Access to abortion is a matter of life and health for all people who experience pregnancy.
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The dire warnings from some about Victoria’s proposed new pandemic laws are mostly wrong or overblown. There are important areas where the bill needs fixing but overall, it’s a big improvement on the current laws.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is a global human rights crisis which has caused widespread illness and millions of deaths and prompted often severe restrictions from governments to protect public health.
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Achieving human rights progress can be hard. It can take years and sometimes decades of advocacy, campaigning, strategy, suffering and sacrifice. Sometimes all that effort comes to nothing. Sometimes things go backwards despite our best efforts. Sometimes change happens, but the pace is far too slow.
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For decades, women seeking abortion care in Australia have been targeted by anti-abortionists as they tried to walk to their doctor’s front door.
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Victoria’s bail laws are broken and need to be fixed.
As the world marks International Women’s Day, which this year aims to challenge gender inequality, it is fitting to call out Victoria’s broken bail laws and the discriminatory impact they are having on women in our prison system.
Read MoreIt’s easy for many of us living in a country like Australia to take our human rights for granted. For most of us, most of the time, Australia is a great place to live.
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Social security is a vital safety net that most people in Australia will turn to at some point in their lives. In this context, the 2019 federal election offered two very different futures for remote communities in the Northern Territory.
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This report to the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the CERD Committee) examines Australia’s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
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To achieve the Close the Gap measures, the federal and territory governments need to engage in genuine dialogue with Aboriginal people. The chronic crisis of overcrowding can only be addressed through a collaborative approach, with a view to ultimately giving control back to Aboriginal communities.
Read MoreWhile the nation's eyes have been on federal parliament bickering over the marriage equality plebiscite this week, another critical LGBTI debate began in the Victorian Legislative Assembly.
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Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull's announcement of a royal commission into the abuse of children in Northern Territory jails gives an insight into his instincts on human rights.
Read MoreWe shouldn't underestimate the human toll of the 'homosexual conduct' laws. William Leonard from Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria and HRLC's Anna Brown explain how the Victorian Government's State Apology is also about publicly acknowledging and valuing the diversity of sexual expression.
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The HRLC’s Anna Brown contributed an essay on progress on the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the Oceania region to ILGA's 10th edition of its State-Sponsored Homophobia Report.
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Australia recently argued before the Committee Against Torture that violence against women does not fall within the Committee’s mandate. Australia was unequivocally wrong to do so – both legally and ethically, writes the HRLC's Ruth Barson
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In 1977, long time gay rights activist Jamie Gardiner wrote a brief seeking expungement of homosexual convictions. Last week, he sat in Victoria’s parliament and watched it happen. Here he reflects on his decades long journey from campaigning for the decriminalization of homosexuality in the 1970’s to the challenges that reamin today.
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The HRLC’s Anna Brown reports on her recent advocacy work in Geneva and the passage of the crucially important resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity by the UN Human Rights Council.
Read MoreSue Hackney reflects on the journey to the landmark anti-discrimination decision in Victoria thanks to a group of same-sex attracted young people who took issue with a religious group's refusal to allow them to use a camp site.
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Appeals to freedom are essentially calls to prioritise a right to discriminate over fair and equal access to employment, education and services, writes Rachel Ball.
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The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Race Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Tim Soutphommasane, asks whether scrapping section 18C of the RDA will unleash a wave of humiliation of the vulnerable.
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