Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

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Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are annual publications on the human rights conditions in countries and regions outside the United States, mandated by U.S. law to be submitted annually by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the United States Department of State to the United States Congress. [1] [2] The reports cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first report covered the year 1976, issued in 1977. [3]

Contents

The People's Republic of China has responded to frequent criticism in this report by releasing a similar annual report titled the "Human Rights Record of the United States."

The second Trump administration removed several sections from the publication, including sections discussing systemic racial and ethnic discrimination, child abuse, child sexual exploitation, [4] discrimination against women, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and indigenous people, [5] free and fair election restrictions, government corruption, harassment of human rights organizations, non-refoulement, [6] environmental issues, [7] privacy violations, sexual violence against children, infanticide, gender-based violence, forced organ harvesting, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly and association, right to a fair trial, prison conditions, female genital mutilation from the 2025 report. [8]

See also

References

  1. "Human Rights Reports". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
  2. "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved January 17, 2023.
  3. Xypolia, Ilia (2022). Human Rights, Imperialism, and Corruption in US Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-99815-8. ISBN   978-3-030-99815-8. S2CID   248384134.
  4. Turse, Nick (2025-08-14). "The Incredible Disappearing Human Rights Reports". The Intercept. Retrieved 2025-08-15.
  5. Toosi, Nahal (March 19, 2025). "Trump drastically cutting back annual human rights report". Politico. Retrieved March 20, 2025.
  6. Turse, Nick (2025-08-08). "Trump Orders State Department to Overlook International Human Rights Abuses". The Intercept. Retrieved 2025-08-11.
  7. Aldhous, Peter; Surma, Katie (2025-08-14). "US Guts Criticism of Indigenous Rights Abuses, Mentions of Climate Change From Annual Human Rights Reports". Inside Climate News. Retrieved 2025-08-15.
  8. Smith, Graham (2025-08-12). "State Department slashes its annual reports on human rights". NPR. Retrieved 2025-08-15.