Migrants, ESCR & Other Rights

#RegularizationNow
  

Labyrinths of Documents: Inequality and Migratory Regularization in South America

CELS and CAREF produced an extensive study on migrant rights in South America during the pandemic. In this investigation, we explored what happens when increasingly conservative State policies are met with the mass emigration of Venezuelans of the past few years and how immigration is becoming a matter of exceptional procedures rather than standardized rights in some parts of the region. We also found a common phenomenon that runs through all of the countries studied: economically marginalized migrants are further relegated into poverty and subjected to human rights violations by the lack of a regularized migration status. Here is a summary of the original document in Spanish.

surveillance
  

Covid-19 and Surveillance: Protecting Our Rights

During the pandemic, the sharp increase in state surveillance in Argentina has been marked by a lack of transparency regarding the methods used or the destination of the information collected. This opens the door to human rights violations in terms of freedom of expression, right to assembly and to privacy.

lgbti
  

Trans and Travesti Human Rights During Isolation

For the travesti* and trans community, the implementation of COVID-19 prevention measures is often synonymous of further restriction to their already precarious access to housing, food, health and work. Public health policies for members of this community must be inclusive and integrated, and the State must actively repair years of violations to their rights. This is a joint statement with the Bachillerato Popular Travesti-Trans Mocha Celis (the Mocha Celis Travesti-Trans High School).

peasants
  

The United Nations recognizes the rights of peasants

The Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas promotes measures to guarantee access to land, the protection of seeds in light of their commodification and a stop to evictions, among many other issues.

UN
  

The Global Compact for Migration was adopted

More than 160 UN member countries endorsed the Global Compact for Migration at an intergovernmental conference held on December 10-11. This agreement includes some important advances, above all in a context of growing xenophobia and nationalism in Latin America and the world.

UN
  

The state of economic, social and cultural rights in Argentina

This document compiles the information sent to the UN committee evaluating Argentina’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In a context of economic crisis, fiscal adjustment and preexisting structural limitations, the outlook is worrisome.

abortion
  

#SomosMillones

The Senate voted to sustain the clandestine nature of abortion in Argentina, after months of massive social mobilizations.

abortion
  

#LetItBeLaw

We call on senators to vote in favor of rights and against clandestine conditions, criminalization and death.

international work
  

Treating migration as a security problem violates human rights

During the final round of negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration, 40 organizations urged UN member states to ensure that the accord fully incorporate a rights-based approach. The last draft includes changes that reinforce a focus on control and security. If this is validated, countries will have wasted a historic opportunity to fuel a paradigm shift.

sexual and reproductive rights
  

IACHR: sexual and reproductive rights & the secular state

Argentina must review legislation that is discriminatory, such as the criminalization of abortion and the lack of access to health care for women who decide to interrupt their pregnancies. The IACHR also put itself at the disposition of states in the region to assist with establishing a clear separation between the secular state and religious beliefs.

sexual and reproductive rights
  

#LetItBeLaw

After the lower house passed a bill to legalize the voluntary interruption of pregnancy through week fourteen, 129 votes to 125, we call on senators to vote in favor of human rights and of ending clandestine abortions in Argentina.

Opinión
  

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A Global Compact to return migrants?

The latest draft of the Global Compact for Migration avoids mentioning the regularization of those who are already living in their destination country, which is a serious omission. Opinion piece by Camila Barretto Maia, Diego Morales y Raísa Ortiz Cetra.

INCLO
  

The right to privacy in the digital age

The International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO) submitted its reflections on the challenges posed by privacy in the digital age to the UN Human Rights Committee.

Opinión
  

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The state should not favor any one creed

The Argentine Supreme Court ruling against religious education in Salta province’s public schools during school hours expands the development and scope of antidiscrimination law in Argentina. The decision confirms that the state must adopt a neutral stance with respect to the plurality of groups that coexist in democracy.

INCLO
  

Religious education in public schools: Joint presentation before the Supreme Court

The laws permitting religious education in the public schools of Salta province violate human rights and Argentina’s constitution. CELS and five other members of the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO), acting as friends of the court, made a presentation today before the Argentine Supreme Court. A joint press release follows.

migrants
  

“Migration policies achieve the opposite of what official discourse claims to seek”

In 2016, more than 5,000 migrants died in the Mediterranean. Many were attempting to reach the southern border of Spain, where deaths, disappearances and people wandering in search of their family members are a daily scene. Carlos Arce Jiménez, in Argentina under an agreement between the University of Córdoba (Spain), the University of Lanús’s Institute of Justice and Human Rights and CELS, talked to us about the responsibility of migration and border policies in this crisis.

habitat housing & social policies
  

Is renting possible?

Seven million people rent in Argentina. A normative framework for rent regulation and public policies that impact supply and guarantee the right to proper housing are necessary. Renters are often exposed to abusive practices by the real estate market and families are pushed toward informal rental markets and overcrowding.