healthcare. The doctors who remain in Africa are overburdened with cases of malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and more. Africa bears 24 percent of the world’s disease burden, but only has access to 3 percent of…

ASMARA, Eritrea — Fresh, safe water is sometimes hard to come by in Eritrea, a small, poor country in the dry, arid Horn of Africa. The average annual rainfall is a mere 15 inches, but rain can often be torrential, causing unexpected floods. Furthermore, the amount of rain varies greatly from year to year, and droughts threaten the already limited supply of water sources every few years or so. Where water sources do exist, the water quality in Eritrea is often poor, contaminated by harmful bacteria. Around 42 percent of Eritreans live without access to improved drinking water. This means…

BEIJING — Desertification and land degradation directly affect more than 1.5 billion people. Climate and environmental conditions, such as low soil moisture, wildfires, rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures can contribute to desertification. Other drivers are derived from people’s demands on the land; unsustainable livestock and crop production can degrade soil and cause erosion, which leads to desertification. Although desertification happens all over the world, it takes a particularly severe toll on China. More than a quarter of the country’s land is now desert, which adversely affects 400 million people. Desertification threatens crop production, water sources and livelihoods. Despite the magnitude…