On 11 September 2025, survivors of post-election sexual violence (PESV) and civil society organizations filed a partial appeal to the Supreme Court of Kenya. The appeal challenges the Court of Appeal’s 8 August 2025 judgment in Civil Appeal E645 of 2021, which acknowledged the State’s constitutional and international obligation to protect citizens from sexual and gender-based […] The post Survivors of Post-Election Sexual Violence Appeal to Supreme Court After Partial Victory at Court ...| PHR
U.S. state abortion bans are disrupting medical care across many fields of medicine and resulting in substandard, discriminatory health care, according to a Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) research brief published today. PHR calls on federal and state policymakers to defend and strengthen national and state protections for abortion access and urge the U.S. Food and Drug […]| PHR
Katherine Peeler is a pediatric critical care physician at Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston, MA, where she is also an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School (HMS). She is additionally a member of the faculties of HMS’s Center for Bioethics and Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. Dr. Peeler engages students in […]| PHR
Executive Summary The United States maintains the world’s largest immigration detention system, detaining tens of thousands of people in a network of facilities, including those managed by private prison corporations, county jails, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). At the time of […]| PHR
The use of solitary confinement in U.S. immigration detention has risen at an alarming rate, with unprecedented numbers of immigrants held in isolation.| PHR
ICE placed at least 10,588 people in solitary confinement from April 2024-May 2025 and solitary confinement rates are surging under the Trump administration, according to a new report published today by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), the Peeler Immigration Lab, and experts at Harvard Law School. As the crisis in immigration detention facilities across the […]| PHR
Trump administration disruptions to the U.S. government’s global HIV/AIDS program PEPFAR have caused severe harms – including previously unreported impacts on stigma, physical violence, and public trust – to people in Tanzania and Uganda, according to a new research brief published today by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). Ahead of PEPFAR reauthorization negotiations in Congress […] The post Trump Administration Disruptions to Global HIV Efforts Have Caused Severe Harms, But Congres...| PHR
The Trump administration’s sudden funding freezes and cuts on foreign aid and the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have already caused severe damage to the health of people around the world – and “threaten catastrophic harms” to global health in the years ahead, warn Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), the Open […]| PHR
Israel must immediately lift its restrictions on food to some 2 million people in Gaza – including the entire population of 320,000 children under the age of five – and ensure the delivery of medical supplies and other aid necessary to address mass starvation, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Global Human Rights Clinic […]| PHR
Combatants in Ethiopia have perpetrated widespread, systematic, and deliberate acts of conflict-related sexual and reproductive violence, according to a new report published today by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH). The new report (“You Will Never Be Able to Give Birth”: Conflict-Related Sexual […] The post Brutal Reproductive Violence “Systematic, Deliberate, and Ongoing” in Ethiopia: Report appear...| PHR
Disponible en français ici. متوفر باللغة العربية هنا. While the undersigned organizations welcome the long-awaited recognition that functional immunities are not an obstacle to prosecution in the presence of international crimes, they regret that the French Cour de cassation invalidated the arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad while he was still President of Syria. In the […] The post Bashar Al-Assad Can be Prosecuted in France, but the Court Missed an Opportunity to...| PHR
The abrupt and sweeping cuts to U.S. global health support has led to preventable deaths, shortages of medicines, and reduced access to services for vulnerable communities in both Kenya and Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to two new research briefs published today by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). “Sexual violence survivors unable to access […] The post U.S. Aid Cuts Lead to Preventable Deaths, Medicine Shortages, Health Worker Layoffs in Kenya and Democratic Republic of...| PHR
In a historic move, the Government of Kenya has paid 16 million Kenyan shillings (approx. USD $124,000) in compensation to four of the eight survivors of sexual violence in Petition 122 of 2013, marking the first time in Kenya’s history that survivors of conflict-related sexual violence are receiving official compensation for the harm they endured. […] The post Joint Statement: After 13 Years of Delays, Four Survivors of Post-Election Sexual Violence Finally Receive Compensation from Gove...| PHR
Russia’s direct attacks on health facilities, as well as strikes on energy infrastructure with reported impact on health care facilities, have impeded health care delivery and endangered patients and health care workers alike.| PHR
Military actors in Tigray, Ethiopia have perpetrated brutal and widespread acts of conflict-related sexual violence, even after following the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement.| PHR
The conflict that started in Tigray, Ethiopia in 2020 continues to cause devastating harm to civilians and the health sector and has led to a large-scale humanitarian and human rights crisis that continues in Tigray and has spread to other regions of Ethiopia. PHR has worked with our medical, public health, and human rights partners […]| PHR
Press release available in English and Ukrainian. Executive Summary This case study expands on existing documentation of Russia’s widespread and systematic attacks on Ukraine’s health care system. It explores ways in which Russia has sought to systematically target health care as an apparent means of degrading resistance and, in Ukraine’s occupied territories, as a means of enforcing control […]| PHR
As the conflict in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues to escalate, PHR medical partner HEAL Africa is providing intensive care to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.| PHR
“Excited delirium” cannot be disentangled from its racist and unscientific origins and is not a valid, independent medical or psychiatric diagnosis.| PHR
