The human rights organisation says that “police brutality” in the country is also worrying, a problem it has been pointing out for several years, as well as the fact that “safeguards against gender-based violence continue to be inadequate”.

Amnesty International Report 2022/23: The State of Human Rights in the World also points out that Portugal also fails to combat the climate crisis and environmental degradation.

“The (Portuguese) government took insufficient measures to improve housing conditions and ensure sufficient affordable housing, despite data released at the end of 2021 showing that more than 38,000 people needed a home,” the report indicates, also referring to “reports of forced evictions ” that left some people homeless, a situation that, according to AI, “disproportionately affected Roma and people of African descent”.

Regarding the rights of refugees and migrants, the work recalls journalistic reports that “exposed abusive working conditions and inadequate housing” of employees in the agricultural sector in the Odemira region, mainly from countries in South Asia.

“In June, the Group of Experts on Trafficking in Human Beings (of the Council of Europe), which visited the country in 2021, noted that the most common type of exploitation continued to be labour, particularly affecting the agricultural and catering sectors.”

The London-based organisation indicates, on the other hand, that in July 2022 and after the periodic review of Portugal, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women considered insufficient both the legislation and the services to deal with the gender-based violence against women, expressing concern “about school dropout rates among Roma girls due to child and/or forced marriages and early pregnancy”, issues that, they noted, “were often ignored by the authorities”.

Climate change

On climate change, AI points out that “more than 1,000 people died from causes related to extreme heat waves” in Portugal last year, as well as the fact that 60.4% of the country has experienced severe drought and 39.6% extreme drought.

According to the NGO, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and the Environment declared in September, after a visit to Portugal, that “the authorities needed to accelerate the pace of action to face, in particular, air pollution and waste management and preventing forest fires”.

AI's report over the past year highlights “the existence of double standards around the world in terms of human rights and the inability of the international community to consistently unite in the protection of human rights and universal values”.

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created 75 years ago out of the ashes of the Second World War. At its heart is the universal recognition that all people have fundamental rights and freedoms. chaos, human rights cannot be lost in disorder. On the other hand, it is human rights that must guide the world as increasingly unstable and dangerous contexts multiply. We cannot wait for the world to burn again", says Agnès Callamard, general secretary of Amnesty International, quoted in a press release releasing the report.