Human Rights Watch has issued a new report warning that the sudden halt of nearly all US foreign aid in 2025 has severely harmed the global human rights movement and thousands of at-risk individuals in various countries. The organization emphasized that stopping this support has caused widespread disruptions in documenting human rights violations and supporting victims.<\/p>\n
The organization\u2019s 42-page report states that with drastic budget cuts, investigations into abuses have been halted, victim assistance has decreased, and several groups working to prevent human rights violations have been forced to scale back or shut down their programs. Human Rights Watch has called on policymakers and donors to restore support for the human rights movement and vulnerable populations.<\/p>\n
Sarah Yager, director of Human Rights Watch\u2019s Washington office, said the US government\u2019s withdrawal from extensive backing of the global human rights movement has been welcomed by authoritarian regimes worldwide. According to her, the foreign aid cuts have made documenting human rights abuses, protecting vulnerable communities, and holding violators accountable more difficult.<\/p>\n
For decades, the United States was the largest funder of human rights activities globally. However, the administration led by Donald Trump significantly reduced the country\u2019s foreign and development aid managed through the USAID agency between January and March 2025. Although there had been criticism regarding the implementation of some US foreign aid programs, Human Rights Watch says the abrupt and extensive nature of this reduction has resulted in immediate and harmful consequences.<\/p>\n
The organization examined the impact of the aid cuts on media freedom, access to information, digital security, combating discrimination and targeted violence, as well as on justice and the rule of law. The report includes case studies from 16 countries, including Afghanistan, North Korea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Georgia, El Salvador, Tanzania, Thailand, Myanmar, Haiti, Guatemala, Turkmenistan, Nicaragua, and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
According to Human Rights Watch, these examples reflect the weeks and months following the aid cuts and demonstrate the human rights repercussions of the Trump administration’s decisions in various sectors. The organization stresses that although no country has a legal obligation to provide foreign aid, the manner in which the United States cut its assistance caused predictable harm and requires accountability.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch has urged the US Congress to mandate an independent review to assess the human rights impact of the aid reductions and cuts in 2025 and to restore funding for human rights support in future appropriations. It has also called on donor governments, policymakers, and private charitable organizations to take immediate action to rebuild sustainable support grounded in respect for human rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Human Rights Watch warns that US foreign aid cuts in 2025 severely harm the global human rights movement and vulnerable communities worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international","category-secondary-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}