News and press releases

Now is the time for women to boost their representation in political leadership positions, said politicians, government officials, diplomats, civil society representatives and activists from Poland and Finland, who gathered in Warsaw on 17 December 2019 to explore ways of increasing women’s

To discuss means of putting democracies across the OSCE region back on track as intolerance increases and pressure grows on the independence of the judiciary in many places, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) together with the Office of the Polish Ombudsman are

WARSAW, 10 December 2019 – Universal human rights are indivisible and interrelated, with any violations striking a blow at all of society, the head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) said on the occasion of Human Rights Day...

VIENNA, 22 November 2019 – How best to ensure the full enjoyment of the freedom of peaceful assembly by people in the OSCE area and beyond, including through participating States’ full implementation of existing OSCE commitments was the focus of the third Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting held under the auspices of Slovakia’s 2019 OSCE Chairmanship. The two-day meeting concluded today in Vienna...

WARSAW, 20 November 2019 – Thirty years after the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) calls on governments to take greater responsibility for the wellbeing of children living in their countries, wherever they come from and however long they will be there...

The protection of people in police custody from torture and other ill-treatment, and ensuring safeguards such as access to a lawyer and effective legal representation during criminal investigations, were the focus of a regional meeting of representatives of national preventive mechanisms (NPMs) and human rights defenders active in the fight against torture, which took place in Strasbourg on 5 November 2019.

A three-day training of trainers’ course on enhancing oversight of the security sector jointly organized by ODIHR and the OSCE Secretariat concluded on 18 October 2019 in Yerevan. The capacity building event was designed to increase the human rights investigation skills of staff members of Armenia’s ombuds institution and help them train security sector personnel on human rights compliance.