A Human Rights Watch (HRW) expert recently spent days on WhatsApp contacting relatives of two Kurdish men from a remote Turkish village who were abducted and later lynched by soldiers. “At first, when I reached them, the relatives didn’t trust me. It took many hours building an understanding with them,” the colleague told me.
And one reason why this was so hard was Covid-19.
2020 was a tough year worldwide for businesses and nongovernmental organizations alike, as they battled to keep operations running and support staff during the pandemic. The same is true for Human Rights Watch and other NGOs whose donations fell during the pandemic. With 490 staff spread across 50 countries, we research and expose human rights abuses, to persuade governments to protect rights.
