A Montana State House bill that would deny worker's compensation to unauthorized immigrant workers would violate the rights of unauthorized workers and threaten the rights of citizen workers. It would make Montana work sites more dangerous, lead to more injuries for Montana workers as a whole, and cost Montana businesses money.

The United Arab Emirates should stop harassing human rights defenders and stifling dissent, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing its World Report 2011 chapter on the UAE.

In anticipation of your upcoming visit to Washington, I am writing to bring to your attention pressing human rights issues facing Colombia. We look forward to discussing these issues and to building on the constructive dialog that we initiated during our trip to Bogotá last October.

In the wake of recent cases of alleged abuse against Indonesian and Sri Lankan migrant domestic workers employed in Saudi Arabia, we write to urge your governments to ensure a timely and comprehensive response to these individual cases and to implement systemic reforms to prevent such abuses in the future.

King Abdullah and Interior Minister Prince Naif should halt the execution of Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker convicted of killing a child in her care when she was 17.

Domestic workers in Kuwait who try to escape abusive employers face criminal charges for “absconding” and are unable to change jobs without their employer’s permission. Migrant domestic workers have minimal protection against employers who withhold salaries, force employees to work long hours with no days off, deprive them of adequate food, or abuse them physically or sexually.

The Kuwaiti government’s announcement that it will abolish its employer-based sponsorship system for recruiting migrant workers by February 2011 is a significant step to address a major source of labor abuse.