- 注册时间
- 2012-6-18
- 最后登录
- 2020-9-21
- 阅读权限
- 150
- 积分
- 37685
- 主题
- 427
- 精华
- 7
- 帖子
- 509
- 精华
- 7
|
新闻速递 (2013/04/20 21:53): Full Text of Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of ChinaForewordThe State Department of the United States recently released its Country R 2012年美国人权报告(英文)--Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012 ... ... Full Text of Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012
State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China
Foreword
The State Department of the United States recently released its
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012, posing as "the world
judge of human rights" again. As in previous years, the reports are
full of carping and irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation
in more than 190 countries and regions including China. However, the
U.S. turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and
never said a word about it. Facts show that there are serious human
rights problems in the U.S. which incur extensive criticism in the
world. The Human Rights Record of the U.S. in 2012 is hereby prepared to
reveal the true human rights situation of the U.S. to people across the
world by simply laying down some facts.
The human rights situation in the U.S. in 2012 has deeply impressed people in the following aspects:
-- Firearms-related crimes posed serious threat to the lives and
personal security of citizens in the U.S. Some shootings left
astonishing casualties, such as the school shooting in Oakland, the
Century 16 theater shooting in Colorado and the school shooting in
Connecticut.
-- In the U.S., elections could not fully embody the real will of its
citizens. Political contributions had, to a great extent, influenced
the electoral procedures and policy direction. During the 2012
presidential election, the voter turnout was only 57.5 percent.
-- In the U.S., citizens' civil and political rights were further
restricted by the government. The government expanded the scope of
eavesdropping and censoring on personal telecommunications. The police
often abused their power, resulting in increasing complaints and charges
for infringement upon civil rights. The proportion of women in the U.S.
who fell victims of domestic violence and sexual assault kept
increasing.
-- The U.S. has become one of the developed countries with the
greatest income gap. In 2011, the Gini index was 0.477 in the U.S. and
about 9 million people were registered as unemployed; About 16.4 million
children lived in poverty and, for the first time in history, public
schools reported more than one million homeless children and youth.
-- There was serious sex, racial and religious discrimination in the
U.S. Indigenous people suffered serious racial discrimination and their
poverty rate doubled the national average. A movie produced by a U.S.
director and aired online was deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed,
sparking protests by the Muslims worldwide.
-- The U.S. seriously infringed upon human rights of other nations.
In 2012, U.S. military operations in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan
caused massive civilian casualties. U.S. soldiers had also severely
blasphemed against local residents' religion by burning copies of the
Muslim holy book, the Koran, and insulting bodies of the dead. There was
a huge rise in birth defects in Iraq since the war against Iraq with
military actions in which American forces used metal
contaminant-releasing white phosphorus shells and depleted uranium
bombs.
-- The U.S. was not able to effectively participate in international
cooperation on human rights. To date, the U.S. remains a country which
has not participated in or ratified a series of core UN conventions on
human rights, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I. On Life and Personal Security
The U.S. was haunted by serious violent crimes in 2012 with frequent
occurrence of firearms-related criminal cases. Its people's lives and
personal security were not duly protected.
According to statistics released by the FBI in September 2012, an
estimated 1,203,564 violent crimes occurred in the U.S. in 2011, about
386.3 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. Aggravated assaults
accounted for 62.4 percent of violent crimes reported to law
enforcement. Robbery reached 29.4 percent of violent crimes, forcible
rape accounted for 6.9 percent, and murder amounted to 1.2 percent of
estimated violent crimes in 2011. And firearms were used in 67.7 percent
of the nation' s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent
in all crimes in the U.S.
Americans are the most heavily armed people in the world per capita.
According to a CNN report on July 23, 2012, there were an estimated 270
million guns in the hands of civilians in the U.S. and more than 100,000
people were shot by guns each year. In 2010, there were more than
30,000 deaths caused by firearms. However, the U.S. government has done
little in gun control. In 2008 and 2010 landmark Supreme Court rulings
on two firearms-related cases dramatically diminished the authority of
state and local governments to limit gun ownership. Roughly half of the
50 U.S. states have adopted laws allowing gun owners to carry their guns
openly in most public places. And many states have 'stand your ground'
laws that allow people to kill if they come under threat, even, in some
cases, if they can escape the threat without violence. According to an
article on the website of the Hindu on August 7, 2012, in
population-adjusted terms, civilians in some parts of the U.S. are more
likely to become the victim of a firearms-related murder than their
counterparts in war-torn regions like Iraq or Afghanistan. On January
16, 2013, the U.S. president announced 23 steps on gun control to take
immediately without congressional approval. And the president signed
three of the measures. But the public opinion generally believes that
the gun-control measures will encounter great resistance.
According to a report on the USA Today's website on October 17, 2012,
the violent crime rate went up 17 percent in 2011. Firearms-related
violent crimes posed as one of the most serious threats to the lives and
personal security of the U.S. citizens. Statistics showed that an
estimated 14,612 people fell victims of murder in 2011 and 9,903 of them
were firearms-related murder victims (Website of the Congressional
Research service, www.fas.org, November 14, 2012). The U.S. witnessed
more firearms-related violent crimes in 2012. According to NYPD
statistics published on September 2, 2012, there had been 1,001
shootings so far that year in New York, about 3.4 percent more than the
968 reported at the same time the previous year (NY Daily News,
September 9, 2012). According to statistics from the website of Chicago
Police Department, there were 2,460 shooting incidents in Chicago in
2012, up 10 percent year on year. Some of the shootings were quite
bloody and terrifying, such as the movie theater shooting in Colorado
and the school shooting in Connecticut.
On July 20, 2012, James E. Holmes, 24, entered a movie theater in
Aurora, Colorado, carrying an AR-15 rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and at
least one handgun. He sprayed people at the theater who were watching a
movie, leaving at least 12 dead and 59 wounded. A witness said: "He was
just literally shooting everyone, like hunting season." According to a
CNN report on July 21, law enforcement documents showed that the weapons
were purchased legally by Holmes at sporting goods stores in the Denver
area over a six-month period before the shooting happened. According to
a CNN report on July 23, in wake of the shooting rampage in Colorado,
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said: "I don't think there's any
other developed country in the world that has remotely the problem we
have."
On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children
and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Connecticut. He committed suicide after that. But before he came to the
school, he had shot and killed his mother. The incident was the second
deadliest school shooting in the U.S. history, after the 2007 Virginia
Tech massacre which left 32 killed. II. On Civil and Political Rights
The recent years have seen closer surveillance of American citizens
by the U.S. government. In the country, abuse of suspects and jail
inmates is common occurrence, and equal suffrage enjoyable by citizens
continues to be undermined.
The U.S. government continues to step up surveillance of ordinary
Americans, restricting and reducing the free sphere of the American
society to a considerable extent, and seriously violating the freedom of
citizens. The U.S. congress approved a bill in 2012 that authorizes the
government to conduct warrantless wiretapping and electronic
communications monitoring, a move that violates people's rights to
privacy. According to a report carried on May 4, 2012 by the CNET
website, the FBI general counsel' s office has drafted a proposed law
requiring that social-networking websites and providers of VoIP, instant
messaging, and Web e-mail to alter their code to ensure their products
are wiretap-friendly (news.cnet.com, May 4, 2012). Documents released by
the American Civil Liberties Union on September 27, 2012, reveal that
federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring American's
electronic communications. Between 2009 and 2011, the Justice
Department' s combined number of original orders for "pen registers" and
"trap and trace devices" used to spy on phones increased by 60 percent,
from 23,535 in 2009 to 37,616 in 2011. The number of authorizations the
Justice Department received to use these devices on individuals' email
and network data increased 361 percent between 2009 and 2011. The
National Security Agency collects purely domestic communications of
Americans in a "significant and systematic" way, intercepting and
storing 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other types of
communications every day. A Wired investigation published in March 2012
revealed the NSA is currently constructing a huge data center in Utah,
meant to store and analyze "vast swaths of the world' s communications"
from foreign and domestic networks (The Guardian, July 10, 2012). As the
American Civil Liberties Union explained in its December 2011 report,
the U.S. could potentially use military drones to spy on its citizens
(Fars News Agency, June 26, 2012).
On September 17, 2012, or the first anniversary of Occupy Wall
Street's initial demonstration, confrontations between protesters and
police around the Wall Street resulted in the arrests of more than 100
people (The New York Times, September 17, 2012). The U.S. journalist
community is worried about the continued toughening up of legislation on
mass media. It is frequent that journalists in the U.S. lose their jobs
because of "politically incorrect" opinions (www.mid.ru, October 22,
2012).
Complaints and allegations of American police violating rights of
suspects and jail inmates are going up. A litany of lawsuits was brought
against the New York City Police Department, with police officers
charged with violating civil rights in law enforcement. According to a
report carried by the Chicago Tribune on March 6, 2012, jail inmate
Eugene Gruber, 51, was paralyzed a day after he walked into a jail where
he was believed to have been maltreated. He died of injury four months
after the jail incident. Another report by the Chicago Tribune on March
21, 2012 showed that suspect Darrin Hanna suffered trauma from physical
restraint and Taser shocks during a struggle with North Chicago police
and died a week later. The CNN reported on May 17, 2012 that some 9.6
percent of the prisoners in state prisons are sexually victimized during
confinement, more than double the rate cited in a report on the subject
in 2008. In Texas state prisons, many inmates are housed in
triple-digit temperatures in Fahrenheit. Four inmates -- Larry Gene
McCollum, 58; Alexander Togonidze, 44; Michael David Martone, 57; and
Kenneth Wayne James, 52 -- died in summer of 2011 from heat stroke, and
at least five others were believed to have died from heat-related causes
(www.texascivilrightsproject.org, July 7, 2012).
American citizens have never really enjoyed common and equal
suffrage. Despite an increase of over eight million citizens in the
eligible population in the U.S. presidential election of 2012, voter
turnout registered a drop of five million from four years before, with
only 57.5 percent of eligible citizens voting (bipartisanpolicy.org,
November 8, 2012). A February 2012 report by the Pew Center said
America's voter registration system is plagued with errors and
inefficiencies that undermine voter confidence and fuel partisan
disputes over the integrity of the country's elections
(www.pewstates.org).
The U.S. election is like money wars, with trends of the country's
policies deeply influenced by political donations. The 2012 election had
an estimated cost totalling six billion U.S. dollars. The Obama
campaign and the Democratic camp raised 1.06 billion dollars, and the
Romney campaign and the Republican camp raised a total of 954 million
dollars (www.standard.co.uk, November 6, 2012). Both groups have funding
support from business giants. An opinion poll showed that nearly 90
percent of Americans believe the 2012 election is marked by too many
political donations from business circles, which will mean the increased
influence of the rich over the country's policy-making (The
International Herald Leader [Chinese newspaper], November 16, 2012). A
Harvard professor said America' s political system is sinking into
serious crisis as it is under manipulation of interest groups and their
sponsors. Election donations give a loose rein to all other defects.
American politics are corroding the people, making them increasingly
dependent on interest groups (Internationale Politik, November &
December issue, 2012).
Citing a world-known analyst, the Christian Science Monitor website
in a report on November 5, 2012 said America's trouble-prone voting
machines, the risk of tampering in those machines, the lack of
transparency in vote tabulation, and then the Electoral College system,
combine to give the country an election system that leaves much to be
desired.
III. On Economic and Social Rights
To date, the U.S. government has not approved the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was already
ratified by 160 countries. Many American citizens could not enjoy the
internationally-recognized economic and social rights.
Unemployment in the U.S. has long been high. A huge number of
Americans newly joined the unemployed population in recent years.
Figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor on May 4, 2012 showed
that in April 2012 the unemployment rate was 8.1 percent, with 12.5
million people unemployed. Citing a report, the Huffington Post website
in a story dated December 3, 2012 said nearly 6.5 million U.S. teens and
young adults are neither in school nor working, and the employment rate
for teens between the ages of 16 and 19 has fallen 42 percent over the
last decade. The Los Angeles Times in a report published on April 27,
2012 said the unemployment rate for veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq is
10.3 percent, and for veterans aged 24 and under, the rate is 29.1
percent. It is also hard for college graduates to find jobs. The
Associated Press reported on April 22, 2012 that 53.6 percent of
bachelor' s degree-holders under the age of 25 in America were jobless
or underemployed in 2011. Of the nearly 20 million people employed by
the American food industry, just 40 percent are earning enough to put
them over the local poverty line (www.huffingtonpost.com, June 6, 2012).
Poverty in the U.S. has increasingly worsened since the economic
crisis in 2008. America' s poverty rate in 2011 was 15 percent, with
46.2 million people in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data
released on September 12, 2012. Almost 18 million American homes
struggled to find enough to eat in 2011, including 6.8 million
households that worried about having enough money to buy food several
months out of the year (www.ers.usda.gov, September 5, 2012). A report
carried by the Huffington Post on October 30, 2012 indicated that the
U.S. has a staggering 22 percent of its children living in poverty. The
U.S. is one of those that have the highest child poverty rates of all
developed nations.
The gap between the rich and poor is growing in the U.S. over the
years. The U.S. has the fourth worst income inequality compared to other
developed countries, according to the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development. America's Gini index was 0.477 in 2011 and
income inequality increased by 1.6 percent between 2010 and 2011,
indicating a widened rich-poor gap. Between 2010 and 2011, the share of
aggregate income increased 1.6 percent for the quintile with the highest
household income, and increased 4.9 percent for the top five percent
households. The aggregate share of income declined for the middle
quintile. The changes in the shares of aggregate income for the lowest
two quintiles were not statistically significant (www.census.gov,
September 12, 2012).
A huge number of people are homeless in the U.S. According to a
report released by National Alliance to End Homelessness on January 17,
2012, the nation had 636,017 homeless people in 2011, including 107,148
chronically homeless people. There were 21 homeless people per 10,000
people in the general population. Nearly four in 10 homeless people were
unsheltered. The unsheltered population was 243,701 in 2011, up 2
percent from 2009. In April 2012, the New York City homeless shelter
population was 10 percent higher than the previous year
(www.coalitionforthehomeless.org, June 8, 2012). Homeless people suffer
discrimination and assaults. Citing a survey of 234 cities, a USA Today
report dated February 15, 2012 said 24 percent of the U.S. cities
prohibit begging, 22 percent prohibit loitering, 16 percent labels
sleeping in public places as illegal. From 1999 through 2010, the
homeless faced 1,184 acts of reported violence resulting in 312 deaths.
The U.S. is among the few developed countries without health
insurance covering its whole population. A considerable number of
Americans have no access to necessary healthcare services when in
illness because of having no health insurance. The number of people
without health insurance coverage was 48.6 million in 2011, accounting
for 15.7 percent of the population (www.census.gov, September 12, 2012).
A Huffington Post report on November 13, 2012 said about 115,000 women
in the U.S. lose their private health insurance each year in the wake of
divorce, largely because they have trouble paying premiums for private
insurance. A study, released on June 20, 2012, by the consumer advocacy
group Families USA, estimates that a total of 26,100 people aged 25 to
64 died for lack of health coverage in 2010, up 31 percent from 18,000
in 2000 (www.reuters.com, June 20, 2012).
IV. On Racial Discrimination
The long-existing racial discrimination prevalent in the U.S. society
sees no improvements, and ethnic minorities do not enjoy equal
political, economic and social rights.
Ethnic Americans' rights to vote are limited. During the presidential
election in November 2012, some Asian-American voters were obstructed
at voting stations and received with discriminations (The China Press,
November 8, 2012). The United Nations Human Rights Council Special
Rapporteur used to lodge a joint accusation against the U.S. of failing
to fully guarantee the rights to vote of African-Americans and
Hispanics. The January/February 2013 edition of the Boston Review
reported that as of 2010, more than 5.85 million American citizens were
disenfranchised because of criminal convictions, and more than two
million African-Americans currently are stripped of their right to vote.
The U.S. attorney general also acknowledged, as the rights to vote of
some ethnic Americans were restricted by laws requiring proof of
identity, some people are as a matter of fact stripped of such rights
(The Guardian, May. 30, 2012).
Ethnic Americans are discriminated against in the job market, and
their economic well-being worsens as a result. According to statistics
from the U.S. Department of Labor, the unemployment rate of whites was
registered 7.0 percent in Oct. 2012, 14.3 percent for African-Americans
and 10.0 percent for Hispanics. The average period of unemployment for
ethnic minorities is notably longer than that for whites. Asians are
unemployed on average for 27.7 weeks, African-Americans for 27 weeks
(Desert News, December 4, 2012). According to data from the federal
Labor Department, over half of all African-Americans and non-Hispanic
blacks in New York city, who were old enough to work, had no jobs in
2012, and it takes them almost a full year on average to find another
job (Madame Noire, June 21, 2012). Employment discrimination is the main
reason behind income disparity and poverty. According to statistics
released by the U.S. Census Bureau on September 12, 2012, the median
household income for African-Americans was 32,229 U.S. dollars in 2011,
less than 60 percent of that of non-Hispanic whites; and the poverty
rate for African-Americans stood at 27.6 percent, almost three times of
that of non-Hispanic whites.
Racial discrimination is rampant in the field of law enforcement and
justice. The Reuters website reported on July 3, 2012, police tend to be
more lenient to whites. Out of more than 685,000 police stops in New
York City in 2011, more than 85 percent of the stopped were black or
Hispanic. Ethnic Americans are often offended by law enforcement
authorities. A 21-year-old black man in Arkansas was searched and put
into a police car, and later was found shot in the head while handcuffed
(www. telegraph.co.uk, August 8, 2012). The incidence where a
28-year-old black man, Mohamed Bah, was shot dead by New York police
outraged the black community (NYDailyNews.com, September 26, 2012). An
article on the website of Texas Civil Rights Project on July 24, 2012
said the Austin police' excessive use of force had led to two fatal
police shootings of minority suspects since 2011. The president of the
Texas Civil Rights Project said that the shooting death of a dog even
received more thorough and careful investigation than the death of a
black victim. The New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote an
article on January 14, 2013, saying "the idea that progress toward
racial harmony would or should be steady and continuous is fraying. And
the pillars of the institution -- the fundamental devaluation of dark
skin and strained justifications for the unconscionable -- have proved
surprisingly resilient."
Religious discrimination is rapidly on the rise, with an increase in
insults and attacks against Muslims. Muslims account for less than one
percent of the U.S. population, but are involved in 14 percent of
religious discrimination cases under investigation of the federal
government, and 25 percent of employment-related discrimination cases
(www. sinovision.net, March 29, 2011). In September, 2012, a U.S. film
director made a film that is insulting to the Prophet Muhammad and
posted it online, which triggered waves of protests in the Muslim world.
In Houston, a dead pig was left in front of a mosque (abclocal.go.com,
December 5, 2012). The U.S. Navy special operations force was reported
to use images of gun-holding Muslim women as training targets
(www.nydailynews.com, July 3, 2012). The 57-year-old Muslim, Bashir
Ahmad, was stabbed and bitten outside a Mosque by a suspect who shouted
anti-Muslim expletive during the attack (Wall Street Journal, November
19, 2012). Since the September 11 attacks, the U.S. Justice Department
has investigated more than 800 incidents of violence, vandalism and
arson against people believed to be Muslim, Arab or South Asian (www.
reuters.com, March 29, 2011).
Apartheid in fact still exists in the American society. New York
Times reported on August 6, 2012 that, the proportion of non-Hispanic
black residents on the Upper East Side is only 2.7 percent, and whites
81 percent. Local co-op boards can reject black buyers without giving a
reason, and some Upper East Side co-ops have a reputation for rejecting
black buyers. A study found that the New York area was the second most
segregated for black people and the third most segregated for Hispanic
and Asian residents. A superintendent of NASA Real Estate Corporation
was sued for refusing to show three African-Americans any openings,
claiming no apartments were available for rent, but showing vacancies to
white individuals who inquired about the same apartments less than an
hour after turning down black renters, saying, "You look like nice
people. That's why I show you." (queenscourier.com, December 12, 2012)
Furthermore, studies found a rising tide of apartheid in the U.S.
workplace. Nineteen out of the 58 surveyed industries showed a trend
toward racial re-segregation between white men and black men
(www.washingtonpost.com, October 25, 2012).
Racial relationship is in tension, and hate crimes take place
frequently. The Associated Press reported on October 28, 2012, citing a
latest poll, that 51 percent of Americans now express explicit
anti-African-American attitudes, three percentage points higher than in
2008. The abc.go.com reported on November 19, 2012, three shop owners of
Middle Eastern descent were shot dead in four months in Brooklyn, New
York, and the police cannot rule out the possibility of the homicides
being racially motivated. Two young white men from Mississippi killed a
black man by running a truck over him. The two, since 2011, have
frequently assaulted and attacked African-Americans in and around
Jackson, Mississippi, using beer bottles, sling shots and motor
vehicles, and they often bragged about their exploits (Reuters, December
5, 2012). A white gunman named Wade Michael Page killed six Sikh
worshippers at their temple, and his motivation was linked to neo-Nazi
propaganda, and he was suspected to be a white supremacist (edition.
cnn.com, August 10, 2012).
Native Americans' rights are not properly guaranteed. In 2012, the
United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on racism, Mutuma
Ruteere, pointed out Navajos, a branch of Native Americans, faced
racial discrimination, including the lack of access to justice and legal
remedies (United Nations document number A/67/328). United Nations
Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous
people, James Anaya, said the ability of Native Americans to use and
access their sacred places is often curtailed by mining, logging,
hydroelectric and other development projects. He cited research figures
of relevant institutions, saying Native Americans' poverty rates nearly
double the national average, and their life expectancy is 5.2 years less
than the national average. Thirteen percent of Native Americans hold a
basic university degree, much lower than the national average, 28
percent. Indigenous women are more than twice as likely as all other
women to be victims of violence and one in three of them will be raped
during her lifetime (United Naitons document number A/HRC/21/47/Add.1).
The rights of illegal immigrants are violated. Deaths often occur in
immigration detention centers. United Nations Human Rights Council
Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns said in his report that deaths
occurred in prison-like conditions where detention was neither necessary
nor appropriate, and where no proper medical care was provided (United
Nations document number A/HRC/20/22/Add.3). U.N human rights experts and
South Florida Haitian rights advocates call for the U.S. to suspend all
deportations to Haiti, saying the deportations may constitute a human
rights violation, and may place the Haitians in a life-threatening
position (The Miami Herald, June 6, 2012).
V. On the rights of women and children
The U.S. remains one of a few countries in the world that have not
ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women or the Convention on the Rights of the
Child. It faces prominent problems in protecting the rights of women and
children.
Women face discrimination in employment and payment. Women made up
about two-thirds of all workers in the U.S. who were paid minimum wage
or less in 2011 and 61 percent of full-time minimum wage workers,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.womensenews.org,
December 11, 2012). On average, women have to work as far as April 17
into 2012 to catch up with that men earned in 2011, meaning women earned
77 cents to the male dollar. African American women earn 62 cents to
the male dollar, Latinas 54 cents. In some states, women of color earn
less than half as their male counterparts. Women in Wyoming, the lowest
ranking state, earn just 64 cents on the male dollar
(www.womensenews.org, April 30, 2012). Voters in Oklahoma approved an
amendment to the state's constitution to end affirmative action programs
in state government that had been designed to increase the hiring of
minorities and women in the state's 115 agencies
(www.articles.chicagotribune.com, November 7, 2012). The problems that
pregnant women and new mothers face on the job are very real. Employers
routinely ignore mandate in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and are
forcing pregnant women out of the workplace (www.edition.cnn.com,
November 26, 2012). A Houston mother says she was fired from her job at a
collection agency after asking to bring a breast pump into the office
so she'd have plenty of fresh breast milk for her newborn. A new
Connecticut mom says her new employer asked her to resign after she told
them she was pregnant (www.latimes.com, February 8, 2012).
The poverty rate among women is higher than males. The National
Women's Law Center (NWLC) announced that the poverty rate for women in
2011 was 14.6 percent, compared to men's 10.9 percent. Women are more
likely to live in poverty and about 40 percent of women who head
families live in poverty, according to the NWLC. Another report on the
plight of female retirees also notes that the poverty rate among retired
women is 50 percent higher than their male counterparts
(womensenews.org, September 17, 2012).
Women are the victims of violence and sexual assaults. An average of
three women in the U.S. lose their lives every day as a result of
domestic violence (www.dccadv.org, October 1, 2012). A national census
of domestic violence agencies in September 2011 found that more than
67,000 victims were served in a single day (www.womensenews.org, July
17, 2012). In 2010, the arrest rate for rape was 24 percent in the U.S.
(www.thedailybeast.com, April 9, 2012). According to the Report on
Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences, submitted by the
Special Rapporteur to the General Assembly in 2012, most prison staff in
the U.S. is not adequately trained to prevent or respond to inmate
sexual assaults, and prison rape often goes unreported and untreated
(United Nations document number A/67/227).
Women in the U.S. forces are the victims of widespread sexual abuse,
leading to media allegation that the US military has a culture of rape
(www.aljazeera.com, August 4, 2012). Around 79 percent of women serving
in the military reported experiences of sexual harassment. Military
sexual trauma often leads to debilitating conditions such as Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and major depression
(www.servicewomen.org). That Air Force drill instructor Luis Walker was
accused of raping and sexually assaulting 10 female trainees is the
biggest sex scandal to hit the U.S. military since the 1990s
(www.reuters.com, July 21, 2012). In 2011, nearly 3,200 rapes and sexual
assaults were officially reported, but the Pentagon admits that
represents just 15 percent of all incidents. A military survey revealed
that one in five women in the US forces has been sexually assaulted, but
most do not report it. Nearly half said that they "did not want to
cause trouble in their unit" (www.aljazeera.com, August 4, 2012).
The health of female minority groups is worrying. A media report in
June 2012 said rate of HIV infection in heterosexual African American
women in the poorest neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. nearly doubled
the 6.3 percent infection rate two years before. Officials said 90
percent of all women with HIV in the city are black
(www.washingtonpost.com, June 21, 2012). Sixty-six percent of the women
newly infected with HIV each year are black, even though
African-American women represent only 14 percent of the U.S. female
population. The national age-adjusted death rate for black women in the
U.S. is nearly 15 times higher than that observed for HIV-infected white
women (www.newswise.com, March 7, 2012). Minority women in the U.S. are
more likely to die during or soon after childbirth than white women,
according to a report posted on the website of the Chicago Tribune on
August 3, 2012. For every 100,000 babies born to white women, between
seven and nine moms die from complications related to pregnancy. In
comparison, 32 to 35 black women die for every 100,000 live babies.
Deaths among Hispanic and Asian women - born in the U.S. and abroad -
are closer to rates for white women at around 10 per 100,000.
Children in the U.S. are not blessed with enough protection for their
personal safety and freedom. According to a report posted on the
website of the Daily Telegraph on December 16, 2012, the slaughter of
children by gunfire in the U.S. is 25 times the rate of the 20 next
largest industrial countries in the world combined. The National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children says at least 100,000 children across
the country are trafficked each year (www.usatoday.com, September 27,
2012).
Child sexual abuse is a widespread public health problem. Research
indicates that 20 percent of adult females and 5 to 15 percent adult
males experienced sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence, according to
a report posted on the website of www.preventchildabuse.org on November
5, 2012. In 2010, 63,527 children in the U.S. were victims of child
sexual abuse. According to a report by the CNN on October 18, 2012,
1,247 "ineligible volunteer files" of the Boy Scout released that year
identified more than 1,000 leaders and volunteers banned from Boy Scout
after being accused of sexual or inappropriate conduct with boys from
1965 to 1985. Priests and leaders of the Boy Scouts had shielded
abusers, according to the report. Former Pennsylvania State assistant
football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of abusing 10 children over
15 years (www.usatoday.com, October 10, 2012). In 2012, several
religious figures were found to have sexually assaulted children. In
July 2012, Roman Catholic monsignor William Lynn was sentenced to six
years in prison for allowing a priest suspected of sexual misconduct
with a minor to have continued contact with children (the Wall Street
Journal, July 24, 2012). In September, a Roman Catholic bishop in Kansas
City was found guilty of failing to tell authorities about child
pornography that was produced by a priest under his supervision (the
Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2012).
The number of homeless children increases sharply in the U.S. and
many children are stricken by poverty. For the first time in history,
public schools reported more than one million homeless children and
youth, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education on
June 27, 2012. This total does not include homeless children and youth
who were not enrolled in public preschool programs and those identified
by school officials. Forty-four states reported school year-to-year
increases in the number of homeless students, with 15 states reporting
increases of 20 percent or more. The number of homeless children
enrolled in public schools has increased 57 percent since the 2006-2007
school year. In Michigan, the number of homeless children enrolled in
public schools had increased 315 percent between 2008 and 2011
(www.nlchp.org, June 27, 2012). The number of children in New York
city's shelters hit 19,000 by September 2012. Francheska Luciano, 14,
said living in shelter was "like living in hell." (www.nydailynews.com,
September 9, 2012) The U.S. Department of Education said in a report
that only 52 percent of identified homeless students who took
standardized tests were proficient in reading, and only 51 percent
passed the math portion. Homeless students were also found to be more
likely to drop out of school and less likely to graduate from high
school than their classmates (www.neatoday.org, Nov. 28, 2012).
According to "America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of
Well-Being, 2012," 22 percent of the children aged 0 to 17, or 16.4
million kids, live in poverty in 2010 (www.csmonitor.com, July 17,
2012). Fourteen states saw increases in child poverty between 2010 and
2011 (usatoday.com, September 23, 2012). Nevada saw a 38 percent
increase in child poverty over the past decade (www.csmonitor.com,
August 17, 2011).
VI. On U.S. Violations of Human Rights against Other Nations
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has waged wars on other
countries most frequently. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both
started by the U.S., have caused massive civilian casualties. From 2001
to 2011, the U.S.-led "war on terror" killed between 14,000 and 110,000
per year, said an article posted on the website of Stop the War
Coalition on June 14, 2012 (stopwar.org.uk, June 14, 2012). The UN
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) tallied at least 10,292
non-combatants killed from 2007 to July 2011. The Iraq Body Count
project records approximately 115,000 civilians killed in the cross-fire
from 2003 to August 2011. According to the article, beyond the two
states under occupation, the "War on Terror" has spilled into a number
of neighboring countries including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, killing a
great many civilians there. From 2004 to the time the article was
written, a minimum of 484 civilians, including 168 children, were killed
in strikes that occurred in Pakistan. It was also reported by the media
that strikes resulted in 56 civilian deaths in Yemen, the article
added. A news report, posted on BBC's website on September 25, 2012,
pointed at recurrent U.S. drone attacks in the border regions of
Afghanistan and Pakistan (www.bbc.co.uk, September 25, 2012). "Just one
in 50 victims of America's deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are
terrorists - while the rest are innocent civilians," said an article
posted on September 25, 2012, on the website of the Daily Mail
(www.dailymail.co.uk, September 25, 2012).
U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan also kill civilians for no reason. U.S.
soldier Robert Bales was reported to walk out of a military base in the
southern province of Kandahar at 3 o'clock on the night of March 11,
2012 and killed 17 civilians, including nine children. Bales split the
slaughter into two episodes, returning to his base after the first
attack and later slipping away to kill again. He first came to one
family in a nearby village and shot a man dead, which scared others in
the family to hide in neighborhood. Then he went to a second family and
shot dead three people and injured six. Afterwards, he returned to his
base and left for another village after chatting with one soldier at the
base. In the village, he broke into a family and shot dead more than 10
people who were sound asleep. After the massacre, he collected some of
the bodies and burned them.( The Agence France-Presse, March 23, 2012;
The Associated Press, March 24, 2012; The Huffington Post, November, 11,
2012)
U.S.-led military operations have also brought forth ecological
disasters. An article posted on the website of The Independent on
October 14, 2012 cited a study that reported a "staggering rise" in
birth defects among Iraqi children conceived in the aftermath of the war
(www.independent.co.uk, October 14, 2012). Steve Kretzmann, director of
Oil Change International, said that the Iraq war was responsible for at
least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e)
from March 2003 through December 2007, according to a piece posted on
December 21, 2009 on coto2.wordpress.com (coto2.wordpress.com, December
21, 2009). "The war emits more than 60 percent of all countries," said
Kretzmann. A study, cited by an article posted on the website of The
Independent on October 14, 2012, linked a huge rise that Iraq had
recorded since the war in birth defects with military actions in which
American forces used metal contaminant-releasing white phosphorus
shells. It found that in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which saw two of
the heaviest battles during the Iraq war, more than half of all babies
surveyed were born with a birth defect between 2007 and 2010. Before the
war, the figure was more like one in 10. More than 45 percent of all
pregnancies surveyed ended in miscarriage in the two years after 2004,
up from the previous 10 percent (www.independent.co.uk, October 14,
2012).
U.S. soldiers have also severely insulted Afghan people's dignity and
blasphemed against their religion. The AFP reported on September 24,
2012 that during a counter-insurgency operation in July 2011, four U.S.
Marines urinated on three bloodied bodies of dead Taliban fighters, and
one said, "Have a great day, buddy," to one of the dead. A videotape
depicting their actions was recorded and later circulated on the
Internet (The Agence France-Presse, September 24, 2012). In February
2012, U.S. troops at Bagram air base provoked public indignation by
taking a batch of religious materials, including 500 copies of the
Koran, to the incinerator, said a news story posted on the website of
the Washington Post on August 27, 2012 (www.washingtonpost.com, August
27, 2012).
The U.S. army has for long detained foreigners illegally at the
Guantanamo prison. By January 2012, 171 people were still held there,
said an article posted on the website of Watching America on January 17,
2012. They were denied the rights accorded to prisoners of war under
the Geneva Conventions, and savagely tortured (www.watchingamerica,
January 17, 2012). American authorities have revealed that, in order to
obtain confessions, some of the few being tried (only in military
courts) have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or
intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to
sexually assault their mothers, said an article posted on the website of
the New York Times on June 24, 2012 (www.nytimes.com, June 24, 2012).
Media reported that in September 2012, a 32-year-old Yemeni named Adnan
Farhan Abdul Latif died at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the ninth
to have died there while in custody. He had been held at the detention
camp since it was established in January 2002, without being charged
with any crime (abcnews.go.com). On January 23, 2012, the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay spoke out against the
failure by the U.S. to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and
to ensure accountability for serious violations - including torture -
that took place there (www.un.org, January 23, 2012). A noted American
wrote in an article that the American government's counterterrorism
policies "are now clearly violating at least 10 of the declaration's 30
articles, including the prohibition against 'cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment'" (www.nytimes.com, June 24, 2012).
The U.S. refuses to acknowledge "the right to development," which is a
common concern among the majority of countries. In September 2012, the
21st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted a
resolution on "the right to development." Except an abstention vote from
the U.S., all the HRC members voted for the resolution. The 67th
session of the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted the 21st
consecutive resolution, by a recorded vote of 188 in favor to three
against with two abstentions, calling for an end to the U.S.' 50-plus
years of economic blockade against Cuba. One of the three dissenting
votes was from the U.S. (United Nations document number GA/11311)
|
|