AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

GUN VIOLENCE
Attempts by US Congress to pass legislation
to prevent the sale of assault weapons or
implement comprehensive background
checks for weapon buyers, failed to pass.
Congress continued to deny funding to the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention to
conduct or sponsor research into the causes
of gun violence and ways to prevent it.
REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS
More than 42,000 unaccompanied children
and 56,000 individuals who comprised family
units were apprehended crossing the
southern border irregularly during the year.
Families were detained for months, some for
more than a year, while pursuing claims to
remain in the USA. Many were held in
facilities without proper access to medical
care and legal counsel. The UN High
Commissioner for Refugees called the
situation in the Northern Triangle a
humanitarian and protection crisis.
The authorities resettled more than 12,000
Syrian refugees by the end of the year and
said they would go from taking in 70,000
refugees per year to accepting 85,000 in
fiscal year 2016 and 100,000 in the year
2017. Legislators introduced bills attempting
to prevent lawfully admitted refugees from
living in their state. In September, Texas
announced its withdrawal from the federal
Refugee Resettlement Program on the basis
of alleged security concerns, despite refugees
being required to undergo an exhaustive
screening process before entering the USA.
Kansas and New Jersey also withdrew from
the Program.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Native American and Alaskan Native women
remained more than 2.5 times more likely to
be raped or sexually assaulted than non-
Indigenous women. Gross inequalities
remained for Indigenous women in accessing
post-rape care, including access to
examinations, rape kits – a package of items
used by medical staff to gather forensic
evidence – and other essential health care
services.
Disparities in women’s access to sexual
and reproductive health care, including
maternal care, continued. The maternal
mortality ratio rose over the last six years;
African-American women remained nearly
four times more likely to die of pregnancyrelated
complications than white women.
The threat of criminal punishment for drug
use during pregnancy continued to deter
women from marginalized groups from
accessing health care, including prenatal
care. However, a harmful amendment to
Tennessee’s “fetal assault” law expired in July
after successful advocacy ensured the law
did not become permanent. 3
RIGHTS OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL,
TRANSGENDER AND INTERSEX PEOPLE
Legal discrimination against LGBTI people
persisted at the state and federal level. No
federal protections existed banning
discrimination on the grounds of sexual
orientation and gender identity in the
workplace, housing or health care. While
some individual states and cities enacted
non-discrimination laws that included
protection on the grounds of sexual
orientation and gender identity, the vast
majority of states provided no legal
protections for LGBTI people. Conversion
therapy, criticized by the UN Committee
against Torture as a form of torture, remained
legal in most states and territories.
Transgender people continued to be
particularly marginalized. Murder rates of
transgender women were high and
discriminatory state laws, such as North
Carolina’s “bathroom bill” which bans cities
from allowing transgender individuals to use
public bathrooms in accordance with their
gender identity, undermined their rights.
PRISON CONDITIONS
Over 80,000 prisoners at any given time were
held in conditions of physical and social
deprivation in federal and state prisons
throughout the country. In January, the DOJ
issued guiding principles and policy
388 Amnesty International Report 2016/17