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Communities Need Clinics: The Abortion Care Ecosystem Depends on Independent Clinics

December 5, 2023

This annual overview of the abortion access landscape in the United States details the little-known yet critical role that independent community clinics play in keeping abortion care accessible. 

How to Use EU Law to Protect Civic Space : Second Edition

December 4, 2023

Civil society organisations and human rights defenders are crucial for the democratic functioning of our societies and for ensuring that people can access their rights. Yet, as data and analysis by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency has shown repeatedly, they can face numerous obstacles when carrying out their work and may even become the targets of threats and attacks. EU law can support civil society to play its role in assisting rights holders, holding authorities to account, and protecting the civic space in the EU. However, relevant EU law and existing tools are not sufficiently known and therefore remain under-used. This second edition of the Handbook on How to Use EU Law to Protect Civic Space closes an important gap, by showcasing how EU law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights can be used in practice to protect civic space and, importantly, by highlighting information on the EU's rule of law mechanism.

Realizing the Full Decriminalization of Abortion: A Comprehensive Approach Through Public Health and International Human Rights Law

October 4, 2023

Over the past few decades, there has been mounting consensus within the international human rights and public health communities that restrictive abortion laws violate a range of fundamental human rights and are detrimental to individuals' health and well-being. Indeed, human rights bodies have taken steadily more progressive stances on abortion, and global public health entities also increasingly recognize that abortion is a public health need. Centering sexual and reproductive health and rights, and abortion specifically, in discussions of strengthening health systems presents opportunities to expand support for abortion rights. This article integrates evidence from three perspectives—demographic, health and legal—to present arguments for the liberalization of abortion laws that are more compelling than each perspective alone. Drawing on human rights law and updated evidence on abortion, the article demonstrates that the criminalization of abortion creates significant barriers to accessing legal abortion services by generating stigma, failing to guarantee patients' confidentiality, and disproportionally impacting marginalized and rural communities. To guarantee access to abortion services free from stigma, and in accordance with human rights, states must remove all abortion provisions from the penal code and incorporate abortion regulations within health codes, as done for other medical procedures. Both full decriminalization of abortion and health system policy reforms, with a particular emphasis on reaching vulnerable groups, are essential for all people to fully realize their right to make autonomous reproductive health decisions and to have access to the information and services necessary to achieve this right free from discrimination, coercion, and violence.

The Trust Gap: The Troubling Lack of Direct, Flexible Funding for Human Rights in the Global South and East

October 3, 2023

For more than a decade, Human Rights Funders Network (HRFN) and our partners have mapped the landscape of global funding for human rights. Year after year, we have documented marked regional differences in the funding that human rights activists and institutions can access. In this report, we dive deeper into the data to explore what we call the "trust gap"–significant disparities in funding directed to groups in the Global South and East as compared to groups in the Global North.In this report, we ask questions that echo concerns raised by funders and movements alike: Do these differences signify a gap in trust underlying global funding for human rights? While a trust gap in philanthropy can manifest in a variety of ways, here we focus on what we can measure through the grant data we collect. This includes which organizations receive grants to lead change in their own contexts and how much flexibility they have in determining how to use the funding.

The Rise of Pregnancy Criminalization: A Pregnancy Justice Report

September 19, 2023

In 2013, Pregnancy Justice published the first comprehensive national documentation effort capturing pregnancy-related arrests and deprivations of liberty. The 2013 study identified 413 reported cases from 1973 through 2005, arising out of 44 states and the District of Columbia, and involving a range of pregnancy outcomes including abortions, live births, miscarriages, and stillbirths. Overwhelmingly, the cases occurred despite a lack of legal authority, in defiance of numerous and significant appellate court decisions dismissing or overturning such actions, and contrary to the extraordinary consensus across the medical community that prosecution undermines rather than improves maternal, fetal, and child health. In 86% of these cases, pregnant people faced prosecution through the use of existing criminal statutes intended for other purposes.This report begins where the first study left off, documenting cases of pregnancy criminalization from January 2006 until the Dobbs ruling in June 2022. What we found was deeply concerning. Over these 16.5 years, we identified 1,396 cases. In other words, of the 1,800 pregnancy criminalization cases that took place over the last half century, over three-quarters occurred after 2005. Through an alarming combination of carceral approaches to substance use and the spread of fetal personhood laws, state actors have increasingly penalized pregnant people. Understanding this disturbing phenomenon—including who is most affected, how, and under what pretense—will be essential to fighting for pregnant people's liberties as we enter the post-Dobbs era.

Poverty, Income, & Health Insurance Update: Illinois and Chicago Region (2022)

September 15, 2023

Poverty among children more than doubled from 2021 to 2022 (from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 2022), according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)1 released by the U.S. Census Bureau. This the largest year-over-year poverty rate increase on record among individuals aged 17 years and younger. Children were hardest hit due, in large part, to the lapse of the Child Tax Credit; however, across all ages gains made from COVID-related assistance in 2021 were lost in 2022. In Illinois, there are over 4 million Illinoisans experiencing poverty, with over 760,000 Illinoisans living in extreme poverty. In 2022 census results, poverty rates for children and communities of color - similar to national trends - remain dramatically higerh than the overall rate. 

The Global State of LGBTIQ Organizing: The Right to Register and the Freedom to Operate 2023

September 14, 2023

Outright finds that as of 2023, out of 196 countries, including all 193 UN member states, Taiwan, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Kosovo, LGBTIQ organizations can register and operate openly only in 93 countries. In 75 countries, LGBTIQ organizations exist but cannot register and operate openly, and in 26 countries, Outright could not identify any known LGBTIQ civil society organizations, formal or informal. In at least two countries, nascent groups exist but it remains unclear whether registration as openly LGBTIQ organizations is possible.Our 2023 report examines changes that have occurred in the last five years since Outright's first report on LGBTIQ organizing, including legal and political dynamics that negatively or positively impact LGBTIQ organizations' ability to institutionalize, form sustainable local and national movements, and promote the human rights of LGBTIQ people everywhere. In addition to results from a global survey, this report presents regional analysis and nine country case studies from Algeria, Angola, China, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan and Yemen. It urges governments to repeal laws criminalizing same-sex acts between consenting adults and gender diversity, as well as laws mandating the registration of organizations as "foreign agents" which require disclosure of their sources of funds

Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Efforts: Key Learning and Insights from Communities and Partners — 2023

September 1, 2023

Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation ™ (TRHT) is a comprehensive, multi-year national and community-based process to bring about transformational and sustainable change. Through TRHT, the Foundation (WKKF) partners with and supports local efforts to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism in communities and institutions. They work to replace the deeply held belief system that fuels racism with one that sees the inherent value of all people. TRHT communities engage in narrative change, racial healing and relationship building as part of an approach that undergirds efforts to transform society through the dismantling of institutional racism by specifically addressing separation, law, and the economy. WKKF engaged over 170 national partners in 2015 and 2016 and, with them, developed and piloted the TRHT framework and process. The following year WKKF provided grants to plan and implement TRHT to fourteen communities across the country. Each community determined its priorities and course of action in implementing the TRHT framework. This resource shares key insights and learnings from the experiences and ongoing work of those communities.

Under the Microscope: Election Disinformation in 2022 and What We Learned for 2024

August 24, 2023

Election disinformation looms large with the 2023 elections underway and the high-profile 2024 races already unfolding. As we enter these new disinformation threat environments, we take a look back at what we learned about election disinformation and its continuing evolution from previous election cycles through to today.In our 2021 report on election disinformation, As a Matter of Fact, we illustrated how election disinformation causes digital and social harms and included recommendations for lawmakers and platforms in the lead-up to the 2022 elections.The 2022 elections presented a wide array of new challenges—and a new starting point for election disinformation. Now, a significant portion of the electorate and the people running to represent them believe—and find it convenient to say—that our elections are illegitimate. We're reporting back on the challenges voters faced, our efforts to disrupt disinformation in 2022, and what challenges lie ahead for the 2024 elections.First, this report details our key findings from the 2022 election cycle and provides definitions for key terms. The report is then broken into sections detailing the lead-up and state of play heading into 2024, findings from our nonpartisan Election Protection coalition's successes and lessons learned, and what lies ahead, as well as recommendations for legislative proposals to protect voters.

How to Make Early Voting More Accessible in New York

August 10, 2023

This report examines early voting poll site accessibility in New York State during the 2022 election cycle, three years after the state enacted its early voting program. Data from in-person poll site accessibility surveys conducted by Disability Rights New York (DRNY) — the state's P&A system and coauthor of this report — and an online survey of early voters' experiences reveals that at least one early voting location in every surveyed county violated state and federal accessibility standards. Of the 179 early voting poll sites across the 57 surveyed counties — every county outside New York City — 169 (94 percent) were not fully accessible to voters with disabilities.

Vision & Impact Report: FY 2022-2023

August 1, 2023

Youth Rise Texas works to end the systems that criminalize people of color and those who are undocumented. We do this by engaging in transformative organizing and addressing youth as whole people through our six programs. We have developed an organizing methodology, strategy and infrastructure to create a youth-centered agenda that prepares us for the next 10 years of transformative change in Texas.

Sembrando Alianzas

July 25, 2023

Sembrando Alianzas digital is a collaborative and self-managed space to share learning, connect actors and encourage collaboration between organizations and institutions that work in the Mexican southeast alongside indigenous communities to improve the living conditions of their families.Sembrando Alianzas digital es un espacio colaborativo y autogestionado para compartir aprendizajes, conectar actores e incentivar la colaboración entre las organizaciones e instituciones que trabajan en el sureste mexicano de la mano de comunidades indígenas para mejorar las condiciones de vida de sus familias.