From Hardwear to Quickwear: The Evolution of the Apparel Industry
The apparel industry is perhaps the oldest and most important industry in the economic history of the western world. In fact, unidentified bird bones have been found to be used as sewing needles as early as 50,000 BC. Throughout history, humanity
5 Lessons for Securing Women’s Collective Land Rights
The ability to own land and access natural resources allows women to secure food for their families, increase their agricultural productivity and livelihoods, and help drive local economies. Land rights empower women to have a say in matters that affect their lives,
Pollution Is a Racial Justice Issue. Let’s Fight it that Way.
Around the world, communities of color and marginalized groups disproportionately feel the effects of pollution and other environmental impacts. Whether it’s residents living along the polluted Cooum River in Chennai, India; Louisiana’s petrochemical-dense Cancer Alley; Thailand’s toxic hot spot Map
What Happened After COVID-19 Hit: Lebanon
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, 243 million women and girls globally were abused by their intimate partners in the past year. Since the pandemic, with lockdowns measures, countries around the world have seen an alarming rise in reporting on
Turn in Thy Neighbour — Hong Kong’s New Informers’ Hotline
On Nov. 6, it was reported that Hong Kong’s ‘Informers' Hotline’ received over 1,000 reports within hours of police launching the initiative on social media. Day two saw numbers soar beyond 2,500. The ‘National Security Department Reporting Hotline’ has been established
Rural Women Must Be at the Heart of COVID-19 Response and Recovery
COVID-19 continues to sweep across the world, and has now spread from the developed world to the global South. With rural populations making up three-quarters of the world’s poor, the impact of the pandemic will inevitably be most devastating in developing
What’s Wrong with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)?
The UDHR or Universal Declaration of Human rights (UDHR) had the trigger for its codification in the aftermath of the Second World War, as a way for states all over the world to collectively avoid such atrocities and for suffering
Guantanamo Bay: an example of American Hypocrisy?
After the terrorist attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001, the George W Bush administration declared a ‘War on Terror’, and with that the establishment of Guantanamo Bay: a place for the US authorities to hold people perceived to
Assessing China: For Worse or Better
To assess how serious a threat China is to our society and our values, it helps to take a step back in time. The 1940s were among the most momentous in modern history. The end of World War II, the
Gender As Symbolic Glue For Different Extremist Movements
The demonization of ‘gender ideology’ has become a key rhetorical tool in the construction of a new conception of ‘common sense’ for a wide audience. It is simplistic to believe that Kaczynski, Orbán, and Trump have risen to power simply by
The Effects of Globalisation on Languages and Cultural Diversity
Part of the difficulty of advocating linguistic rights as the facilitator of other human rights, like the freedom of socio-economic choices, lies in the fact that a language-based community cannot be free of complexity due to religion, gender, cultural and
Human Rights, Technology and Partnerships
Solid documentation and verified facts are key tools for human rights defenders. Human rights violations happens daily, all over the world, and there is always someone who knows something. The challenge is documenting those violations, placing responsibility, telling the story