Does the World Bank Care Enough about Human Rights?

Human rights are the basic rights that every person alive should have.  Different societies would define these rights differently, but in America we believe that everyone has the right to freedom, freedom of expression, freedom to practice whatever religion a person chooses, freedom from fear or injustice etc.

Human Rights Watch has criticized the World Bank for not caring enough about issues of human rights.

The article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23401102

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

detrimental to - harmful to

The World Bank lacks checks - the World Bank doesn't check or monitor situations satisfactorily.  It hands out money to governments that might be treating their citizens badly (according to the organization Human Rights Watch).

to ensure - to make sure, to make certain something happens

ill-treatment - bad treatment,

relocation of villagers - the forced moving of villagers from their homes

drug detention centers/centres - places where people have been thrown in jail for using drugs

documented - proved, evidence was acquired to show that something really happened.

due diligence - if an organization practices due diligence, they are careful about doing their work. A diligent worker works carefully.

shaming - making someone or in this case a government feel ashamed or embarrassed

an advocate - a spokesperson for something

mitigate - to make something less worse,; so to mitigate human rights risks would mean to try to avoid getting into these risky situations. If a doctor mitigates pain in a part of your body, he makes it less severe, but you still have pain.

safeguard policies - policies to make sure something works well.

insufficient - not good enough

enhanced - something made better or stronger

a priority - something most important