Human rights record of the United States in 2012

The health of female minority groups is worrying. A media report in June 2012 said rate of HIV infection in heterosexual African American women in the poorest neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. nearly doubled the 6.3 percent infection rate two years before. Officials said 90 percent of all women with HIV in the city are black (www.washingtonpost.com, June 21, 2012). Sixty-six percent of the women newly infected with HIV each year are black, even though African-American women represent only 14 percent of the U.S. female population. The national age-adjusted death rate for black women in the U.S. is nearly 15 times higher than that observed for HIV-infected white women (www.newswise.com, March 7, 2012). Minority women in the U.S. are more likely to die during or soon after childbirth than white women, according to a report posted on the website of the Chicago Tribune on August 3, 2012. For every 100,000 babies born to white women, between seven and nine moms die from complications related to pregnancy. In comparison, 32 to 35 black women die for every 100,000 live babies. Deaths among Hispanic and Asian women - born in the U.S. and abroad - are closer to rates for white women at around 10 per 100,000.

Children in the U.S. are not blessed with enough protection for their personal safety and freedom. According to a report posted on the website of the Daily Telegraph on December 16, 2012, the slaughter of children by gunfire in the U.S. is 25 times the rate of the 20 next largest industrial countries in the world combined. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says at least 100,000 children across the country are trafficked each year (www.usatoday.com, September 27, 2012).

Child sexual abuse is a widespread public health problem. Research indicates that 20 percent of adult females and 5 to 15 percent adult males experienced sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence, according to a report posted on the website of www.preventchildabuse.org on November 5, 2012. In 2010, 63,527 children in the U.S. were victims of child sexual abuse. According to a report by the CNN on October 18, 2012, 1,247 "ineligible volunteer files" of the Boy Scout released that year identified more than 1,000 leaders and volunteers banned from Boy Scout after being accused of sexual or inappropriate conduct with boys from 1965 to 1985. Priests and leaders of the Boy Scouts had shielded abusers, according to the report. Former Pennsylvania State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of abusing 10 children over 15 years (www.usatoday.com, October 10, 2012). In 2012, several religious figures were found to have sexually assaulted children. In July 2012, Roman Catholic monsignor William Lynn was sentenced to six years in prison for allowing a priest suspected of sexual misconduct with a minor to have continued contact with children (the Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2012). In September, a Roman Catholic bishop in Kansas City was found guilty of failing to tell authorities about child pornography that was produced by a priest under his supervision (the Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2012).

The number of homeless children increases sharply in the U.S. and many children are stricken by poverty. For the first time in history, public schools reported more than one million homeless children and youth, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education on June 27, 2012. This total does not include homeless children and youth who were not enrolled in public preschool programs and those identified by school officials. Forty-four states reported school year-to-year increases in the number of homeless students, with 15 states reporting increases of 20 percent or more. The number of homeless children enrolled in public schools has increased 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year. In Michigan, the number of homeless children enrolled in public schools had increased 315 percent between 2008 and 2011 (www.nlchp.org, June 27, 2012). The number of children in New York city's shelters hit 19,000 by September 2012. Francheska Luciano, 14, said living in shelter was "like living in hell." (www.nydailynews.com, September 9, 2012) The U.S. Department of Education said in a report that only 52 percent of identified homeless students who took standardized tests were proficient in reading, and only 51 percent passed the math portion. Homeless students were also found to be more likely to drop out of school and less likely to graduate from high school than their classmates (www.neatoday.org, Nov. 28, 2012). According to "America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2012," 22 percent of the children aged 0 to 17, or 16.4 million kids, live in poverty in 2010 (www.csmonitor.com, July 17, 2012). Fourteen states saw increases in child poverty between 2010 and 2011 (usatoday.com, September 23, 2012). Nevada saw a 38 percent increase in child poverty over the past decade (www.csmonitor.com, August 17, 2011).