World’s biggest jeweler will only sell lab-grown diamonds
This week, the world’s biggest jeweler Pandora announced it will cease to sell all mined diamonds, and switch exclusively to selling lab-made diamonds, as the BBC reports.
Human rights
Saudi Arabia abolishes “Ta’zir flogging” as punishment
The Saudi Human Rights Commission welcomed the decision, and said: “This decision ensures that those who were once sentenced with floggings, will now receive fines or prison sentences instead.”
Scientists are using AI to find hotel rooms being used for child sex trafficking
Washington University engineers developed AI that recognizes features of a hotel room from a photo and identify where it may have been taken, offering new leads to fight child trafficking.
500,000 Marriott employees have now been trained to watch for sex traffickers
Already offered in 17 languages, the same training will one day reach 700,000 people internationally, everyone who works within the Marriott universe.
Mars Inc. to spend $1 billion over ten years to combat deforestation, child labor, and poverty in its cocoa supply chain
Under the new sustainability scheme – which will cost the company $1 billion over 10 years – all the cocoa it buys will be responsibly sourced by 2025, the parent company of M&Ms, Snickers, and Twix said.
Saudi government says it will allow women to drive
Women in Saudi Arabia will be permitted to drive in the kingdom, according to a royal decree issued in Riyadh on Tuesday that overturned one of the most widely criticized restrictions on human rights.
Slovenia makes drinking water constitutional right
Slovenia has made access to drinking water a constitutional right in a bid to protect the Alpine nation’s water resources from excessive exploitation. Lawmakers late Thursday approved the change in a 64-0 vote in the 90-member parliament.
Cuba ends foreign travel permits for its citizens
Cuba previously saw people attempting to leave the country as traitors or enemies of the revolution.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child formally comes into effect
The UNCRC is a groundbreaking international human rights treaty ratified by 196 countries (as of 2023) which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health, and cultural rights of children.
The world’s nations adopt the Universal Declaration on Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.