Human Rights Magazine

President Museveni of Uganda has retained power since 1986, using violence, arrests and media suppression to maintain the military dictatorship. In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Nkwesi Banage talks with experts about the dynamics of politics and elections in Uganda, and how Museveni has successfully kept power for decades.

(Photo: A Ugandan military police officer chases a journalist who was covering Bobi Wine when he had taken a petition to the UN human rights Kampala office protesting continued human rights violations and the illegal detention of his supporters.  Photo by Lawrence Kitatta, CC 4.0 licence.)

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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The Fulani people are part of an ethnic group across the Sahara, Sahel and West Africa, comprising between 25 and 40 million people. About 10 million of them are pastoralists, and so they are part of the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world. Almost all are Muslims.

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Pauline Goemans explores the discrimination that Fulani people face in Ghana, and why that discrimination has increased in recent years.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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Ce podcast cherche à capturer la complexité du combat féministe au Maroc dans une ère de réforme politique et juridique.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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The garment industry is Cambodia’s largest employer, with more than 850,000 workers. The three largest markets are the European Union, the destination of 40% of the production, followed by the United States at 30% and Canada at 9%. So, if we purchase clothing made in Cambodia, how concerned should we be about whether there were inadequate wages and rights abuse where the clothing is made?

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Marley Markham speaks with experts about the garment factories and the extent to which they do, or do not, support decent working conditions and worker protection.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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Many refugees are fleeing conflict or poverty, but many are also seeking to escape from a society in which, because of their sexual identity and/or preference, they face violence and possibly death every day. In this podcast episode and the related article (at upstreamjournal.org), Julia Israel speaks with several guests about what it means for these people as they seek refuge in Canada.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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A look into the particular role of women in the resistance to the brutal military regime in Myanmar. Produced by Ruolan Ma, it follows on the podcast episode and article she did last year on the country and the role of journalists there. 

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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Canada provides universal healthcare, but people with autism and their families struggle significantly against many barriers and a lack of service. Support is commonly offered following a diagnosis, but what happens when an individual either cannot get one, or is considered too old for one?
Host Emma Nahmiach speaks with experts about the lack of sufficient support for neurodiverse people, and why diagnosis for children (which is lacking) is so important.

Read the companion article at The Upstream Journal!
The podcast cover includes art from the web site dis assembly,  set up by two of the podcast guests.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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The cost of tea for consumers is really low, given the volume of tea that is grown, half of it produced in China by some 80 million people.

But it is workers in places like South Asia that have significant problems, where there is a long history of worker exploitation dating to colonial times. Tea workers throughout the region suffer from widespread child labor, gender discrimination, and wage theft because they are usually low caste and poor. 

Throughout South Asia, workers on many plantations say that they can barely afford food, let alone other expenses, while those who run the plantations say their costs have risen too much and that they are not making a profit as it is.

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Chloe Friedland discusses the challenges in tea farming with several experts.

Photo:  Tea plucker in Sri Lanka’s Western Province. ©ILO/Alan Dow

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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In Canada, the last time housing was considered to be affordable, relative to income, was in 2004

The average price of a home in the Toronto area, the country’s most populated, is more than $1 million. 

In Quebec too, where the housing market has been historically affordable, there has been a significant decline in affordability over recent years. 

In Quebec’s largest city,  Montreal, new rentals are, on average, 50% higher than the rents in occupied apartments. The vacancy rate is very low, so apartments are hard to find and so some landlords are evicting their current tenants to get a higher income from new tenants. 

The projected influx of immigration to Canada means the problem will get worse, since new housing construction is not expected to match demand.

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Joel Sawmadal explores the situation in Montreal.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

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Esther Dingemans is an expert in programmes that respond to conflict-related sexual violence. She worked for several years in humanitarian programmes on sexual and gender-based violence in several countries in Africa and the Middle East.  She is the executive director at the Global Survivors Fund and the Mukwege Foundation.

In this episode, she was interviewed by Katie Coyle and Pamela Zambrano, two of the five students selected by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the NYU School of Law to take part in its Transitional Justice Leadership Program. Katie is now an associate in a litigation law firm  in Manhattan; Pamela is an associate in Mexico City.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

Support the show